Chapter 395: Lightning Didn’t Fall From the Sky (14)

Once known as the Witherarch and now expected to be called the Goldenarch—though that was still uncertain—Peru, just Peru, trembled at the horrors unfolding before her.

Value was collapsing in front of her eyes.

The principle of value that once brought her joy, despair, and ultimately became her faith was now heralding tragedy.

The Thunder Guardians were losing their lives like Alchemic Steel engulfed in Wither.

“…No.”

Dozens were already dead.

Over a hundred were wounded, all spilling blood from wounds that refused to heal.

At this rate, the number of casualties and deaths would soon equalize, turning into a grim statistic realized in reality.

“…This can’t… be happening.”

A corpse holds no value compared to a living human, for life is what makes one human.

A simple equation, yet one so absolute that it left no room for doubt or evasion.

Though the appearance of the vampires had bought her a brief chance to escape, Peru chose to use that precious time for the value she believed in.

Staggering, she forced herself to her feet.

Compared to the vampires, her form was fragile—pitiful, even—but Peru didn’t care.

With trembling hands, she did what she could.

Gripping the Golden Bell tightly, she poured all her sincerity into it and rang it.

“…Oh, Golden Lord.”

A small chime rang, and the bell answered her will.

Lunken was in the midst of his battle against the Juggernaut.

And he was winning.

The machine had come to a complete halt while its front wheels, which had been grinding down on him moments ago, were now slightly lifted off the ground, spinning helplessly in the air.

Lunken, now brimming with confidence, roared.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha! Light as a feather—!”

Blood surged violently through his veins.

His powerful hind legs swelled like those of a beast.

For an ordinary human, such a physical state would be a signal of imminent death, but for Lunken—who had already died once—it was proof of his life.

The closer he came to death, the more vividly he reclaimed his vitality.

A true berserker.

Bloody Lunken, drenched in his own gore, shoved the Juggernaut away.

The massive chunk of metal, as heavy as a mountain, defied gravity.

He was literally uprooting a mountain, shaking the heavens and earth with his raw power.

The Thunder Guardians screamed.

The pinnacle of alchemical engineering—the Juggernaut, powered by the thunder of Claudia—was being overwhelmed by a single Elder.

With it, their faith was on the verge of collapse.

Feeding on their terror and screams like a fine delicacy, Lunken took another step forward…

But then, he heard a tiny bell chime.

A foreign sound amidst the chaotic battlefield, just for a fleeting moment.

The Juggernaut roared to life.

Every Juggernaut was a creation of the Golden Lord, the apex of alchemy, drawing out the full potential of a Primarch’s Unique Magic.

The original master was long dead, and though his legacy had been repurposed, the Thunder Guardians could barely utilize thirty percent of its true capabilities.

But the Divine of Alchemy, the Golden Lord, could manifest their Unique Magic fully.

It was not about using the dead Primarch’s Unique Magic—it was about perfectly recreating its function and power through alchemy.

The Divine of Alchemy made the impossible possible.

The Juggernaut’s heart, which had died along with its former master, began to beat once more. It moved of its own will, startling the Thunder Guardians.

But not nearly as much as it shocked Lunken.

The Juggernaut, which had been rolling on wheels, suddenly stretched like a caterpillar and crushed Lunken beneath its mass.

Blood splattered beneath the iron beast.

At the same time, Kavila was sent sprawling.

She had been lounging atop a Dragonfang Puppet, watching the slaughter unfold like an elegant conductor.

As she sipped from her goblet of blood, the very creature supporting her suddenly vanished.

Unlike Lunken, her fall wasn’t due to raw force but rather a force unknown—something had erased her Dragonfang Puppets.

Kavila felt the weight of gravity and crashed to the ground.

She landed hard on her rear, her face contorting in stunned disbelief.

She hadn’t withdrawn her power—so who, from such a distance, had destroyed her Dragonfang Puppets? She wasn’t wary of some unknown force.

