Chapter 115: Warrior

Chapter 115: Warrior

“Attack!”

Hearing the Chief’s command, Derrick froze for an instant. Then, by instinct, he spread his arms.

During that brief movement, his vision suddenly blurred. From his throat came a sound suppressed to the extreme, low to the extreme.

A sphere of light covered in sacred flames descended from nowhere, swallowing the figures of the Dark Angel Sasrir and Colin Iliad at the same time.

Before the radiance could burst apart, Derrick drew his arms back. In his palms, he condensed a blazing-white, pure Spear of No Darkness.

Amid crackling sounds, the lance of light pierced through the sacred flames and struck the evil spirit’s head with perfect accuracy.

Brilliant, blinding light exploded all at once, covering that entire area. Even Klein, who was in the midst of reining in his mad thoughts, was too close to avoid it. He couldn’t help shutting his eyes and twisting his face, feeling one Spirit Worm after another evaporate, feeling the connection not yet fully established between the Blasphemy Slate and the True Creator’s corruptive power be purified by a considerable degree.

In the place where it seemed a sun had risen, the figure of the Dark Angel Sasrir appeared faintly. Amid the blazing-white radiance and sacred flames, He twisted and swayed, dimming and dissolving away.

Then the shadows that had covered the walls, stone pillars, and floor tiles began to collapse, revealing inch after inch of orange-red light.

This palace, hidden within the Giant King’s residence and existing alongside the real world, had finally lost the power that allowed it to continue existing. It could no longer isolate the outside world’s influence.

It also meant that the special evil spirit, severed from the Chaos Sea, had truly been purified.

Just as the shadow palace began to crumble but had yet to fully disintegrate, an invisible power finally pierced through the barrier and descended in a small measure. The corrupted portions gathered inside Klein suddenly became far more active.

They protruded from Klein’s chest and turned into a mass of pitch-black flesh.

That flesh immediately detached from Klein’s body, cutting off all invisible connections between them. It rapidly wriggled, grew, and transformed into a giant shadowy hand. Following the illusory “light” connecting itself to the first Blasphemy Slate, it grabbed toward that item.

At the same time, in the dream world of the ruins of the divine war, before the projection of the Giant King’s residence.

Amon wore a pointed soft hat and a classical black robe. Seated on a tall grayish-white railing, with His back to the orange-red road that divided the sea of clouds, He leisurely watched the grayish-blue doors studded with golden nails. No one knew how long He had been waiting there.

Suddenly, He adjusted the monocle over His right eye, lightly leapt down from the railing, and arrived before the doors of the Giant King’s residence projection.

“The power of the Chaos Sea is beginning to recede. I can use that bug to enter directly…” Amon murmured with a smile as He stretched out His right hand and pressed it against the projection of the door.

His figure then softened, losing all sense of substance, and flowed like light into the door.

…

Somewhere on the battlefield in Backlund.

Crestet Cesimir, with short golden-brown hair and dark green eyes, knelt on one knee. Before him, he had planted a pure white bone sword less than a meter long, using it to support himself.

His body was covered in hole after hole with charred edges, and cracks ran through his torso. His teeth had protruded one by one, turning sharp like those of a beast.

The Senior Deacon of the Nighthawks, his consciousness already beginning to blur, struggled to move his gaze away from the weakened enemy not far away and look up at the sky.

Orange-red twilight had partially invaded the deep night.

Crestet Cesimir tried with all his might to pull out the bone sword and rise to fight, to fulfill a Nighthawk’s final duty. Yet his arm trembled violently, and his breath had grown faint.

In the astral world, a tranquil darkness covered in moon flowers, night vanilla, and similar plants stretched boundlessly.

Suddenly, streams of orange-red light shone into that kingdom, returning parts of it to twilight, causing flower after flower and blade after blade of grass to wither in succession, on the verge of fading away.

Amid that desolate twilight, a figure as colossal as a mountain walked out. His limbs were abnormally long. He wore silver armor filled with the feeling of ruin and decay. His face was hidden behind a visor, revealing only a vague clump of orange-red light.

In His hand, He carried an exaggerated longsword, letting its tip naturally droop until it touched the dark “ground.”

As that terrifying giant strode forward, the longsword dragged continuously through the darkness, splitting the ground and freezing twilight in place.

From the depths of the darkness, an equally enormous figure drifted out, dragging a long giant scythe.

She wore a layered yet unadorned black dress, embellished with countless points of brilliance, as though the stars of night had been sewn into it.

From between Her ribs and from Her waist grew two additional pairs of arms, their surfaces covered in short, deep-black fur.

Of Her six hands, two held the heavy black scythe, two cradled a crimson “moon,” one was empty, and one tightly grasped an ancient accessory that seemed wrought of gold.

The accessory resembled a long-bodied bird, surrounded by wings made from pale flames. In its bronze eyes, light layered upon light, forming illusory doors one after another.

The giant showed no surprise at this sight. His forward steps grew faster and faster, gradually drawing close to a charge.

