Read Novel Full Chapter 654: How Did Things go so Wrong?
Chapter 654: How Did Things go so Wrong?
Crunch!
All the nobles within the ballroom stared in horror as Albrecht began to devour the noble. The sound of his jaws sinking onto the man’s face rang aloud.
The wet smacking of his lips caused the nobles to become wide-eyed; their pupils filled with terror as they watched both blood and saliva drip down his bottom jaw.
Crunch!
The crunching of the noble’s skull in between Albrecht’s teeth caused the nobles to be paralysed with fear. By now, the noble’s entire face had already been devoured, allowing spectators to gaze inside his skull.
They could see his brain.
Crunch!
Fortunately for the poor noble, he was instantly killed by Albrecht’s initial bite, which spared him the sight of seeing himself being devoured. Unluckily, only he was spared from this gruesome sight.
“W-what the hell is happening…”
“I-I-I don’t know, one second he was perfectly fine, but the next second…”
Confusion and fear surge through the nobles; unable to fathom why they were watching one of them eat another person. It also wasn’t any better that the lights were dimly-lit and their vision was partially obscured with fog.
Amidst the sea of fear-stricken nobles, one managed to break free from his paralysis.
Near the front, a noble who had witnessed the horrifying spectacle immediately spun on his heel and made a mad dash to the exit.
“I-I’M GETTING THE HELL OUT OF HERE!!”
He forcefully pushed his way through the nobles, his movements sporadic and his arms flailing. Because of this, he managed to part a narrow rift in the sea of nobles, which allowed Albrecht to get a glimpse of his escape.
Albrecht’s skin was now a sickening pale grey. His green pupils, which once bore a four-pointed star, were now completely dim—the light of life no longer visible in his eyes. Instead, all that was left was a trace of uncontrollable madness.
Instantly raising his head, Albrecht looked towards the fleeing noble with twitchy ears. His action resembled that of a dog that heard movement near him.
With a blood-covered face, he barred his fangs at the escaping noble and made a beastly roar:
“RAGHH!”
A second later, the back of his shoulder blade bulged and exploded into a humongous bloodmist. The nobles closest to him immediately stepped back, covering their faces with the back of their hands.
“What they hell is it doing?!”
“Everyone get back!”
“Don’t breathe it in!”
A concaphony of voices resounded in response to the expanding bloodmist. What they had expected to be some kind of attack, similar to poison gas, was actually just a byproduct of a much deadlier attack.
SWOOSH!
A few seconds later, a tentacle made of pure flesh and bones shot out from Albrecht’s shoulder—flying through the rift created by the fleeing noble.
In a matter of milliseconds, it had already caught up to the noble, who was only a step away from escaping. As he was but an inch away from being skewered—
SCHWIN…!
—A flash of light swooped in.
It was Reph.
BOOM!
Managing to carry the noble out of harm’s way, Reph looked towards the exit doors that were mercilessly destroyed by the flesh tentacle. His figure was completely decked out in jewellery, and all kinds of expensive accessories—all he was missing was a crown.
Then, with a voice befitting of a royal prince, he ordered:
“Everyone! Quickly flee down this hall, we’ll buy you all time to escape.” He gestured towards the busted doors, “Mages leave first, followed by non-combatants and their servants! GO, GO!”
Although his voice did have a slight apathetic tone, due to his tiresome Flaw, everyone immediately followed his orders without question.
As everyone moved to clumsily organise themselves like a horde of stampeding beasts, the tentacle that had broken through the doors immediately twisted to attack the fleeing nobles.
But before it could decide who to target first, a silver flash sliced through its slender and rough body.
After slicing through the tentacle, Kuro waved his hand—instantly freezing the tentacle against the wall to prevent it from falling onto the fleeing nobles.
Later, he returned to Mizuki’s side and immediately slung him over his left shoulder. Afterwards, he ran through the exit to swiftly catch up with the fleeing nobles.
“W-wha—! Kuro, shouldn’t we, or at least you, stay back to help?!” Mizuki asked, startled slightly.
“No.” Kuro shook his head, “My job as your bodyguard is to keep you safe. I can’t do that properly if you’re endangering your life, or I’m not near you.”