No.

“I… fell?”

Enraged at the sheer indignity of it, Kavila glared around wildly.

Her Dragonfang Puppets were crumbling into dust, while the Thunder Guardians, emboldened by something, roared and charged at her.

But the rabble was beneath her notice.

Her mana-sensitive senses locked onto the source of the disturbance—Peru.

Peru, holding the Golden Bell, was the catalyst of all these changes.

Realizing this, Kavila stretched out her arms and shrieked.

“You—! For ruining my beautiful minions, I’ll squeeze your blood dry and use it to refill them!”

She clapped her hands together.

The Thunder Guardians charging at her were suddenly engulfed in an explosion of bone fragments and blood scattered across the battlefield.

Hundreds of jagged shards shot out, seeking to pierce human flesh.

But the shards lost their momentum and shattered weakly mid-flight, their force diminished.

The power of Wither gnawed even at the force behind the explosion.

The shards failed to breach the Thunder Guardians’ rebounding Qi Deflections and were deflected harmlessly.

“Argh! So annoying!”

Kavila stomped her foot like a tantruming child, but her instincts were razor-sharp.

She quickly assessed the situation.

She didn’t know exactly what force was at play, but it wasn’t just her Dragonfang Puppets—spears held by the Thunder Guardians were also deteriorating.

That power was not aimed at all, it was an indiscriminate force of destruction.

Kavila assumed it was some kind of weapon-nullifying power, and that wasn’t an unreasonable guess.

That meant there was an easy countermeasure—attack with her body directly.

But Kavila loathed moving herself.

Instead, she turned to Lunken and shouted.

“Lunken! I finally found a use for you! Get that wench!”

“Interfering in a fight is dishonorable—!”

Lunken, who had barely crawled out from under the Juggernaut, turned his bloodshot eyes toward his new target and charged.

The Juggernaut desperately tried to chase after him, but it was too slow.

The only reason Lunken had struggled in the first place was because he had been foolishly engaging in a contest of strength.

In a direct sprint, with a body hundreds of times lighter, the Juggernaut couldn’t keep up.

In the blink of an eye, he was nearly upon Peru.

Peru gasped sharply in fear.

“Witherarch…!”

A Thunder Guardian stepped forward to shield her.

It was a desperate, instinctive move—they knew that Peru’s power was the only path to salvation.

It was ironic that this realization led to their own suicidal actions.

The Thunder Guardian thrust their spear at Lunken.

Yet it was proven to be nothing more than a feeble resistance.

Lunken sneered and didn’t even attempt to dodge.

Whether the spear hit or not didn’t matter—he would simply trample both Peru and the Guardian in an instant.

If there was no interference from the side.

Lunken was immediately struck down.

A mysterious assailant landed a crushing blow to his side, twisting his body violently.

But the attack didn’t stop there—the assailant pressed further, sending Lunken’s massive form hurtling away.

As he tumbled through the air, the assailant sank its teeth into Lunken’s shoulder and began thrashing him back and forth—just like a beast would.

“Hnnngh!”

Even while being flipped upside down and disoriented, Lunken clenched his fist.

His thick arm lashed out, hammering the assailant’s abdomen twice with tremendous force.

But when the grip on his shoulder refused to loosen, he made a brutal decision—grabbing onto the assailant’s leg, he ripped his own shoulder apart and slammed his opponent down.

With a resounding crash, the attacker hit the ground with its back, yelping in pain.

What immediately caught his attention were the pointed ears.

Then he noticed a tail distinctly different from a human’s.

A canine beastkin.

But that only raised more questions.

What kind of canine beastkin could treat Lunken—the strongest boar beastkin, an Elder, and the terror of mankind—like a mere plaything?

Lunken’s eyes widened as he finally got a proper look at his assailant.

Instinctively, he understood who it was.

Recognizing his opponent, he let out a thrilled roar.

