Chapter 284: The Final Battle (4)
The ground trembled violently, as if an earthquake had struck, sending rocks tumbling down the cliffs of the valley.
Dashing through the rugged terrain, weaving between jagged rocks, Dalen recalled the conversation from moments ago.
“Are you sure you’ll be alright on your own?”
“I just need to buy some time. You need to move quickly.”
The bartender had answered his question with a dismissive tone.
“If you die in a place like this, our promise is null and void. The remains of the Feather Witch will rot forever in the underground palace.”
“Tsk, always with the dramatics. Don’t worry, I’ll find a way to survive, even if I have to dig a hole like a mole.”
The dragon, with its bronze scales glistening, had brushed off the witch’s scolding with ease.
As Dalen glanced back, a massive roar erupted from the mountains, and the colossal form of a dragon rose into the sky.
[――――!!]
The air quivered with the power of the dragon’s words, and the red sky rippled like a lake.
Dozens of dragon breaths crisscrossed the heavens, red and blue magic narrowly missing each other, while a greenish-brown beam pierced through.
━━━━━━!
Mystery erased mystery.
Waves of power were torn apart by the dragon’s decree.
Scales and teeth rained down, and massive bodies with shredded wings plummeted from the sky.
Turning their backs on the battle filled with screams and spells, the group raced through the valley without losing speed.
“There it is!”
Someone shouted, spotting a light between the rocks.
With a lurch—
They passed through an amorphous portal, like a gateway to another dimension.
“Dalen, I’ll leave avenging Vizalina to you.”
With a sea of sticky blood and a mountain of corpses before them, the dwarf’s resolve propelled them forward once more.
“Domain Unleashed: The Royal Artillery of Vengeance”
Rumble…!!
The artillery, now twice its previous size, began pounding the walls of the once-glorious palace of doom.
[――――!]
“Yes! That’s it, Akasha!”
Encouraged by the dwarf’s cheer from atop the artillery, the fully-grown blue dragon’s breath froze the lava-covered ground.
Cold clashed with heat, and shells rained down on armor.
Boom! Crackle—!
With the sound of explosions and heat at their backs, they passed through the portal again, the stench of death filling their lungs.
“Now it’s our turn.”
Looking down at the river of blood and pus, Felber spoke from atop a mountain of corpses.
“We never settled the score in the Vampire Count’s territory. It’s time to continue the fight with those who rose from their graves.”
“You talk as if you almost won, old man. Someone might misunderstand if they heard you.”
“Well, the difference in power was significant back then. Now that I’ve reached the sixth rank, the real battle begins.”
Oooooo…
Under the wailing of the dead that filled the sky, the archmage, who had reached the pinnacle of magic, began to gather his power.
Woooo—!
A magic circle formed and spread from beneath their feet.
Amidst the golden haze of magic, the resonance of spells pulsed.
“Elle. Memento Laclia.”
Graceful golden curves etched themselves over the bone fragments and entrails covering the ground.
Hundreds of hieroglyphs filled the spaces between the lines, expanding their reach.
“Domain Fully Unleashed: The Hand of the Earth that Winds the Clock Forward”
The power of the domain spread in all directions, focusing on the young mage assisting nearby.
Using the concept of earth to read past and future, it fixed a desired point in the timeline of reality.
Unlike the case where a boy was turned into a grown man, this technique, cast within reasonable limits, brought forward a few years.
The young man, whose once shaggy blond hair was now neatly trimmed, wore a brown robe over his formal attire, and began forming hand seals.
“Elle— Memento Elegus”
“Domain Fully Unleashed: The Hand of the Earth that Rewinds the Clock”
Following in the footsteps of his master, who had reached the pinnacle, he too had reached the same position within a few years.
The double-layered golden magic circle resonated, twisting and manipulating the timeline of the area.
“Domain Resonance”
“Seventy-Seven Twin Wheels Unleashed”
“Universal Origin Cannon”
Boom—!!
Hundreds of golden beams shot towards the approaching giant corpses in the distance.
Simultaneously, the magic enveloping Dalen, Lucia, and Sienna transported them to another space in an instant.
“Take care, Dal…!”
The encouragement, cut off by the spatial transfer, was felt in its entirety, without any loss.
“Let’s go.”
Drawing his axe, Dalen stepped towards the glowing exit before him.
Once again, the disorienting sensation of space-time distortion. After passing through the short corridor, they found themselves in a vast hall.
Twinkle…
A delicate cascade of starlight crumbled and fell.
Under a celestial dome covered with countless stars, a narrow path crossed in a cruciform shape, ten meters wide.
“Dalen, this is the domain of the White-Eyed Seer…”
[You’ve arrived, mortals.]
A sharp voice filled the space beneath the celestial dome.
Without hesitation, Dalen hurled his axe. The axe vanished into the void, only to reappear hundreds of meters away.
[Under the divine arrangement of my lord… Ah, wait—!]
The axe struck the beak of a monstrous bird-headed creature.
With a dull grinding sound, sparks flew, and the massive demon’s body was tossed like a leaf in the wind.
[Screeeech—!]
The demon, with the axe embedded in its beak, plummeted into the void beside the cruciform path.
As the fading scream echoed, Lucia tilted her head in confusion.
”…What was that?”
“A sycophantic bird-brain.”
“Excuse me?”
“A high demon directly under Enaxagus.”
”…Ah.”
She nodded in understanding.
With the obstacle gone, the group could finally take in the celestial hall.
Time was of the essence. Even now, Enaxagus was likely occupying the seventh sector, relentlessly trying to seize the core of the barrier.
If he succeeded, the entire city would transform into a hellscape, leading to irreversible destruction.
Even if that weren’t the case, it was crucial to hurry for the sake of their comrades left in the other halls.
