Read Novel Full Chapter 547: A Gardener’s Weeding of Living Stone?
Chapter 547: A Gardener’s Weeding of Living Stone?
Lillian clenched her fist as she muttered [Oceanic Collapse], causing the harpoon to explode with fierce bubbling intensity.
Her gaze swept across the entire area around her and watched as the parasitic waters from her harpoon flooded the underground warehouse, watching as everything began to erode.
[Oceanic Collapse], an idea she had in mind by detonating the [Great Harpoon of Sinking Abyss].
Through imbuing her water with her Parasitic element, she had coded in a specific purpose for the parasitic water. To attack and leech off of anything that held even a sliver of refined mana and multiply.
With this piece of instructions embedded into it, Lillian had effectively created a sort of self-sustaining "acid" that would continue to grow under the condition of nearby sources of refined mana.
And she doubted that the tough and rigid obsidian body of the Obsidian Warden below would endure the attack for long, even if its body was highly durable.
[You have slain a Prime Husk, Obsidian Warden]
Upon getting the message, Lillian fell into the sea of parasitic waters below and drained the warehouse of it. Unfortunately, this action did lead her to use up more mana.
Lillian gave a deep sigh, ’The mana within my Mana Core has dropped significantly... I’m at around 40% maybe 45% now...’
Sensing the evaporation of her mana, Lillian briefly recalled the battle of the Obsidian Warden that acted as a mini-boss in the game.
Its body was even capable of resisting her water attacks, which were empowered by her earring by double!
’These Rank B monsters are no joke... And the amount of Mana Shells it had didn’t help either.’
Stepping towards the crumbling remains of the Obsidian Warden, Lillian discovered that nearly everything about it was destroyed - even its precious sword; although... It didn’t do much besides acting as a wand.
’If I didn’t have my Trait, I certain this battle would’ve been much harder...’
Granted, she didn’t use either the Black Maw or the Acus Maris, but still.
Sighing again, Lillian placed her hands inside her pockets, only now realising the slight burns on them. "Tsk..." She clicked her tongue.
Turning away, she walked away from the remains. She should meet back up with Kuro.
Upon stepping away, Lillian accidentally stepped on a crack, which seemed to have a negative effect on the surroundings.
The cracks glowed intensely, the air rising dramatically in heat as the ground shook concerningly. Then, lava quickly bubbled out before—
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
—Erupting upwards from the cracks.
Several pillars of lava erupted from the ground consecutively, leaving Lillian startled as she became completely blocked off.
’A trap?!’
Looking back at the remains of the Obsidian Warden, which abruptly fell into a large crevice that opened beneath it, Lillian scowled intensely at it.
Was the Obsidian warrior so sore about its loss that it still stubbornly wanted to take her life even after death!?
"This is absurd—...!" Lillian shouted, panicked.
She then felt the ground beneath her tremble, followed by the feeling of her body being lifted up. Then...
Heat.
Burning heat.
...
The Gardener watched as the Obsidian Warden dragged both Lillian and the Kirisaya Heir’s bodyguard deep underground. He thought about making his move, but still remained in place.
It didn’t look that strong.
’I shall still place countermeasures.’
Subtly sprouting from his feet, a barbed vine drilled into the ground with rapid speed - already catching up to the Obsidian Warden and surpassing it.
With this, he would be able to keep tabs on Lillian and would intervene if necessary. He was serious about keeping her alive in hopes of gaining future support in the family.
"Now then... What to do about those..." The Gardener muttered quietly, leaning his side against the wall as he watched three more Obsidian Wardens exit the Gate.
Two wielded longswords while one wielded a spear - their strengths equal to the one that dragged Lillian underground.
"S-shit! Everyone get into—"
The combined Predatory Aura from them immediately trapped the mages below in a net of fearful paralysis.
With cold indifference, the Gardener watched as the Obsidian Wardens slaughtered the mages below; his arms crossed casually.
’Obsidian Wardens, the rank above the Gravelborns, were known for their great destructive capabilities rather than their ability to kill. They were typically used as cheap siege weapons by the Stone Sovereign.’ The Gardener analysed.
These monsters had a threat level of 8 each, enough to be classified as City Killers; given enough time, they would achieve that title.
And if they spent long enough underground to grow their power, the time to reduce a city to ash would be decreased dramatically.
’Fortunately, these monsters seemed to be starved of that particular empowerment.’ The Gardener’s eyes narrowed, reading the mana emitted from the Obsidian Wardens before attracting their attention.
