Lu Yuan saw the thing clearly.
The bodies of countless ghouls were embedded into a single main host.
Some were merely half-bodies wedged into the host's back, their withered arms reaching outward, long dead and stiffened.
Other heads and shoulders protruded from its flanks, their eye sockets hollow and skin a pale grey.
These broken bodies had been forcibly welded onto the surface of the host, growing in layers of stacked flesh to become fleshy appendages.
The host itself was several times larger than an ordinary greater ghoul.
Its head was abnormally flat, its lower jaw disproportionately wide, and its lips were pulled back to reveal rows upon rows of serrated teeth.
Its body was encased in a thick layer of bone armor, a carapace formed from the crushed bones and hardened flesh of its devoured kin, its rough surface shimmering with a dull yellow luster.
A massive vertical fissure ran down the center of its chest.
The rift tore all the way from its collarbone to its abdomen.
What lay inside made Lu Yuan’s breath hitch for a moment; another mouth was growing within the fissure.
Teeth lined the inner walls of the rift, row after row receding into the depths, and hot air puffed out whenever the lips twitched.
The entire entity crouched on all fours, its back arched high like a giant humanoid hound.
Every movement kicked up gravel and dust, its heavy limbs striking the rock floor with dull thuds.
Grey-white text popped up at the edge of his vision.
【Target Detected: Giant Amalgamated Ghoul】
【Warning: Formed from the fusion of multiple greater ghoul bodies. Location of the core brain core is unknown. Possesses extremely high physical defense and strength.】
The grey-white text informed Lu Yuan that it was not polluted. While a large number of the surrounding ghouls showed varying degrees of Forest Seed infection, this massive Amalgamation was perfectly clean.
He had no time to think further.
The Amalgamation moved.
Lake stepped forward to meet it.
Beneath the cuffs of his coat, the skin began to ripple minutely. On his face, partially obscured by short brown hair, the muscles near his cheekbones suddenly bulged before flattening out. He raised his right arm, and the entire limb ballooned and deformed in an instant. The flesh beneath his sleeve split open, and countless dark red meat-worms surged from the ruptures, weaving together into a thick flesh whip that slammed heavily against the bone armor on the front of the Amalgamation.
A spiderweb of cracks exploded across the surface of the bone armor, sending fragments flying, but the damage only reached the surface. There was even thicker carapace beneath.
The Amalgamation’s reaction was unexpectedly fast.
A massive forelimb swept toward Lake, the air current from the limb’s passage kicking up a large cloud of gravel from the ground.
Lake didn’t dodge. He was pushed backward by the force, the soles of his boots plowing two deep furrows into the dirt. His body went completely limp at the moment of impact, the flesh at his waist and abdomen collapsing inward to absorb most of the shock before snapping back to its original shape.
The Blue Knight cut in from the flank.
Pale blue threads slashed against the Amalgamation’s bone armor, sending sparks flying. The density of the bone armor was too high for the threads to pierce directly.
Her fingers adjusted their angle slightly.
The threads bypassed the thick frontal armor and precisely bored into a gap in the Amalgamation’s flank—the spot where a half-merged ghoul body was embedded, the weakest point in its defense.
The moment the threads twisted into the gap, they severed several flesh bridges connecting the appendage to the main host, and dark red ichor surged from the cuts.
The Amalgamation let out a muffled roar, its massive frame tilting sharply to the side as gravel was crushed beneath its weight.
Adrian’s holy light shone over.
The golden halo from the tome spread across the Amalgamation’s body, causing faint scorch marks to appear on the bone armor, though its penetration was limited.
The layered bone armor acted as a physical barrier against the holy light; the halo could only burn the surface and could not reach deep inside.
Lu Yuan did not watch the battle.
The moment the Amalgamation appeared, he took out a set of linked brain cores from his waist.
With a press of his finger, the dark red connecting lines between the brain cores lit up for a second, and a wisp of the turbid aura unique to ghouls seeped from the surface, enveloping him.
The Amalgamation’s attention was entirely occupied by the three rank 4s.
That turbid aura masked his human scent, turning him into an insignificant presence amidst the chaos.
Lu Yuan turned and walked toward the bronze pillar.
The pillar was right in front of him.
He reached out and touched the surface, feeling the cold metallic texture against his fingertips. The grooves of the inscriptions were clearly discernible under his touch.
He knelt down to examine the structure of the inscriptions closely.
The inscriptions on the pillar were not evenly distributed.
In certain areas, the density of the inscriptions was significantly higher, the lines finer and more tightly packed, appearing to carry more critical functions.
The inscriptions in these high-density areas were still functioning, their edges emitting a faint dark gold glow.
In contrast, most of the inscriptions in the low-density areas had gone out, leaving the copper surface rough with pits where the roots had gnawed at it.
The erosion of the roots was rapid. In the dozens of seconds he spent observing, a tiny blue-grey root burrowed out from a crack in the rock near the base, slowly reaching toward the edge of a still-glowing inscription.
Lu Yuan followed the flow of the inscriptions upward with his eyes.
