Chapter 157: The Last Procession (4)
The survivors burst from the Walls of Death moments later. Several faltered when they saw the artificial canyon stretching before them, but the pounding behind them cured that hesitation. The walls rose high on either side of the ceremonial road, trapping the survivors in a path Tobias’ making while keeping the Hushers away from them.
Hiiro stared upward as he ran, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process. "This is ridiculously OP," he breathed. "Whoever designed the mini boss forgot to balance her."
Misha rolled her. ’We’re being chased by an army of corpses, and you’re reviewing Gramps like he’s a playable character.’
The injured were dragged between stronger companions. One man caught his foot on a broken edge of stone and pitched forward, but Astrid seized his arm before he struck the ground. She hauled him upright and shoved him ahead without breaking stride.
"Save the gratitude for later," she snapped.
DUM.
The drumbeat chased them into the chaos. It no longer soothed the Hushers, and it offered no protection from the creatures gathering beyond the walls. Even so, the rhythm gave the survivors something to follow when terror threatened to scatter them.
DUM.
Boots struck the road in rough time with it. The funeral cart groaned, the bearers gasped, and the dead king rode above them all as though this desperate flight were merely another royal procession.
Behind them, one of Tobias’ walls shattered. A section of stone burst outward, and the dead poured through breach in a writhing gray mass. They struck the road on all fours, regained their feet, and sprinted after the survivors.
Tobias turned Misha’s body without slowing the slab beneath her. He spread her fingers, and the road behind the procession buckled. Massive plates of stone reared upward like the teeth of a closing trap, one after another, each becoming a new obstacle in the Husher’s path.
The first wave struck the barriers hard enough to crack them. Corpses climbed over fallen corpses, heedless of crushed limbs and shattered skulls. Every delay bought only seconds, but seconds were all Tobias had to spend.
He extended both arms. The side walls surged taller, and the stone beneath the climbing Hushers began to roll outward. Fingers slipped, nails snapped, and bodies tumbled down the slopes, knocking others loose as they fell.
「 Possession Time Remaining: 00:09:47 」
Misha stared at the dwindling time and wished the system had the decency to sound less calm about their approaching deaths.
<The First Mourner Beneath Creation> Just a little farther. Once, he was denied the bell, and left with his journey unfinished. Bear him onward. Let not the earth claim him here once more.
Misha’s gaze snapped toward the shrouded figure on the cart. The king’s body jolted with every desperate step of his bearers, silent and still beneath layers of funeral cloth. Misha looked from him to the distant bell and understood, with a certainty she could not explain, that the procession was not merely repeating a tradition, it was being given another chance to finish what had once ended in failure.
===
Tobias spent the remaining minutes reshaping the road beneath them.
Whenever the procession slowed, the stone rolled forward and carried them several precious paces. When the Hushers breached another barrier, slabs rose behind the survivors and crashed together, forcing the dead to climb over mountains made from their own broken bodies.
Yet each new obstacle was smaller than the one before it. The first walls had towered over the dead trees, while the last barely reached twice a man’s height.
Tobias maintained his calm expression, but Misha could feel the strain trembling through the fingers of the body he borrowed.
If she could manifest him, he would be able to fight with far fewer body restrictions, using a broader range of his skills and drawing more of his own strength instead of being limited by what her body could handle. Unfortunately, [Soul Manifestation] was still something she had yet to unlock.
「 Possession Time Remaining: 00:00:19 」
"Gramps," she said, drifting beside him. "They’re still too far away."
"They are closer than they were."
"That’s not exactly comforting."
"Comfort is for after the problem’s solved. Before that, it only makes people careless."
Misha glared at the side of her own face. "Has anyone ever told you you’re being incredibly annoying?"
"Mm. More times than I can count." Tobias sounded almost pleased by it. His gaze wandered toward the survivors until it settled on Caius running beside the funeral cart. "Usually by young women who discover that smiling sweetly at an old merchant is not, in fact, a valid bargaining strategy."
