Chapter 163: Chapter 163 - Outside
Lucien returned his consciousness to his real body.
His pets shrieked in his mind. Their alarms pierced with such intensity that each one felt sharper than any blade.
The flood of system notifications blinked across his vision but he pushed them aside for now. They could wait.
Byakko and Seiryu’s warning echoed in the back of his mind.
Outside, the battlefield was breaking. From the other Twisted Towers surged waves of monsters. They were no longer the fodder of earlier battles but creatures beyond Tier 9.
But before leaving... Lucien swept his gaze across the chamber, searching for the dungeon core . His senses spread wide to every corner of the chamber.
’Where is it...? The core...’
The answer did not come. His search was met with nothing but silence and emptiness. No dungeon core revealed itself.
His frown deepened. Unwilling to relent, Lucien poured more power outward. Divine energy expanded from him in a sweeping tide. It saturated the chamber and bleeding into its foundations.
And then... he felt it.
Thrum.
A pulse.
A slow beat resonated through the walls around him. The sound wasn’t sound. It was vibration. A rhythm that pressed into his bones.
Lucien’s body went rigid.
The Obsidian Tower...
It wasn’t stone. It wasn’t artifact.
It was alive.
The chamber itself quivered with the resonance. The truth crashed into him with terrifying clarity.
The dungeon core wasn’t inside the Obsidian Tower.
The Obsidian Tower was the core itself.
•••
Earlier, outside the Obsidian Tower...
Cielius, Sebas, Edric, Maxim, Ellen and the others who wore the Gargoyle Rings had unleashed their effects.
Their bodies radiated power. Wings of light grew on their back. Their flesh turned unyielding. Their spells were sharper and their strikes were heavier. The battlefield roared with their defiance.
Malrik Golddust stood at the heart of chaos, clashing against the Silvermine Brothers and Ellen.
"Golddust," Ellen’s voice rang out like a blade unsheathed. Radiant wings of light burst from her back fueled by the Gargoyle Ring. Her aura sharpened, surging with Time Magic woven so tightly the air fractured around her. "I will destroy you. I will avenge my Copperrock family!"
Her spells cut through the battlefield. She wove temporal chains that slowed, twisted and threatened to bind those who hit by it.
Edric was on the other side. His every strike was enhanced with wind enchantments. His blows cracked the ground and split the skies with hurricane force.
Maxim stood behind them. His newly learned Space Magic Spells carefully interlaced with Ellen’s. His PERFECT CALCULATION allowed Ellen’s distortions to land with surgical precision.
But Malrik only laughed. Chaos flickered around his form like a living shroud.
Malrik’s golden eyes burned. "So it’s you... that Copperrock girl. If I had known back then, I would have crushed you earlier."
Ellen’s wings pulsed brighter. "Enough of your madness!" She unleashed a cascade of time-threads, trying to trap him.
But Malrik slipped through them as if he had rehearsed the moment.
"Madness?" His laughter dripped with venom. "Do you think I slaughtered your family without reason? Your Copperrock kin plotted against my wife. They betrayed us all. They deserved annihilation. And you, their child... will follow."
Hearing his words, Ellen faltered. Her steps stuttered. It was the first time she had ever heard of it.
She hesitated. But that hesitation carved an opening.
Malrik’s chaotic orb howled through the air, tearing toward her.
But Maxim reacted instantly. Space folded as he appeared beside her, pulling her away in the final instant.
"Don’t listen to him!" Maxim’s voice cut through her doubt. "Whatever his reasons, he betrayed humanity. He sided with monsters. Nothing else matters."
At his words, Malrik smirked. His chaotic magic pulsed wider.
"Silvermine... always playing the noble savior. Yet blind. You accuse me of betrayal but I’ve given humanity its only chance. You’ve all felt it, haven’t you? This world... Is a prison. There’s a ceiling you can’t break. Tier 9 is the limit... because this world has shackled you. And I... I have broken those chains."
His words struck deeper than his blade.
Ellen, Edric, Maxim, even the soldiers fighting nearby felt their hearts pound.
They knew it was true... there was something unnatural about Tier 9 being the peak. They had all sensed the invisible wall pressing down on them.
And worse... here in this twisted land... that suffocating weight had loosened. For the first time in their lives, they felt as though they could glimpse a higher state.
But the miasma smothered it, pressing them back down.
