Chapter 67— The Warden of the Gate.
Chapter 67— The Warden of the Gate.
The plunge through the Gravity Labyrinth felt like falling through a shattered glass world.
Around them, massive chunks of obsidian floated upward like dark icebergs in an ocean of purple static. Thanks to Ren’s spatial trajectory mapping and Kaelen’s wrapping mantle of dark mana, the party sliced through the erratic gravitational fields with terrifying precision, descending two thousand meters into the depths within seconds.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
One by one, five figures landed heavily on the jagged, obsidian plaza surrounding the base of the inverted black pyramid.
The air here was so dense with dark matter that every breath tasted of ozone and liquid copper. Below their feet, a vast, swirling lake of raw Void Mana lapped against the stone, glowing with an ominous, sickly violet hue.
---
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION!]
LOCATION: Sector 0—The Core Basin (Depth: -3,500 m)
ZONE: The Abyssal Gate Array
ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE: CRITICAL (Dark Matter Concentration 94%)
---
"Everyone, stay inside my active field!" Ren warned, quickly slamming two heavy mechanical pylons into the black bedrock. A vibrant blue energy barrier snapped into existence around them, neutralizing the crushing atmospheric pressure. "The dark matter here is dense enough to collapse a normal hunter’s lungs in ten seconds!"
"Look ahead," Tsubaki whispered, his hand firmly gripping the hilt of his katana, his body crouched low in a predatory stance.
At the center of the plaza stood the giant structure—an inverted pyramid carved from non-reflective void steel, suspended over a dark, churning vortex. Four massive, glowing red conduits attached to its base were continuously harvesting energy from the earth’s mantle and feeding it directly into the open portal above.
And sitting casually on a throne of jagged black crystal at the base of the pyramid was General Malakor.
The Tier-SSS Sentinel was a terrifying sight. Standing nearly twelve feet tall, his body was encased in thick, spiky obsidian plate armor decorated with burning crimson runes. A long, torn crimson cape fluttered in the void wind, and in his right hand rested a massive, double-headed scythe that radiated an aura of absolute death.
When the party landed, Malakor did not immediately stand. He slowly tilted his head, two burning scarlet fires igniting within the hollow visor of his helmet.
"Flesh... and mortal light," Malakor’s voice boomed forth, not from his mouth, but as a deep, reverberating telepathic echo that shook the very bedrock beneath their boots.
"How utterly disappointing. I expected the High Sentinels of the Upper Realms to investigate the extraction array... yet all I received were worms."
Ignis’s eyes flared with anger as he raised his flaming broadsword. "Worms?! We just obliterated your Abyssal Vanguard up there! You’re next, metalhead!"
Malakor let out a low, grinding sound—a cold, metallic laugh that sent chills down Ignis’s spine.
"The Vanguard was merely a living battery to stabilize the conduit’s output," Malakor sneered softly. "Its destruction changes nothing. The array has already reached ninety percent capacity. The Void Gate will tear open, and the Legion shall march across this world."
"Not while I breathe," Lyra declared fiercely.
Empowered by the distant, unwavering soul-link with her sister Elena, Lyra stepped to the front of the barrier. She raised her golden staff high into the air. A blinding sunburst of divine holy light exploded from the tip, driving back the darkness and illuminating the entire plaza in brilliant gold.
"Holy Magic: Judgment Spear of the Sun!" Lyra shouted.
A giant, thirty-meter lance forged from pure solar light materialized above her head and shot forward with terrifying velocity, aimed straight at Malakor’s chest!
SWOOSH—BANG!
The Holy Spear tore through the air, breaking the sound barrier. But just as it was about to impale the armored giant, Malakor didn’t even bother to dodge. He simply lifted his left hand, clad in a heavy iron gauntlet, and caught the thirty-meter spear of pure divine energy with his bare palm.
CRACKLE!
Golden sparks and divine fire exploded outward, blinding the area. Yet, when the light faded, Malakor’s hand was completely unharmed. He slowly squeezed his gauntlet.
CRUSH!
The massive spear of holy light shattered into useless golden dust, like brittle glass.
"What?!" Lyra’s breath hitched in shock, taking a step backward. "He stopped a high-tier holy spell with his bare hand?!"
---
[SYSTEM WARNING!]
TARGET ANALYSIS: General Malakor
PASSIVE ABILITY: [Absolute Void Plate]
EFFECT: Physical and elemental damage reduced by 90%!
Holy resistance: extreme!
---
"Your light is weak, little priestess," Malakor said coldly, rising slowly from his crystal throne. The massive scythe in his hand hummed with a terrifying, blood-red frequency as he lifted it onto his shoulder. "This world’s mana is primitive. You know nothing of real power."
"Then allow me to educate you." A smooth, velvet voice cut through the heavy silence.
Kaelen stepped out from behind Lyra’s divine barrier. He walked forward casually, his boots clicking softly against the obsidian stone. His hands were tucked comfortably in the pockets of his dark coat, his dark violet eyes gleaming with lethal, amused condescension.