He felt the temperature of the air rise, the ground trembling and cracking. Lastly, he watched as lava erupted into a pillar that continued to widen its diameter.
It would eventually devour the entire theatre, including the Gardener, who remained still.
"This is a poor matchup with my element..."
Once the entire theatre was reduced to a hellish landscape and the ceiling of the underground was forced open, the Obsidian Wardens swept their gaze across the area.
After detecting nothing remained, they ignored the humans that still remained underground before raising their heads towards the sky, settling their gazes on the floating island above.
As they were about to leap out of the underground, a bud bloomed in the middle of them; its petals opening to reveal a dark-cloaked man wearing a plague doctor’s mask.
And held in his hands were two sickles; one a crimson red, the other a bone-white colour.
The Obsidian Wardens immediately took a stance at the sight of him and attacked, but were too slow as the mana around them began to be incredibly active as the Gardener uttered one phrase.
"[Rosarium Terminus]."
In the blink of an eye, the hellish landscape that had plagued the area where the theatre once stood was now a flourishing, runaway garden of flora and roses.
Then...
Silence.
Step... Step... Step...
The Gardener slowly walked past the Obsidian Wardens before stopping and—
Clink.
—Clinking his sickles together.
What followed was the crumbling bodies of the Dark Knights as their bodies were dissected apart along with their Mana Core.
"I despise facing monsters like you..." He muttered.
If they had only left him alone, he would’ve spared them.
"The bodies of inanimate materials are far less valuable and insightful than flesh." The Gardener turned back and looked at the remains, "Such a shame... I would’ve loved to figure out a way to concoct medicine out of you."
The sense of disappointment welled up inside the man, but he could do nothing but sigh - such was inevitable. There will always be times when he can’t delve into his hobbies.
Turning towards the portal, the disappointment in his red eyes disappearing instantly, the Gardener of Roses gazed at the Gate with interest.
With marching stomps, an Obsidian Warden, followed by an army of Gravelborns, escaped the hostile Gate.
The Gardener of Roses sighed, ’What a waste of mana...’
Clinking his sickles together, he began to walk forward.
He then began to read out a quote from his mind in a way that it was a biblical revelation.
"The rules of the world dictate that those who bear the crest and identity of monsters would inevitably fall under the heels of humanity; forever inferior and forever unable to win as humanity ascends."
And by the time he finished speaking, the fight was already over.
No matter how tough the stone and crystalline bodies of the Lithic Legion’s troops were, they would fall under the Gardener’s sickles.
For that was the strength of someone with the Roselle family’s blood.
Sensing a twitch from the vine he sprouted earlier, he hummed. "Hm..." It seemed his vine had detected that Lillian sustained moderately heavy injuries.
He immediately did something about it by connecting the vine with the floral landscape around him.
As he did so, the Gate beside him was reacting strangely. It began to glitch out, warping and spinning before eventually collapsing in on itself.
Was it finally over?
"Hm... So this is one of those outbreaks. How rare."
The ground trembled violently as cracks as large as small chasms formed in the landscape of flora around him.
With swiftness, the Gardener merged into the flora beneath his feet and appeared somewhere far away from the location, which suddenly exploded open.
Rising deep from the earth, a humanoid entity made entirely of stone - surfacing to the marketplace on the surface and standing at a towering height of 100ft.
Its body was carved out of a special stone that seemed to resonate with the nearby rocks and was etched from head to toe with runic symbols. And held in its right hand was a colossal stone spear tipped with a diamond-like material.
And with only a mere action of climbing out onto the surface, it had already laid waste to a quarter of the entire marketplace.
The Gardener appeared from a blooming bud and gazed up at the towering living statue. With a grunt, he held both sickles out from his body.
"A Mountain Sieger..."
The aura that he sensed from the colossal felt... Threatening to him, something he wouldn’t expect to feel at an event like this.
He let out an exasperated sigh, already calculating the amount of mana possibly needed for the battle.
But then.
He heard noises from the underground market.
Looking over, he suddenly found heavily armoured soldiers destroying the Gravelborn with great efficiency and skill - saving the civilians and supporting the injured mages.
They bore the crest of the academy.
"Oh? Then... He must be notified already." The Gardener put away his sickles as he turned to the colossal standing on the surface.
"You must be aware of this situation now, aren’t you?" His eyes then narrowed onto something high up in the sky.
"Rising Smoke of the East."