Meanwhile, on the other side.
Mirror-Shadow City.
After parting ways with Lin Gui and Eve...
Hannah flapped the bat wings behind her back, weaving at low altitude through the ruins of Mirror-Shadow City.
She made no deliberate attempt to hide her tracks.
Because she knew.
Those things had been watching her from the moment she stepped into this dead city.
They had already discovered her.
A dull throbbing sensation came from her chest.
She was not a soul mage, nor did she possess the relevant secret arts to perceive spirits.
Yet her intuition pricked at her like ice needles.
She herself had been firmly locked onto.
To return to the Voiceless Abyss, she had to force her way through.
She had to break the blockade of those fellows.
The surrounding ruins were terrifyingly silent.
Broken stone pillars and collapsed roof frames cast twisted, ghost-claw-like shadows in the dim light.
A sense of oppression far heavier than in other city-states weighed down on her head, nearly suffocating.
Hannah's red eyes sharply scanned every shadowy corner.
Her fingertips curled slightly, demon energy faintly swirling at her claw tips, ready to strike.
Just then.
Behind a broken wall to her side and rear, a dark shadow suddenly appeared!
Hannah spun around abruptly, her sharp claws about to slash out.
Yet in the next instant, she froze.
A familiar aura.
She forced her attack to a halt, allowing the dark shadow to close in.
The figure grabbed her wrist with a grip so strong it hurt.
Without a word, he dragged her along as he darted away.
Crossing several narrow alleys, he turned into a semi-collapsed building.
Finally, they ducked into a hidden basement entrance.
The moment they stepped into the dim underground space, the dark shadow released her and turned around.
It was Hugh.
Stains and dried bloodstains clung to his face, while suppressed anger boiled in his eyes.
“Are you insane?!”
His voice was kept extremely low, yet every word was gritted through his teeth.
“I covered the rear and held off those monsters for three whole days!”
“Just to get you out of here!”
He took a step forward, the corners of his eyes turning red.
“Do you have any idea how important you are?!”
“Do you know what price I paid... and you actually came back?!”
Hannah looked up, a flame burning equally bright in her red eyes.
“I won't abandon my family and flee alone!”
Her voice trembled, yet it was resolute and unyielding.
“If we die... we die together!”
Hugh was so angry that veins throbbed at his temples.
“Nonsense!”
“Do you want Avalon to be destroyed because of your sentimentality...”
“...Do you want it completely ruined?!”
Hannah sneered coldly, though her eyes were filled with sorrow.
“I’ve already handed the Demon King Pillar to that mage.”
“He will take it back to Avalon.”
She paused, her voice growing softer.
“As for the Demon King's blood, it will be transferred upon my death.”
“It will go over to Mors.”
Hugh froze.
“...Mage? What mage?”
Hannah turned her face away.
“That... little mage who was forced into it.”
Hugh was stunned for a long moment.
Only then did he speak up hesitantly:
“He... hasn't left yet?”
Right after that...
Hannah brought up how Lin Gui was opening post offices in Blackwater City and other city-states.
She mentioned that he had even started taking commissions to deliver letters and beads to ghosts.
Hugh's expression instantly became quite spectacular.
Delivering letters to ghosts... at the Wall of Sighs?
That little guy's business has already expanded to this extent?
Is he really that wild?
Hugh did know that quite a few specters drifted about these dead cities.
Before Lord Gusion became a Demon King, he was a top-tier soul mage among the Demon Race.
He had casually mentioned these “interesting neighbors” before.
However, Hugh had never expected...
...That the little mage would actually do business with them.
The tense argument between him and Hannah was diluted quite a bit by this news.
The atmosphere grew oddly strange.
Hugh rubbed his temples, forcibly suppressing the odd sensation in his heart, and looked at Hannah:
“But your coming back this time is purely suicidal.”
“The enemy's soul tracking isn't locked onto just me...”
“...It's locked onto you as well.”
Hannah's gaze remained calm:
“I didn't come back to die.”
“I came back to wait.”
“Wait for what?” Hugh asked.
“Wait for an opportunity.”
A sharp glint flashed in Hannah's red eyes:
“The fact that I haven't become a Demon King yet...”
“...Proves that Lord Gusion, Roger, and the others are still alive.”
“They must still be inside the Voiceless Abyss.”
She lowered her voice, yet every word was crystal clear:
“The two of us will join forces to pull out the 'sentries' guarding outside...”
