Read Novel Full Chapter 543: Stone Soldiers?
Chapter 543: Stone Soldiers?
Stepping out from the greyish mystical gate were stone soldiers, each around 6ft to 6ft5 in height. They had thick and block bodies that were made of a material similar to basalt and granite.
On top of their thick and blocky bodies was another layer of thick medieval stone armour that had visibly been affected by age.
Their glowing red eyes gleamed with utter bloodlust; mana swirled and shrouded their stone bodies.
The spears that had skewered the mages were now coursing with mana, which, in turn, generated a violent vibration that sent waves throughout the insides of the mages.
The mages, with their already pale and half-dead faces, felt waves washing over their internal organs. They felt their organs invert, contorting inside out before...
Inevitably rupturing.
Blood exploded out from their pores, unsealed wounds, and every single orifice they had.
They were dead; instantly.
Unbothered with the blood stains on their stone bodies, the soldiers marched out of the gate in a single uniformed unit.
The soldiers, who had skewered the mages, then lined up side-by-side and held their spears over their shoulders - entering into a throwing stance.
Their eyes then glowed with a deep red as they laid their gazes on the private boxes along the back walls of the theatre.
Then, with cold and taciturn resolve, they threw their bloodied spears that still had the mages skewered on them.
One by one, every one-way tempered glass window used to hide the identities of those in the private boxes was pierced through with ease; the windows that were made to resist bullets.
Holes continued to appear, increasing in numbers on the reflective surfaces.
Soon enough, the glass windows gave way and crumbled into countless glass shards—shattering.
The soldiers who had thrown their spears magically conjured new ones from their mana.
They then began to march forward, intending to chase after the crowd that escaped.
The Auctioneer, who had just watched both the deaths of normal humans and mages in mere seconds, was left utterly shocked.
He needed to run.
With a fearful shriek, he hurriedly pushed himself back onto his feet, trying to scurry to safety before being surrounded.
The stone soldiers, like cold-hearted machines, systematically raised their weapons to eliminate him in a single blow.
Frightened, the Auctioneer raised his hand out of fear, conjuring a ball of fire in hopes of it doing anything before immediately losing that hand.
Surprise overcame the man as he found his hand to be missing, shock numbing his sense of pain before eventually allowing him to feel it.
And when he did feel it—
"H-HUAH! MY HAND! MY HAAAND-!"
—His voice erupted, louder than ever, even in his career.
Buckling over and falling onto his knees, unable to bear the searing pain, he clutched his bloody stump; his body shaking violently.
His voice—now a mix between out-of-breath wheezing, pain-filled hissing, and muffled cries—muttered shakily:
"I-It hurts...! IT HURTS!"
The Auctioneer bit down on the collar of his white shirt, tears streaming down his face as he held his bloody stump close to his chest; his blood staining his clothes.
The stone soldiers, watching as the man fell, raised their weapons again without a shred of conscious thought or empathy.
As they were about to land a killing blow to the back of the poor Auctioneer’s skull, a translucent rope of water whipped through the air.
With elegance, it glided through the air, managing to wrap itself around the Auctioneer’s waist and pulling him out from the encirclement.
Lillian, having managed to survive the volley of stone spears on her private box, tugged on the other end of the liquid rope.
The Auctioneer then flew into her private box—
THUMP!
—Crashing onto the red couch and knocking it over, all while groaning in pain.
Then, using the deceased corpses of the mages that were pinned to the walls, Lillian injected the man with her Parasitic Lines, regenerating his missing hand.
Fortunately, due to the Auctioneer being a mage, he was slightly more resilient to pain, thus allowing him to remain conscious throughout.
After telling and watching him escape, Lillian glanced towards the Gardener to find him peering over the broken window, staring down at the stone soldiers that glared back at him.
"The Lithic Legion..." He muttered, "What a troublesome enemy."
His red eyes narrowed on the enemies’ glowing red eyes before looking back at Lillian.
"I recommend you step back."
"Huh—?"
Right as Lillian was about to ask why, they watched as several stone soldiers leapt towards their private box, crashing through whatever remained of the window and charging at them.
They did the same with the other private boxes.
Stumbling back, her rear pressed up against the bottom of the flipped couch, Lillian hurriedly summoned her black shortsword.
CLANG!
With a charge and overhead swing, a stone soldier swung down its sword at her; its strength surprisingly able to contend with Lillian, even when she was of the 3rd Tier.
