No one responded because the scenario Arthur described was clearly the worst-case. Arthur was especially aware that Bronze City already harbored a Forbidden existence of unknown age—the Man on the Wall.
If there was another Forbidden entity within the seal below, moving the Sea of Knowledge harvesting plan elsewhere might not be a bad idea.
Of course, that was highly unlikely.
The high-ranked imperial officials at the center had allowed him to use Bronze City as an experimental site at a cost beyond ordinary imagination. If he moved to another city, the experiment would most likely be terminated.
After all, I’m not the only one achieving results...
Arthur sighed helplessly, but no one could sense his inner thoughts.
After a brief silence in the meeting room, Margaret asked lazily, “Who’s carrying it?”
“I will.” The Blue Knight reached out, slung the case over her shoulder, and moved with clean, efficient motions.
Kraus didn’t object and turned back to introduce the remaining items on the table.
A small copper bell, engraved with strange patterns, seemed to emit a faint, constant aura from a distance.
“The Nightwatchers have also prepared some things. This is the Ghost-Dampening Bell. Ringing it can daze nearby eerie and polluted entities. It’s extremely effective against eerie existences up to Rank 5.”
Kraus’s implication was clear: if that thing was above Rank 5, then the so-called hunt-and-kill plan would be a joke.
Then, Kraus picked up a stack of palm-sized thin plates—Holy Radiance Amulets.
These were one-time-use holy light shields that could help a person withstand a blow and save their life. He distributed one to each person. Lu Yuan received one as a matter of course and tucked it into his inner pocket.
Adrian didn’t touch those. The old bishop tucked several blessing scrolls into his sleeve and added casually, “I’ve brought some other things as well. We’ll decide based on the situation.”
The others didn’t need anything else; they were now just waiting to depart.
Kraus looked around and was about to speak when the communication crystal at his waist suddenly lit up with a piercing red light.
He picked it up to listen, his brow furrowing deeper by the second.
As the crystal’s light faded, he spoke.
“The Old Council Square.” Kraus’s voice wasn’t loud, but it silenced the hall instantly. “The main sinkhole has suffered a secondary collapse, doubling in size. The bronze defenses we set up earlier have all been destroyed. Ghouls are surging up, and the Nightwatchers are about to break. They’re calling for reinforcements.”
That was the very hole they were supposed to dive into tonight. Before they could even go down, the other side had launched a preemptive strike?
“Let’s go.” Kraus was the first to rush out.
Old Council Square.
The sky had darkened significantly, with the last rays of the sun squeezing over the western city wall. However, a ring of torches and sandworm oil lamps had already been planted, casting a warm yellow glow over the roiling grey-green masses on the ground.
By the time the seven arrived, the place was already in total chaos.
The main sinkhole was more than just a bit larger than when Lu Yuan had left. The collapse had doubled the radius of the original ten-meter hole. The silver rivets and copper blockade lines along the edges were in tatters, bitten through in several places. The breaks were covered in dense tooth marks, gaping like a black void toward the sky.
Grey-green scavenger fungus fuzz spread frantically from the edges of the breach, carpeting the ground in all directions. It emitted a sizzling, corrosive sound as it passed over the copper blockade lines.
Clearly, they had been mutated as well. Even the bronze was being softened and eaten away bit by bit. This was the reason the repeatedly reinforced defenses had failed and the sinkhole had collapsed further.
Ghouls roiled up through the expanded opening, ghostly green eyes appearing in swaths. Their grey-brown bodies piled on top of one another, their screeches merging into a single roar.
Nightwatchers were desperately throwing mithril around the breach. One burst of silver-white alchemical fire rose after another, but there were too many ghouls. As soon as one batch was burned back, another surged forward to take its place.
Sandwiched in the middle were the greater ghouls polluted by the Forest Seed. They were significantly larger, with wooden fibers and tendons entwined beneath their grey-green carapaces. They charged forward against the silver-white mithril flames, their every step smashing shallow pits into the stone slabs. The Nightwatchers’ defense line was being pushed back inch by inch; it looked like it would collapse at any moment.
A massive amount of grey-white text scrolled across the corner of Lu Yuan’s vision.
【Environmental Perception: Large number of pollution sources...】
This was a counterattack. It was palpable that the greater ghouls were specifically targeting the surface.
“Kill them all.” Kraus’s voice was cold and devoid of emotion. The bone ring on his finger squirmed continuously in the firelight.
Simultaneously, the seven of them lunged forward.
The attendant was the first to act.
Purple light erupted from between his hands, coalescing into two massive arc-shaped blades that swept across the densest pack of ghouls.
Wherever the arcs passed, over a dozen ghouls were cleanly severed. Their upper halves were still thrashing while their lower halves twitched on the ground. The cut surfaces were charred and smoking; not a single drop of blood remained.
Light splashed everywhere. Every ghoul that tried to escape before the attendant was cut in half at the waist without exception.
Specks of radiance gradually seeped from Adrian’s body, and the tome in his hand opened on its own without any wind.
Unlike Agnes’s collective chanting, the Archbishop made no unnecessary movements. The tome simply levitated before his chest, its pages flipping on their own. Golden characters rose from the paper, transforming into a soft yet searing holy light that spread out in all directions.
