Chapter 1306: The Grand General’s Mausoleum (4)

“Damn it, we missed-!!!!”

KWA-AAANG!!!!!

The Seventh Apostle and the Yeonri Spell Master missed the elevator right before their eyes, and simultaneously, Zabelin and Lihito activated their abilities.

Zabelin’s duplicate flung off the gloves on both hands, and Lihito summoned a new spirit.

CRACK-

As Zabelin seized Lariata’s twin-bladed greatsword with bare hands, the Seventh Apostle’s expression turned chilling.

A newly summoned colossal five-headed wolf tore through the mist and lunged at the Yeonri Spell Master.

WHOOOOMP!!!!!!

[KYAAAK……!!]

As the shockwave exploded, the wolf shrieked a grotesque scream, its tongue lolling out as it panted.

Saliva dripping from its tongue held intense acidity, instantly melting the mausoleum’s debris.

SSSKKK!!!

“……K-heh.”

Lariata, gripping her broken greatsword, rose from amidst the melting debris.

How many corpses had she butchered inside the mausoleum? Flesh and blood were thickly caked between the shattered blades of the greatsword.

The greatsword, which had remained intact after carving through hundreds of bodies, had been reduced to scrap metal by a single gesture from Zabelin.

“Interesting, Martinez. A mere human daring to mess with me? I never thought I’d experience something like this again after the Holy War.”

The Seventh Apostle let the broken greatsword fall to the floor with a thud, then let out a ghostly, crimson laugh.

“It’s not easy for even a patient vampire like me to side with humans I want to tear apart. It’s so annoying it’s giving me goosebumps all over.”

“This Grand Spell Master feels the same way; dead corpses look better than you bastards.”

The Yeonri Spell Master, with an expressionless face, puffed on his pipe as he settled onto the melting debris.

“I’m starting to think it might be better to help them and slaughter the cult right now.”

“Oh, good. Shall I kill you quickly so you can become part of the mausoleum right now?”

KWOOOOH!!!

Within the vast cavern, the murderous intent of the Grand Spell Master and the Seventh Apostle instantly locked onto each other.

It wasn’t mere pressure; it was a savage battle of nerves, their wills alone scratching skin and tearing wing membranes.

They were only cooperating temporarily for the mausoleum conquest; originally, they were rivals fighting over the same objective.

They would likely consider it a good outcome if they simply fought and died here and now.

“Lady Armush. Be careful…… please…….”

One of the dying priests, crushed beneath Lariata’s foot, stammered.

“The opponent…… Zabelin…… bare-handed…… her ability…….”

“Hah? If her ability activation is limited to just bare hands, then it’s indeed not the real one.”

Lariata crushed the head of the advising priest beneath her foot, grinning.

“That woman, who can only control her abilities through the Collective Mind Net, couldn’t possibly suddenly regulate her powers just because she was consumed by the parasitic flowers.”

“Since it’s difficult to receive assistance from the mind net inside the Demonic Realm, she should normally be unable to control her ability’s output and run wild.”

The Yeonri Spell Master flipped his pipe upside down and walked forward, replying.

“If it’s not Zabelin herself, there’s no need to worry about the aftermath of her Annihilation. We’ll catch up to Cheonbeon right away.”

Eredis Zabelin was an enormous powerhouse whose name echoed throughout the entire Central Front.

But the Grand Spell Master and the Seventh Apostle knew why a powerhouse of Zabelin’s caliber had failed in the mausoleum conquest.

Zabelin’s innate ability was so overwhelmingly powerful that it had to be suppressed using the Collective Mind Net; inside the mausoleum, it would have been difficult to receive that assistance.

What if her Annihilation ability, unleashed without restraint, ran wild and erased some of the Grand General’s will-thought imprinted throughout the mausoleum?

Whether such a thing actually happened was unknown, but it was certain that Zabelin only realized this fact after she began her assault on the Demonic Realm.

