Chapter 113: The Final Guardian

Chapter 113: The Final Guardian

After that brief pause, brilliant silver-white light crackled forward, spreading endlessly until it completely swallowed the area where Colin Iliad, Derrick Berg, and Lovia stood. Yet the two invisible barriers stopped it, preventing it from invading the space within.

The barriers, crawling with silver-white electric serpents, shook violently. Branch-like cracks spread across their surface, and no one knew how much longer they could endure within the lightning storm.

At that moment, behind the Dark Angel Sasrir and to the side of the iron-black throne, in a region untouched by the forest of thunder, Klein’s figure emerged. He wore a half silk top hat and a long black trench coat.

Like a precise and cold machine, he did not hesitate in the slightest. He pointed the Staff of the Stars at the side and rear of that special evil spirit, while swiftly sketching in his mind the details of a certain Beyonder power.

Klein had already tested things earlier. Inside the Giant King’s Court, he could not use the Staff of the Stars to roam far. At most, he could “blink” within a small area. Because of this, he had abandoned the idea of directly sending the Dark Angel Sasrir outside the Giant King’s Court, then taking the first Blasphemy Slate and opening the “door of departure.”

As some of the gemstones embedded in the Staff of the Stars lit up, the eyes of Sasrir, which burned with pitch-black flames, suddenly closed again.

Klein had forcibly dragged Him into a dream!

This was a Beyonder power from Sequence 7 of the Evernight pathway, but the version Klein had reproduced came from Arianna, Matriarch of the Evernight cloister, the Servant of Concealment—forced entry into a dream at the level of an angel.

In a gray and hazy dream world, the Dark Angel Sasrir appeared upon a wasteland, wearing that black robe entwined with silver threads, inscribed with complex symbols, and hung with ornate accessories.

His gaze remained ice-cold, unlike the dazed and sluggish look most Beyonders displayed when entering a dream.

The Spectator pathway also belonged to the pathways related to the Chaos Sea. Its Sequence 5 was Dreamwalker, and its Sequence 3 was Dream Weaver!

An instant later, Sasrir’s eyes turned golden and vertical.

His giant-like figure faded, and before Him appeared an extraordinarily thick curtain of shadow.

That shadow completely blocked Sasrir, leaving only the faint outline of a pair of eyes hidden behind the curtain.

In the blink of an eye, the “curtain” parted to both sides, revealing a sea that defied description, a sea whose color could not be defined, a sea that seemed to contain every secret.

Boom!

As the dream’s master, Klein had only just seen that scene and had not yet had time to examine its details when every thought in his mind exploded, as though a pot of oatmeal had been boiled until it burst.

The corners of his mouth instinctively lifted. His virtual personality collapsed by more than half, and he nearly screamed. The transparent worms faintly visible beneath the skin of the left side of his face twisted one after another and drilled outward. On the right side of his face, the pale sprouts of flesh became more numerous, more distinct, and at the same time more translucent, drawing closer and closer to Spirit Worms.

The forcibly created dream world immediately shattered, and the Dark Angel Sasrir’s consciousness returned to reality.

However, during the single second in which that special evil spirit had fallen asleep, as the sea of thunder faded and vanished, the three demigods from the City of Silver launched their counterattack at the same time.

Colin Iliad straightened and swung the straight sword of dawn in his right hand, causing a silver-white condensed edge to “blink” onto Sasrir’s body. Lovia, while resisting the restraint of her own shadow “cloak,” made the Silver Knight evil spirit she shepherded swing its greatsword upward from below, stirring up a terrifying storm formed from flecks of light. Derrick condensed a blazing white Spear of No Darkness and sent it crackling toward the Dark Angel.

At that moment, endless pure radiance erupted from Sasrir’s figure, as if He had become the sun descending into reality.

Under the illumination of that “sun,” the Spear of No Darkness melted. The Storm of Light calmed. The silver-white sharpness dimmed. They could only tear apart the target’s aura; they could not injure His body.

The scene, like the descent of a true god, shook Lovia and Derrick to their cores, making them want to lower their heads and worship. The Silver Knight evil spirit evaporated rapidly beneath the blazing sunlight, dissolving completely.

Suddenly, Sasrir’s eyes closed once more.

Behind and to the side of Him, Klein stubbornly endured the scorching light of the “blazing sun,” even as the Spirit Worms across his body continuously evaporated and disappeared. He pointed the Staff of the Stars at the evil spirit born from this King of Angels.

He reproduced the same Beyonder power as before, forcibly dragging the Dark Angel Sasrir into a dream yet again!

This time, however, the moment Klein entered the dream, he immediately revealed the aura of Sefirah Castle, transforming into that strange light door tinged with bluish-black. The door was formed from countless layered illusory light spheres, and the essence of every light sphere was a mass of transparent and semi-transparent twisted worms embracing one another.

Like him, the Dark Angel Sasrir revealed the uniqueness that came from the Chaos Sea. He first became a dense and chilling shadow, then pulled open the “curtain,” letting that “sea” which encompassed every color, and could not be described in human language, appear inside the dream.

Silently, Sasrir and Klein opened their eyes at the same time and leaned backward in opposite directions.

One was covered by a faint layer of shadow. The other’s expression twisted into a ferocious grimace, with many Spirit Worms crawling across his body.

At that instant, Klein’s virtual personality completely shattered.

Seizing the chance created by Sasrir’s momentary disturbance, Lovia, draped in the shadow “cloak,” let her pale gray eyes flicker. Using the pairs of skinless legs and feet that had grown from the two-meter-tall wriggling mass of flesh, and aided by the roaring wind they stirred up, she pounced at the Dark Angel.

