Free Web NovelChapter 322: Chapter 310: Chaos
The viscous, living Darkness gushed from the breach in the Armor. Rather than dissipating, it multiplied, twisted, and expanded with unnatural speed, devouring the surrounding light and air in an instant.
It shrieked and writhed as if it had a will of its own, coalescing into a suffocating and terrifying presence.
KRAK... KRAK-KRAK... BOOM!
The ear-piercing screech of tearing metal reached its peak. The Armor on the dark figure’s upper body could no longer contain the wildly surging Energy within and abruptly shattered into countless fragments.
The fragments scattered like deadly shrapnel, instantly slicing a dozen nearby soldiers in half at the waist before they could react.
Exposed to the air was a horrifying core of pure Darkness, constantly writhing and deforming.
As everyone watched in horror, a massive, twisted, and indescribable form built entirely of Abyssal Energy completely replaced the armored Knight.
It appeared to be cobbled together from countless roiling Shadow tentacles and thousands upon thousands of venom-filled eyes. Each eye swiveled erratically, radiating a blasphemous aura powerful enough to break one’s mind.
Merely looking at it made one feel their sanity rapidly evaporating.
SKREEEEEEAAAH!
An inhuman shriek erupted from its formless "head." It wasn’t a sound, but a shockwave that tore directly at the soul.
Dozens of the closest soldiers immediately began bleeding from their eyes, ears, and noses, collapsing to the ground with vacant stares. Their minds had been utterly shattered.
Then, the dark monster began a most primal and savage slaughter.
A Shadow tentacle as thick as a water cistern whipped out, screaming as it tore through the air. Moving faster than the naked eye could follow, it swept across the entire Golden Valley infantry phalanx.
SQUELCH! SQUELCH! SQUELCH!
A hair-raising series of sounds—of flesh and bone being torn asunder—erupted like a sudden storm.
Three entire squads—over a hundred Golden Valley Soldiers—were turned into a sky-blotting rain of gore before they even had a chance to raise their Shields.
Shattered organs, severed limbs, and twisted fragments of armor rained down, staining the surrounding earth a horrifying crimson.
Another Shadow tentacle shot into the melee like a venomous python, precisely coiling around seven or eight Golden Valley spearmen.
The Abyssal Energy corroded their Armor and flesh like a potent acid, accompanied by a sickening sizzle.
The soldiers let out the most agonizing screams as their bodies deformed and dissolved like melting wax, leaving not even a single bone behind.
The third wave of attacks followed immediately.
The thousands of malevolent eyes on the monster’s body flashed simultaneously, firing off innumerable thin beams of Darkness.
Like living vipers, the rays automatically tracked the soldiers as they scattered and fled.
Whether they hid behind Shields or threw themselves to the ground, any soldier touched by a ray was immediately lifted into the air, convulsing. Their flesh withered away at a visible rate, until they were nothing but mummified corpses encased in Armor.
Chaos was no longer sufficient to describe the state of the battlefield.
This was an out-and-out massacre.
The soldiers of the Golden Valley Kingdom completely broke.
They dropped their weapons, shoved their comrades aside, and fled in a mad panic, letting out inhuman shrieks.
The hoarse shouts of the officers were drowned out by a tidal wave of Fear. Any attempt to organize a resistance was instantly swallowed by the Darkness.
The students of the River Domain were also attacked indiscriminately. The monster clearly didn’t distinguish between friend and foe; it left only death and silence in its wake.
In a flash, more than half the Golden Valley Kingdom’s soldiers had been reduced to mangled corpses. The entire frontline was a bloody, empty space, as if it had been devoured by some invisible behemoth.
And still the dark creation continued to expand, its writhing tentacles and glittering eyes greedily thirsting for more life, as if it sought to drag the entire battlefield into a bottomless Abyss.
"Haha... Hahahaha! Do you see that?"
Auston, who had been pale with panic after Roland defeated Leonard, saw the dark figure’s transformation. In an instant, his terror was replaced by a morbid, almost delirious ecstasy.
As if clutching at his last hope, he began to cackle hoarsely.
"You damned fisherman! This is the Power of the Supreme Secret Technique, painstakingly developed by His Grace, Duke Anno! This is true... AARGH!"
His venomous, triumphant crowing came to an abrupt end.
A dark tentacle, having just torn a Golden Valley Soldier to pieces, seemed drawn by his voice—or perhaps it was following a predetermined directive of Destruction. It whipped around at a speed the eye could not follow and, like the sharpest of Shadow spears, instantly impaled him through the chest.