That’s why she chose to retreat, even at the cost of losing some of her subordinate Annihilation Unit.

“Spell Master, don’t order me around.”

CLINK!!

Lariata, placing her weaponless hands on her hips, drew forth her magic.

“If you annoy me too much, I might just suck your fresh blood first without realizing it. Ahahaha!!!”

“A rotten, decaying vampire like you doesn’t know her place.”

Lariata’s form, fluttering her wings, accelerated as if rebounding and clashed with Zabelin.

The Spell Master, using the mist as a medium, transcended space and appeared behind Lihito.

BWAAANG!!!!

Lariata’s bat-like wings, upon contact with Zabelin’s bare hands, exploded into Annihilation.

The vampire, scattering fresh crimson blood from between her shoulder blades, laughed maniacally.

Each time Zabelin’s hand brushed against the Seventh Apostle’s body, the vampire’s flesh annihilated, crushing her organs and entrails.

“Ahahahahaha!!!”

PFFFF-BBBBUMG!!!

The Seventh Apostle’s gruesome form, riddled with head-sized holes, dripped severed intestines and entrails.

Zabelin, who was about to crush her remaining heart and head, hesitated at the sight of the Seventh Apostle’s spilled entrails.

From inside Lariata’s half-torn stomach, the golden, elongated shape of an axe handle briefly emerged.

It was immediately after Zabelin realized that this was the Grand General’s armament, the Satellite Shredder, stored within the mausoleum.

“Oh my, I’ve been found out?”

Lariata smiled brightly, her face drenched in blood.

“Then you have to die, right?”

The blood spilled at her feet clung to Zabelin’s body as if reversing time, completing her regeneration in an instant.

Lariata, gripping Zabelin’s wrist with her regenerated left arm, pulled out an axe blade the size of a house from her crushed stomach.

CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACK……!!!

A grotesque sight: an oversized axe, which could never fit into her stomach even considering the Seventh Apostle’s height, was wrenchingly pulled out from her entrails.

As Zabelin saw the sight and reached out, the Satellite Shredder’s blade plunged into her wrist at immense speed and pierced through her body.

KWA-AAANG!!!

“……!”

Lariata sneered, “I found it by chance while cutting up corpses inside the mausoleum, but there wasn’t a suitable place to keep it, so I just ate it.”

As Zabelin’s impaled duplicate ceased movement, Lariata scoffed.

“I stashed it in my stomach using Blood Magic, but because of you, I ran out of blood and the spell dissolved. You’ll have to take responsibility.”

“─”

“Hmm, they say an Apostle’s rank or spiritual presence gets corrupted if they eat just anything, but at this point, who cares? So—”

GRAB!

Lariata, clutching Zabelin’s head with her regenerated left arm, opened her mouth wide.

“I’ll gladly eat you too.”

CRUNCH!!

Lariata’s mouth tore open like a demon’s, and she bit down hard on Zabelin’s neck.

As she sucked the blood flowing through the corpse, the vampire’s neck and esophagus swelled like a balloon.

Even as Zabelin was bitten on the neck, she continued to tear through the Seventh Apostle’s lungs and entrails with her bare hands, activating her ability.

Lariata, however, ignored the explosive pain erupting within her body, drinking blood relentlessly while cackling maniacally.

“Ahah!! Ahahahahah!!!”

CRACK! CRACK-CRACK!!!

Laughing madly, she profusely bled flesh and entrails, and continuously regenerated by drinking the blood flowing through Zabelin’s body.

Each time, Lariata’s magic swelled at an incredible rate, and her presence became increasingly grotesque.

“Ouch.”

Inside the Seventh Apostle’s nasal cavity, a parasitic flower, rooted from the contaminated blood she drank, bloomed over her eyeball.

But Lariata just laughed, tearing off the parasitic flower that had bloomed on her face with one hand.

CRACK!!

Something flowed out from inside her head, following the parasitic flower’s roots, but she regenerated even that, a monstrous sight.

