Lake turned toward the Nightwatcher team operating the alchemical cannons. “All muzzles aimed at the breaches! Blow them all to rubble and cut off the source. If we can’t kill them all, we’ll bury them.”
The Nightwatchers operating the alchemical cannons shouted their acknowledgment.
“Iron Guard, use your flames to restrict its movement. If you can’t hold, fall back. Don’t force it.”
The soldier leading the Imperial Iron Guard gave a sharp nod.
Finally, Lake looked at Agnes.
Agnes’s face was already quite pale, her greyish-white nun robes speckled with flecks of blood and flesh, yet her gaze remained resolute.
“You can do more than this,” Lake said, his tone less of a question and more of a statement.
Agnes offered no explanation. Instead, she turned and withdrew a prayer book from the inner pocket of her nun robes.
It wasn't large, only slightly wider than a palm. The copper-colored cover was worn at the edges, looking much older and several grades lower than the one Adrian possessed. However, the moment her fingers touched the cover, a warm golden shimmer faintly rose from the spine.
She opened the prayer book and knelt on the ground. The two accompanying nuns silently closed in behind her, their voices intertwining in a low, collective chanting as they recited the same prayer.
The pages of the prayer book turned slowly as golden light seeped from between the lines, gathering above the book and condensing bit by bit.
A small sun of holy light rose above the prayer book.
The light wasn't blinding, but as it spread outward, the movements of the ghouls visibly slowed. Their footsteps became sluggish, their roars muffled, and several ghouls closest to them fell directly to their knees.
Calling upon the Angel was a unique ability of a Believer Transcendent. At the same time, Believer Transcendents were naturally opposed to eerie entities and pollution. With this move, the threat of the ghouls in the void dropped significantly.
In just dozens of seconds, a rudimentary tactic had been arranged.
The Swarming Worms on Lake’s body began to disperse.
The dark red meat-worms peeled away from his body in thick strands, latching onto everyone else. A thin film of insects adhered to the surface of their coats and armor.
The film wasn't thick, but its primary purpose was to withstand a single attack and, more importantly, provide an immediate warning.
Lake’s voice echoed from within the insect tide, adding one more warning: “The worms can’t withstand that level of erosion. They can only buy you a split second.”
The hooded Nightwatcher stepped forward.
He raised both arms as strips of flesh were shaved off, his skin splitting and muscle falling away. The separated flesh elongated in the air, twisting and condensing into serrated flesh-blades that hung densely around him.
There were more than double the amount from the previous round.
The Great Ascendant now stood by his side, a rare flash of interest appearing in his mechanical eyes.
Clearly, the Great Ascendant had developed a certain curiosity regarding this variant.
Without any wasted movement, the Great Ascendant’s body suddenly began to heat up.
His mechanical body burned from the inside out, visible heatwaves billowing from the seams as dark red thermal patterns surfaced on the silver augment.
The thinning hair on his head visibly curled and scorched, falling away in charred clumps to reveal the bare silver cranium beneath.
The remaining flesh peeled away from the mechanical skeleton in burning chunks, eventually turning to ash as steam surged violently from every gap in his body.
When the steam dissipated, the figure standing there no longer resembled a human.
It was a silver mechanical skeleton enveloped in scorching high temperatures, the sound of grinding gears sharp and piercing, while the steam conduits emitted an overloaded hum.
The air around him distorted. Even the hooded Nightwatcher a few steps away was singed by the heatwave and shifted half a step to the side. Clearly, the Great Ascendant was also preparing to reveal his true strength.
Lake would hold the center and protect the field, the Great Ascendant and the hooded Nightwatcher would lead the offensive purge, the attendant would crouch by Lake’s side to strike when the opportunity arose, the Nightwatchers’ alchemical cannons were ready, the Imperial Iron Guard would restrict movement with fire, and Agnes and the nuns would provide support from the rear with collective chanting.
“Move,” Lake commanded.
The hooded Nightwatcher was the first to strike.
The floating flesh-blades launched simultaneously, the serrated weapons piercing through the air and plunging into the densest cluster of ghouls.
Wherever they passed, rows of greater ghouls were impaled and fell. Wooden fibers and flesh were sliced cleanly, the stumps charred and smoking.
As the third wave of blades swept through, one of the blades suddenly stopped.
It had been bitten by something.
The hooded Nightwatcher let out a muffled groan, his entire body trembling as pain traveled back along that invisible thread.
He didn't hesitate. With a violent jerk of his arm, the blade snapped in the middle. The front half remained in the horde while the back half retracted into his arm, the flesh at the stump rolling and slowly healing.
“Continue.”
More flesh peeled from his body as more blades took shape and launched.
In the next moment, the attendant suddenly acted.
A purple light surged from his left hand, transforming into a wide light blade that swept across the area the hooded Nightwatcher had just cleared.
Wherever the purple light passed, the remaining ghouls were leveled, with shredded meat and ash flying everywhere.
As the purple light retracted, the attendant’s brow furrowed.
He hadn't caught it. That blood-red silhouette wasn't in this area; it had changed positions again.
The Nightwatcher cannon crew gave it their all.
