Margaret and the Blue Knight moved almost in unison. A layer of water vapor began to swirl around Margaret as the two of them lunged straight toward the massive beast.
Adrian raised the tome in front of his chest.
The tome flew from his hand, hovering in the air of the massive void. Golden light erupted from its pages, illuminating most of the space.
Though the light was incredibly bright, the void was simply too vast. No matter how powerful the holy light was, it could not reach every corner, leaving the deepest recesses shrouded in an impenetrable, absolute darkness where nothing could be seen.
The moment the tome came to a halt, Adrian's face grew a fraction paler. From their journey down to carving through the flesh wall, he had overexerted his holy light for far too long, and the old bishop was clearly reaching his limit.
But bathed in this holy light, everyone was finally able to see the full layout of the void.
The void was colossal, easily spacious enough to hold nearly a thousand people. The ground and walls were entirely covered in a layer of dark red flesh that undulated slightly. Any trace of soil or rock had long since vanished, merging seamlessly with the flesh wall channel above. The deeper they went, the more severe the mutation became.
Seven or eight bronze pillars crisscrossed haphazardly within the void. Some were half-buried in the flesh of the walls, while others were completely exposed, carving the space into fragmented segments.
The areas untouched by the holy light remained plunged in darkness, likely harboring even more bronze pillars.
This place was already infinitely close to the deepest depths.
Lu Yuan's gaze swept across the bronze pillars, and his heart leaped.
It was the fragments.
The thin thread in his consciousness, which connected the first three fragments, was trembling violently, pointing in a specific direction.
The fourth fragment was nearby; he was sure of it. However, the thread was heavily disrupted by the extreme pollution in this area, swaying erratically left and right, making it impossible to pinpoint a precise location.
He could not tell which pillar it was embedded in.
He would have to search them one by one.
Lu Yuan did not reach for the ghoul brain cores in the leather pouch at his waist.
There were no other ghouls here besides that massive beast. The faint aura emitted by the brain cores would be useless as a cover.
As long as Margaret and the others could keep the creature occupied, he would face no immediate threat.
Lu Yuan called out to Kraus.
“Give me some time.”
Without waiting for Kraus's response, he turned and dashed toward the nearest bronze pillar.
Kraus was startled for a moment, but quickly understood and did not stop him.
The attendant understood the cue. A beam of purple light shot out from the side, forming a distant shield over Lu Yuan to block the flying bits of flesh.
On the other side, Margaret and the Blue Knight had already engaged the massive beast.
Its movements were very slow—so slow that Margaret could clearly trace the trajectory of its every wind-up.
But once that immense power actually came bearing down, the word "slow" lost all meaning.
The water vapor around Margaret swirled, creeping up the massive beast's body to bind its shins and knees.
She wanted to drain the moisture from its body. This technique had always been highly effective against same-rank transcendents and high-level mutants who lacked countermeasures.
But this time, she hit a wall.
Her water could not penetrate the dark red flesh-membrane no matter what, and her attempt to siphon the fluid from its body was utterly blocked by that same membrane.
Water could neither enter nor be drawn out.
With this brief exchange, Margaret immediately realized that her water control would be severely limited against this creature, and she instantly shifted her tactics.
But the creature did not give her the time to change her move. A massive palm was already raised.
The palm rose slowly, but its surface was so enormous that the wind it stirred whipped into a gale, crashing down right over her head.
Margaret had no time to think. She pushed off the ground with all her might, throwing herself backward to the side.
The palm slammed into the spot where she had been standing a moment ago.
Thump.
A massive boom echoed through the void, causing several bronze pillars to tremble in response.
But the sound was wrong. Instead of the sharp crack of striking stone, it was a dull, heavy thud—the sound of smashing into flesh.
As she retreated, Margaret saw it clearly. The massive beast's feet were embedded in the flesh of the ground. Below the ankles, it was completely fused with the floor, making it impossible to tell where the creature ended and the ground began.
Its two legs had literally grown out of this expanse of flesh.
Margaret understood. This flesh was its root.
The wounds on its body were patched up in the blink of an eye. As long as it remained connected to the floor of this void, it would possess infinite strength and could recover from any wound, no matter how severe.
Her expression darkened.
The Blue Knight had also noticed this.
She did not rush in blindly. Light blue threads shot from her fingertips, wrapping around the rapier with faint red patterns. The weapon left her hand, flying through the air to strike the creature's back from a distance.
It was a test.
In the next instant, the rapier was deflected back with equal force.
The moment the rapier made contact, the dark red flesh-membrane tensed like a drumhead, sending the entire sword and its threads flying back.
The Blue Knight let out a muffled grunt at the other end of the threads, her wrist jerking to the side from the sheer force of the recoil.
She stared at her sword, a look of solemnity appearing in her eyes for the first time.
Since this rapier had been drawn, it had cleaved through armor and carapace reinforced by pollution, but nothing had ever deflected it so cleanly.