”…I can’t find it.”
Despite the urgency, finding clues proved difficult.
There should have been a new exit, yet no trace of it could be found.
This hall, suspended between the celestial dome above and the void below, was the domain of Aliaat, the White-Eyed Seer, within the Golden Palace.
A banquet hall of stars that sang of time.
A place modeled after the domain that devoured the avatar of the water god, Sissela, fixed to the earth by the prophet.
“There should be an exit leading to another hall, or at least a passage to the seventh sector…”
“The possibility of it leading to another hall is slim. Unlike the other transcendents of the Golden Palace, Aliaat’s domain was her own from the start.”
Sienna, peering into the abyss below the cruciform path, spoke.
“The other halls have been corrupted by the image of hell because their original owners no longer exist in this world. Even if properly inherited, there would inevitably be some gaps.”
”…What?”
Lucia turned to Dalen with a look that said, ‘What is this spellcaster talking about?’
However, Sienna’s reasoning was sound.
The fact that halls, which should have been loosely connected, had merged into clusters of five or six and transformed into a great hellscape had a clear implication.
There was a reason behind Enaxagus’s actions in creating this monstrosity, and deciphering his intentions wasn’t particularly difficult.
“Enaxagus fortified the halls with demons as soon as he seized the Golden Palace.”
Dalen scratched his chin as he continued.
“It means he needed time.”
Time.
Dalen and his group weren’t the only ones racing against the clock.
From Enaxagus’s perspective, Dalen was a notorious figure who had repeatedly thwarted his plans.
And with humanity’s full strength converging on the labyrinth city of Falcion, seeing such a notorious figure disappear could only mean one thing to him.
‘He must have assumed I was somewhere, gathering strength.’
Preparing to face not just a transcendent but a god of evil and his great hell.
Enaxagus’s decision to attack the labyrinth city directly, rather than expanding his forces from the continent’s outskirts, was likely based on this assumption.
From his perspective, the worst-case scenario would be Dalen returning, fully prepared, to join forces with the labyrinth city after Enaxagus had devoured half the continent.
In that context, even after having completely conquered the city, the one who took extra precautions against the possible return of Daelon was truly a master strategist.
The fortification of the Golden Palace and the twenty-six halls was, from his perspective, a way to buy time.
In case Daelon returned, he had set up a defensive line to hold him off while he secured the seventh district.
“And one of the basics of fortification is to narrow the passage to just one.”
No matter how impregnable a fortress is, it still needs an entrance.
However, an entrance is fundamentally a weak point of any fortress.
Naturally, a fortress with only a single drawbridge and gate is more defensible than a city with entrances in all directions, including secret paths and hidden doors.
That’s likely why Enaxagus reorganized the tangled web of passages in the halls, reducing over twenty halls to just four, forcing the paths together.
“If fortification was the goal, then the infernal abyss that consumed the halls must serve as a fortress guarding the passage. If so, this must be the last one.”
If this was the last of the twenty-six halls, then the passage to the seventh district must be hidden somewhere here.
The problem was that the core of the barrier was in a place even Daelon had never seen.
It was only after the city was destroyed that the remnants were discovered, but while it was functioning normally, it was hidden so well that it couldn’t be found.
It was said that, aside from the twenty-six transcendents, even the high nobles of the Golden Palace didn’t know its exact location.
As Daelon rubbed his throbbing temples and looked up at the celestial sphere, a story Parun had told him flashed through his mind once more.
“After toppling the Golden Palace, Enaxagus ascended to the sky above.”
Enaxagus, who ascended to the sky and unleashed a crimson vortex upon the city.
“Return Blade.”
The moment his thoughts reached that point, the axe that had struck the bird-headed demon was in his right hand.
[Graaaah! Protagonist of the prophecy! I will bury you with that axe!]
Ignoring the screeching from the void below, he hurled the axe.
Whirr───
The disc of light flew upward, aiming for the center of the celestial sphere, where tens of thousands of stars twinkled.
───Crack!
The moment the axe struck the center of the sphere, a ripple spread, revealing a hidden space.
A portion of the dark universe peeled away like fruit skin, revealing a gaping hole leading to the sky.
Rumble…
A sinister energy poured from the hole, swirling into the celestial sphere.
It was as if the malevolent magic was pressing down from above, trying to crush everything in its path.
Through his squinting eyes, Daelon saw the swirling red energy above the hole. It was the crimson vortex that Enaxagus had unleashed from the sky.
So, I have to break through this pressure and ascend there. Just as he thought that, the distant bird cries suddenly grew closer.
[Your feeble struggles end here, protagonist of the prophecy!]
Thud!
A massive form landed on the cross-shaped path, having risen from the void.
It was the bird-headed demon that had been struck by Daelon’s axe and fallen below.
The demon, a grotesque mix of bird, human, snake, and lion, was laughing even as blood streamed from its head.
It opened its beak wide, licking the blood with its forked tongue as it shouted.
[What you see is not the physical sky but a celestial imitation! It’s not a place you can reach just because you have wings! The original law of ascension is broken by my master’s power…]
“So, the elevator’s out of order, huh?”
[…El, what?]
“See, if you take down a mid-boss too quickly, you miss out on the clues they spill when you rough them up a bit.”
[…You dare spout nonsense with that wicked tongue!]
The great demon spread its arms and wings wide. The celestial sphere’s magic shimmered—a prelude to a spell.
Daelon smirked and lifted his foot.
“Domain Descent: The Inverted Waterfall.”
The moment he lightly stomped, the concepts of up and down flipped.
“Reversal.”
As Daelon began to float upward, the bird-headed demon, forgetting to cast its spell, gaped in shock.
”…Caw?”