Malrik’s voice grew heavier.
"This world is a cage. And monsters showed me the truth long ago. Their knowledge eclipses ours. Their technology surpasses ours. They even—" his lips curled thick with obsession "—can revive the dead."
That word sent ripples through the army.
Revival.
Even hardened warriors faltered. To bring back the dead... who among them wouldn’t be tempted?
But Edric’s eyes sharpened. His voice thundered like his enchanted fists.
"Enough! Do not be deceived by heresy! We came here to kill monsters, not become like them!"
The soldiers roared and the battle clashed again. Chaos and light tore across the battlefield.
Elsewhere...
Cielius’s duel with Ashreth raged like a storm tearing apart creation.
Ashreth’s goblin child form had mutated. It twisted by miasma and fire. Blackened wings of flame spread wide and his aura reeked of destruction.
Cielius’s spells interwove flawlessly. Roots, storms, ice and growth danced as if the world itself moved at his command.
Yet every creation was met with annihilation. Ashreth’s black fire devoured forests. His corrupted attacks sundered mountains.
The Assassin Chief and the Magic Tower Master flanked the battle. They threw coordinated strikes to pierce through whenever Cielius forced the slightest opening. But even with all three, Ashreth stood as a calamity.
Cielius’s voice thundered across the field.
"Ashreth! Treat this as vengeance for my daughter... and for my son-in-law you murdered!"
His magic burned brighter, weaving multiple attributes into harmony. Nature itself answered his wrath.
But Ashreth only sneered and black flames swirled.
"Vengeance? Don’t act righteous when you know nothing. If I hadn’t killed them, this world would be far worse. I can seen it. The future... your humanity is nothing but pebbles in the vast wilderness outside. You... No. WE are helpless. It’s better to join them, or be ground to dust."
His miasma condensed into a black sun above him.
The clash of Nature and Destruction shook the world.
Meanwhile...
Midas and Augustus carved their way through legions of monsters. They moved with startling synchronicity. More than ten thousands fell in their hands alone. The ground shook with every clash and the air split with each burst of power.
But soon, the Twisted Towers themselves pulsed with sinister energy. Their warped spires cracked open like maws. From it... monsters stronger than Tier 9 appeared.
Each exuded killing intent that pressed even on Midas and Augustus.
They could fight one. Maybe two. But five or more of these abominations? Even they faltered.
Lucien’s pets lunged in to help but their numbers were far too few. No matter how hard they struggled, the tide of beasts shoved them back step by step... until they all were hurled toward the clashing armies below.
The ground trembled. The strong monsters surged forward. Their combined aura crushed the battlefield. Their presence alone suffocated hope.
Many perished beneath their stomps alone. Entire ranks wer crushed as though the earth itself had turned against them.
Worse still, not even the combined efforts of the Life Slime and Death Slime could keep pace with the devastation. Their revival spells faltered, overwhelmed by the sheer scale of slaughter.
The death toll climbed higher with every passing breath and with the arrival of those towering monstrosities...
The battlefield shifted, tilting further into chaos and despair.
Then... With terrifying unity, they began weaving power into a colossal spell.
A storm of raw destruction gathered. The strong monsters cared nothing for their own kind scattered among the battlefield. The army was their target.
And then it came.
A blast vast enough to erase the battlefield itself.
Soldiers froze where they stood. The color drained from their faces. Their hearts sank.
This was the end.
Even Cielius and the others turned grim. They were locked in their own battles with no way to intervene.
The annihilation bore down.
But at the final instant—
CLANG!
A vast, black tortoise shell unfolded in the sky. It expanded and expanded until it covered the entirety of the army below and sealing them in a dome of indestructible protection.
The monstrous blast slammed into it, shaking the heavens themselves. The sound roared like worlds colliding.
And yet... it held. Not a single crack formed. Not even the edges chipped.
The Stygian Shell.
A legendary drop from the Black Tortoise. A shield said to embody absolute defense, able to expand or shrink at will.
The soldiers stared upward in disbelief. The blast that should have erased them all had simply... vanished against that unyielding shell.
And then... through the fading smoke, a figure stood upon it.
Lucien.
His aura pulsed violently. Power rippled from him in waves, bending the air and making even seasoned warriors’ hearts skip a beat.
Hope roared back to life in the army’s chest.
The commander had returned.
And the battlefield itself seemed to hold its breath.