“Hmph, that was a good meal after a long time. It’s well past its expiration date, but still palatable, wouldn’t you say?”

“…….”

Beyond the frozen gate debris.

The Yeonri Spell Master, standing on Lihito’s corpse, silently watched, puffing on his pipe.

Sshhhp…….

The Spell Master inhaled the bluish smoke emanating from the wide-mouthed elder, drawing it into his pipe.

Each time, the Spell Master’s presence, contrary to Lariata’s, calmly settled and deepened.

Soul Smoke (魂煙). A unique power source, exclusive to the Yeonri Spell Master, which involves burning souls and inhaling the resulting smoke.

“What are you staring at? Is it a spectacle?”

FWAAAP!!

Lariata, flinging away Zabelin’s duplicate, whose blood had been completely drained, wiped her mouth and sharply turned her head.

The vampire’s gaze, her eyes a deeper crimson than ever before, gleamed as if oiled.

“Didn’t your leader teach you that it’s rude to stare at someone while they’re eating?”

“Not really.”

The Yeonri Spell Master collected all the remaining smoke and stood up.

The Spell Master, looking down at Lariata with a chilling gaze, replied in a level voice.

“I merely thought that a mongrel like you shouldn’t be kept alive for long.”

Her savage predatory ability, which absorbed Zabelin’s Annihilation bare-bodied and devoured her blood.

And during all that, her tough durability was such that she could regenerate lost flesh and forcibly endure even the parasitic flower’s encroachment.

They knew she had reserves during the three-way battle, but they didn’t expect her to possess such a desperate, formidable potential.

It was clear that this fallen True Ancestor Vampire was the most physically capable creature born within the mausoleum.

“Kukukuk…… Grand Spell Master. I know what you’re thinking, but looking at the state of things around us, does nothing come to mind?”

CRASH!!

The vampire, having slammed the Satellite Shredder’s axe blade down, tilted her head towards the direction the elevator had descended.

“That wizard. He covered the entire area in ice, yet played with these corpses without even casting any other spells. What do you think that means?”

“…….”

“I’ve been thinking about it since earlier, but that wizard is hiding some very strange abilities.”

Lariata’s eyes gleamed as she looked in the direction the elevator had disappeared.

“Then we should go after him and check right now. Isn’t he suspicious?”

“The Seventh Apostle and the Spell Master have dealt with all the corpses inside.”

WHOOOOMP!!!!

As the elevator came to a halt, Lennok, who had kept his eyes closed, spoke.

“They’ll soon gather their remaining forces and follow us.”

“……We’ve been descending on this elevator for over five minutes now.”

Aileen, who was operating the elevator next to Lennok, turned to him with a bewildered expression.

“Even if I extend my magical perception, it wouldn’t reach this far. Did you leave a ‘sensor’ up there? If so, the Spell Master or Apostle wouldn’t have failed to notice…….”

“I placed a surveillance spell on the Enforcer’s corpse. We needed to confirm the cards the Spell Master and Apostle were hiding in advance.”

If I had placed the magic on Zabelin’s or Lihito’s corpse, the Spell Master or Apostle would likely have noticed in some way.

But I placed the spellcraft on the corpse of Clark Lonsdale, from whom the parasitic flower had been removed, and shared its sight, allowing me to confirm the situation until the very end.

The Seventh Apostle’s astonishing vampiric abilities and the existence of the Satellite Shredder. The Yeonri Spell Master’s smoke, which consumed burning souls.

“At least the effort yielded some results. It would be best to move immediately from now on.”

Lennok, slowly opening his eyes, said.

“To take advantage of having descended first on the elevator, we should scout the surroundings in advance.”

“……I’ll lead. Follow me.”

Beyond the passage where the elevator had stopped, a murky darkness spread.

Aileen cautiously walked towards the gigantic, endless passage.

SWISH……!!!