“...And then use the soul mark scroll left behind by Lord Gusion...”
“...To guide their way!”
A sliver of hope ignited in her eyes:
“Maybe... we can rescue them.”
Pausing, cold intent surged in the depths of her eyes:
“And even if they really did die inside...”
“...I will still be able to advance to Demon King.”
She raised her hand, demon energy coiling around her fingertips.
“And then, I will avenge them.”
Hugh looked at the resolute killing intent in her eyes and remained silent for a long time.
Finally, he let out a sigh:
“It's useless.”
His voice was hoarse, laden with deep exhaustion:
“No one can walk out of the Voiceless Abyss.”
“Not even the Demon King's incarnation that dragged Lord Gusion in.”
“That place is His domain.”
He looked at Hannah, his gaze heavy:
“Souls... are His law.”
“A soul mark cannot possibly guide Lord Gusion and the others.”
“It will never show them the way back.”
Hugh's eyes dimmed completely.
“Besides, all the soul mark scrolls left by Lord Gusion are gone.
“I have used every single one of them up.”
“Not a single one lit up, not a single one connected.”
The Voiceless Abyss was like a natural dampening field.
It thoroughly severed all contact.
In his hands, not a single scroll remained.
Hannah's voice trembled, yet she stubbornly insisted:
“Then at least... help them clear the threats outside!”
“They will definitely come out!”
By the end of her words, her voice carried a trace of choking tears.
Hugh did not answer, merely pulling open his lapel slowly.
Revealing the gruesome, terrifying wound beneath.
The edges of the wound tinged with an eerie grayish-black.
The flesh looked as though eroded by something, refusing to heal.
He tugged at the corner of his mouth bitterly:
“I never thought that I, a grand Mid-tier Legendary assassin...”
“...Would be pushed to this point by two High-tier Transcendents.”
He coughed, blood foam overflowing from the corner of his mouth:
“146 times.”
“I killed them a full 146 times.”
“Yet even if they were reduced to a pile of minced meat...”
He raised his eyes, an unhideable horror filling his gaze:
“...They would still resurrect.”
“In ways I couldn't possibly imagine.”
Hugh coughed up another mouthful of blood.
The blood was dark and dull, faintly turning black.
He spoke raspily:
“That is not the rebirth of Vampires...”
“That is a kind of... law of immortality.”
“They are simply unkillable undead.”
He wiped the blood from his mouth, flashing a self-deprecating smile.
As a Legendary, he ought to have had protective qi guarding his body.
Ordinary Transcendents shouldn't have been able to touch even the hem of his robe.
Yet among those people, there was one who could control an entire Undead Knight Order.
Among them was even a Mid-tier Legendary knight.
The most terrifying part was that no matter how many times Hugh killed them,
...Burned their corpses to ash, or ground them to powder...
...They would return, completely unharmed.
They would reappear right in front of him.
In all his life, Hugh had never seen such enemies.
It was almost like a nightmare from which he could not awaken.
Hugh originally wanted to persuade Hannah to leave and break free from the tracking range of the soul mark.
Once Gusion fell, she would be able to advance to Demon King.
Relying on the soul affinity and concealment traits of the Eleventh Pillar Demon King, she could return to Avalon.
While he would remain here.
Pinning down the fellow who was tracking them.
Buying the final bits of time for Hannah.
Before the words could leave his mouth, his pupils contracted sharply—
The surrounding shadows were wrong.
It was too quiet.
So quiet it felt as though sound had been deliberately drained away by something.
Hugh moved.
Without even turning back, he whipped his arm backward.
A streak of dark light shot out from his sleeve, instantly penetrating the floorboards!
Pfft.
A dull sound of a blade biting into flesh echoed.
A knight dressed as a scout had just emerged halfway from beneath the floor,
...Only to have his skull pinned through by the flying blade, dying on the spot.
“Run!”
Hugh barked softly, grabbing Hannah's wrist in a firm grip.
With his other hand, he clawed at the air.
The scout's head exploded with a bang.
Dragging Hannah along, he burst through the back wall and shot out.
However, the exposure of their location had completely trapped them.
They had just rushed through two small alleys.
At the alley exit ahead, a row of pitch-black figures suddenly emerged.
Black-robed, masked, standing in dead silence.
An entire squad of knights blocked every path forward.
Every direction, every roof overhang, every shadowy corner...
...Was filled to the brim with silent killing intent.
Rate on N.U.
