Free Web NovelChapter 77: Chapter 77: The Silver Meat-Grinder
Chapter 77: The Silver Meat-Grinder
Three miles east of Patriarch Hennessey’s molten crater, the battlefield was completely different.
It was not a chaotic inferno. It was a terrifyingly calm, systematic deconstruction.
Elder Briggins stood in the center of a flattened clearing.
He was no longer wearing his midnight-blue robes. freewebnøvel.com
He had completely surrendered his physical form to his Level 210 power.
"[Edict of the Abyssal Juggernaut]."
Briggins had transformed into a colossal, fifteen-foot-tall walking fortress.
His body was encased in an impossibly thick, shifting suit of dark, organic demonic armor.
It pulsed with a sickening purple heartbeat.
The armor was designed with a terrifying singular purpose: absolute absorption.
It nullified all kinetic force and drank all magical impact.
He was the ultimate, indestructible tank.
"Is that a toy, Guildmaster?" Briggins’s voice echoed from deep within the hollow helmet, vibrating with demonic bass.
"You strike me, and you only feed my Edict! Your Vanguard is breaking. Your walls will fall. Lay down and accept the Eclipse! And I might show you mercy if you agree to be my woman. Let’s see if you’re worth it!"
Briggins lunged forward, swinging a fist the size of a carriage.
BOOM!
The punch hit the earth, instantly creating a fifty-foot crater and sending a shockwave of displaced air tearing through the fog.
But Guildmaster Seraphina Vance was not in the crater.
She was floating gracefully in the air, having stepped off the shockwave itself.
Her pristine silver coat billowed behind her.
Her face was a picture of absolute, terrifying serenity.
Seraphina was a fighter built for the long war.
Her stamina was bottomless, and her patience was limitless.
"You are very loud, Briggins," Seraphina said gently, her elegant voice carrying effortlessly over the din of battle.
"Volume is the weapon of those who have never mastered technique. They mistake excess for excellence and hope others will do the same."
"Come here and I’ll show you my Technique!" He roared.
She flicked her wrist.
The Silver Requiem in her hand did not look like a sword anymore.
With a pulse of her mana, the S-Rank blade fragmented into millions of microscopic, razor-sharp liquid-silver threads.
She landed gracefully on the edge of the crater.
SWISH!
Briggins swung again, a sweeping backhand meant to shatter her spine.
Seraphina didn’t block.
She danced.
She stepped forward, pivoting perfectly on her heel, her body contorting with impossible, liquid grace.
The massive demonic fist passed mere millimeters from her nose.
’This crafty bitch! How can she move with such elegance?! Is she mocking me right at this moment?!’
As she moved, the millions of silver threads trailed behind her, catching the dim light of the battlefield.
It was a mesmerizing, breathtaking sight.
With every elegant step she took, the silver threads wove into the air, pooling and forming the shape of beautiful, blooming icy lotuses.
She moved like a beautiful woman dancing in the sun, her lethal threads masquerading as a field of blooming silver flowers.
The sheer, overwhelming elegance of her swordsmanship was so captivating that even the feral beasts at the edge of the clearing stopped to stare.
"This dancing is pissing me off! Stop dancing and die!" Briggins roared, unleashing a relentless, brutish flurry of earth-shattering strikes.
CLANG! BOOM! CRASH!
Seraphina evaded every single strike. She did not break a sweat. She was in absolutely no rush.
"Your footwork is entirely unanchored," Seraphina critiqued politely, stepping through a gap in his guard and lightly tapping his chest plate with the hilt of her sword.
"You rely entirely on the thickness of your shell. You swing with your shoulders, not your hips. It is sloppy, Briggins. Truly sloppy. Do you think that meager shell can stop my attacks?"
"HAHA! Are you blind? My shell is absolute!" Briggins bellowed, stomping his foot.
"Your little silver strings haven’t even scratched my paint!"
"Oh, I am not trying to scratch your paint, darling," Seraphina smiled, a cold, chilling smile that finally made Briggins’s demonic heart skip a beat.
Briggins suddenly stopped swinging.
He tried to take a step forward, but his right leg didn’t move.
He tried to raise his arm, but his bicep spasmed violently, completely unresponsive.
