Chapter 440: Massacre in the Rift
The General gritted her teeth as she watched the creature toss her soldier’s desiccated corpse aside. Despite her bleeding and depleted mana, she forced herself to the front of her squad with her broadsword raised.
"Monster, you shall not pass!" shouted the General, locking her stance. "We will end you no matter what it takes!"
The entity tilted its head, staring at her in silence, before launching a shadow scythe strike.
Seeing the shockwave closing in, the General thrust a hand forward and summoned a burst of divine light flames. The collision triggered an explosion that hurled her backward, slamming her against the rocks.
"Damn it... I’m too weak to fight him like this," said the General, coughing up blood as she struggled to regain her footing.
"What can we do, General?" asked the squad officer, stepping in front of her.
"Buy me a little time," instructed the General, closing her eyes to channel her remaining mana.
"Understood, General!" said the officer, gritting his teeth.
Without hesitation, the officer charged toward the creature.
"[Terror Nova Cross Immolation]!" roared the officer.
His body ignited in divine flames that shifted from red to blue. Transforming into a human meteor, he collided with the monster’s chest. The detonation blasted away surrounding mist; however, the Lord of the Night’s [Dark Mist Armor] reacted.
The dark energy enveloped the creature’s body, absorbing the impact like a gaping maw and pulling the force of the attack into a black hole that smothered the blue flames.
The attacker’s eyes froze in terror. His strike had utilized his total power; he had hoped to inflict enough damage to force the beast to pause its advance and buy the General time to channel her ultimate technique—yet he hadn’t left a scratch.
"This has to be a joke..." said the officer, falling to his knees on the stone.
Seeing the ultimate technique absorbed without causing damage, the remaining soldiers lost morale. Consumed by panic, they scattered in every direction to flee.
However, the hundreds of true vampires hovering in the sky deployed, hunting down those who fled.
Only the officer who had carried out the attack remained on his knees, trembling as he stared up at the dark monster looming before him.
As the monster raised its claw to decapitate the officer, a pillar of white light cut through the clouds of The Breach and slammed down onto the General’s figure.
The wounds on her body sparkled with a golden aura as she condensed the remnant of her soul into the blade of her short sword.
"[Divine Thrust of Final Judgment]!" shouted the General.
Shooting forward like a flash of celestial lightning, the General crossed the distance and thrust the tip of her blade between the creature’s claw and the officer’s neck. The impact of light erupted in a radiant wake that forced the entity back three strides across the rock.
The officer opened his eyes, trembling as the golden illumination scorched the mist.
"General... you saved me," said the officer, his voice cracking.
"Get up if you want to keep living," said the General, gripping the hilt of her weapon as a trickle of blood ran down her chin. "This is my final technique... if we don’t carve out an opening to escape, we will become this demon’s food."
The monster shook its head beneath the bone crown. The divine light thrust had left a faint scratch on the dark cuirass covering its chest—an amount of damage, yet enough to ignite the crimson glow in its eyes with greater intensity.
Unleashing a roar that echoed across the valley, the shadow entity crouched upon its claws, preparing to strike back with ferocity.
Across the area, the true vampires descended in a steep dive, dragging the bodies of the surviving soldiers. The victims lay immobilized, their limbs broken and their mana channels shattered, thrown one by one at the entity’s feet.
The monster showed no mercy. Driven by the thirst burning inside its core, it seized the first soldier by the neck and drove its fangs into his jugular, draining his body and mana supply within seconds until leaving behind a withered husk. One after another, the creature devoured the captives, draining them before the horrified eyes of the officer and the General.
When the time came to slaughter the final officer, the monster raised its shadow-clad claw to decapitate him.
However, the General stepped into its path, shoving the officer aside.
"Come on, monster!" shouted the General, as the golden aura around her body overcharged. "I’m taking you to hell with me!"
"[Divine Light Judgment]!" screamed the General.
Upon uttering the name of the forbidden technique, the young woman’s body began to disintegrate. Her skin, flesh, and tissues turned into golden light dust as she converted her life force into raw energy.
A pillar of celestial light, over fifty meters in diameter, slammed down from the sky of The Breach, vaporizing the bedrock and striking the Lord of the Night’s silhouette.
The detonation engulfed the area in a radiance that shook the tectonic fault.
The pillar of divine light roared against the floor of The Breach, pulverizing the bedrock across a hundred-meter radius and consuming the final remnants of the General’s body until reducing her to golden dust.
At the center of the impact, the sacred mass compressed Alexander’s shadow cuirass. The celestial energy scorched the surface of his armor; however, upon making contact with the blood-derived mana absorbed from the soldiers, the [Lord of the Night] skill reacted. The darkness on his chest opened like an insatiable maw, devouring the torrent of light and refining it into energy inside his core.
The massive clash of sacred power and blood surging through his circuits triggered an electric jolt that sliced through Alexander’s berserk mind, dispelling the fog of hunger.
"Agh... Damn it!" said Alexander, dropping to his knees inside the crater while clutching his head with both hands.
The glowing crimson eyes embedded in the bone crown flickered before stabilizing into a steady glow. The mass of divine energy finished ebbing away, fully absorbed into his body.
Alexander breathed, feeling the renewed flow of mana coursing through his veins. He stared down at his hands clad in the mantle of darkness, then surveyed the wasteland around him—where nothing remained but the General’s ashes, the smoking crater, and the swarm of vampires hovering in silence, awaiting his command.
"I’ve... regained control," said Alexander, slowly standing up as the bone crown retracted to reveal the upper half of his face.
He glanced toward the horizon, where the sole surviving officer was fleeing in the distance at speed, attempting to escape the hellscape the battlefield had become.