Kraus did not come down.
He stood on the temporary command platform above the sinkhole, looking down at the lineup below without a single wasted word.
“Begin.”
With Kraus's command, everyone began to move.
The bronze defenses at the edge of the sinkhole had been chewed beyond recognition. Over the past few days, the Forest Seed-polluted greater ghouls had repeatedly assaulted the area, leaving the originally laid copper blockade line in tatters. Several sections had been bitten clean through, their copper cross-sections covered in dense teeth marks.
Soldiers of the Holy Armored Army removed the last barrier, opening the gap completely.
A rancid wind surged up from below, carrying a stench of rot mingled with wet soil.
Lake was the first to leap down.
The instant his figure vanished into the darkness, the dark red writhing entities beneath his coat violently burst forth. Countless meat-worms surged out from his body, hissing as they spread in all directions.
A few breaths later, sounds echoed from below.
The dull sounds of crushing bones and tearing flesh drifted up, interspersed with the raspy, characteristic shrieks of ghouls. The noises were dense and rapid, rising from the darkness wave after wave.
The Great Ascendant jumped down right after.
The moment he landed, his mechanical legs produced a heavy metallic clang, sending a ring of cracks spiderwebbing through the ground beneath his feet. His mechanical eyeballs lit up with two cold white pinpricks of light in the darkness, scanning the surroundings.
The area around the entrance had already been cleared into an open space by Lake.
The ground was littered with ghoul flesh and severed limbs, with dark red meat-worms darting and feeding among the remains at extreme speeds.
In the deeper darkness, countless pairs of eerie green eyes stared back, packed so closely together they resembled a fluorescent sea of stars.
The attendant dropped down. Upon landing, a purple glow already emanated from his hands—not blinding, but deep and heavy, swirling along his arms.
The hooded Nightwatcher was the last to land, silent and soundless.
All four had arrived.
Agnes slid down a rope from above. The moment her feet touched the ground, she raised her hands. A gentle white light spread from her palms, rippling outward. Wherever it passed, the scavenger fungus on the ground squeaked and rapidly withered to dust.
The soldiers of the Holy Armored Army began transporting the cannons.
The components of the alchemical cannons were lowered one by one and quickly assembled in the clearing. The Nightwatchers operating them were highly skilled; the copper barrels, bases, and aiming mounts—over a dozen parts in total—were pieced together within minutes, their muzzles aimed deep into the darkness.
The first cannon was in position.
“Fire!”
Boom!
The shell tore through the darkness.
The alchemical shell was a specially made piece of ammunition. The instant it left the barrel, the alchemical array at its tail ignited, and the entire shell dragged a blazing white trail of fire as it bored into the dense horde of ghouls ahead.
A violent explosion immediately followed.
An entire area was blown to smithereens.
The temperature of the alchemical fire far exceeded that of ordinary flames. Under such heat, the Forest Seed-polluted greater ghouls were as fragile as paper. The greyish-green crust on their bodies cracked and peeled off instantly, and the wooden fibers and tendons beneath crackled as they burned. Ghouls were flipped, burst, and crushed in droves.
The scavenger fungus spreading across the ground withered en masse, swept into ash by the aftershocks of the artillery fire.
Wails rose from all directions, but those sounds were quickly drowned out by the thunder of the second and third shots.
Several alchemical cannons fired simultaneously, their trajectories overlapping to cover the area.
Lake's Swarming Worms did not disperse, flowing nearby to guard the perimeter. He only split off a small stream of worms to assist the artillery crew, the dark red meat-worms wedging themselves beneath the carriage to push the heavy alchemical cannons forward.
The furnace sprayers of the Imperial Iron Guard took over from behind.
The thick barrels spewed a continuous stream of extraordinary flames. Infused with furnace power, the tongues of dark orange fire burned at an extremely high temperature, leaving charred marks wherever they hit the tunnel walls.
The Forest Seed ghouls fared even worse against this than they did against mithril. The wooden fibers on their bodies ignited like dry kindling, reducing their entire forms to charred wood within a few breaths.
Along the flanks, the Nightwatchers continuously hurled mithril into the branching tunnels.
The silvery-white metal sheets arched through the darkness, exploding the instant they hit the ground. Alchemical fire flared up, heating the entrances of the branching tunnels to a bright red glow and sealing off any ghouls that might try to swarm out from the sides.
The small gaps that had been chewed open overhead were directly collapsed by the alchemical cannons. Falling rocks and dirt sealed the openings, preventing them from being flanked from behind or above.
It was a slaughter.
An absolute, utter slaughter.
Under the extraordinary flames of the alchemical cannons and furnace sprayers, the Forest Seed-polluted greater ghouls stood absolutely no chance.
These creatures were indeed troublesome when waging guerrilla warfare or launching night raids on the surface. But facing this level of firepower head-on, their flesh and wooden fibers simply could not hold up.
Scavenger fungus withered en masse, and Forest Seed ghouls died in droves. The ground was blanketed with charred flesh and ash, and the air hung thick with a burnt, sickly sweet odor.
The team advanced steadily.
Lake walked at the very front, his Swarming Worms flowing tight against his body. The dark red tide of insects wrapped around him like a suit of living armor. His pace was not fast, but each step was heavy and deliberate, as if he were measuring every inch of this underground realm.