Madness had already surfaced in her eyes. It looked as though it would not be long before her spirit was thoroughly polluted and she completely lost control.

Yet at that moment, what filled Lovia’s gaze even more was reason and resolve.

She knew what she was doing. She also understood her present state and the ending that awaited her.

Amid the howling wind, her collapsed body, along with the shadow “cloak,” landed on the surface of the Dark Angel Sasrir.

The writhing flesh corroded inward. The dense shadow expanded swiftly, binding both figures together.

Lovia did not need to speak. Colin Iliad had already understood her intention. In a low roar, he shouted,

“Attack!”

Bang!

His two straight swords of dawn cleaved through the void at the same time, causing silver-white light to erupt around Lovia and the Dark Angel Sasrir, who were now tangled together.

After hearing the Chief’s words, Derrick did not hesitate either. He bit his lip and half-spread his arms.

The palace covered in chilling shadows suddenly brightened. An enormous ball of light covered in sacred flames appeared out of thin air, encompassing both the Dark Angel and Lovia, rapidly melting them and setting flesh alight.

Solar Flare!

Within that brilliant radiance, Lovia’s pale gray eyes revealed tangible pain. Her voice, illusory and ethereal, echoed through the palace.

“I did not betray the City of Silver…”

Before her words could finish, her flesh covering the Dark Angel Sasrir and the shadow “cloak” swelled at the same time.

Bang!

Lovia’s collapsed body was flung away and crashed to the ground, while the shadow belonging to her was torn apart directly, turning into strips of illusory gauze that drifted down.

The Dark Angel Sasrir transformed into a pitch-black, sticky “sea” filled with the aura of degeneration, swallowing the remaining silver-white sharpness and Solar Flare, dissolving them into nothing.

He immediately returned to His previous appearance, still giant-like, still wearing that splendid robe with a black base and silver threads, except that the illusory black wings behind Him had grown much thinner.

At the same time, His eyes became vertical and golden.

A violent yet unreal wind emerged around Him, carrying countless different thoughts as it swept into every corner of the shadow palace.

Mind Deprivation!

The Spear of No Darkness Derrick had just formed vanished abruptly, and he froze in place from the shock. Colin Iliad’s will was incomparably firm, yet he still had the madness, cruelty, and bloodlust inherent to his incomplete Mythical Creature form stirred within him. He could only divide part of his attention to resist that influence, lest he lose control on the spot. Klein had only just calmed his state and drawn the Spirit Worms on his body back in when he encountered the intense fear brought by Mind Deprivation. His body trembled slightly, making it difficult for him to use the Staff of the Stars.

Lovia, whose body had already collapsed and whose soul was about to be completely polluted, fared even worse. She rolled and struggled on the ground, leaving streaks of blood-colored slime behind her.

Then the Dark Angel Sasrir raised His left palm. The gold in His eyes was replaced by two blazing white miniature suns.

One pillar of light after another, each wrapped in sacred flames, descended and struck Lovia, annihilating her soul and purifying her flesh.

Lovia’s aura rapidly dissipated. The light in her pale gray eyes faded swiftly.

Her body, collapsed into a mass of flesh, curled inward. With arm after arm—skinless, slick with fresh red mucus—she tightly held the large, milky-white human skull to her “chest” and pressed it beneath her.

Under the scorching “sunlight,” amid the burning sacred flames, Lovia maintained that posture. She did not let herself move in the slightest. She did not let the human skull be exposed or harmed.

Another radiant pillar of light crashed down. Lovia’s body involuntarily jerked once, but she still curled there, trembling violently.

In the end, that twisted, disgusting, writhing mass of flesh ceased all movement. It lay tightly over the surface of the human skull, dim, lightless, and broken.

While the Dark Angel Sasrir was killing Lovia, Klein relied on his own uniqueness and past experience to quickly recover from the effects of Mind Deprivation. A nearly uncontrollable despair rose within him over this battle.

They had done everything they could, yet had only slightly injured this evil spirit. Now they had lost one demigod. The situation that followed would likely be even worse.

What do we do? Klein used Creeping Hunger to change his position while his thoughts raced, searching for a possible weakness in the enemy.

Its essence is that of an evil spirit… an evil spirit… The instant his figure blinked to the other side, inspiration suddenly struck him, and his gaze shifted toward the grayish-white slate on the iron-black throne.

Some evil spirits possessed Beyonder characteristics, but most did not. Their power came from somewhere else, such as the spirit world. The existence of an evil spirit required something to rely on. It might be the “territory” where it had been born, or it might be a special object. Their shared trait was that evil spirits could use these anchors to connect to the spirit world or even the underworld, obtaining the power needed to maintain their own existence.

And this present evil spirit, born from the Dark Angel Sasrir and perhaps mixed with a small portion of the Primordial will—where did its power come from?

This was the Forsaken Land of the Gods. Its connection to the spirit world had been sealed and almost completely severed, making it very difficult to use effectively. Klein could “teleport” only because of the special nature of a divine kingdom or the embryonic form of one. The Giant King’s Court obviously could not provide an evil spirit with powers from the Spectator, Sun, Hanged Man, Reader, and Tyrant pathways. As for the characteristics that the Dark Angel had once possessed, they had clearly belonged to the True Creator and were not here.

Therefore, the answer to the source of this evil spirit’s power was very simple:

The Chaos Sea!

And within the shadow palace, the object directly connected to the Chaos Sea was that Blasphemy Slate!

When Klein looked toward the iron-black throne, he discovered that the Chief of the City of Silver, Colin Iliad, had also glanced in that direction.