With each step, the temperature plummeted, oxygen grew scarce, and gravity vanished.

Take another step, and it would become hot as hellfire, the atmosphere boiling, and the direction of gravity reversing.

An extreme environment where the mausoleum’s internal conditions and physical laws constantly shifted, oppressing and crushing all living things.

“Hah…….”

Aileen gasped for breath and brushed back her hair, while Lennok reinforced their barrier, protecting them both.

CLICK, CLICK……!!

Inside the passage, blackened vines and roots were tangled everywhere, withered and clinging.

With each step, shriveled flower petals were crushed, and then, at one point, they became so abundant they piled up to their ankles.

Aileen, walking ahead, raised her hand.

“That’s…….”

In the middle of the vast passage, withered Dead Flowers lay in heaps.

Blackened and faded, slumped and layered, their appearance was grotesque.

“The Dead Flowers discarded and accumulated here are rotting and contaminating the entire mausoleum.”

Lennok said, looking at the sight.

“They might be acting as a medium to corrupt the mausoleum’s spacetime.”

“It’s not just that.”

But Aileen’s gaze wasn’t on the Dead Flowers blocking their path, but beyond them.

“Whether it’s flowers or humans…… there are plenty of both beyond this. They’ve just piled up petals to conceal the traces.”

“…….”

“The core mechanism sustaining this mausoleum…… the secret place supplying power to this spacetime. It was closer than I thought.”

Aileen, readjusting her gunblade, bit her lip.

“I’ll check right away.”

CRUNCH!!!

Aileen plunged her gunblade into the pile of Dead Flowers and twisted her wrist forcefully.

As the blade deeply pierced the petals and she pulled it out, scraping.

Naked humans, covered in viscous fluid, tumbled down from the other side of the petal wall.

“Ah……!!!”

“…….”

It was such an abrupt sight that even Lennok, watching, stiffened his expression.

However, the humans pulled from inside the wall neither convulsed nor screamed.

They simply lay prostrate, breathing vacantly, their murky eyes staring down at the floor.

At their bizarre, utterly inhuman reactions, Lennok checked the pulse of a fallen human and projected his senses into their body.

“……They are still living humans. However, their reactive nervous systems are completely destroyed and inoperative.”

“…….”

“Their cerebral cortex is partially decayed. They’re close to brain death…… closer to something worse than a vegetative state.”

Their bodies were alive, but their brains were completely dead. Their cerebrums were already decaying and rotting.

Medically, they were effectively deceased, with no remaining chance of recovery.

“This is strange.”

Lennok said, quietly observing the face of a human drooling vacantly.

“Those diagnosed with brain death will die within two days without life support. From the moment the brain dies, the entire immune system collapses, and the body swells.”

“…….”

“If their cerebral cortex is decayed and rotting, some time must have passed…… yet their bodies are full of vitality, as if just born.”

“There’s more inside.”

“……More?”

“If this were the only number, they wouldn’t have emerged right after tearing open the wall.”

Aileen said, clutching a pile of Dead Flower petals with one hand.

“There’s nothing but humans inside here.”

SSHHHRIIIIIP!!!

She tore open the pile of petals, revealing a flesh-colored landscape hidden within.

A vast and grotesque scene: naked humans, covered in viscous fluid, carpeted the entire passage.

Brain-dead individuals lay vacantly, covering the floor and walls, as if they had become part of the passage itself.

“Humans revived by the power of the Dead Flowers. Have most Demonic Realm explorers been dragged into the mausoleum in this manner……?”

“Only some corpses are controlled by being consumed by parasitic flowers; most might have been used in this way.”

Aileen said in a cold, subdued voice.

“If the humans here were ‘revived’ with their brains dead…… then what’s ahead won’t be any ordinary facility.”

“…….”

Lennok also moved, following Aileen as she walked, avoiding the fallen bodies on the floor.

As they walked through the passage covered in pinkish viscous fluid and finally arrived at an open square.