The Nightwatchers operating the cannons poured cooling water directly onto the barrels. Steam shot into the air as the barrels turned glowing red, threatening to break at any moment, yet they did not stop.
Shell after shell was fired, aimed at the breaches on the void’s walls where the ghouls were pouring out.
One breach after another was blown to rubble, with shattered stones and soil crashing down to seal the gaps.
The second. The third.
The furnace sprayers of the Imperial Iron Guard followed up, continuously spraying dark orange flames toward the channel entrances at the edge of the void. Mithril fell between the bursts of fire, and alchemical fire rose in walls of flame.
They forcefully burned a firewall in front of the group, cutting off the breaches and the ghouls’ charging route mid-way.
With most of the breaches sealed, the speed of the influx couldn't keep up with the speed at which they were being killed. Fewer and fewer living greater ghouls remained in the void as the pile of corpses grew higher.
The Great Ascendant’s eyes, which were constantly scanning the area, suddenly stopped.
In the next moment, he took the initiative to step out of the formation. Steam hissed from his mechanical legs as he charged forward, his entire silver body glowing with heat.
The high temperature around him caused any ghouls that drew near to catch fire before they could even touch him, their wooden fibers crackling and exploding as shredded meat flew.
That blood-red silhouette finally couldn't hold back any longer.
It lunged from a crevice in the corpse pile, its hunched form trailing a blurred afterimage as it bolted straight for the Great Ascendant.
The moment the two collided, the Swarming Worms clinging to the Great Ascendant’s mechanical body suddenly exploded.
The dark red meat-worms pounced outward, weaving a dense insect net that trapped both the Great Ascendant and that flesh-and-blood entity inside.
“Ssssh.”
The moment the insect net touched its surface, the dark red meat-worms instantly turned to ash, crumbling into powder with a shriek as they dissipated piece by piece.
The Swarming Worms couldn't withstand that level of pollution, but a split second was enough.
The Great Ascendant’s chest suddenly split open.
The mechanical breastplate flipped open to both sides, revealing a halo the size of a head. A point of silver-white light ignited in the center of the halo, expanding rapidly in an instant.
“BOOM.”
A silver-white energy beam erupted from his chest.
The beam was as thick as a bucket. The silver-white high-temperature energy tore through the air, carrying a blinding white light and a scorching heatwave as it impaled the flesh-and-blood entity trapped in the insect net.
It didn't have time to react.
The beam punched through its body from the chest. The flesh at the point of impact was instantly vaporized, and a fist-sized hole appeared clearly in the center of its torso.
Before the light beam had even fully dissipated, the attendant had already moved.
Purple light erupted from his body, so intense it was nearly physical, enveloping both the Great Ascendant and the impaled flesh-and-blood entity.
Purple light filaments tightened rapidly in the air, strangling the mass of flesh as they constricted inward.
The attendant slammed his hand shut.
“Splatter!”
Flesh flew everywhere. That hunched figure was shredded alive by the purple light, with dark red blood and grey-green tissue fragments flying in all directions.
The void fell silent for a brief moment.
But in the next second, the attendant’s expression shifted drastically.
His purple light filaments were making a sizzling sound.
The purple filaments that had just shredded the flesh were changing color and dissipating at an incredible speed, shattering from the inside section by section.
It was its flesh—it was eroding his power.
The shredded flesh wasn't dead.
The mass that should have been scattered into fragments began to regather in a way that completely defied logic, right before everyone’s eyes. The shredded meat and the ghoul remains churned together, merging and expanding in a roiling mass as dense blood bubbles surfaced.
Within a few breaths, an irregular mass of giant flesh emerged in the center of the void.
It had no shape, and its origin was unrecognizable.
Grey-green ghoul tissue and dark red exposed muscle churned together, the surface constantly roiling and writhing, with every inch changing.
This was its true form.
That hunched, mouthless figure with the horizontal slit from before was merely a shell it wore on the outside.
It let out a silent roar.
It didn't even have a mouth, yet at that moment, everyone “heard” it.
An invisible shockwave exploded from the center of that mass of flesh, carrying a suffocating aura of pollution as it crushed outward in all directions.
Agnes reacted with extreme speed.
The golden light of the small sun above her head suddenly surged. A golden barrier condensed from the holy light, forcefully blocking the way in front of the group.
“Crack.”
Massive cracks appeared on the barrier, the fissures spreading from the center toward the edges. The collective chanting of the two nuns behind her rose sharply, their voices trembling as they barely managed to keep the barrier from shattering completely.
The Great Ascendant was outside the range of the barrier.
The flames on his body were suppressed by the shockwave, shrinking violently until they were nearly extinguished.
The gears inside his mechanical body let out a sharp cracking sound as they operated at overload.
In the next moment, the flames suddenly surged back, reigniting his entire body with a temperature even higher than before as steam erupted from every joint.
But the price was immediate. The firewall that had taken everything they had to burn around them was extinguished in that same instant.
Without the firewall, the ghouls that had been blocked outside began to pour in once more.
Agnes’s expression shifted as the small sun above her head flickered violently. With a loud “crack,” the golden barrier shattered completely.
The Church’s chanting didn't stop, but that holy light could no longer suppress this entity.
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