The bronze suffered negligible corrosion from it, emitting only a few faint sizzling sounds before the entire section of bronze turned dull.
It was a massive amalgamation.
With a surge of strength from its hands, a gargantuan figure rose from the abyss.
It was dozens of meters long. Even with only half its body exposed, its hunched, nauseating form nearly filled the sinkhole.
Its body was a twisted mass of flesh fused together. Beneath a carapace of wooden fibers, the outlines of countless different individuals could be seen squirming and twisting.
It had no distinct head. Atop its torso sat only a conical fleshy orb, which bore a massive mouth stitched together from the parts of ghouls.
The moment its upper body emerged, a swarm of greater ghouls surged out from the gaps it hadn’t yet filled. Simultaneously, the massive amalgamation’s mouth swung open, letting out a second roar.
This roar carried far more impact than the first. A visible shockwave erupted, grinding toward the surroundings.
Adrian’s holy light flickered under the sudden impact. The pages of the tome levitating before him flipped frantically, and the Archbishop’s expression darkened.
“Perish!”
In the next instant, countless golden patterns across his chest linked to the tome. The holy light stabilized immediately.
While maintaining his defense, he continued his incantations. A pale gold light erupted from him, and a faint phantom levitated above his head.
The phantom was draped in six wings, and its indistinct face seemed to possess a hint of divine spirit.
As if noticing the massive amalgamation, the phantom pointed a finger, and a beam of blazing white light streaked across the sky.
A moment later, the massive amalgamation’s head vanished completely, as if it had been erased from existence.
However, the amalgamation didn't seem to have a fatal weak point. Even with its head gone, it continued to claw its way up desperately, seemingly unable to feel pain.
There was one benefit, though... that annoying noise was gone for good.
As the massive amalgamation squeezed its way up, a crack split open in its carapace, and a large number of greater ghouls crawled out from the fissure.
One, three, ten... they continuously hit the ground and surged forward. These ghouls tore themselves out from the creature's flesh and charged with a roar the moment they landed, needing no orders.
Kraus’s bone ring had finished its transformation. He now held a narrow bone blade with the edge facing downward.
“Adrian,” Kraus called out.
The Archbishop understood immediately.
The tome flipped to a specific page and stopped. Golden characters gushed out, transforming into golden chains that wrapped around the amalgamation’s torso.
The golden chains bound its forelimbs and back, wrapping it tightly.
The headless amalgamation seemed to want to roar, but it no longer had the means. The muscles beneath its carapace bulged and surged outward, attempting to vomit out more greater ghouls, but every time a section of the chain was shaken loose, a new one would manifest to replace it.
The golden chains hissed as they corroded the massive amalgamation’s body.
“Blue Knight!” Kraus shouted again.
The Blue Knight had been waiting for this exact moment.
Stepping forward, pale blue threads enveloped her entire body along with her rapier. She transformed into a faint blue silhouette and lunged at the massive amalgamation.
The moment the silhouette flashed across the carapace, the amalgamation’s left forelimb was severed at the root.
The cut was perfectly clean. Carapace, wooden fibers, and interlaced flesh were all sliced through in one go; blood didn't even have time to gush out.
The Blue Knight’s form solidified behind the amalgamation, her rapier remaining as clean as new.
The amalgamation thrashed. A massive amount of grey-green blood erupted from the wound. Its body swayed continuously as the severed gap squirmed, attempting to regenerate.
Adrian’s holy light chains immediately tightened around the gap, binding it. Golden light poured into the wound, and the churning flesh hissed and emitted charred smoke under the holy light.
Clearly, it wouldn't be growing back.
The Blue Knight didn't stop for a second. She blurred again, this time cutting in from the side.
The rapier with faint red patterns trailed a blue afterimage, and in the blink of an eye, it sheared off the entire right half of the creature's torso.
Adrian followed up quickly. Whenever a severed limb fell from the amalgamation, the holy light chains would seize the opening and seal the area shut.
The attendant wasn't idle either. The purple light he wove formed a large net. Any ghoul attempting to drop out of the amalgamation’s flesh was sliced into pieces and shredded together.
Under the pincer attack of the Blue Knight and the attendant, the massive amalgamation was being dismembered at a visible rate.
Its carapace shattered, its flesh was sliced into several chunks, and the entire body collapsed with a crash.
But the flesh was not dead.
The fragments on the ground began to squirm and pull together. Piece by piece, they reconstructed themselves. In a flash, seven or eight small amalgamations about half a person tall rose up, their maws open as they tried to fuse back together.
This time, Kraus moved.
His figure vanished from the spot, leaving only a blurry afterimage on the square.
The afterimage swept through the group of small amalgamations and solidified back at its original position, the bone blade already lowered to his side.
The seven or eight small amalgamations froze for a brief moment before neat fissures split open across their torsos. Each cross-section was embedded with ghostly green crystals that shimmered with a cold light.
