Elias looked at the Thorn Cutlass wedged in the fish-man's chest cavity; he certainly hadn't expected this.
Who would have thought that after taking a trip inside the Gluttonous Stomach, this thing would actually have its underlying logic altered, no longer requiring human blood to be activated.
The cutlass was now like a power tool with its own built-in battery, relying entirely on its internally stored spirituality to forcibly generate thorns.
Well, not having to act like a vampire was a good thing anyway.
He was only slightly surprised, but his movements didn't falter for a second. He kicked away the fish-man's corpse, which had been skewered into a white cactus, and smoothly pulled out his cutlass.
“What are you standing there for?”
“Waiting for it to come back to life?”
He shouted at Bloodsong, who was standing there dazed, before turning and walking away.
The two of them ran across the slippery gravel toward the towering entrance of the lighthouse ahead.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, the fight was far more brutal.
Old Crowley and the Mist Veil Society cultist were locked in a fierce, back-and-forth exchange.
Under the collision of their transcendent powers, the dense fog was torn apart, creating patch after patch of vacuum zones.
The cultist's body twisted and glided through the rocks in a bizarre manner, his hands clawing continuously at the empty air.
Every time Crowley pulled the trigger, a slimy 【Screaming Flesh Wall】 would erupt from the ground like mad to block the deadly wind-pressure bullets.
“Boom!”
The wind-pressure bullet shredded another flesh wall to pieces, but this time, the remaining massive kinetic energy failed to reach the cultist.
Without warning, the ground split open.
A mutated fleshy maw lined with dense, backward-facing teeth and dripping with dark green slime opened wide from beneath the earth, swallowing the residual kinetic energy of the wind pressure in a single bite.
Old Crowley was currently using the 【Wind Control Spell】 to hover half a meter above the ground.
Floating off the ground like an old goshawk skimming the earth, he moved rapidly across the chaotic battlefield.
The moment he saw that massive mouth, the old man's eyes narrowed.
“【Abyssal Maw】...”
Crowley snorted coldly.
To put it simply, this thing was an unreasonable intercepting black hole.
It could swallow thrown objects, devour small enemies, and even gulp down the residual energy of offensive spells like snacks.
Trying to engage in a standard war of attrition would only serve to feed the opponent's spirituality.
The only way to break the deadlock was to attack the enemy's main body directly and relentlessly, and absolutely avoid using any spells with delayed damage.
During his high-speed movement, Crowley happened to pass by a sailor who was about to be killed by a fish-man.
Without even blinking, the old man thrust his empty left hand downward.
A blinding blue flash of electricity exploded in his palm.
It was an advanced version of Electric Claw.
The violent lightning transformed into several solid-looking claws, precisely tearing the tide fish-man into three segments.
The charred remains fell to the ground, and the scent of burnt fish instantly filled the air.
Then, he reached into his coat with his right hand and pulled out a spell scroll.
【Mental Barrier】.
This was a Scale Three spell of the Dawn Lady pathway.
If Elias were here right now, he would have recognized this spell as the one that had bought them a lot of time in the sewers of Hope County.
As Crowley began to channel the Mental Barrier, the cultist opposite him seized this opening.
“Die, old man! Taste this!”
The cultist howled, violently slamming a viscous black ball of flesh he had been frantically kneading in his hands into the dirt beneath his feet.
Black energy, like living tentacles, spread rapidly through the cracks in the soil.
“Roar—!!”
Instantly, the surrounding tide fish-men, who were already in the middle of a slaughter, swelled slightly in size.
Dark green veins of blood seeped from the gaps in their scales, and blood vessels bulged beneath their skin.
But the greatest impact was on their minds.
These beasts suddenly became extremely frenzied, their empty, dead fish eyes flooding with a crimson glow.
They had entered a full-blown mad dog state.
Completely disregarding their own defense, they opened their maws wide and recklessly attacked the sailors who had long been blinded by hallucinations.
Severed limbs and broken bones flew through the air.
In that very second, Old Crowley's Mental Barrier was finally cast successfully.
A halo of holy golden light violently rippled outward in a circle, with the old man at the center.
The halo swept across the battlefield.
The sailors, who had been happily waiting for death, shuddered violently.
The fog clouding their minds was brutally slapped away by the golden light.
Every surviving sailor on the field, along with Malcolm, snapped out of it immediately.
“Boys! Let's tear them apart!”
Waking up, Malcolm roared and delivered a close-range headbutt straight into a fish-man's face.
Seeing the corpses of their comrades littering the ground, the sailors' eyes turned completely red, and they let out furious roars as they threw themselves into a mad brawl.
The battlefield instantly turned into a meat grinder.
The Mist Veil Society cultist was clearly tactically minded.
He wanted to take advantage of the chaotic melee between the sailors and the fish-men to completely eliminate Old Crowley, his greatest threat.
“Don't think you're the only one who can fly!”
