BXBX NOVEL Chapter 324 324 - Bringing Back the Lost
Chapter 324 Chapter 324 - Bringing Back the Lost
"Summon: Lurker in Dark, Void Eater, Marionette Ballerinas, Blood Chalice…" Continuing on with the summoning while floating above the obsidian castle, Haruki was ready to turn the whole place into dust if that's what he needed to do to get to Asuka and the others.
Already sensing the monsters crawling out from giant portals in the skies, Michael and Razor's army was anxious, yet ready to intercept whatever came their way. Despite knowing full well that their demise was inevitable in the face of such otherworldly creatures, they'd decided to stand their ground if for nothing more than to instill some principles for those who might follow them later on.
"It's time," Michael told everyone through their mental link. Having already set everyone on guards at their stations inside the indestructible castle of obsidian, all he they had to do was weaken Haruki to the point where he could easily be taken down before reaching the dungeon area. "Stay where you are, most of those monsters shouldn't be able to get inside because of their sizes. All we have to do is bruise him up to the point where he can no longer mo-"
"Wait…What about the girls, about what happened to them last night?" Asked one of the adventurers' stations right outside the dungeon.
"Shut your mouth and just do as you're told," for once Razor's sharp tongue was the best way to shoot down a conversation.
"Uh…Sorry," with his confidence shattered, the same adventurer decided it was wiser to keep his mouth shut.
"Michael, go ahead and summon the distraction," Razor fed off to Michael, and that's exactly what the elven general tried to do.
"God-tier summon: Archangel!" Despite following the same procedure of summoning, nothing ended up happening in response to Michael's call to an archangel. Left aghast, the elven wondered if it was because he was confining himself in the dungeon alongside Razor, and that he needed to be under the clear skies to summon the angels.
"What the hell happened?" Razor asked, leaning against a wall opposing where Michael stood.
Glancing at him from the edge of his eyes, Michael shook his head and decided to try again.
"Just keep an eye on the prisoners, I wouldn't want them to perform any miracles and wake up like that bastard did," directing frustration towards Haruki, Michael tried again, and to his surprise, the summoning failed yet another time. Standing frozen in shock, he glared at his hand still glistering with trails of holy magic. "What's…Happening?"
Unaware of the angel's cowering in response to the Valkyrian moans, there was no way for him to know that the angels had abandoned Atlas once and for all. Not even to his call would they answer, no matter how much he pleaded, but what was worse for his situation at the moment was that he had no time prepared for anything else.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Kicking his back off the wall, Razor moved closer to Michael and shook him violently by the shoulders. "Summon that eyesore of an angel, we don't have time to linger about!"
"Get off!" Pushing Razor off, Michael let out a disgruntled grunt. Straightening his back, he shut his eyes for a moment and heaved a heavy sigh. "That bastard must be blocking all angelic summons."
Unsure how to take that news, Razor's eyes widened as he took a few steps away from the upset elf.
"A spell to block off angelic summons? Are you fucking delusional, Michael? A demon capable of doing that? I don't buy it!" Still, his disagreeable self, Razor was far from convinced by the lousy explanation.
Growing even more impatient and angst about the situation, Michael summoned his lance and violently stomped it against the ground in a fit of rage.
"I don't fucking know for sure, but what else could he have done? Made a deal with the angels the way he did with Melicia?!" The moment he finished screaming, Razor summoned his own saber in case things escalated anymore. Noticing it from the edge of his vision, Michael decided to take a breath and back off.
"Well fuck…" He muttered before pressing his fingers against his temples to connect with the others through the mental link. "Plan's changed, there's not going to be any helpful summons or anything to deal with his summons or the demonic army that might arrive sooner or later. Now remember, we need to weaken him and take him hostage before any backup comes up."
"What?!" A chain of different voices yelling the same pierced into Michael's ears, however, instead of answering them, he simply decided not to speak anymore and cut the link off for everyone so that no more discussion of the same would distract them anymore.
"We're fucked," muttered Razor, Michael could only agree internally.
While the mess of preparation came to an end and everyone was freaking out of their minds, Haruki on the other end was done summoning nearly all of Asmodia's otherworldly puppets. Some had even started attacking the castle walls themselves, but as the name went the castle of obsidian was truly indestructible.
The void eater and lurker were attempting to tear away at the giant structure but clamping on it with their razor-sharp teeth and tentacles that protruded out of the ground. Yet the castle stood tall, unshaken as the very world stemmed from its roots, and thus to tear it apart they'll first need to tear the world around it as well.
"Ballerinas, and mini void eaters, follow me," giving out orders to the ballerinas and pups of void of eater, Haruki began descending to the ground and landed right in the castle gardens.
Looking around at the chaos ensuing all over the castle from the eater, the tentacles, and even the cyclopean giants smashing their fists against the castle, felt strangely soothing to Haruki for some obscure reason. It was almost as if he was finally about to bring down what was left behind by the previous god and replace it with not him, but an army that would be its own slave as well as master. In essence, they would be free, while also being shadowed in safety by the presence of each other.
'I suppose that time is yet to come, and if Michael is truly in there, then who knows if I'll ever even get to see that vision bloom to fruition?' Carrying that thought with him into the castle, he was met with a handful of demi-humans, as well as goblins with their weapons drawn against him.
"S-stop there!" Screamed one of them, but that was barely about to have any effect on Haruki.
"Plague demon!" Casting a spell, Haruki infected the very air with a dire plague. With only one whiff, the soldiers were brought to their knees coughing, especially since in that fume floating about, he mixed with it a hint of the god-blood poison coursing through his veins.
Before long the floor was pooled with blood oozing out every orifice of the infected soldiers's bodies. The poison affected them so quickly they didn't have time to scream or even struggle a little before submitting to their dire end.
"It wasn't your fault you chose the wrong side, but…" Moving through their corpses, Haruki collected their souls in a ball of pure darkness so that the soldiers could be given god-kin bodies and be revived into his army. "You're far too weak by yourself to raise that weapon against me."
Moving further ahead, Haruki went through the doors under the staircase that led to a secondary floor right underneath the main one. Having been in the castle before, he knew where he was supposed to be, especially since he'd been given a tour of the whole place by Nabe.
Once again, upon reaching the hall yet another fleet of soldiers were waiting to confront him. Instead of the plague demon this time, he simply slowed the flow of time, and cut their heads off with a blade made of darkness. As time resumed, their heads fell to the ground at the same time, creating a gut-wrenching sound enough to make the toughest of men vomit.
Glancing back through the trail of blood left behind, he noticed saddened looks on the ballerinas from not being able to partake in the carnage. The pups on the other hand simply relished in the joys of devouring the corpses laying on the ground.
"Razor, he'll be your opponent, I'll be dealing with Michael," saying that he quickly collected the souls and ventured deeper in the direction of the dungeon.
'Hard to believe things are progressing so fast. Nothing feels real anymore, especially after…' Recalling a memory not more than a few hours old, Haruki couldn't help but stop in his tracks. 'Why the hell did she…After finally getting on good terms with each other…Why, Asmodia?'
"Give me a second," closing his eyes shut, Haruki wanted to relive that moment just so he could get it out of his head once and for all. "Damn you, you bitch of lust…"
[Note: The next chapter reveals what happened after Haruki killed Marcellia, Deus, and Klaus and then returned to the dungeon facility]