This was Kraus’s ability.
In the next instant, the small amalgamations and the shredded meat beneath them were swallowed by the green crystals, condensing into a single mass.
Kraus’s expression remained indifferent as the bone blade transformed back into the bone ring on his ring finger...
The small amalgamations shattered into dust.
It was as if he had casually crushed a few bugs. From the moment the massive amalgamation emerged to its death, only a few minutes had passed.
However, Lu Yuan didn't have time to breathe a sigh of relief.
The moment the massive amalgamation fell, a line of grey-white text suddenly appeared, its color piercingly bright.
【Extremely strong pollution source detected. Please move away immediately.】
Lu Yuan’s heart leaped into his throat.
In a field full of ghouls, the grey-white text had only ever labeled them as “low-level” or “relatively strong.” This was the first time he had seen “extremely strong.”
In other words, this was very likely the special individual Kraus had mentioned. At this moment, it had unknowingly blended into the wave of ghouls surging across the square.
Lu Yuan’s gaze snapped away from the remains of the amalgamation as he shouted to Kraus.
“Watch out for the special individual in the horde ahead! It might have already appeared!”
The others reacted almost simultaneously.
The attendant’s purple light retracted instantly, condensing and rotating around his body.
Adrian’s holy light contracted sharply, shifting from a wide area to a focused density near the sinkhole.
Margaret also set aside her playful attitude, her gaze scanning the horde as if searching for where the special individual was hiding for Lu Yuan.
The Great Ascendant instinctively backed away from the sinkhole, his mechanical eyes spinning rapidly.
Behind Kraus, a silhouette outlined by green light slowly emerged as his cold gaze swept across the square.
“On the square... and I didn't even notice.” His voice was very low. “Where is it?”
Lu Yuan stared ahead with a grim expression, focused on the grey-white text that refused to vanish.
“I can't lock onto it,” Lu Yuan replied, instinctively taking several steps back.
Right then, a cloud of blood mist suddenly erupted from the pile of corpses on the left side of the square.
A blood-red afterimage lunged out from the stacked ghoul corpses. It was so fast it looked like a dark red dotted line, heading straight for the attendant’s flank.
No one needed to be warned.
The moment the figure emerged, the attendant had already woven a net of purple light by his side. As the blood shadow lunged from the left, he flicked his wrist, and the purple light net rose to meet it.
When the blood shadow hit the light net, the net emitted a piercing corrosive sound. The edges of the purple light net curled visibly to the naked eye.
The attendant felt as if he had been struck by a heavy blow. He groaned, his feet sliding half a step back on the stone slabs, but the net held and did not break.
Seeing the blood shadow blocked, the Great Ascendant blurred forward, immediately firing a beam of light.
Before the beam could lock onto its target, the shadow had already vanished from before the attendant.
Judging by its retreat path, it was heading back toward the sinkhole. It seemed to have realized its plan had been exposed and had no intention of lingering.
However, just as the blood-red silhouette prepared to retreat into the sinkhole...
The Blue Knight, who had been standing at a distance, appeared right in front of it.
The moment she blocked the blood-red silhouette, her rapier with faint red patterns was already unsheathed.
Sword light fell as thick as a downpour, enveloping the creature in a flash.
The sword qi, carrying the sound of whistling wind, forcibly intercepted it.
The master of the blood-red silhouette finally revealed its form: a bizarrely shaped greater ghoul covered in bloody, exposed flesh. It looked as if it had been skinned alive on the spot, yet it showed no signs of serious injury.
It stared at the human blocking its path, a low growl rolling in its throat.
In the next instant, its entire body exploded, sending a spray of blood rain in all directions.
The raindrops of blood all poured toward the Blue Knight.
The Blue Knight’s expression didn't change. Her rapier wove a dense rain of sword light, intercepting every drop of the foul blood.
With every drop of blood she parried, the aura radiating from her grew a degree stronger.
The moment the sword web blocked all the pollution, the Blue Knight’s rapier suddenly unleashed a sharp crimson sword qi, slashing directly at the special individual.
The special individual was no pushover.
As the sword qi arrived, its form exploded again, turning into a cloud of blood mist to evade the blow.
The Blue Knight’s strike missed, but she accelerated instantly, clashing with it once more.
However, it seemed to have no desire to stay entangled with her. Since this attack hadn't landed, it transformed entirely into a spray of blood and flowed down into the sinkhole.
The expressions of everyone standing at a distance turned grim.
In their last encounter, this thing actually dared to actively seek them out? Clearly, its intelligence wasn't low, which made things a bit troublesome.
Most importantly, the group couldn't confirm if this was the same one that had been heavily wounded last time. If it was, its self-healing ability was simply too exaggerated.
But if it wasn't...
Rate on N.U.