The longsword dragging through darkness and twilight scraped against its surroundings, stirring up specks of clear dawn.

At that moment, on the other side, the moon flowers and night vanilla abruptly enlarged and grew wildly. In the blink of an eye, they had become trees like those that had lived for more than a thousand years in a primeval forest, packed densely together and blotting out the “sky.”

Among those trees, a figure wrapped in dark-green vines and adorned with herbs and flowers emerged into view.

She too was colossal as a mountain. Her body was full and abundant, her dress drifting, and in her arms she held an illusory infant.

The moment this figure descended, she followed after the twilight giant, half-floating and half-flying toward the humanoid demonic wolf dragging the pitch-black giant scythe.

…

Inside the palace where the shadows were gradually disintegrating, the corrupted portions had separated from Klein on their own. This meant he no longer had to worry about that hidden danger. Yet it was also equivalent to having a fair number of living Spirit Worms directly cut away from him. He still couldn’t help drawing in a low breath. One transparent, twisted worm after another, each bearing mysterious patterns, crawled out over his contorted face, while his mind felt like a lake into which a boulder had been thrown, unable to settle for the moment.

Just then, in his eyes, already veiled by a layer of blood from the pain, a familiar figure appeared.

It was the Time Angel Amon, wearing a monocle and a pointed soft hat.

Amon smiled at him, frightening him so badly that he nearly returned to Sefirah Castle with a single thought.

That would be somewhat unfair to The Sun Derrick, but Klein believed that once he reached Sefirah Castle and possessed angel-level power, he might instead have a chance to save him. After all, outside influences could now reach this place.

But in the next instant, the Time Angel turned His gaze to the grayish-white Blasphemy Slate, to the giant shadowy hand that was growing stronger and stronger as the “place of slumber” collapsed further.

Amon immediately raised His right hand and adjusted the monocle over His right eye.

The crystal monocle instantly became dark, as though countless colors had mixed together into something impossible to describe.

Before Amon, a deep and faintly rippling “sea” appeared—illusory, terrifying, profound.

This Blasphemer had released some kind of power, or perhaps a convergent force, stolen from no one knew where and no one knew when.

The Blasphemy Slate abruptly trembled, emitting a buzzing sound, as though it had come alive.

It broke free from the remaining unstable illusory “light” between itself and the giant shadowy hand, and shot toward Amon.

Klein, who had barely recovered from pain through fear, narrowed his eyes and could scarcely believe what he was seeing.

The first Blasphemy Slate had actually chosen the Time Angel of the Marauder pathway over the True Creator of the Hanged Man pathway!

After that instant of stunned disbelief, Klein vaguely understood the reason.

Amon’s true body had roamed the Forsaken Land of the Gods for more than a thousand years. He had entered Chernobyl, searching for the history of the Second Epoch and even the time before the First Epoch. He had certainly wandered near the edge of the Chaos Sea and conducted a certain amount of dangerous research, “stealing” something special. At that moment, He was merely releasing that special something to attract the Blasphemy Slate.

Simply put, this King of Angels had prepared for this for a very long time. As for the True Creator, He could not descend fully for the time being. He had to wait until the Dark Angel’s “place of slumber” had completely collapsed.

But why would Amon steal the first Blasphemy Slate? It’s useless to Him… He has no way to switch to the Spectator, Reader, Tyrant, Sun, or Hanged Man pathways! Could it be simply because it’s amusing? Because when the gods and His brother are all plotting over this Blasphemy Slate, He suddenly intervenes, steals it, and runs? But for Him, isn’t the more important thing capturing me? As Klein was puzzled by Amon’s motive, he quietly retreated, widened his eyes, and did his utmost to spy on the surface of that grayish-white stone slab, trying to memorize the potion formula he needed.

“Sequence 1: Attendant of Mysteries…” The corresponding words had only just entered his eyes when Amon extended His left hand and seized the Blasphemy Slate.

Then He abruptly turned and pressed His right hand against the grayish-blue doors, which were still covered in a small amount of shadow.

The figure in the pointed soft hat and classical black robe instantly became illusory, passed straight through the doors, and vanished.

The giant shadowy hand formed from Klein’s corrupted portion swelled rapidly amid the continuous collapse of the “place of slumber.” In the end, it became a black shadow that pursued Amon, rushing out through the closed doors.

In the next second, all the shadows disappeared. Orange-red light illuminated the palace where the Giant King had once lived.

Before the iron-black throne, upon the steps lit by twilight, Colin Iliad’s figure emerged.

He wore tattered silver armor. His face, marked with many old scars, was exposed. He sat there quietly, like a warrior who had ended his final war.

His two straight swords of dawn had shattered into pieces, and his aura had already vanished. Yet Klein could sense that his will and spirit still lingered, unwilling to disperse completely just like that.

At the foot of the steps, Derrick saw this scene. His eyes reddening, he ran over, staggering as he went, not at all like a demigod.

Soon, he crouched beside Colin Iliad and called in a low voice,

“Chief…”