Ch.164Feeding Trough

The gathered flesh attempted to form a crude human shape. Two unstable legs standing on the ground kept collapsing, but more flesh rushed in from the surroundings to fill the gaps.

“That energy! Are you the Death Dragon King?!”

Elder shouted. She was addressing the knight who had instantly appeared before her. His peculiar hair, a mix of black and white, fluttered slowly in the wind. If Elder had sensed only pure death energy from Karnok, she wouldn’t have asked the question.

The reason she sought confirmation was because of the subtle moonlight mana intermingled with the death energy Karnok was emitting.

Slash!

The answer came immediately. Karnok’s response was a sword strike infused with mixed energies. Elder blocked the attack with a massive lump of flesh and shouted:

“Haha! Your soul has been partially mixed!”

Karnok raised the corner of his mouth at Elder’s declaration. She was half right and half wrong. Indeed, Karnok’s soul had been influenced by the Death Dragon King’s soul. However, he had only taken the king’s power.

As the leader of the Blue Wing, using techniques from reincarnators felt somewhat uncomfortable, but what did it matter? This was war. He needed to utilize everything at his disposal.

Before Karnok could launch his second attack, Blue Wing members—except for Sei-erin—quickly descended beside him. As soon as they landed, they raised their swords and charged toward the massive flesh creature.

“Focus only on attacking!”

Karnok, the leader of Blue Wing, shouted. The members followed his order. They ignored the massive chunks of flesh hurling toward them and simply charged forward.

At that moment, just before a massive mass could fall upon the Blue Wing members, a wave of pure white bones surged up from the ground, catching the flesh mass.

Boom!

“What…!”

“Basic necromancy!”

Karnok shouted while forming hand seals. His voice, infused with death energy, sounded ominous like the Death Dragon King’s. Karnok’s necromancy didn’t stop there.

The basic necromantic art of using the bones of the dead to construct desired structures had countless applications. If the caster’s mana permitted, even creating a massive castle wasn’t impossible.

Karnok poured a portion of his vast mana into the battlefield.

Whoosh!

The mana emanating from his body seeped into the ground, immediately pulling white bones up to the surface. The emerging bones formed a bridge advancing toward the giant flesh creature.

He had opened a path for the Blue Wing members.

“Keep running!”

Clatter! As Karnok roared, the bone bridge transformed into a rounded tunnel. He had altered its shape to defend against external attacks.

The bone passage extended all the way to the arm of the giant flesh creature, and the Blue Wing members who emerged from it unleashed their attacks. The giant was made from the flesh of humans and monsters. Lacking any hard outer shell, massive chunks of flesh flew off with each sword swing.

It took only a moment to sever an entire arm.

Karnok raised one hand toward the massive chunk of flesh falling down. As the connected body part fell, it escaped Elder’s control. Karnok didn’t miss that moment.

Grip!

The moment his bony hand clutched the air, the falling mass of flesh began to swell, then exploded with a massive shockwave.

BOOM!

Corpse explosion.

Although Karnok had absorbed the Death Dragon King’s power, he was limited to such basic necromancy. However, due to his enormous mana reserves, the scale of his spells rivaled high-tier necromancy.

“This is impossible…!”

Elder’s expression instantly contorted. Her plan to summon a long-forgotten nameless demon using numerous corpses as sacrifices had been successful, but she hadn’t accounted for a necromancer among her opponents—a critical oversight.

Elder frantically stretched out her hand. The released vast amount of mana quickly gathered more corpses. Blood and flesh absorbed through the legs stuck to the ground rapidly restored the giant’s arm.

She needed a bit more time for it to fully awaken. Elder looked up at the sky and formed hand seals. The source of her power was a one-sided contract with numerous ancient monstrosities.

Elder ultimately had to release part of that power.

Rumble!

Dark clouds gathered in the previously clear sky. A large eyeball blinked in the empty air, revealing its presence.

Suddenly, the space above rippled unnaturally, and a small girl emerged. Everyone looking up at the sky gaped at the appearance of the girl surrounded by a mystical aura.