“But—”
“It’s fine, Mizuki.” A feminine voice rang behind them.
Looking up, Mizuki found Yukihana running behind them with her servant.
“Ah, Yukihana! What do you mean by it’s fine?”
The white-haired lady giggled, “If too many of us stay back to hold off Albrecht, we’ll only burden the strongest of us. It’s best we escape like they said and do our best to protect the people around us. Isn’t that right, Kuro?”
Kuro nodded silently before glancing back at the ballroom.
Albrecht, seeing that a large population of his prey was escaping, readjusted his posture—prepared to chase after them.
But then—
BAM!
“RAGHH—!”
—Was knocked into the air by an electrifying shield bash.
With bulging muscles that now had a metallic sheen, Torahiko shouted:
“SILVIA, NAGI!”
Albrecht, who was left spinning in the air, felt his body spasm from the electricity he was struck with. Then, his condition worsened when sharp rods made of liquid mercury pierced through his flesh, attracting the electricity.
Glowing arcs zapped between each rod, multiplying the pain Albrecht was going through. And if that wasn’t enough, he became trapped inside a razor-sharp tornado that tore through his skin and muscles down to his bones.
The mercury rods and wind were quickly painted with his blood.
Shockingly, the flesh he lost rapidly grew back, allowing him to endure the harsh winds with minimal difficulties.
Soon, the tornado dissipated, but that only left him open for another gruesome attack.
“NOW, REPH!”
Standing on a mana platform in the air, Reph stood with his cape billowing behind him from the dissipating winds. With both his hands parallel, he channelled a glowing orb of light, which he soon released outward.
“[Light Beam]…”
His attack lit up the entire ballroom, overwhelming the darkness and dissipating the obscure fog. The light beam, which spanned several metres tall and wide, swallowed Albrecht—vaporising his flesh right down to his bones.
This, in turn, rendered Albrecht’s inhuman regeneration useless due to the cauterising burns inflicted on him.
After a few seconds, what remained was a rotten, smoky smell and a massive burn crater. And at the centre was a burnt corpse.
Thud.
Dropping down from the air, Reph was immediately met with an arm around his neck.
“KAHAHAHA! What a brilliant performance, everyone! Especially you Reph, what an excellent light show, KAHAHAHA!” Torahiko laughed wildly, smacking Reph on the shoulder repeatedly.
The bags under the Prince’s eyes darkened because of this.
“I must say, though, I was surprised both of you decided to stay back to help!” Torahiko stated, looking at Reph and Silvia. “Since you both are only Tier 2 mages, I expected you both to leave with the rest of them nobles. And where are your servants?”
Silvia stepped up, “I think I can speak for Reph that it wouldn’t look well to the public that the princess and prince didn’t do anything to help in the situation. As preposterous as it may sound.”
Reph nodded at this, “Something like that. As for my servant, I sent mine to guard the safety of the fleeing nobles. I assume you did so too, Silvia?”
The silver-haired woman nodded.
Torahiko, satisfied with the answers, rubbed his chin as he glanced back at the charred corpse.
“Did either of you get the kill confirm?”
“I didn’t, no.” Reph shook his head.
Silvia raised her hand, “It’s fine. As long as my mercury is in him, he’ll die from either mercury poison or maybe even blood loss.”
“Is that so? I suppose he’ll die soon, then. We should just reserve our mana. And even if he does get back up, we can just knock him back down.” Torahiko murmured.
He then stood at the edge of the crater, recalling what had happened earlier. “I didn’t expect Damien to make such a bold move with all these nobles here. I know these Darkhounds are vicious and bold, but to think he didn’t even consider what kind of backlash would befall his family after today.”
“I’m more worried about what was in the syringe…” Nagi muttered, having found the syringe, “There’s some weird grey liquid in here. Have any of you heard anything about it?”
Silvia gazed intensely at it.
“I haven’t. Do you think it’s poison?”
“Doesn’t look like it. I think Damien has too much pride to poison someone.” Nagi stated, “He seems more like someone who would fight fairly rather than using underhanded tricks.”
Reph folded his arms, then stated tiredly, “It’s most likely some kind of mutation serum.”
“Mutation serum? What do you mean, Reph?”
