Aurora Scroll

Chapter 519 - FUBAR

Tanael stood amidst destruction.

The reason he attacked the HQ was pretty simple. Cut off the head and the body was cripelled. With this act of his, he had made the defensive effort of the Tower of Remorse forces far harder. Which was to his benefit, since he had to escape from the damn place.

He had got what he set out to do. Six Level 5 subordinates, bound in servitude for the next one hundred years. Besides that, he had got knowledge from some of the biggest and baddest criminals of the age, just waiting to be extracted in the Tome of Reverse Knowledge. He’d even got a few Inheritances.

It was unexpected but in his simulations, he thought it might happen. After all, when oblivion stared one at the face, some people wanted to leave proof of his existence.

Some tried to resist but Tanael was not so soft, still, he had to give them credit. The Blade Demon for example, Tanael made stopping his ‘blade of thought’ like it was nothing but the state of the prisoner was as close as a cripple there was. Despite that, the Soul Pathseeker managed to form something that was able to kill him. Quite remarkable. Tanael’s hand still hurts.

But well, he always knew there was danger in going to the tiger’s den to get the tiger’s cub.

The prisoners he freed entered the now destroyed command room, the six bound to him plus the eleven that he had stripped of their power. Even the six hadn't recovered their powers after being freed so the seventeen had the physical ability of a normal person. Tanael’s movement speed was far above them at the moment.

“Veni, vidi, vici,” Tanael said to them, in his Darth Vader cosplay.

“What’s that?” Jardan asked.

“I came, I saw, I conquered.”

“Hahaha! Big words, humie,” the orc laughed.

“You... won't... get away...”

The weak voice came from Kenneth, who was on the floor. The vice-warden was the first that Tanael struck down but the last one still alive.

Of course, Tanael knew that. He was only alive because Tanael permitted it.

Tanael raised him with a Force Choke telekinesis.

“People like you... will always- kghhh.”

“I find your lack of faith disturbing.”

Darth Tanael threw Kenneth at the main screen of the command room. With a 180 turn that made his cape magnificently flutter, he walked away from Kenneth, towards the freed prisoners that were watching him. He tossed a ball of fire, courtesy of Faiya inside his soulspace, nonchalantly behind him.

He walked away as the explosion engulfed the command room. His gait was smooth and confident. The sight was so good that some of the former convicts were a bit impressed.

Despite the theatrics, he didn't forget to suck Kenneth’s soul towards him. Waste not, want not and all that. He already looted the valuables in the vicinity before the guys arrived, including the small but precious vault in the Warden’s office.

“Let’s go,” Tanael said with a masked voice. “There’s a long way up.”

The seventeen followed Tanael like following a prophet to the promised land.

***

Izabella gasped as the knife was turning in her innards. The backstabber, Restil, was gloating into her ears. So assured of his victory by despicable means.

“Hehehe...”

“...What are you laughing at? Have you gone mad? I’m not blaming you. Just after you saved your sister and underwent a Blood Purification Ceremony. The shining future in front of you... All the assured good and the glory collapsed all at once.”

Restil yanked her hair and made her face upward.

“You should have obediently become my girl. But now you’ll be a taxidermy in my house after I drained all your blood and your sister will be a lab rat until her death.”

Alan and Helene struggled at the provocation but Restil’s men were prepared. Their vampire bindings held strong.

“Restil...” Izabella rasped through her bloody mouth. A single streak of blood fell all the way to the chin.

“Hmn?” Restil let the knife, an artifact forged for this purpose, do its thing.

“...Bad boy. Mommy’s coming.”

Restil saw a mad glint in Izabella’s eyes and he felt a shiver down to his very soul.

At this very moment, the sun had gone down in the real world. It was the seventh night of Restil’s transformation into a vampire.

In the pocket space of the Tower of Remorse, outside, where the Level 5s of the cults and the defenders were fighting, both sides ceased their brawl.

This story originates from novelhall. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Because a rain of blood was suddenly falling.

In a way that was indistinguishable from reality or they were misthinking it, all the people who saw the rain of blood heard a woman’s laugh.

Those that weren't Level 5 fainted.

The presence of a Devil God of Blood and Control, no matter how faint, was not for the weak of heart.

***

In a storm like dark space, there was light in the darkness. Besides the crystalline source of light was a single woman and one more person struggling to approach from the spatial storm.

“Stop! You’re going to kill yourself and drag untold others!”

“...Freya Marianus. To think I’ll meet you here... Fate is a funny thing.”

“Olivia Rimeheart, cease this foolish notion at once.”

If Tanael was here, he would have thought this was the place for the final boss fight. To them there was nothing else in their mind beside each other. One was ready to die for her cause, and the other one was ready to die to stop the end of the world.

All in all, a very final boss scenario, too.