The Great Ascendant kept pace beside the artillery crew, his mechanical eyeballs rotating constantly to monitor their surroundings.
The attendant walked in the middle of the formation, the purple glow on his hands remaining lit, swirling heavily along his arms.
The hooded Nightwatcher brought up the rear, never falling behind and never uttering a word.
Agnes's blessing light continuously blanketed the area around the team. The scavenger fungus could not survive within her purification range, leaving the ground completely clean.
The team advanced to the location where they had previously discovered the bronze pillar.
That bronze pillar was still in its original spot, its thick trunk shimmering with a ghostly blue light in the darkness. However, the upper half of the pillar was completely covered by a dense cluster of ghouls. Clusters of eerie green eyes stared down at the passing team, emitting low growls, yet not a single one dared to charge down.
“Clear the pillar first,” the Great Ascendant's mechanical voice called out from the front. “Do not damage the pillar itself.”
The muzzles pivoted, aiming at the layer of ghouls clinging to the pillar.
The shells detonated in the horde, grazing past the pillar. Mithril and furnace fire swept upward along the column, the firepower carefully steering clear of the pillar itself.
The greater ghouls clinging to it were burned and peeled off in droves, raining down onto the ground with wet splats. Little by little, the upper half of the pillar was exposed, and its ghostly blue light shone through once more.
Clearly, the greater ghouls above could no longer hold back. They detached en masse, desperately throwing themselves at the crowd below. However, the Serpentine Amalgamation from last time was nowhere to be seen. Without that creature, what could these greater ghouls and polluted ghouls possibly achieve?
There was no need for Lake to even lift a finger. The furnace sprayers and alchemical cannons fired in rapid succession.
Huge swathes of ghouls were crushed and cleared, while the tunnels surrounding the chamber were directly collapsed.
After just a few short minutes, the alchemical flames died down. In this massive chamber, nothing remained but a sea of severed limbs and still-twitching greater ghouls—all of which were thoroughly finished off and slaughtered by the Swarming Worms splitting from Lake's body.
Only after clearing this place did the team continue to push deeper.
The deeper they went, the more ghouls swarmed out.
It was far more than during their last exploration.
From the surrounding tunnels, the overhead gaps, and the cracks in the ground, Forest Seed-polluted greater ghouls emerged in an endless stream. Their eerie green eyes packed the darkness, growing denser by the second.
The barrels of the alchemical cannons were already glowing red-hot. The Nightwatchers operating them continuously poured water into the cooling jackets, causing steam to hiss violently into the air.
The consumption of mithril was faster than estimated; two of the six crates were already empty.
Yet the team did not stop.
After advancing a bit further, the tunnel ahead suddenly opened up.
They had reached a massive chamber.
The dome was extremely high, the rock ceiling above covered in cracks and root-like growths that hung down almost to the ground. The walls of the chamber were riddled with dozens of pitch-black holes of varying sizes, arranged in a dense cluster.
Ghouls poured out of those openings.
They did not swarm all at once, instead emerging in groups of seven or eight, or teams of three to five, crawling out from different holes in an endless, successive stream.
No sooner was one wave slaughtered than the next appeared.
Their advance was severely slowed.
“Block the spawn points,” the Great Ascendant ordered, scanning the holes and pausing his mechanical eyeballs on several spots. “Concentrate firepower and seal the largest ones first.”
Lake nodded.
The artillery crew began adjusting their aim, pointing the muzzles at the largest openings.
Everyone took their positions, ready to fire.
At that very moment—
Something moved in the deep darkness of the chamber.
An aura violently erupted from within the greater ghoul horde.
It carried extreme pollution and absolute danger.
Lake was the first to sense it. His body stiffened, and his Swarming Worms instantly broke their formation, the dark red tide of insects rushing frantically to cover his front as if instinctively blocking an attack.
Yet that aura was faster than the tide of insects.
A figure burst from the pile of ghoul corpses, moving so quickly its silhouette was barely visible—only a blurry, blood-red afterimage.
It charged straight at the foremost alchemical cannon.
Before the Nightwatcher operating the cannon could even turn his head, the figure was already in front of the barrel, slamming a hand down onto it.
The alchemical cannon's copper barrel snapped in half as if crushed by hand. The base was overturned by a massive force, sending components scattering in all directions.
The first cannon was instantly destroyed.
Without pausing, the figure turned in a seamless motion and lunged toward the second cannon.
This time, someone caught a clear glimpse of its appearance.
It was the body of an almost completely mutated ghoul.
But it had no carapace.
It was covered in raw flesh, like a skinned human. Exposed muscles and fascia glowed with an unnatural dark red, coated in a layer of transparent mucus that reflected a greasy sheen under the firelight.
It stood hunched over with its spine arched, two arms hanging at its sides that were noticeably longer than a normal human's, with thick knuckles and clawed, hooked fingertips.
Its face bore no human expression.
Pale and bloody, it bore a ghoul's face, yet it was unlike any other ghoul: it had no mouth. The lower half of its face was as smooth as a blank patch of skin, devoid of lips, teeth, or any opening whatsoever.
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