"You speak of ’real power’ as if you were its architect," Kaelen murmured softly, stopping twenty paces from the giant armor. "When in truth, you are merely a scavenger playing with scraps of spatial energy you barely comprehend."Malakor’s crimson eyes narrowed behind his visor, locking onto Kaelen. For the first time since their arrival, the ancient general felt a strange, cold shiver ripple through his core.
He could not sense Kaelen’s mana level. Whenever he tried to scan the black-haired young man, his system returned a void of absolute, bottomless nothingness.
"Who are you?" Malakor demanded, his deep voice carrying a sudden edge of caution. "No mortal carries an aura so empty."
"Someone who dislikes unauthorized construction in his domain," Kaelen replied smoothly. He tilted his head slightly toward Tsubaki, Ignis, and Ren. "Clear the conduits. I will handle the warden.""Understood!" Tsubaki barked instantly.
"Wait, Kaelen!" Lyra called out, her hands clasped around her staff. "His armor negates almost all damage! You can’t take him head-on without support!"
"His armor negates elemental damage, Lyra," Kaelen corrected gently, a faint, dark smile curving his lips. "It does not negate authority."
Before Malakor could react, Kaelen’s figure vanished into thin air.
BOOM!
An explosive shockwave shattered the obsidian ground where Kaelen had been standing a fraction of a millisecond prior.
"Fast!" Malakor grunted, his instinct honed by millennia of battle kicking in instantly. He swung his giant scythe in a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree arc, creating a sweeping crescent wave of red dark matter capable of cleaving a mountain in half.
CLANG!
The giant scythe came to an abrupt, violent halt mid-swing.
Malakor’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief.
Kaelen had materialized directly in front of him. He hadn’t even drawn his sword. Kaelen had stopped the full-force strike of a Tier-SSS General’s scythe using only two fingers of his left hand, coated in a razor-thin layer of dark purple spatial mana.
"Is this the strength of an Abyssal General?" Kaelen whispered, leaning in closer, his dark eyes glowing with terrifying, god-like dominance. "How utterly pathetic."
BANG!
Kaelen drove his right fist straight into Malakor’s chest plate!
The impact echoed like a cannon blast through the cavernous basin. The heavy obsidian armor, which had casually absorbed Lyra’s divine spear, caved inward by three inches. The shockwave blew out the back of Malakor’s cape, throwing the twelve-foot armored giant backward across the plaza like a ragdoll!
CRASH!
Malakor slammed into the base of the inverted pyramid, shattering the ancient stone wall into a shower of debris.
---
[CRITICAL HIT!]
DAMAGE DEALT: 450,000 (Pure Spatial Pressure)
TARGET STATUS: Armor Cracked!
---
"Argh...!" Malakor growled, pushing himself out of the rubble, his crimson eyes blazing with unbridled rage. A crack had formed across his chest plate, leaking black plasma. "You... You dare strike a general of the Abyss?!"
"Tsubaki! Ren! Ignis! Now!" Lyra ordered, capitalizing on the opening created by Kaelen.
"On it!" Ren yelled, tapping frantically on his holographic console. "I’m uploading the override virus to Conduit One! Tsubaki, buy me three seconds!"
"Shadow Severance!" Tsubaki blurred across the stone, his katana flashing in the dark light as he sliced through the energy shadows tethering Conduit One to the floor, instantly freezing its power flow!
"Flame Art: Inferno Breaker!" Ignis roared, leaping high into the air and bringing his broadsword down with all his weight, smashing the weakened conduit into molten scrap!
BOOM!
"Insolent insects!" Malakor roared in fury, seeing his life’s work being dismantled before his eyes. He thrust his scythe into the ground. "Abyssal Domain: Realm of Crimson Steel!"
Instantly, the floor beneath their feet turned into a sea of liquid blood-red metal. Thousands of jagged blades erupted from the ground, aiming to impale Ren, Lyra, and Ignis simultaneously!
"Holy Sanctuary." Lyra shouted, slamming her staff down. A massive golden dome flared around Ren and Ignis; the divine light—fueled directly by Elena’s distant prayers—repelled the blood-red spikes as they smashed against the holy barrier.
Meanwhile, high above the chaos, Malakor gathered a terrifying sphere of dark matter between his hands, targeting the divine barrier to crush them all at once.
"Die, mortals!"
"Your eyes are in the wrong direction," a cold, dark voice whispered directly behind Malakor’s ear.
Malakor’s blood ran ice-cold. He spun around, swinging his scythe with desperate speed, but Kaelen was already standing atop the giant scythe’s blade, looking down at him with dark, contemptuous eyes.
Kaelen slowly reached down to his hip, his slender fingers wrapping around the hilt of the Void Blade.
"Let me show you," Kaelen murmured softly, the dark steel sliding out of its sheath with a soft, ominous sound that silenced the entire battlefield, "what a true void sovereign looks like."