Somewhat exasperated, the cultist violently swung his hand toward the ground.
A sickening sound of squelching flesh echoed.
A flight of stairs made of mutated flesh erupted from the ground, extending upward segment by segment like a giant fleshy tongue.
He leaped onto the stairs, rising in height until he was level with Crowley in the air.
The cultist stared intently at the old man charging toward him, clenching and opening his hand.
Right in front of Crowley, space tore open like fragile paper, and a spirit world rift was ripped open on the spot.
However, this was no ordinary spirit world rift.
The edges of the rift were lined with sharp, pale bone teeth that contracted and expanded with a ravenous chill.
It was a biting spatial crack.
Seeing this, Crowley did not show the slightest hint of panic.
He didn't even blink. His body traced a sharp, inertia-defying angle in midair, changing direction to fly even higher.
The rift pursued him relentlessly, snapping at him.
Not only that.
The cultist sneered on the stairs. Reaching into the air, he instantly condensed several spinning bladed wheels composed of bone shards and negative spirituality.
Screaming as they sliced through the air, they were designed to cut off all of the old man's paths of retreat.
Yet Crowley had no desire to even dodge.
He even pocketed his flintlock pistol.
“Are you done playing, brat?”
The old man spoke coldly.
He simply made a clenching motion in the air with his empty left hand.
“Rumble—!!”
Countless thick, blue arcs of electricity roared and leaped wildly around the battlefield.
The violent lightning energy compressed frantically in Crowley's palm, ultimately solidifying into a massive lightning javelin.
That was by no means low-Scale transcendent power.
The aura of destruction gathered unreservedly in Crowley's hand. The blue javelin, forged purely of lightning, shone so brilliantly that it lit up nearly half the reef as if it were broad daylight.
“Die.”
Crowley's eyes turned sharp, and he threw his left arm forward with a violent swing!
Dragging countless tiny arcs of electricity, the lightning javelin shot directly toward the cultist!
Its speed was extreme; the naked eye could only capture a blue lightning serpent flashing across the sky.
The cultist clearly hadn't expected this old man to be so terrifyingly violent.
He had thought the bone-shard bladed wheels and the spirit world rift would at least force his opponent to dodge in panic.
Who could have known that the other party would be completely unbothered by his attacks!
“Damn it!”
In his haste, the madness on the cultist's face turned to pure terror.
Exerting every ounce of his strength, he frantically cast 【Screaming Flesh Wall】 in front of himself once again.
Several thick walls of corpse flesh rose from the ground.
At the same time, he squeezed out the very last drops of his remaining spirituality to condense a spiked flesh shield before his left hand.
“Blocking?”
Looking at the opponent's layered defensive posture, Old Crowley's lips curled into a mocking smirk.
Meanwhile,
the biting spirit world rift finally caught up to Crowley, slamming heavily against the 【Wind Wall】 surrounding him along with the black bladed wheels.
Clang, clang, clang!
The bladed wheels were instantly deflected by the Wind Wall's repulsive force.
However, that biting spirit world rift was indeed bizarre; it was not fully bound by physical laws.
Even though it was severely deformed by the wind, it continued to tear through the air, stubbornly lunging to bite Crowley.
But the battle had already been decided.
In the exact same second that the massive mouth was about to close,
the lightning javelin, carrying supreme destructive power, effortlessly pierced through those so-called 【Screaming Flesh Walls】.
Failing to slow it down for even a millisecond, the flesh walls were vaporized the instant they touched the lightning, without even letting out a scream.
Immediately after, the lightning javelin struck the flesh shield condensed by the cultist.
Unfortunately, before this absolute power, all of his defenses were as laughably flimsy as paper.
The flesh shield shattered instantly.
The violent blue light surged up his arm.
Along with half of the cultist's body, it was completely vaporized in an instant by the raging lightning.
Not a single drop of blood remained, leaving only a lingering trail of scorched white smoke in the air.
Old Crowley executed an elegant midair twist, narrowly dodging the massive spirit world mouth that had already partially closed.
With most of the cultist's body obliterated by the lightning,
this highly threatening evil spell suddenly lost all spiritual support. Along with the remaining bone shards, it dissolved instantly into the cold air.
The old man landed steadily on the ground and brushed the dust off his clothes.
“Pah, couldn't even take a single hit.”
...
At this moment, after overcoming numerous perils, Elias and Bloodsong finally made it inside the lighthouse.
The thunderous sounds outside were cut off by the thick stone walls, making the interior eerily quiet.
The air was thick with the scent of stale whale oil.
Elias tightly gripped the Thorn Cutlass in his hand and looked up the spiral staircase.
Aided by the cold moonlight filtering onto the landing platforms,
they finally laid eyes on the Firebearer of this place.
Hanging quietly at the turn of the stairs was a humanoid shape.
Of course,
if that thing could still be called a Firebearer.
Rate on N.U.