“The King of Dogs—!”

Azzy spat out the vampire blood with disgust and howled.

“Awooooooo—!”

“You are my match, then! GOOD—! This is how it should be—!”

All beastkin were the descendants of the King of Beasts, creations of a long-forgotten sin wrought by the ruler of the beastkin, Muhu Agartha.

The reason all beastkin felt an inexplicable longing toward the King of Beasts was because their roots were intertwined.

But Lunken felt no such sentiment.

His blood had long since undergone an irreversible transformation.

Raising his bloodlust, he bellowed at Azzy.

“YOU ARE NOT MY KING—!”

“Woof! Grrrrrr!”

Azzy snarled in response, baring her fangs aggressively.

She had ignored the battles between humans, unwilling to harm them.

But vampires?

She held them to a harsher standard.

Perhaps it was because they were unnatural, or because no matter how much damage they took, they refused to break.

But because she loved all humans, the King of Dogs had joined the battle to stop the tragedy of human lives being lost.

Azzy and Lunken tore through their surroundings as they fought.

Every impact between their bodies echoed like the pounding of a war drum.

When Azzy bit into Lunken’s limbs, gnawing and cracking his bones, Lunken retaliated by driving his fist into her skull.

When Azzy pinned him down and tried to rip him apart with her claws, Lunken’s freshly regenerated arms struck her flank, sending her flying.

Drenched in blood, the two clashed again, their savage roars and violent instincts raging like a storm.

If Lunken had been just a little bit smarter—or a little bit more cowardly—the fight would have ended quickly.

He only needed to grab any nearby human and use them as a shield, and Azzy would have been powerless.

But Lunken fought stupidly, insisting on a battle of brute force, as if the act of fighting itself was a divine blessing.

Crimson Duke Valdamir understood the situation, but he did not interfere.

Elders were equals.

Just as all children were the same in the eyes of their parents, those who had received the Primordial Essence directly from the Progenitor were peers, regardless of the order in which they were turned.

This was Lunken’s fight—his life and his death.Valdamir respected that.

Instead, he turned back to the Thunderarch, still struggling in his hand, and asked.

“The King of Dogs. A pitiful creature, powerless the moment a human is used as a shield. Surely this isn’t your only move. What else have you prepared?”

[Huff… I will not… answer to a mere… vampire…!!]

“A pointless question, then.”

There was no need to ask further. If she had something planned, it would reveal itself the moment she tried to kill him.

If no countermeasure appeared and she simply perished, then so be it.

Valdamir immediately acted on his decision.

Like a butcher slaughtering a chicken, he gripped the Thunderarch’s neck tightly and raised his greatsword with the other hand, ready to cleave her in half.

“Skyblade Art—Thunderclap Strike!”

A bolt of lightning fell.

It was the power harvested from the Thunder God, striking down upon both the Thunderarch and Valdamir alike.

For her, it granted strength.

For him, it was an attack.

He could have withstood it, but after a brief moment of thought, Valdamir changed the direction of his sword and deflected the blow.

“Is this your plan? The hidden ace up your sleeve?”

Meanwhile, the Regressor, Shei, was still reeling from the chaos unfolding around her.

The situation had spiraled completely out of her grasp.

Tyrkanzyaka was fighting Feruel, while the vampires of the Duchy of Mist launched an assault on Claudia.

Perhaps she could have turned both sides into allies.

Even if she couldn’t make them reconcile, she could have at least mediated between them—kept them from meeting until they had defeated the King of Sin.

The scenario she had envisioned in her mind had collapsed into nothingness.

But that was fine.

Shei was a Regressor.

She would simply gather more information and do better in the next timeline.

That meant, for now…

“…Crimson Duke. Don’t act recklessly. Wait for Tyrkanzyaka. This can still be salvaged.”

Even if she didn’t fully understand the situation, she would do what she believed to be the best course of action.

To stop the battle, Shei stepped in.