"What... what is this?" Briggins gasped, his voice trembling inside his massive helm.
"My Silver Requiem is not a blunt instrument," Seraphina explained patiently, coming to a graceful halt amidst the field of hovering silver flowers.
"Did you think that I was just dodging to run away from your attacks? Every time you swung, every time you opened your guard, I wasn’t just dodging. I was weaving."
Briggins looked down. His indestructible demonic armor was completely intact.
There wasn’t a single crack on the exterior.
But threaded flawlessly through the microscopic seams of the armor’s joints, slipping through the gaps in the neck, the armpits, and the back of the knees, were millions of razor-sharp silver strings.
Seraphina had not fought his armor.
She had bypassed it.
The silver threads had slipped inside his colossal suit like water, wrapping tightly around every single muscle, tendon, ligament, and bone inside Briggins’s physical body.
"The measure of a fortress is not its walls, Briggins, but what those walls protect. Too many mistake appearance for strength," Seraphina whispered, raising her left hand.
"[Valor of the Silver Garden]."
Seraphina slowly closed her hand into a fist.
"PLEASE! STOP IT! SHOW MERCY! I SHALL BE YOUR SLAVE FOR LIFE! I BEG OF YOU!", he roared as he had seen a literal Incarnation of Death right in front of his eyes.
The millions of microscopic silver threads inside Briggins’s armor violently snapped taut, blooming into massive, internal icy flowers.
SHCK-SHCK-SHCK-SHCK!
"AAAGH! NO! MERCY!" Briggins shrieked in absolute, unimaginable agony.
The sound was horrifying.
The indestructible armor did not break, but the man inside was being systematically put through a high-speed meat grinder.
As Death approached, a huge sense of pain washed over him and he screamed his heart out until he gave up.
’Who would have thought that I would lose to a Woman?! A Woman, who is meant to serve the Men and is beneath me in all aspects. What a tragedy!’ he thought looking at certain death.
The silver lotuses sliced his tendons, severed his ligaments, and ground his bones into powder from the inside out.
The colossal, fifteen-foot-tall demonic tank swayed on its feet.
Blood, thick, black, and endless, began to pour out of the microscopic seams of the armor, flooding the dirt beneath him.
Seraphina released her grip.
THUD.
The massive suit of armor collapsed to its knees, and then fell face-first into the dirt. It looked entirely pristine from the outside.
But inside, Elder Briggins was nothing more than a puddle of severed flesh and shattered bone.
Seraphina Vance elegantly flicked her wrist.
The Silver Requiem retracted, the millions of threads snapping back into a single, flawless rapier.
There was not a single drop of blood on the blade.
She smoothly sheathed the sword at her hip.
She adjusted the cuffs of her pristine white coat, not breathing hard, her limitless stamina entirely unbothered by the Level 210 execution.
She turned her head, looking toward the dark horizon where the sky was trembling with the force of localized earthquakes.
’Two down,’ Seraphina thought calmly.
’Now, let us see if Helion has finished playing in the dirt.’
---
[A/N:
The Chapter Mess is Finally Fixed! (And a massive apology)
Hi everyone,
I am writing this with a huge sigh of relief, but also with a lot of embarrassment. The crazy Chapter mix-up has officially been fixed! The Chapters are finally in the right order, and you can read 77, 78, 79, and 80 exactly as they were meant to be read.
I truly want to pour my heart out and apologize for the absolute chaos I caused over the last day. When I realized I had uploaded the wrong text in the wrong slots and forced you all to solve a puzzle just to read the story, my heart absolutely sank. I know you spend your hard-earned coins and your precious time on my work, and the last thing I ever want to do is make reading a frustrating experience for you.
Thank you so, so much for sticking by me through this. Your patience, your understanding, and your continued support mean the absolute world to me. I was totally panicking behind the screen, but seeing you all bear with my mistakes reminded me exactly why I love writing for this community so much.
I promise I will double-check and triple-check my files before hitting publish from now on. I will never let a mess like this happen again!
Thank you for giving me so much grace, and I hope you enjoy the actual Chapters now!
And A massive thanks to my Editor who helped me solve this chaos!
With so much love and gratitude, Scarlett_Whisper.]
