Chapter 52 - Opening
Chapter 52: Opening
“Contractor, all the elements are in place. You may begin the ritual.”
Hearing the voice of the Stumbling Demon that was his third contract spirit, Simon looked at the dying tower guardian and nodded.
Had it finally come to this?
Was this finally the moment after so many years of preparation?
Simon’s hand trembled slightly.
Although there were some twists and turns, the plan was finally on track.
Soon, his dream of more than 20 years would be realized, and the Walde family’s 1,000-year-old wish would be fulfilled.
It was completed through his hands.
Under Simon’s will, mana was stripped off the tower guardian’s body for the last time and gradually turned into a black sphere that floated in the air.
Simon raised his hand and clenched it in the direction of the black sphere.
“Simon… Are you mad? So what if you complete the ritual? Do you have the power to control that many undead? Back then, the King of Blackwater, who had already reached the Divine Realm, was driven crazy by the will of the countless undead. Can you do it…”
Sensing that his death was imminent, the tower guardian roared at Simon in despair.
But Simon didn’t wait for him to finish speaking and suddenly made a grasping motion.
This action was the last trigger to activate the Eternal Gift.
The black ball exploded with a bang, turning into a third blast that spread out.
“No matter what happens to me in the end, that’s not something a firewood like you should care about,” Simon said coldly.
The firestarter for the ritual was completed.
With three rhythmic strikes of the soul and magic, the remaining soul imprints in all the corpses in the graveyard resonated strongly with the tower guardian’s ether domain.
Or rather, the two gradually fused.
According to the tower guardian’s calculations, he only needed to resonate with about 3,000 soul imprints for the Eternal Gift to raise his mind to Legendary.
However, Simon directly included all the corpses in the graveyard into the range of resonance, instantly raising the scale of the tower guardian’s mind to an unimaginable level.
Of course, as a price, the wails of millions of dead echoed in his ether domain at the same time. If he could hold on and not be driven crazy, the scale of his strength would step from the peak of Master to the peak of the Divine Realm through this secret ritual.
However, it was obvious that he couldn’t hold on.
In less than a second, the personality of the tower guardian was wiped clean into a piece of white paper by the wave of resentment from more than ten million undead.
Only a mere husk was left floating in the air.
This was what Duke Simon wanted—a potent magical power conduit that connected the Astral World to Currere.
A huge amount of undead mana flowed endlessly from the Astral World into the tower guardian’s ether domain before being transmitted to every undead through the soul imprint that resonated with him.
In the graveyard, the eyes of every undead began to burn with blazing Soul Fire. Their movements began to become fluid and their strength began to increase.
The bone fragments that Cass and Nizemar had shattered and knocked down began to splice back together under the tremendous amount of magic.
They were tireless and immortal.
This was the Rotten Moon Undead Tide that had almost destroyed the entire Blackwater Kingdom and wreaked havoc on more than half of the Vic Continent.
Simon looked at the tower guardian floating in the air with a fanatical expression.
At this moment, the tower guardian was the crown that could control this army of the dead!
Unfortunately, Simon couldn’t seize this crown for the time being. Just as the tower guardian had said before he died, he wasn’t strong enough to control the wills of tens of millions of the undead.
He needed the power to reach the Divine Realm.
“Grayrash. It’s about time.”
Simon turned around and said to the Stumbling Demon named Grayrash.
The fat and sickly-looking Grayrash said in a slow and deep tone, “All the offerings are ready. The King and Rebel ritual will begin soon.”
As it spoke, it waved the rusty knife in its hand, and a thick necromantic magic power in the air began to flow with its movements.
All ceremonial magic that mirrored myths and legends required a huge amount of mana to reproduce the magical power environment of the mythological era.
The skull temple in the Silverstream Mine was the mana furnace that supplied the entire ritual.
However, there was no need for those things in this tomb. Under the effect of the Eternal Gift, an endless stream of mana was flowing through the crown. The concentration of mana in the entire tomb was as dense as the legendary Netherworld.
The magic environment needed for the ritual was also prepared.
As a spawn of the Lady of Starvation, it was as easy for the Stumbling Demon to guide Undead magic as breathing. A huge amount of mana flowed into the pattern embedded with Elementium Silver on the four walls of the tomb as Grayrash moved.
A complete image of a dragon and snake devouring each other appeared, outlined by pitch-black mana.