The patterns converged on the upper half of the pillar, forming several thick main lines. The ends of these main lines did not terminate on the surface of the pillar; instead, they extended in a fixed direction, pointing toward the rock wall further in.
It was exactly as Hilde had said: the ends of the inscriptions on each bronze pillar pointed toward several other locations. These pillars were interconnected through the inscriptions, forming an entire sealing network.
A heavy impact sounded behind him. The Amalgamation’s roar echoed through the cavity, followed by the faint sound of threads rending flesh.
Clearly, this so-called Amalgamation was no match for Lake’s group; killing it was only a matter of time. If they weren't worried about their transcendent power attracting even more greater ghouls, this thing probably wouldn't have lasted a minute.
After a while longer, the cavity fell silent.
The Amalgamation’s roaring ceased.
Lu Yuan stood up and turned around.
The wreckage of the Amalgamation lay across the gravel floor at the foot of the bronze pillar.
Most of the bone armor had been smashed, and a massive rift had been carved into its flank by the threads, scattering dark red ichor and organ fragments everywhere. The mouth on its chest was still twitching slightly, but it no longer had the strength to close.
Lake stood beside the remains. The meat-worms on his right arm were slowly retracting, burrowing back beneath his skin as the outline of his arm returned to normal.
The Blue Knight withdrew her threads. A shimmer of light flashed across her fingertips, causing all the stains to vanish, and she wiped them against the inside of her cloak.
Adrian approached the bronze pillar.
The old Archbishop raised his hand, and the holy light from the tome condensed into a narrow beam, shining on the roots entwined around the lower part of the pillar.
The moment the golden flames touched the roots, they began to curl and turn black, carbonizing and withering before peeling off the copper surface bit by bit. On the cleaned copper, the previously covered inscriptions were revealed once more, emitting an extremely faint dark gold light.
But as soon as the flames finished clearing one section, new roots burrowed out from the rock cracks beneath the base.
The speed was nearly equal to the speed of the clearing.
Adrian lowered his hand. The holy light faded, and the tome returned to its floating position above his shoulder.
“These inscriptions are burning their own reserves to maintain the seal,” the old Archbishop said gravely. “But they won't be able to burn for much longer.”
Lu Yuan’s hand was still pressed against the bronze pillar.
He had knelt back down after the battle ended. Adrian’s words echoed in the cavity—“won’t be able to burn for much longer.” The remains of the Amalgamation were less than ten paces away, its dark red ichor still seeping into the cracks in the gravel.
But he didn't have time to move.
A sudden pain flared in his left eye.
The sensation surged from deep within his eye socket, spreading inward along a path he couldn't describe, as if the pathway itself had been snatched by something. The perception of Forbidden Lore: Knowledge Seeker burrowed down from his fingertips where they touched the copper surface, plunging into the grooves of the inscriptions.
There was a layer of aura lingering within the inscriptions.
It was ancient. So fragmented it was nearly unrecognizable, yet that aura shared the same origin as Lu Yuan’s own pathway.
The Knowledge Worm turned over deep in his eye socket. Its agitation came suddenly, its entire body writhing. Too much information was flooding in; the worm had been overstimulated.
Lu Yuan tried to pull his hand away.
His fingertips had lost all sensation.
Images flooded in along with the information.
Before his eyes was a land of scorched earth.
The ground had been charred by a great fire, the soil split into countless fissures, and black ash covered his vision.
At the end of the scorched earth was an abyss.
It was bottomless, darkness surging up from the rift with a heavy, oppressive aura.
A vast number of bronze pillars stood around the abyss, arranged in dense rows. The surfaces of the pillars were clean, with no patterns carved into them; the bare copper faces possessed a dull, heavy color.
A man stood before one of the bronze pillars.
His face was indistinguishable.
He raised both hands and pressed them against the surface of the pillar.
Inscriptions began to spread outward from the point where his palms touched. The patterns grew along the copper face, intricate and intersecting, diffusing in all directions. Those inscriptions emerged from within the copper, having always been hidden inside, awakened by those hands.
Those hands were very steady.
Then came another image.
It was the same abyss.
But everything around it had changed.
Something was roaring beneath the abyss. The sound surged up from the extreme depths, heavy and turbid, making the bronze pillars hum and vibrate. The inscriptions on the pillars trembled, their dark gold light flashing in pulses with the roars.
Copper light gathered from all directions. The inscriptions wove into a net, layer upon layer of light converging to press down into the depths of the abyss.
There was a massive silhouette at the focal point of the light net.
It was resisting.
The entire net of light shuddered, and the inscriptions on the bronze pillars flashed violently in response. But the net tightened further, pushing the silhouette down inch by inch into the depths.
The form of the thing was indistinguishable, too blurred to see, but its sheer volume was palpable.
Corpses were scattered everywhere on the ground around the abyss.
They lay haphazardly across the scorched earth; some were face down, others were merely half-bodies. There were so many corpses that there was nowhere left to step.
But only he remained standing.
Rate on N.U.