“I will not,” Olivia of the Black Ice Apostates said. See was still doing something to the Realm Core despite the cracks on her body. Her hand was still missing a finger from her sacrifice for releasing the Infernal.

“I’ll stop you even if it means killing you,” Freya drew her sword. Her friends sacrificed themselves to make sure she reached this place. She would not fail them, she would not fail her duty, and she would not fail Master Gregory!

“Ah yes. That’s exactly what you did at Crauhett, isn't it?” Olivia smiled like a venomous snake.

Freya was taken aback slightly.

“You’re a survivor... The Church's dossier on your past is non-existent. To think you’re... Is this revenge then?”

“Perhaps. The way you condemned an entire town of Crauhett is awful, but what you did next was worse.

“...Those people were no longer people, Olivia.”

“Says who! You!?” Olivia's suppressed emotion was in full view now. “Sure, you people just shine angel light, make a report and then go on, right? Righteous scums. I could have saved them!”

“They would have become your demon goddess’ plaything.”

“You know nothing of Her Majesty! Of her benevolence! All we are to you are demons to be killed. The arrogance... All of you lot sickens me.”

“I did what I did for the sake of this world... Always.” Freya pointed her sword straight. “What you’re doing now is a threat to the world. Stop now.”

“If Estelle, whom you people so lauded to be omnipotent and omniscient, is so good, why is the world she created so flawed?” Olivia was shedding tears. “I’ve had enough.”

“So you’d destroy the world, is that it?”

“Let it burn. Let it turn to ash, so that something better may replace it.”

“And it is your arrogance to think it will be a better world,” Freya said with a bit of sadness in her voice. “This ends now.”

Freya moved like a flash of light. In that split second, Olivia poured her power on the Realm Core, destabilizing the walls between dimensions to her utmost, without regard to her own life.

Before Freya’s sword reached Olvia’s heart, she heard a sigh from the darkness. So clear was the sound as if it was coming right beside her.

In the next instant, the dark world collapsed. Freya was thrown back to the Tower of Remorse’s fifth floor, on a battlefield where her Silver Legion team and the cults were fighting.

Her friends came to her aid. Freya felt as if all her bones were ringing from that sigh. It wasn't even an attack.

In front of their eyes, there was now a crack in space, just wide enough for three people to walk side by side but the height was so hundreds of meters tall. The other side was so cold that frost began to spread from the portal.

There was a veiled woman garbed in black and blue inside the rift, just a step away from the boundary between that world and this one. The woman did not take a step forward; she was just cradling the broken body of Olivia, mending her wounds, as if time were turning back.

“Your... Holy Majesty...” Olivia said weakly as second after her mouth was restored.

“I never wished for this, child.”

Isidaris, the deity that the Black Ice Apostates worshiped, lay her eyes on the people before her. Despite her face being completely veiled, when her eyes landed on you, it was an unmistakable feeling.

The Apostates got down to their knees. Freya and her team were paralyzed by the sheer weight of her attention.

“Estelle’s acolytes... How’s my sister doing lately?”

It was as if there was a reality-shattering thunderbolt inside each of their minds.

***

Norgard knelt before the three undead liches: Merciless, Honorless, and Faithless.

“Congratulations, my lords. As expected, the Church thought we were the least threat and so encountered the smallest resistance. They lack the wisdom to see the truth behind our endeavour.”

“The other religions are stretching them thin,” Honorless on the left said.

“Some of the honored guests have arrived, ” Merciless on the right looked at the distance, as if he were peering through space.

“Then let us not delay and invite the Lord,” Faithless, the only lich with a golden skeleton, spoke as the first of the three. “May all the lost and confused be enlightened by the Lord’s gift of immortality.”

The three liches summoned a black sandstorm around their bodies and fashioned themselves with priestly garbs, with a lot of jewelry and mystic symbols. They raised their staves as one and a black bell manifested overhead.

When the giant bell rhythmically rang, an earthquake struck the entire Tower of Remorse.

***

The Warden of Holy Prison, Myers, lay broken on the floor.

Sitting on his chest, was a naked man. He had long silver hair and silver eyes. On his chest, there was a mark of Dumuzin.

Yuri and the rest of the Wicked Tempters knelt before the silver man.

“All hail the Demon King.”

The man raised his head, showing his perfectly handsome face. His physique was that of a fit adult man. However, the eyes seemed as pure as a baby’s.

The silver man never uttered a single word but the entire second floor, Weight of Sin, all prisoners here despite the vast distance, had died from a heart attack the moment the man opened his eyes.

They died from fear.

***

In the skies above the atmosphere, a single star twinkled with the color of rainbow for a brief moment.

***

Tanael stopped in his tracks to the confusion of his followers.

“...What the fuck.”

Where are these crazy powers suddenly coming from!?