Looking around, Lillian identified four, including the one against her, inside the room; the other three surrounded the Gardener, who didn’t seem to be bothered in the slightest.
Lillian watched as it raised its right leg and immediately slipped out of the way, watching as its kick caused a hole through the backrest of the couch.
The stone soldier then tore apart the couch before swinging its sword through the air in Lillian’s direction, causing slashes of compressed dust from its sword to fly out at her.
Lillian stepped out of the way, dodging the slash that left a deep mark against the ground and wall behind her, before flashing her hand at it.
Within a second, several water harpoons manifested themselves around the stone attacker, piercing and skewering it to the ground; its body crumbling apart before slowly reattaching.
’An entity made to endure...’
Lillian rolled her eyes at its regeneration before swiping her finger down, manifesting a harpoon of water behind it.
Then, with careful precision and positioning, Lillian pierced through where its Mana Core was—leading to its destruction.
[You have slain a Dire Maw, Gravelborn]
’I may have went overkill on it.’ Lillian rubbed her chin, staring at the several water harpoons that still remained before vanishing.
She then turned to the Gardener, finding him to have already disposed of the enemy.
With just his fists alone, he shattered through the Gravelborns’ weapons, their limbs, and lastly, their Mana Core; he made it look like he was punching through styrofoam.
He then dusted himself off.
Lillian leaned and peered out the broken window, looking towards the other private boxes, specifically the one Mizuki and Kuro were in, and caught sight of a fierce brawl happening within.
***
Ketsu summoned a plastic bottle of blood before chucking it, causing an explosion of blood that coated the nearby Gravelborns, which destroyed them.
There were a total of 9 Gravelborns inside their room.
He then scowled as he watched them reform, "What the hell are these monsters!?"
Mizuki shrugged calmly, standing inside a barrier of swords as he watched Kuro do all the work for him.
"They’re called Gravelborns, just destroy their mana cores and their bodies will crumble apart," Mizuki responded, sending one of his swords and skewering it through the chest of a Gravelborn, destroying it.
Kuro later confirmed this by severing two separate Gravelborns into five different pieces with his sword within a single second.
He then dealt a finishing blow to its Mana Core and was notified of his kill.
Yukihana, the Heir of the Hyosetsu, waved her folding fan and caused a wave of icy wind to wash and freeze over two different Gravelborns; her bodyguard later disposing of them with swift strikes of her dual shortswords.
After they had destroyed the remaining Gravelborns, they looked into their identities.
More specifically, they looked towards one person who might know about them.
Yukihana coughed, feeling four separate stares on her, "It’s rather rude to stare so intently at a lady, you four."
Kazane, her bodyguard, bent over and apologised instantly, "My apologies, my lady!"
Seeing as only her bodyguard apologised, she sighed and said:
"The Lithic Legion—born from their master Aru’Khal, the Stone Sovereign—is an army made completely of stone or a variety of it; the higher density material they are made from, the higher ranked they are in heirarchy. They are a force renowned in Hearth as the protector of the Five Peaking Mountains and came about in the Third Epoch."
She then paused and muttered:
"I fear that this outbreak may not be just any kind of outbreak..."
Mizuki raised an eyebrow, "Why may that be? Is it because of the gunshot earlier?"
Yukihana nodded slightly, her face darkening a little, "Yes... But there is another factor that I believe may be the reason to this outbreak being orchestrated. And its..."
***
"That was no regular gate." The Gardener muttered out loud for Lillian to hear.
With folded arms, he leaned his side against the broken window and looked down.
The Gravelborns that had escaped the gate had now begun to march their way out of the theatre; they most likely had already entered the underground market by now.
"The security of this auction is poor. For an academy of such wealth, you would expect it to designate and provide better than this."
Shaking his head, the Gardener continued with his earlier words, "Gates do not lead to an outbreak immediately upon appearing. They’re designed to drag humans into their Trial first before committing to an outbreak if they were to fail... However... This one was different..."
The Gardener rubbed his chin before coming to a final conclusion, "This is an orchestrated terrorist attack. The coincidence that this gate could bloom into an outbreak immediately is one, but the fact that it’s an outbreak of these Lithic Soldiers is another."
Listening to him, Lillian nodded in agreement, "Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t these monsters grow stronger within rocky or underground terrain?"
As the Gardener was about to respond, a volley of spears was thrown at them, followed by another wave of enemies to deal with.