Just then, Adrian's holy light washed over them once more.
Golden light flowed from the tome hovering in the air, enveloping the combatants below. Their wounds stopped bleeding in the light, and their tense minds eased slightly.
However, the light this time was far thinner than before.
Lu Yuan, crouching beside a bronze pillar, was not touched by it at all.
He looked up at the edge of the golden glow, which stopped three or four paces away from him, advancing no further.
Lu Yuan was not sure if the Archbishop had done this intentionally or if he was simply exhausted.
Pressing his hand against the cold bronze pillar, he closed his eyes and sank his mind into the erratic thread deep within his consciousness.
In the center of the battlefield, Kraus's four afterimages landed.
Almost simultaneously, the heavy body of the Great Ascendant crashed down. As his knees bent to absorb the impact upon landing, a ring of dark red bloody froth splashed outward.
In a single glance, the two of them saw the Blue Knight locked in combat with the massive beast, the deflected rapier, and the living ground of flesh.
No one asked any questions.
Kraus raised his bone sword, and the light on the Great Ascendant's chest flared. The two of them flanked the creature, joining the fray.
The moment Kraus's bone sword struck, the massive beast did not even bother to block.
The edge of the bone sword sliced into its shoulder. Dark green crystals surged into the incision, freezing the flesh around the wound into a mass of green crystals.
Kraus flicked his wrist, intending to let the green light spread further.
But before he could even pull his bone sword out, the flesh covered by the green crystals began to melt and slough off. New flesh welled up from beneath, refilling the incision in the blink of an eye.
Kraus immediately backed away, his brow furrowed deeply.
The Great Ascendant was even more direct.
The beam of light on his chest erupted, and a silver beam cut across the void, striking the massive beast squarely in the waist.
The instant the beam blasted into it, a crater the size of a bowl was charred into its side, sending scorched bits of flesh flying everywhere.
Yet, the beam did not pierce all the way through.
It penetrated more than halfway into the creature's body before being forcefully stopped by the dark red flesh-membrane from the inside.
The Great Ascendant's beam was incredibly hot—hot enough that even special individuals could not withstand it—yet this creature endured it head-on, preventing it from even passing through.
The Great Ascendant's silver-grey pupils flickered, and the sound of whirring gears echoed from his chest, carrying a hint of intrigue.
He reached to his waist and pulled out a palm-sized copper box, flipping the lid open to reveal a layer of isolation inscriptions inside.
He planned to slice off a few pieces of its flesh to take back.
The Blue Knight had already changed her approach.
After her previous strike was deflected, she did not attempt any more ranged attacks. Light blue threads erupted from every seam of her armor, wrapping her completely before violently bursting outward.
Countless threads shot in all directions, anchoring themselves into the surrounding ground and bronze pillars, weaving a dense web with her at the center. She hung suspended in the middle of the web, like a spider.
In the next instant, the Blue Knight launched herself forward. The contracting force of the threads accelerated her to an extreme speed, her figure blurring into a blue afterimage as she swept past the massive beast's shin.
She held her rapier horizontally, its edge wrapped in a layer of crimson sword qi—this was her strongest strike to date.
A dull thud echoed.
The crimson sword qi tore a waist-high gash along its shin, deep enough to expose bone. Dark red flesh welled out as blood sprayed everywhere.
The two misaligned eyes on the creature's head turned toward the Blue Knight simultaneously; clearly, it had felt the pain.
Its movements were still slow as it swiped a palm down at her. But the Blue Knight had already used her threads to catapult herself dozens of paces away. The palm struck empty space, smashing a crater half a person deep into the fleshy ground.
The Blue Knight's gaze fell upon the gash.
New flesh was already surging from the bottom of the wound, regenerating at a visible rate. Before she could even land steadily, the waist-high gash had already closed by more than half. The Blue Knight's gaze turned grim.
Margaret had also changed her tactics.
Since water control was ineffective on this creature, she simply stopped targeting it directly.
Stepping back two paces, she spread her arms and floated slightly off the ground, turning her focus to the surrounding environment instead.
Though this void was deep underground, there was no shortage of moisture in the air. The flesh walls themselves constantly exhaled humid vapor, not to mention the blood and mucus leaking from the creature's wounds.
Margaret made a grasping motion, and a vast amount of moisture converged toward her from all directions.
Water condensed around her limbs into sharp water needles and thin water blades, hovering densely in the air around her, presenting a menacing sight.
In the next instant, dozens of water needles shot out in unison, piercing into the massive beast's back.
The water needles were far thinner than the rapier, so they penetrated the flesh-membrane without much effort, sinking one by one into its flesh.
But the needles were quickly swallowed by the flesh, and the puncture wounds healed in the blink of an eye, just like the gash left by the Blue Knight.
Margaret's expression remained unchanged. With a flick of her wrist, a new round of water blades condensed.
She did not expect to kill it, but she could at least keep it pinned down.
Rate on N.U.