The dragon represented the Sky God King, Oka, and the snake represented the Death of the Underworld, Vera.
In the ancient philosophy of the Blackwater Swamp, things would always switch into their opposites.
Just like the God King and Death in the story, They eternally devoured each other and turned the other into Him.
The essence of the King and Rebel ritual was to complete the transformation by recreating the deeds of this myth.
Becoming king by committing regicide.
Becoming god by committing deicide.
At this moment, Duke Simon, who sought the independence of the Blackwater Province, was undoubtedly a true rebel.
What about the king he was about to overthrow?
The door to the side hall opened, and more than ten skinny subdemons with abnormally long limbs and huge heads walked out.
The four subdemons in the lead were struggling to carry a gorgeous throne, and sitting on the throne, or rather, tied up, was a gray-haired youth.
The youth wore a purple royal robe. His entire body shone with lightning, but he wore a blank expression.
The hands and shoulders of the subdemons carrying the throne were charred and smoking from the flashing lightning, but they still gritted their teeth and steadily carried the throne to the sarcophagus before slowly putting it down.
Simon jumped down from the sarcophagus and walked to the throne with a solemn expression.
The gray-haired youth looked up at Simon in confusion.
“Is today the day I’m crowned king?” the youth asked carefully.
Ever since he could remember, the man in front of him had always promised him that he would one day bring him out of the dungeon and crown him king.
Although he didn’t understand what it meant to be crowned king, he still looked forward to the day he could walk out of the cramped dungeon.
Simon nodded and raised his hand. The subdemon beside him lowered his head and held up an ancient bronze headband.
It was a bronze crown that represented the supreme authority of the Riel Empire’s emperor. Or rather, the material and shape were identical to the bronze crown worn by Empress Erin.
It was said that the true bronze crown contained the soul fragments of the previous emperors of the Riel Empire. This allowed every emperor of the Empire in the past 800 years to be guided by the wisdom of their ancestors.
This was something Simon couldn’t do with the replica in his hand.
However, it was enough to complete the ritual.
Simon picked up the replica with both hands and slowly moved it through the lightning around the youth’s body before crowning him. During this period, his body was electrocuted with countless scorch marks, but he didn’t care at all.
In Blackwater mythology, Death had been injured by the God King many times during his rebellion. Simon’s wounds were also a part of restoring the myth.
If just having the bloodline of the Riel royal family wasn’t enough to symbolize a powerful king, he would continue to give this sacrifice the characteristics of God King Oka.
The Holy Spirits Church in later generations had already confirmed that the God King of the ancient Blackwater myths, Oka, was the same as the Father worshiped in the various faiths on the Vic Continent before the Platinum Calendar. He was just one of the many faces of the Father Holy Spirit, and symbolized concepts like the sky, lightning, power, and fate.
Therefore, he got Vincent to teach this child only lightning-element spells since he was young. He also spent a lot of money to hire a Demon Assassin from Emerald Province to tattoo the child with a rune that provided affinity with lightning magic.
The seemingly powerful lightning beside this youth was another key node for him to act as God King Oka.
Simon silently drew the sword at his waist.
All the preparations for the early stages of the King and Rebel ritual were only to pave the way for this last step—the rebel stabbing his sword into the king’s heart and completing the final transformation.
The youth looked at the sword in Simon’s hand and asked curiously, “Is this considered the completion of the coronation? Can I go out and see the outside world now?”
Simon nodded and said, “The coronation has been completed. I’ll take you to see the outside world.”
With that said, he stabbed the youth’s chest.
…
Dazzling lightning erupted from the center of the chamber. Cass and Nizemar—who were alternating between sarcophaguses as cover—slowly approached the center of the chamber while covering their eyes at the same time.
After Duke Simon stabbed the youth in the chest, the dragon-snake patterns around him suddenly lit up. Countless bolts of lightning were transmitted from the youth’s body to Simon’s, and a powerful and dignified aura began to appear around him.
Cass and Nizemar immediately hid behind a sarcophagus and discussed their next countermeasures.
“What was that?” Cass asked softly.
“I don’t know. It looks like some ritual magic,” Nizemar picked up the repeating crossbow and replied.
“What should we do next?” Cass continued asking.
Nizemar replied decisively, “No matter what Duke Simon is doing, we have to stop him before he completes it.”