“Huff… If this is actually Albrecht, then he shouldn’t have any ability that allows him to create those fleshy bone tentacles.” Reph gestured at the frozen appendage, “Instead, he has two elements and a Trait. The elements are Earth and Wind, while the Trait is his eyes—the Compass Eyes. Unless he had acquired some kind of item or strange ability prior, it wouldn’t make sense for him to have that kind of ability unless it was because of the syringe.”
Everyone thought about Reph’s words.
Nagi held his chin, “Your words does make a lot of sense and is logical…”
“Uhm, is it me or did you all now realise that none of our royal guards shown themselves yet?” Silvia asked.
Before the three could respond to Silvia, they watched as a masked-suited man slowly stepped from behind Torahiko’s tall and bulky figure—his body partially covered in fog.
“That’s because they’re all dead.”
It was the Cultist Priest!
Torahiko immediately spun around, swinging the back of his right arm. But instead of the Cultist Priest being knocked away—
BAM!
—He was.
The Raiketsu Scion was knocked metres away, the back of his heels skidding against the ground. Fortunately, his shield and the metallic sheen on his skin took the brunt of the attack.
‘He managed to knock me back!?’ Torahiko thought in shock, staring at the Cultist Priest. ‘He’s a Tier 4 mage!’
“Sigh, to think it barely managed to feast.” The Cultist Priest looked back at the charred corpse, “Making me step in like this… How undeserving of such an elixir. You’re lucky I need research data.”
Later, the Cultist Priest vanished before reappearing behind Silvia, his hand shaped into a blade.
‘This speed—!’ Everyone shouted in their mind, panic filling their eyes.
“You’re the first to go.” The Cultist Priest stated, thrusting his hand forward.
SWISH!
But before the tips of his fingers could reach Silvia’s back, a flash of light sped by—the speed uncontrollable.
BOOM!
Reph, who had no time to calculate the distance and speed, crashed into a wall. Fortunately, he managed to save Silvia from what would’ve been a killing blow.
The two coughed and waved the dust away, shrugging off the rubble.
“I apologise, I would’ve liked for the two of us to stop right before the wall…” Reph muttered, his voice slurring at the end.
Silvia chuckled solemnly, “You saved my life, that’s more than enough of an apology.”
Clap. Clap. Clap.
The Cultist Priest clapped his hands together at a slow and dramatic interval, visibly impressed, despite his face being hidden. “Your speed is impressive, Second Prince of Restara. Even I was taken aback. But I believe you forgot grab one other person~…”
The man then dispersed into fog; he wasn’t the real one.
Reph’s eyes narrowed cautiously, before widening them—his pupils shaking terribly with horror.
Nagi, who was fine prior, now had an arm sticking through the centre of his chest. His mouth erupted with a torrent of crimson blood, which dripped down and painted the collar of his white dress shirt. And just like Reph, his eyes too were shaking at the sight of his condition.
“G-guys—”
SKRCHH…!
Before Nagi could finish speaking, the Cultist Priest had already torn off his head.
Drip… Drip… Drip…
Torahiko stared in horror at his friend’s decapitated head, dangling by his hair in the cultist’s hands. After three more drops of blood echoed, he made his move.
“YOU BASTARD!!!”
Losing all reason, Torahiko rushed forward with lightning-fast speed—the metallic sheen on his body hardening into a fully-fledged exoskeleton.
“NO, RUN AWAY, YOU IDIOT!” Reph shouted, tiredness no longer obvious in his voice.
Clenching his fist, Torahiko rushed in, channelling an extreme amount of electrical energy in his fist before releasing it with a punch.
“[STORMING BLOW]!”
The Cultist Priest tossed Nagi’s remains into the crater before rushing in as well. He straightened his hand into a blade once more and thrusted towards Torahiko’s incoming hand.
“[Death Thrust]!”
BOOM!
An explosion of electricity erupted, creating a shockwave tall and powerful enough to blast a hole through the ceiling—revealing the cloudy, dark sky and its silver moon.
The moon’s light flooded the inside of the dimly lit ballroom to reveal the gruesome spectacle inside.
“Oh, how the mighty Raiketsu family has fallen.” The Cultist Priest mocked with a blood-drenched arm.
