Unholy Player

Chapter 532: Let’s Talk

Liora slammed the staff onto the Rank 4 Spark’s spikes, striking them before they could fire.

BOOOM!

The impact instantly shattered the spikes. The blood-red Spark lost strength in its legs, collapsing as its massive body buckled like its joints had been punched loose.

The ground beneath them didn’t just shake. It split, cracks ripping open across the area as dust and fragments kicked up. The land heaved like a full earthquake tearing through it, carrying enough force to reshape the landscape completely.

Sevrak and the other two Blood Path followers weren’t spared. They fought to keep their footing on the breaking ground while the shockwave rolled through their bodies, turning balance into a battle of its own.

"I thought the Outer Region was just a backyard with weak people." Arvyn shouted, furious, enduring the tremors as she leaped across the crumbling earth to avoid a forming fissure, her boots barely catching the edge.

If it had only been Zephan, they could have dismissed it. 1 exception didn’t break the rule.

But it wasn’t only Zephan. Throgar had proven it too. Now this Earthshaker had arrived with insanely high stats and destructive skills, forcing their understanding of this place to crack until they had to ask the question they avoided before.

Had they been fed false information all along? The Outer Region wasn’t just a place for the weak after all?

"There is something strange going on here for sure." Kaelor stayed where he was. The chunk of land around him barely moved, shielded by an invisible force that let it tremble only slightly. The shockwave never even reached him, and the air around that patch remained unnaturally steady.

Sevrak was in the worst state among them. His Rank 4 Spark had been crushed to the ground and lay unconscious. Sevrak himself nearly collapsed too; his body was almost broken by the shock wave.

He scrambled to find an intact patch of ground, struggling not to fall into the cracks that kept appearing, widening, then collapsing inward. The edges broke away beneath him without warning, making it difficult to find stable ground to step on.

"Isn’t this Spark a little too weak?" Liora pulled back and muttered through her massive mouth, watching the ruined spikes and the shaken landscape.

She had expected a Blood Path Spark to be terrifying, and Sevrak’s new Spark was Blood Path too. Yet it clearly wasn’t on the same level as the Blood Dragon.

That was normal, though. The Blood Dragon had been transformed into Blood Path using a treasure, something real, while the rhino, by contrast, was a product of a Bloodline Talent. Its boosted power simply wasn’t on par with the real deal.

"No, I can’t accept this." Sevrak started regenerating again and tried to rise. The gap in power was unbearable. His refusal to accept it tightened rage across his face as he forced his body to obey.

He gathered every bit of strength he could. Torn flesh knitted back together. Wings began to regrow again, and new tissue formed over exposed bone.

Then another force dropped onto him from above. Throgar’s anti-gravity skill intensified once more, dismissing all his effort as if it meant nothing and pinning him in place. It slammed him into the ground hard enough to crush the breath out of him, stopping his rise mid-motion.

As he lay facedown on the ground, unable to move, humiliation burning through him, a silver light flashed in front of him.

Zephan stood there, his gold sword wrapped in silver electric currents, arcs crawling along the blade like living threads. He raised it above his head, looked down at Sevrak, and then spoke in a flat voice.

"No one asked what you think."

He brought the sword down.

Thin electric cuts bloomed all over Sevrak’s body, lines appearing faster than his eyes could track, each one searing as it opened.

Sevrak couldn’t react in time. There was no chance to stop it, no way out. Only on the last cut did he finally understand his doom. He stayed pinned to the ground, wide-eyed, still refusing to accept it, while his body began to fail.

"This is absurd..." His last words rolled out as his lips began to split apart.

Then his whole body came apart into small pieces, turning into chopped meat on the ground. The separation was so clean it looked unreal for a heartbeat.

Zephan still didn’t stop. He pointed his sword at the pile of flesh, and a silver flame streamed from the blade, swallowing the pieces and burning them into ash, the heat flashing bright as it consumed everything. He only stopped once he was sure not even a single drop of blood remained.

Only then did he step back. His gaze shifted to the other two Blood Path followers, his voice carrying the same calmness it had when he first arrived as he spoke.

"You wanted to talk? Now we can talk."

A while ago, Zephan noticed the shift. The moment they saw Soulforge Throgar’s second head, both of them hesitated.

But as long as Sevrak was still alive, talking was pointless. His hatred was too obvious, and he could ruin any negotiation before it even properly started. If there was going to be a conversation, that obstacle had to be removed first. So Zephan removed it.

Now that Sevrak was truly dead this time, Zephan finally had room to solve the problem with words.

"You just killed 1 of us, and now you want to solve this by talking?" Arvyn looked displeased. Even so, Sevrak’s death did not seem to shake her much.

Kaelor also didn’t seem to care about his comrade’s death. In fact, he gave no one around him any attention at all, focusing only on one figure as he spoke. "Gemnarch, may I ask why you’re blocking our path?"

His tone was polite and respectful. Even so, no answer came.

Soulforge Throgar still stood there, both faces blank, staring forward like someone trapped in a trance.

"Because he is one of us," Liora answered instead. "He protects these lands from threats like you."

As she spoke, her body began to shrink again. The gold staff shrank with her as if it were bound to the same change. Within seconds, she returned to her 3-meter-tall (10 feet) ape form, built for speed and rapid reactions in case the situation exploded again.

Kaelor didn’t understand why the Gemnarch remained silent, almost like he hadn’t heard him, but he chose not to voice that question. He kept the discomfort to himself and turned to Liora.

"Our intentions are not to threaten these lands." Some of his earlier politeness slipped, but his voice remained reasonable. "We came to retrieve something that naturally belongs to us."

"They’re after a treasure," Zephan said, stepping closer to Liora without lowering his guard, his sword still ready. "Something called the Heart of the Blood Palace."

"I’ve never heard that name." Liora tilted her ape head.

Kaelor noticed that Liora and the others were also unfamiliar with the name, so he continued speaking. "We were informed it is somewhere in the place ahead. We only need you to allow us to search for it. Afterward, we will leave, whether we find it or not."

On the surface, his request sounded reasonable. They only wanted to search, and he even promised they would leave peacefully if the treasure was not there.

Still, the place he wanted to search was not something Liora or Zephan could allow freely.

Liora glanced at Zephan, worry passing across her face. "Has Adyr come back?"

Zephan answered with a small shake of his head.

They had not been told the truth, that Adyr was inside a secluded building, asleep while recovering his life force. Instead, Henry told them Adyr went somewhere for "family" business.

The moment they heard the word "family," neither of them questioned it. They did not ask what kind of business it was, and they did not ask where he went. They accepted it immediately, never suspecting it was a lie.

Now that lie left them stuck. The land belonged to Adyr, so they needed Adyr’s permission to decide.

If Adyr allowed the Blood Path followers to approach the city, the dispute could end without another fight. If Adyr refused and demanded a battle, they would accept that too without hesitation, as long as the decision came from him.

While Liora and Zephan weighed what to do, a small drone flew toward them.

"What is that?" Arvyn watched the flying object with open curiosity, struck by how out of place it looked.

Kaelor, however, froze the moment he saw it. His bright crimson eyes locked onto the drone, shock flooding their glow as recognition hit him at once. "What is something like that doing here?"

He looked even more stunned than when he realized there was a Gemnarch in this region.

So stunned that he stared at the flying object for a full second before snapping his head toward Liora and Zephan, his voice suddenly soft and almost pleading. "Is there a Creator here?"