The ecstasy on Auston’s face froze, twisting into an expression of utter shock and disbelief.
He struggled to look down at the tentacle of pure Abyssal Energy protruding from his chest, feeling his life force drain away at an unprecedented speed.
"Why...?"
A broken rattle escaped his throat. His eyes filled with fierce indignation, incomprehensible panic, and... a bone-deep hatred for the figure far away in the Royal Capital.
’He suddenly understood. He understood everything.’
’This wasn’t reinforcements, nor was it some trump card.’
’From the very beginning, Duke Anno never intended for anyone to leave this wilderness alive.’
’Not him, not Leonard, not any of the soldiers here...’
’They were all disposable pawns, meant to be eliminated to ensure that what happened here would never be revealed.’
Endless regret and the encroaching Darkness swallowed his last shred of consciousness.
In the end, this noble Count, just like the "lowly fishermen" he so despised, became another corpse, rapidly growing cold and carelessly cast aside.
He lay in the filthy mud, forgotten by all.
"Hey! Teresa!"
Galvis’s fingers slammed down on his instrument’s strings, and the music screeched to a halt.
He watched as the black tentacles, slashed to pieces by a sharp sword glint, wriggled and fused back together as if alive. He swallowed hard.
"This damned thing... is way beyond what we can handle."
He dodged a lightning-fast black thrust, his voice thick with undisguised terror as he yelled again.
"Let’s grab Roland and get out of here before it locks onto us!"
Teresa’s breathing was heavy and ragged, her chest rising and falling violently.
Her knuckles were white from how tightly she gripped her foil hilt. Her gaze was fixed on the dark figure in the distance, still expanding and radiating a sinister aura, her brow deeply furrowed.
"Normal attacks are useless. The tentacles regenerate the instant you cut them, and..."
Teresa moved lightly on her feet, narrowly dodging a black tentacle that erupted from the ground like a sharp blade.
Splintered rock flew past, grazing her cheek.
She seized the opening to thrust with her foil again, but it was still useless.
"’Its Power is astonishing, and its speed is absurd. This thing is just...’"
Before she could finish the thought, the dark figure seemed to grow enraged that its repeated attacks had failed to kill its prey.
The next moment, the Dark Energy around the figure began to boil as it let out a piercing shriek.
Several tentacles covered in sharp protrusions shot out with a terrifying speed that dwarfed their previous movements. They converged on her from all angles like vipers from the Abyss, intent on crushing her.
"Look out!"
Galvis’s shout tore through the air, but it was too late.
Teresa’s pupils constricted.
’Its speed had increased again.’
In her eyes, the dark, air-rending blades became an inescapable web of death.
’It was hard enough to fend them off before, but now she could barely even track their movements.’
Icy despair coiled around her heart like a vine, freezing it solid.
She tried to raise her foil, but she knew it was a futile gesture.
As she watched the tentacles rapidly fill her vision, each one brimming with absolute destructive Power, a clear flicker of hopeless despair appeared in her normally detached eyes for the first time.
Death was upon her.
Just as the black tentacles, imbued with the power of Destruction, were about to engulf Teresa...
Time seemed to stand still.
An intangible will—as searing as a furnace, as unyielding as bedrock—ignored the bounds of space and descended with thunderous force.
Teresa’s vision blurred, and a figure was already standing before her, an unmoving bastion.
The newcomer moved faster than the eye could see, as if stepping directly out of the Void.
It was Roland.
Facing the sky-blotting web of deadly tentacles, he showed no signs of retreat. He simply, with near-absolute precision, swung his sword.
VMMMM!
Where the blade passed, space itself seemed to hum under the strain.
The black tentacles, which could tear through steel with ease, shattered like brittle glass the moment they touched the blade. They disintegrated, turning into black ash that scattered into the air in complete Annihilation.
But it wasn’t over.
In the same instant he blocked the attack, an even more immense wave of Spiritual Power, born from Roland’s indomitable will, erupted from him. It took the form of an invisible, furious storm, spreading outward in all directions.
[Oath Guardian]!
The remaining black tentacles, still writhing and preparing to strike again, and even the malevolent Abyssal Creatures farther away, were all struck as if by an invisible hammer. They let out a chorus of shrill screams as they were violently forced back, stunned.
The weaker ones among them even disintegrated directly into the Void under the pure Spiritual Shock.
This single, absolute act of protection tore an opening through the deadly crisis.
As the dust settled, Roland stood proudly. The faint golden light flowing across the Secret Silver Longsword in his hand glowed brilliantly, like a Flame in the Darkness.