"What if they’re just being nice?"
"Then they’re welcome to keep being nice after I tell them the price hasn’t changed." A quiet chuckle slipped from him. "Funny how quickly kindness disappears after that."
「 Possession Time Remaining: 00:00:09 」
Tobias brought Misha’s hands together one final time. The artificial canyon shook from end to end and the road behind the procession erupted. Layer after layer of stone rose across it, forming a barricade so thick that the Hushers from behind vanished from view.
"The dead do not tire."
The first impact came almost immediately. Cracks spread across the outer layer, but the wall held. Tobias watched it for a moment, estimating its life with the detached patience of a mason inspecting his work.
"This is the last obstacle I can give you," he said. "Use the time well."
「 〔SYSTEM NOTICE〕
Cancer Constellation Soul has reached the maximum possession duration.
Ending Possession...」
「 Cancer Chamber entering cooldown.
Cooldown Remaining: 30:00:00 」
Misha slammed back into her body.
Pain raced through her from skull to her heels, followed by an exhaustion so complete that her legs folded beneath her. The stone slab carrying her crumbled into loose fragments.
She pitched forward, too weak even to raise her hands.
It may not have looked like it, but Tobias had already pushed her body harder than he had during his previous possession. Raising the walls along the ceremonial road and shaping obstacles behind them required far more sustained control than the smaller techniques he had used before.
Misha had leveled up after clearing Floor Eleven, and Tobias’ cooldown had shortened by five hours as her compatibility with him improved, but neither meant her body could suddenly withstand most of his strength.
The shorter cooldown only meant she could recover from hosting him faster; it did not increase how much of his power her muscles, mana pathways, and nervous system could safely endure at once. Tobias was still fighting through a vessel far weaker than the body he had possessed while alive, and every time he drew more deeply on his abilities, that difference placed the strain on her instead.
’Stronger... I need to get stronger...’
That was the only way she knew to keep from becoming the weak point every time one of her souls grew stronger and drew on more power than her body could safely bear.
Caius caught her beneath the arms before she struck the road. The impact drove a grunt from him, but he dragged her upright and pulled one of her arms across his shoulders.
"I’ve got you," he said. "But try to help at least a little... you’re heavy."
Her brow twitched. "Excuse me?"
Caius glanced at her, clearly fighting a smile. "You’re heavier than you look."
Misha leaned a little more of her weight onto him out of spite, making him stumble half a step.
He exhaled through his nose. "You’re doing that on purpose now."
"You shouldn’t comment about a woman’s weight in the first place."
Caius released something between a laugh and a gasp when she added more weight on him. He tightened his arm around her waist, supporting most of her weight as they struggled after the procession, until Carl hurried back toward them and slipped in on Misha’s other side.
"Carl..."
Without being asked, he caught her arm and helped steady her between them, his small frame bracing stubbornly beneath what little weight he could take.
Ahead, the ceremonial road curved through a grove of dead trees. Beyond their bare branches, something black rose against the pale horizon. At first it looked like a narrow shard of night driven into the earth.
Then the tower came fully into view. The Bell house stood tall and severe in the distance, its upper frame open to the wind. A massive bell hung within it, dark metal waiting above an empty platform.
Relief surged through the procession, but Misha felt none of it. It was still too far.
"Faster!" Dorian shouted from the rear. "Don’t lose formation! Keep the cart moving!"
The survivors obeyed because stopping meant death. Those supporting the wounded adjusted their grips, while the bearers lowered their heads and continued to force the funeral cart onward. There was no time to switch now so every breath came harshly, scraped from lungs that had already given everything.
Behind them, Tobias’ final barricade began to break.
The first slab split down the middle. Gray fingers appeared in the crack, clawing the opening wider until pieces of stone burst outward. Hushers spilled through and raced along the road without the slightest sign of fatigue. No more walls rose to meet them.