Chapter 38: The Unnameable Beast
The metallic, rusty stench of evaporating steel spread, covering the entire banks of the Magellan Unfrozen River.
On both sides of the river, the giant of light and the beast of life energy had been locked in a stalemate for several minutes. Since the moment it had gone all out, only to be freed by the giant's unexpected move, the beast had been acting with extreme caution and steadiness.
Because this body was actually without substance, composed purely of pure life energy, the beast's outer shell shifted and changed layer by layer. Countless tentacles occasionally turned into jointed limbs, occasionally into massive pincers. It seemed to be contemplating what form it should take to confront the six-armed giant before it.
But in the end, the beast ceased all movement. Its colossal body paused for a moment, then dissolved into a sky-filling current of flowing life force, reabsorbed into the figure at its core.
Helas stood suspended in midair, his dark green hair dancing in the energy currents radiating from his own body. He gazed at the distant giant, his eyes devoid of any emotion, showing no trace of thought or observation.
On the other side of the river, the six-armed giant collapsed almost simultaneously, its thick channels of life energy converging back into the figure at its core. Joshua also stood in midair, rotating his right wrist, where a faint red mark was barely visible.
After a long moment, Helas spoke.
"You are Joshua van Radcliffe, the Dragon-Slaying Lord of Moldavia."
His voice could not be described as indifferent or cold, for even that carried emotion and fluctuation. Helas's voice sounded as if it were synthesized by a biological machine, utterly devoid of inflection, a simple statement: "Your strength exceeds the rumors and my estimates. According to the Order's classification, your threat level has risen from slightly dangerous to extremely dangerous."
As if thinking aloud, this Ultimate-rank powerhouse with dark green hair stated his thoughts plainly: "Preliminary plan changed. Killing you takes priority over exploring the Modess Mountain ruins."
"Oh?" Joshua showed no reaction to these words. He had heard similar statements countless times before. The warrior clenched his right fist, which had fully recovered without issue, and said flatly, "What does that mean?"
It meant the warm-up was over.
After dispelling his life energy manifestation, Helas radiated an immensely powerful life radiation. With his strength as an Ultimate-rank expert, he could naturally contain it all within his body, but at this moment, he couldn't be bothered with such trivialities. Instead, he raised his right hand with extreme seriousness.
His pale, slender palm, as if forged from crystal and steel, showed no flaws or defects. This nearly perfect hand clenched lightly into a fist, with only one index finger extended, pointing at Joshua in the distance.
At this moment, Helas's body was still shrouded in the dark mist of the abyss, but the pure light emitted by his life radiation, powerful to the extreme, illuminated his form in that darkness. Countless scattered light points converged, gathering a pale, blinding radiance, bright as a newborn star, at his fingertip.
*How pure.* Seeing this, Joshua couldn't help but think. Though a powerful warning of danger spun relentlessly in his mind, the warrior sincerely admired this light.
Such pure life force, gathered to this extent—it was probably only a step away from Steel Force, wasn't it? Helas truly lived up to his reputation as an Ultimate Peak powerhouse.
And in the next instant, the light advanced layer by layer, and white radiance bloomed.
"Huummm——"
A faint hum, like a soft sigh, sounded. With it, a beam of light so thin it was nearly invisible to the naked eye shot from Helas's fingertip.
Though it seemed unremarkable, it was in fact blindingly bright, more dazzling than the sun. The entire bank of the Magellan Unfrozen River turned pitch black in its glow, yet there was no residual shockwave or explosion. The intensely concentrated force caused the space the beam passed through to ripple like water, racing toward the warrior.
But Joshua also raised his fist.
Life force, thick to the extreme, condensed and burned on his steel-hard fist, transforming into a black flame. Its immense power made it radiate light, with terrifying heat flowing within, like a true sun.
Facing the silent, space-rippling pale beam, the warrior wasted no energy on sound. He simply clenched his fist seriously and, facing the terrifying light bearing down on him, threw a heavy punch—
In that instant, a deep red light blazed forth!
——————BOOM!!!!!!——————
First came silent stillness, then a roar loud enough to burst eardrums. In the distant forest, Sukrash saw this and quickly used battle qi to protect his apprentice's ears, but even he was twisted in pain by the world-shattering sound, feeling his brain tremble.
