“Resurrection?” Morai's eyes suddenly regained their color as she stared incredulously at the unharmed Buze.
Her brain stalled. She could not understand how a top tier mage could possess a god defying skill like resurrection, which involved divine power.
It was completely beyond her imagination.
“But what is the point of that?”
The next second, the shock on Duoze's face shifted into mockery.
“Even if a top tier mage can resurrect countless times, so what? Forget stopping a god's descent—you can't even get past me. You can't do anything, and you can't change anything.”
He looked extremely confident, as if the game's outcome was already decided. He was like a gambler waiting for the final chips, watching the losers' powerless expressions with a gloating smile.
Buze tried to argue, but a pair of cold ice blades suddenly pierced through him from behind. His expression went blank before he could even react. Heart wrenching pain shot from his nerves to his brain, and then his body was torn into countless fragments.
The frost crystal soldier stood there. Amidst the rain of blood and organs, its indifferent red eyes stared coldly at Morai.
“The weak should know their place. Why seek pain over and over again just to make yourself miserable?” Duoze stepped forward, crushing a writhing pile of flesh on the ground.
He glanced at the other pieces of flesh squirming on the floor. They were like conscious entities, struggling to merge back into a whole.
But Duoze only found it funny.
He gave the frost crystal soldier a look. Understanding the command, the soldier swung its sharp blades, slicing the reforming mass of flesh into even smaller pieces.
As the flesh tried to gather and merge again and again, the frost crystal soldier cut it apart every single time.
“See? Even with infinite resurrection, the weak are meaningless. Reality is cruel. Things without value or meaning should not exist,” Duoze said, glancing at Morai.
“Enough!” Morai screamed frantically and charged at Duoze.
But it was merely the powerless, incompetent resistance of a weakling driven into a corner.
With a casual wave of his hand, Duoze's attack, laden with black mana, completely crushed Morai's resistance. Her sword flew high into the air before hitting the ground with a sharp metallic clang.
Morai was pinned under Duoze's foot. His face was filled with extreme mockery and ridicule.
“Look at that pretty face. How miserable you look now. If it weren't for Moen, I would really like to... Heh.” His smile was so disgusting that Morai wanted to spit in his face.
But she could not. Pinned under his foot, she had lost all ability to resist.
On the other side, Buze's flesh had been shredded by the frost crystal soldier countless times. His resurrection was always within reach, yet remained agonizingly distant.
She had failed.
Failed completely.
She could not complete her missions back in the cult, and even now, having turned over a new leaf, she had failed to stop these people.
It seemed her life was always intertwined with failure.
She clenched her fists, but as tears of frustration fell, she let go in resignation.
In the distance, a beam of magic light pierced through the thick black clouds, creating ripples. A massive black storm swirled in the sky like a vortex.
The earth shaking sound drew Duoze's attention.
The magic light seemed to take on a life of its own, slowly pulling open like a gateway.
A chilling aura emanated from within and continued to spread.
A terrifying existence was about to be born!
A smile spread across Duoze's face, and he laughed excitedly. “Haha! Do you see it? Do you see it!?”
“The abyss! Those are the gates of the abyss!”
“The gates of the abyss have opened! No one can stop that one's descent!”
“The history of this world ends here!”
He laughed manically. In this moment, he was nothing but a devout believer.
Morai looked up. That single glance chilled her to the core, leaving her with nothing but endless despair.
“A New Era begins at this very...” Duoze sounded like a priest reciting scripture in a cathedral, but before he could finish his prayer, a louder, more deafening sound erupted. He froze.
Sensing something, he looked back at the massive gate of the abyss stretching from the ground to the sky. The two sides of the opening magic light seemed to hit some form of resistance, stalling there, unable to move!
“What?” Duoze's face turned pale. An ill omen surged in his heart.
He knew something had gone wrong on Alesta's end!
But how was that possible?
The closer one got to the abyss, the more severe the corruption from the god became. No one should be able to reach that place in a human body!
Even Alesta could only stay safe by wearing a specialized biohazard suit.
Furthermore, he had been guarding the area near Axi Town to ensure no one approached. How could someone suddenly appear there?
Could someone have appeared in Axi Town out of thin air?
“Alesta, what's the situation on your end? Alesta, answer me! What exactly is going on!”
Duoze immediately opened the gray screen for communication, his tone angry and urgent.
But there was no answer from the other side.
Duoze's heart sank, and his anxiety grew.
“Alesta! Answer me! Alesta!”
“...Who are you?”
Finally, a response came from the other side of the gray screen, but...
Duoze stiffened. The voice coming from the other side... was a female voice he had never heard before!
The moment that female voice appeared, Morai, who had been lying on the ground like a lifeless corpse, suddenly regained her spirit. She murmured in disbelief, “Grinya?”
“Who are you? Where is Alesta?” Duoze demanded angrily.
There was a long silence on the other side. Then, the person spoke in a strained, difficult voice, as if gritting her teeth. “Shut up! I'm in no mood to chat with you. That gate... I'm going to close that gate!”
“You're the one stopping the gates of the abyss from opening!?”
Duoze's expression changed drastically upon hearing this. His voice spiked with sudden horror.
“Are you joking? That's the gate of the abyss! How could you possibly close it? How could a human body of flesh and blood withstand that kind of pressure!” He screamed at the gray screen as if his composure had shattered.
But he was only using his loud voice to mask the fear in his heart.
He knew exactly how terrifyingly significant it was to block the abyss with a mortal body.
In a sense, this act was even more horrifying than Buze's infinite resurrection.
Because it was simply not something a human could do!
The moment a normal person touched the abyss, even if they didn't immediately mutate into an abyss monster, they would have to endure the agony of their flesh constantly twisting and distorting.
That kind of pain was ten thousand times worse than death!
How could anyone endure that level of pain and still try to close the gate?
But there was no more response from the gray screen.
In the distance, the half opened gateway of the abyss remained stalled, as if it had been completely frozen in time.
Duoze's expression was now uglier than if he had swallowed filth.
Rate on N.U.