“Sei-erin…?”

One of the Blue Wing members uttered the girl’s name.

Sei-erin quickly surveyed her surroundings as she fell from the sky. The spatial coordinates of her magical teleportation had been slightly off, causing her to appear in the sky, but it wasn’t a major issue.

“Brother, that’s a big eye.”

“I know.”

Perhaps due to absorbing the Void Lord? Sei-erin could tell that Sei-ran’s soul and consciousness had grown stronger. Given that they could converse without absorbing divine power, it seemed her brother was continuing to grow as well.

The moment Sei-erin’s gaze recognized the massive eye in the void, her falling posture changed. No one had perceived her drawing her sword.

The next moment, Sei-erin was holding her drawn sword.

Swoosh!

The sound followed belatedly. The extended slash cut through the eye that had appeared in the void. The massive eye couldn’t even scream. The bright yellow eyeball split with a crack, and blood poured out from within.

“Haha!”

Elder, watching the scene, laughed out loud. The massive eye being torn and blood pouring out—that was exactly what Elder had wanted. But her laughter vanished in the next moment.

After recovering from her sword-drawing stance, Sei-erin stretched her hand toward the void. A dark shadow shot out, taking the form of a dragon, and drank all the falling blood.

“What kind of monstrous…”

The dark dragon form summoned by Sei-erin didn’t stop at drinking the blood. It moved quickly, raised its head, and began charging toward the remaining eye in the void.

Watching this scene, Elder hastily closed the sub-space. As the massive eye disappeared, the dark dragon form extending into the void also faded away.

“Sei-erin! I need your support! The rest of you, cut off the path of the flowing corpses!”

It was the leader’s order. Sei-erin floated one sword in the air and stood on it. Then she drew her Void-Breaking Sword. The other members also moved busily.

They spread out in all directions, pouring sword strikes onto the paths where flesh was flowing. They couldn’t completely block the flesh from being absorbed by the giant, but they could temporarily slow its pace.

Right after, the full-scale battle between Karnok and Elder began. The collision of powers emitted massive shockwaves. The ground overturned, and waves of blood and sand mixed together spread in all directions.

Meanwhile, Sei-erin’s role was long-range bombardment against the strange creatures Elder summoned. The hundred swords Sei-erin called forth shot rapidly, driving back massive bodies trying to appear from the void into the sub-space.

‘I need more swords…’

If swords were lacking, she could replenish them on the spot. The devastating battlefield was littered with countless masterless weapons.

Sei-erin took a deep breath and spread her mana as widely as possible. With a high-pitched spinning sound, starlight spread across the battlefield, and masterless swords rose into the air.

There were nearly a thousand of them.

The thousand swords gathered in one place, forming a shape. It resembled a dragon from mythology. Then, Sei-ran released his power. A different kind of energy, unlike mana, was directed at the sword dragon Sei-erin had created.

The power covering the sword dragon used its body as a medium to create an unstable dragon form. A dark dragon covered in black scales appeared.

At that moment, Sei-erin realized that Sei-ran’s sensation was overlapping with her left hand. Their desires aligned. The two moved their bodies simultaneously.

From left to right.

As the small girl’s hand moved, the dark dragon roared and shot forward like a beam of light. The sub-space passages Elder had summoned collapsed in the dragon’s wake.

A straight line.

That was the direction the dark dragon flew. Above the head of the giant flesh creature, Elder’s form was struck by the dark dragon and sent flying. Right after, Karnok’s slash completely split the giant flesh creature.

Slash!

The dark dragon that had swallowed Elder crashed into the ground and shattered. A thousand swords rained down, embedding themselves in the ground, forming layers. The sight resembled a tomb made of swords.

Between the swords, Elder, her body pierced through, barely raised her head while coughing blood.

Karnok approached her.

Elder’s lips quivered, but no voice came out. The swords piercing her entire body had damaged all her organs except her head.

Elder’s dim gaze looked up at the sky. A faint smile formed on her lips.

“That’s an unpleasant smile…”

Frowning, Karnok reached out and ripped off Elder’s head.