At the center of the distant Magellan Unfrozen River, a red and a white blinding light clashed head-on. They were locked in a stalemate, with countless arcs of lightning flashing around them. The unfrozen river's water, under temperatures far exceeding the sun's surface, instantly vaporized into nothing. The sand, stone, and soil of the riverbed and banks also turned to gas and ash in an instant, shattering into countless fine fragments.
BOOM!!!!!!!
A second violent explosion occurred. This time, in the area where the two beams collided, an invisible wave spread wildly. In the blink of an eye, it cut the entire Magellan Unfrozen River in half, blasting a crater hundreds of meters in diameter. Everything within was crushed to powder by the pure life energy waves and burned to magma. A spherical light orb rapidly expanded, then shattered into countless energy fragments.
But in the next instant, perhaps because both sides had misjudged the concentration of each other's power, the life-light formed by their condensed energy deviated during the violent explosion, crossing diagonally in other directions.
The pale beam extended endlessly in a straight line into the distance, like a white scar spanning several kilometers, clearly etched onto this world. It effortlessly pierced all hills and peaks in its path, as if breaking through thin paper. The diagonally upward-slanting white light sliced through a mountain peak, and in the next instant, a glaring golden magma scar appeared on the cut. The massive summit above slid along the scar, tilting and falling toward the earth. The clouds in the sky were also split apart, like white cloth cut by scissors.
The dark red light was completely different from the white. It carried heat that could melt and vaporize even steel, spreading into the distance, producing endless explosive roars. The scorching storm even melted the snow within several kilometers, returning it to the scorching heat of summer. This light, from top to bottom, blasted into a frozen lakeside lake, and instantly, endless steam rose, forming a curtain-like cloud connecting earth to sky, rising straight into the high sky. Inside the massive cloud pillar, dark red light pulsed, with arcs of lightning flashing around its edges.
Not only that. In the distance, around Modess Mountain, the gathered forces of eight factions were fighting the transformed Plague Cultists.
Before their transformation, most of these Plague Cultists were only at Silver High-rank or Peak, with only one Gold-rank, Priest Randall. But after completing their Blasphemous Spider Demon and Abyss Giant Armor transformations, their power broke through their previous limits one by one.
The Moldovan Lord's Manor, the Sky-Piercing White Tower, the Imperial Royal Mage Association, the Seven Luminaries Council, Caesar's Eye, the Sword Dragon Mercenary Corps, the Fang Adventurer Squad, and the Blue Shield Mercenary Corps—a total of seventeen Gold-rank experts from eight factions and their subordinates were fighting these bizarre, power-surged monsters. Each Blasphemous Spider Demon could tie up a large number of Silver-rank combatants, with the stronger ones requiring Gold-rank experts to handle.
But the most troublesome was the Abyss Giant Armor that Priest Randall had transformed into.
This giant insect monster, over ten meters tall, was immensely strong, and its carapace was harder than steel. Even Gold-rank experts couldn't break through its defenses easily. Now, this terrifying beast charged across the land like a war chariot, its leg joints leaving deep marks in the soil and rock.
Brandon and several other Gold-rank experts were fighting this Abyss Giant Armor. The blonde swordsman, wielding twin swords, calmly struck at its body. The saint-level twin swords could easily cut through the giant armor's shell, dealing real damage and causing it to howl in pain.
With his strength, taking on this Abyss Giant Armor alone was no problem. But the battlefield at the foot of Modess Mountain wasn't just the blonde swordsman. The knights of the Moldovan Lord's Manor were fighting the Blasphemous Spider Demons. The Abyss Giant Armor might not care about its minions, but Brandon couldn't do the same.
Verdani was also fighting with restraint. As a war mage, she specialized in spells that could destroy cities, shatter walls and peaks—terrible incantations. But using such things in a chaotic battle would mean annihilating friend and foe alike. So the purple-haired mage stayed behind the blonde swordsman, constructing arrays. Golden crystals formed from elemental force floated behind Verdani, occasionally firing a dozen sharp beams, trying to pin the Abyss Giant Armor in place.
But Priest Randall let out a huge roar. Though transformed into a monster, he hadn't lost his intelligence and could even use divine spells. A brown, filthy halo surged around him, swallowing Verdani's beams one by one. The next moment, he charged like a massive steel chariot straight at the purple-haired female mage.
Verdani didn't dodge. Even unable to use her best war spells, she was still a Gold High-rank senior mage. Layers of magical barriers formed in the air, seemingly intending to block the Abyss Giant Armor's charge head-on.