Wherever the holy light passed, the spreading scavenger fungus withered and blackened in large patches, its hyphae curling, shattering, and turning to ash.
The ghouls enveloped by the holy light suddenly faltered, their roars becoming muffled. They were clearly being heavily suppressed.
The area covered was more than double what Agnes had achieved.
Adrian’s expression was peaceful, his lips moving slightly as the intensity of the holy light steadily increased.
Margaret didn’t seem to have much desire to fight, likely because the things in front of her were simply too weak.
With a flick of her finger, a nearly transparent layer of pale blue water film spread from her palm, instantly enveloping her entire body.
In the next moment, Margaret charged directly into the ghoul swarm. She punched them one by one, throwing lefts and rights. The ghouls that lunged at her were like watermelons, juices splashing everywhere, but all of it was blocked by the water film covering her.
The Great Ascendant’s breastplate split open from the center. He flashed to the edge of the collapse.
The silver-white halo expanded to its limit, and a thick beam of energy erupted from his chest. The blazing white high-temperature energy blasted from the central sinkhole all the way to the depths. The ghouls and greater ghouls along the path were vaporized, leaving a white charred trail on the ground.
As the beam dissipated, the alloy casing at the stump of his right arm flipped open, revealing a cannon barrel. Ghostly Green Alchemical Fire swept toward the greater ghouls still surging from the breach. The wooden fibers crackled and exploded upon contact with the flames, and their entire bodies were reduced to charcoal within seconds.
Kraus stood in the center of the seven. He didn’t move, but the bone ring between his fingers kept shifting shape.
His gaze swept back and forth across the battlefield, as if he had sensed something.
The attendant’s purple light shredded all the ghouls leaking from the left flank. Adrian’s holy light covered almost the entire sinkhole. Margaret didn’t strike often and killed lazily, as if she were merely taking the opportunity to stretch her muscles. The Great Ascendant alone pushed the ghouls surging from the collapse back down.
The Blue Knight held her rapier, standing half a step behind Adrian. Her eyes narrowed as she stared into the depths of the collapse, her hand instinctively resting on the hilt of the sword at her waist.
She had sensed it too.
Lu Yuan huddled at the very back of the seven. He wasn’t needed for a scene like this; he only needed to ensure nothing happened to himself.
In the corner of his vision, lines of grey-white text popped up one after another.
【Environmental Perception: Low-level pollution source.】
【Environmental Perception: Low-level pollution source.】
The entire field was filled with ghouls, and almost every single one had a prompt over its head. They were packed so densely that even Lu Yuan felt a bit dizzy; he could only see them clearly now because of his recent improvements.
If he were still the same person who had just arrived, he probably wouldn’t have been able to even roughly confirm this much text.
This was the weakness of the grey-white text, or perhaps it was just his own limitation.
Once Kraus and the other Rank 4s stepped up, the pressure on the Nightwatchers’ side suddenly eased. Glock led his men to move away from the collapse to clear the area, while they simultaneously began patching the expanded sinkhole with more bronze defenses.
The efficiency with which Rank 4s killed these things was far beyond theirs. Unless they brought out heavy equipment like alchemical cannons... but Bronze City only had a few of those, and of the ones they had managed to scrape together, two had already been lost underground.
On Kraus’s side, the attendant and the Great Ascendant seemed to have developed a taste for the slaughter.
It was no wonder. One had been injured during the clash with the thing below, and the other had lost his entire right arm in close quarters. Both held a grudge against these greater ghouls, and now that they had the chance to slaughter them freely, neither intended to hold back.
Purple light swept back and forth, and the greater ghouls crawling up were cleared batch after batch by the attendant.
In the areas where the holy light spread, the wounds on several Nightwatchers were slowly closing.
The Great Ascendant’s alchemical fire continued to scorch the walls of the collapsed pit. Ghostly green tongues of fire licked the stone walls, causing strings of ghouls to fall back down from the edges.
Before long, a layer of shredded meat and ash covered the area in front of the Old Council Square. The scent of charred meat mixed with a foul stench, making one's nose sting.
The momentum of the counterattack seemed about to be suppressed.
Right then, a low roar suddenly echoed from deep within the breach.
It was completely different from the raspy screeches of the ghouls.
This roar possessed an incredibly strong penetrating power, surging up from underground and making the earth vibrate.
A longer line of grey-white text suddenly appeared before Lu Yuan.
【Relatively strong pollution source detected. Approaching. Please be careful.】
In the next instant, the edge of the breach seemed to be cracked open by something massive. A giant claw reached out from below and grabbed the ground of the square.
The other hand slapped directly toward the Great Ascendant, who was clearing ghouls at the edge.
Steam erupted from the Great Ascendant’s legs, and he vanished from the spot, dodging the blow.
The movement allowed everyone to see the claw clearly.
It was a massive claw that resembled a human hand, covered densely in wooden fibers and strange scavenger fungus. The claws were sharp and pointed, carrying a nauseating, salty fishy smell. As it pressed lightly against the edge of the collapse, it left deep gouges in the bronze plates.
Rate on N.U.