As Nizemar spoke, she adjusted the bolt on the repeating crossbow in her hand and continued, “I’ll use Storm Gain to increase the power of the next bolt and shoot through the duke’s head.”
“What about that big guy?”
Cass was referring to the Stumbling Demon guarding Duke Simon. It was standing in front of Duke Simon like a mountain of flesh.
“Draw it away,” Nizemar replied before looking at Cass and adding, “Then, pull out Judgment 4 and kill it. That monster is a Lunar Monster. Only that weapon can truly kill it.”
Cass nodded and continued asking, “Then, what should we do with the little monsters beside it? There are a lot of them, so it might not be easy to deal with…”
“I’ll make them sleep,” Liz flew to Cass’s side and said.
Cass turned to look at her and said hesitantly, “Why don’t you just hide here…”
“No, this is the last battle anyway, right? Don’t underestimate the true strength of a faerie.”
Liz gave Cass a serious look.
“Alright…”
Cass finally nodded and agreed. It wasn’t that he believed it a better choice, but he knew that even if he didn’t agree to Liz’s request, she would rush out herself.
Seeing that they were done discussing, Nizemar extended three fingers to indicate the time.
Three…
Cass gripped the black iron sword in his hand tightly.
Two…
Liz lay on Cass’s shoulder and grabbed his clothes tightly.
One…
Cass twisted the runic mechanism on the hilt. The Breaking Dawn spell that had been sealed in the huge sword had already been replenished by Nizemar.
This was the last battle. He had to give it his all from the beginning.
Zero…
Cass flipped over and charged out. The Stumbling Demon, Grayrash, guarding Duke Simon, looked at the swordsman charging at him with a flaming sword and revealed a cruel smile.
It didn’t move. Instead, it raised its rusty dagger and pointed it at Cass. The dozen or so subdemons surrounding it charged at him.
The first subdemon—who was a little disjointed from charging too quickly—was sliced into two by Cass. The scorching flames on the huge sword burned the two corpses to ashes before they could land.
However, more subdemons followed behind it.
Cass suddenly felt a sweet scent on his shoulder.
Liz puffed up her cheeks, cupped her hands, and blew at the subdemons.
Purple-black dust immediately spread in front of them. All the subdemons who smelled the dust instantly stopped charging and stood in place in confusion. Then, they collapsed to the ground.
The spell faeries were born with—Sleeping Powder.
Cass dragged his blade across the ground. As he charged forward, he burned the fallen subdemons to ashes.
Who knew when they would wake up? It was better to kill them while they were down.
However, the Stumbling Demon still stood rooted to the ground, as if it didn’t care that its subordinates were dead.
After Cass finished off the sleeping subdemons, he stood in front of the Stumbling Demon.
“You made a mistake coming here, mortal.”
Grayrash spoke to Cass patiently like an elder.
“I should be the one saying this to you.”
With that said, Cass slashed at the other party’s fat head.
Clang!
Grayrash casually waved the rusty dagger in its hand to block it.
“Do you believe that nothing will amount from your attacks even if I stand here and let you slash me for ten minutes? Instead, you’ll die here,” Grayrash said slowly.
However, this was the opportunity Cass wanted. He pressed the runes on the hilt, and the flames on the black iron sword instantly spread throughout Grayrash’s body along the knife.
Taking advantage of the fact that the other party’s vision was blocked by the flames, he bypassed the Stumbling Demon in front of him and ran in front of Judgment 4.
After Grayrash extinguished the flames on its body, it saw the other party arrive beside Judgment 4. It turned pale with fright and charged over with its knife.
As the Stumbling Demon left the duke’s side, Nizemar, who was lying prone on a sarcophagus and aiming at the duke, activated Storm Gain.
With a sharp whistle, an extremely powerful storm condensed on the repeating crossbow in her hand.
Whoosh!
A bright silver bolt stirred up a whirlwind and shot at the duke’s defenseless head.
Then…
The duke raised his hand and caught the bolt.
Nizemar looked at the bolt in the duke’s hand, whose tail was still trembling slightly, stunned.
The duke looked at her and smiled as if he had seen a good friend he hadn’t seen in a long time. Then, he raised his hand and pointed at her.
The next second, a bolt of lightning as thick as a bucket shot out from the duke’s hand, electrocuting and charring Nizemar.
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