But suddenly, she shuddered, her movements freezing. The blonde swordsman roared, leaping like lightning, grabbing the female mage and carrying her out of the way.
The charging Abyss Giant Armor also, for some reason, forcibly halted its charge. Without hesitation, it turned and ran in the opposite direction.
And in the next instant, a pale beam cut through the air, passing through where Verdani and the Abyss Giant Armor had been, slashing diagonally toward Modess Mountain.
BOOM!!!!
A moment later, a thunderous roar sounded. The not-so-tall or majestic peak of Modess Mountain was directly sliced open by the beam. Under the gaze of everyone present and the twisted monsters, the massive summit slowly slid down along the magma scar. A hole at the very center of the mountain, leading deep underground, was revealed before everyone's eyes.
The entrance to the ancient ruins had been opened!
No one, not even the Blasphemous Spider Demons, understood who had fired the extremely dangerous beam that had effortlessly split the mountain. But that didn't stop countless thoughts from churning in their minds. Only Brandon and Priest Randall simultaneously looked in the direction the beam had come from. Human eyes and the giant armor's six pairs of green observation holes flickered with the same shock.
"Joshua!" "High Priest Helas!"
Both sensed the earth-shattering clash happening in the distance. The terrifying, tide-like life energy fluctuations only now reached this place, sending a chill through the spines of all the Gold-rank experts present.
And in the distance, on both banks of the Magellan Unfrozen River, the two who had just exchanged a direct blow of life energy fluctuations were still locked in stalemate.
Joshua's body radiated a boiling killing intent like the core of a volcano. He squinted, his red pupils scanning the energy flow and weak points on his opponent's body. But this time, unlike before, his observational ability, which could easily see through even Ultimate-rank dragons, seemed completely useless. Helas's body was shrouded in a life energy shield as thick as the earth's crust. It wasn't without weak points, but even the weakest required full force to break.
This was the benefit of deep reserves. Even though the warrior had crossed multiple worlds and madly slaughtered chaos monsters, it couldn't compare to the decades of accumulation of his opponent. Helas's power was so profound, his control so exquisite, that even if not perfect, it could be called flawless.
At this moment, this unprecedented enemy of the warrior suddenly spoke: "The ruins have been opened."
Even after the fierce battle, Helas's voice was utterly devoid of emotion. He turned, looking toward Modess Mountain, and said flatly, "As expected, 'its' fragment is here. The seal is still stable."
"Seal?"
In the distance, the warrior facing this cult High Priest was momentarily stunned, but quickly understood the meaning. He realized with sudden clarity: "Right, the Palm Print Lake... This was a battlefield of the Era of Radiance against evil gods and demons. How could there be ruins? I see! The bottom of Modess Mountain is a seal for a fragment of some evil god or Abyss Lord! No wonder you've always had designs on the Northern Lands, never giving up even after such heavy losses!"
Helas didn't continue. His gaze shifted, locking onto Joshua. This Ultimate Peak powerhouse, only a step away from Legendary, showed a slight change in expression for the first time. His brow furrowed slightly, as if somewhat displeased: "Your life force is the most profound I've ever seen. My absorption ability is completely ineffective... Joshua, you are a good opponent. Fighting you has confirmed some aspects of my path."
"Unfortunately, not now."
Before he finished speaking, Helas's body suddenly emitted a ring of black light. His form began to rapidly expand with this halo—not a life energy manifestation, but a real, physical enlargement!
In an instant, the cult High Priest's body became a massive, formless, unnameable thing. As it touched the ground, it began to absorb and assimilate the soil. In a flash, tens of tons of river water and sandstone were devoured. Whether organic or inorganic, solid or liquid, everything was assimilated by this monster that Helas had transformed into.
Joshua took a deep breath. Even he was shocked by his opponent's sudden move. As he gathered power, ready to strike at this sponge-like or flesh-mass unnameable thing, countless dark green lights suddenly lit up on its body. They were eyes and compound eyes, spinning endlessly, densely packed like a scene from a nightmare.
The dark green eyes spun wildly. Beams of nearly solid life light shot out, focusing on Joshua, who couldn't dodge in time, freezing him in place. The next second, this massive monster, still assimilating everything around it, shot out a thick tentacle, pulling the entire warrior into its belly.