The light in Torahiko’s eyes was now dull. The arm he had used for the attack had been completely eviscerated in the clash.
Drip… Drip… Drip…
As blood leaked out from Torahiko’s wound, the Cultist Priest continued to mock him.
“Everyone in the Eastern nation talked big about you. Something about prodigy and how unmatched you were in terms of pure raw strength.” The Cultist Priest swung his arm and cleaned it of blood, “You’re nothing more than a sensitive musclehead.”
The man then gazed down at his arm, finding it to be blackened and charred due to their clash. “But I’ll give you credit. To give me such a serious injury, I’ll at least acknowledge your strength before killing—”
“RAAAHHH!”
With a beastly roar, Torahiko swung his other arm down—encasing it with bright blue electricity and metal. It was like his arm had turned into a mythical hammer of a god.
As his arm was about to land on the Cultist Priest’s shoulder, it slowed down to a stop. The metal sheen and electricity around his body slowly crackled and crumbled away.
Drip… Drip… Drip…
He now had a new wound; this time, it was an arm through his chest. Not where his heart would be, but where his Mana Core was.
Pulling his arm out, the Cultist Priest held Torahiko’s Mana Core in his palm—silently appreciating the size of it. “I’ll be sure to do something good with this, I’ll have you know.”
Glancing back at Torahiko, who was panting heavily, visibly at death’s door, the Cultist Priest asked charitably:
“Any last words? Even last questions? I can grant you that out of respect for what you did to my arm.”
“… What… Is the scale of your invasion, cultist…?” Torahiko spat, looking down at the Cultist Priest—something he could do due to the difference in their height.
The Cultist Priest looked up, then casually mentioned:
“200 Tier 2 mages and 50 Tier 3 mages. We’ve also locked down the entirety of the Darkhound territory from accessing spatial magic or technology.”
“What… Is your purpose…?” Torahiko gritted his teeth.
“Those are two questions, but I’ll answer them for the same reason as last time.” The Cultist folded his arms behind his back, “We’ve come for someone very important here. Someone that would play a massive role in a war of a dystopian war yet to come.”
“I see… I think that’s enough now.”
“Is that so? Very well, if you wish to die sooner, then—”
BAM.
Torahiko struck the Cultist Priest in the face before having his last remaining arm eviscerated. He then laughed wildly, like he had won a precious prize, “I bought enough time… And you didn’t even notice!”
The Cultist Priest became agitated. As he was about to take a step to end Torahiko’s life, he watched as a phone fell to the ground—the screen revealing a chat group, along with a voice-recorded message from Torahiko.
“This—!”
“That’s right! I must thank you for being so kind to leak the numbers of your forces!” Torahiko snickered, “Because of that, in a matter of time, my family and even the Church of the Weathering Skies will arrive to put you cultist bitches down—ARGH!”
“DON’T GET SO FULL OF YOURSELF!” The Cultist Priest shouted, knocking Torahiko to the ground and stomping on his chest.
“By the time your family gets here, we will have already accomplished our goal and have slaughtered all you nobles! And to begin, I’ll start by killing those other two after I’m done with you—!”
“Hehehe… You still haven’t noticed…?” Torahiko snickered, his voice growing weaker, “Those two have already made a run for it…”
“Huh?”
Looking up, he had found that Reph and Silvia had indeed already escaped.
Torahiko grinned as a surge of blood erupted from his mouth, painting each individual tooth red.
“I knew the moment you arrived, not all of us would make it out alive… Even though it is a shame that I won’t make it out alive, it’s better me than them who are crucial for their nations’ future.”
The Cultist Priest’s eyes darkened behind his mask.
“I retract my earlier statement about you being just a sensitive musclehead. I suppose there was more to you than what meets the eye…” He then snapped his fingers. “Because of your ploy, I hope you enjoy being eaten alive.”
After saying that, he shattered the bones in Torahiko’s legs before vanishing.
A pain-filled cry escaped Torahiko’s mouth, but he immediately silenced himself once he found Albrecht slowly climbing out of the crater; he was chewing. As he got closer and closer, Torahiko noticed through his blurry vision the strands of Nagi’s hair sticking in between Albrecht’s teeth.
Nagi was already devoured.
And he was next.