Lennok was confronted with a strange, black [ENGINE] located at the center of the square.

“……That’s.”

WHOOOOSH……!!

An ethereal engine, composed of hundreds of thousands of overlapping rings of light, rotating in a complex pattern.

Thousands of blood vessels were densely connected around the engine, where light was being sucked in and distorted.

All the blood vessels radiating from the engine became the stems of thousands of Dead Flowers blooming nearby.

From within the Dead Flowers’ buds, hundreds of naked humans rained down.

THWIP! THWIP!!

Humans, naked and writhing, crawled on the floor as soon as they fell from the buds.

Simultaneously, something writhing inside their bellies tore through their entrails and burst out, convulsing.

KIIEEEK!!

GRRRRRGH!!!

Humans whose lives ended the moment they were torn apart by what they had given birth to.

Their lifeless bodies slid down the ramp and fell into a shredder installed below.

CRUNCH!! CRATTLE!! CHUR-BUR-BUR-BURR!!!

The corpse instantly became chunks of flesh, with a gruesome sound of flesh and bone being ground.

As soon as they saw the mass of flesh, the emptied Dead Flowers tilted their heads and ravenously swallowed it.

A grotesque sight, as if sucking the death of a freshly deceased human through their petals.

Each time, the ‘power’ transmitted through the Dead Flowers’ stems was supplied to the engine located at the center of the square.

WOOOOOOSH-!!!!!!

“The Four Archangel Demonic Mirrors…….”

Baragan, the sorcerer of Deadrise, hadn’t been wrong in the slightest when he spoke to Lennok.

A corrupted hell that sustained itself by using death as power, killing and reviving humans daily as its placenta.

It was merely endlessly repeating the same acts within the mausoleum until the day this world ended.

But Lennok immediately understood what was at the core of sustaining this space.

“That engine in the center of the square…….”

“It’s a Singularity Reactor (縮退爐).”

Aileen mumbled, her expression pale.

“A black hole engine. And it’s actually working. How can such a massive power source be inside this mausoleum…….”

“It’s the opposite. Only by placing an engine of that magnitude here can this mausoleum be forcibly maintained, even partially.”

A power source that used death as fuel to operate the Singularity Reactor, sustaining the entire mausoleum.

But Lennok instantly saw through the Singularity Reactor’s purpose and principle as soon as he observed the square’s structure.

Walls made of interlocking grooves, designed so the entire square could rotate and reassemble around the central engine.

A structure where the ceiling and floor were not flat but slanted ramps, leaving extra space during assembly.

“The square’s facility structure itself is coalesced based on the Singularity Reactor’s gravity. If the engine stops, the facility will collapse, and the burial chamber beyond it will appear.”

“The burial chamber beyond that, surely……?”

“The barrier located on the opposite side of the square where we stand.”

Lennok shifted his gaze.

“Do you see what’s flowing out from within?”

“…….”

THWIP……!!

From beyond the barrier where the Singularity Reactor was located, blue blood endlessly flowed.

True Blood, wreathed in mysterious light, flowed from within the barrier and seeped through the blood vessels connected to the Singularity Reactor.

Supplying True Blood through that colossal black hole engine, and then circulating the processed True Blood throughout the entire Demonic Realm.

It was as if the heart sustaining the Four Archangel Demonic Mirrors resided there.

“There’s no need to say who the entity supplying True Blood from the burial chamber beyond the barrier is, is there?”

He didn’t need to see; he could feel it. He was already certain before his senses could even register it.

A presence more chilling and colossal than any monster he had encountered in the Four Archangel Demonic Mirrors.

A Transcendent, whose prestige remained undiminished even after dying and becoming a corpse long ago.

An existence that, by its very nature, had become the source dominating and sustaining the Demonic Realm—

Lennok slowly bent his wrist, drawing forth his magic.

“I think I’ve finally found the Grand General of the Imperial Palace.”