Chapter 546: Family Heirloom
Chapter 546: Family Heirloom
While Roel was fighting an enemy whom he was unable to knock down, in the distant Ascart City, Alicia was battling against a seemingly endless horde of enemies under a rain of blood.
The demise of the Wingman Sovereign didn’t stop the Death Crows’ assault. On the contrary, the death of their ruler only further emboldened these demonic beasts.
To the powerful, the battlefield was a paradise that provided them with the endless stream of nutrition they required to evolve. Several Death Crows had already advanced to Origin Level 3 from devouring the souls of humans and their brethren.
In this chaos, casualties started to pile up amongst the soldiers and the civilians.
The soldiers fought harder than ever, fueled by the death of their comrades, but the situation only continued to worsen.
The only silver lining was that Alicia’s abilities far surpassed everyone’s imagination. Not only was there no limit to her resources, but she could also exert prowess comparable to an Origin Level 2 transcendent. It was thanks to her constant bombardments of spells that the demonic beasts rampaging in the city remained manageable.
Yet, an inexplicable feeling continued to linger in Alicia’s heart. If anything, it was growing stronger with time.
My condition today seems exceptionally good.
Such a thought popped up in Alicia’s mind when she sniped down a massive Death Crow ripping away at a corpse with a burst of mana.
It had been a while since the battle started, and Alicia had to expend an immense amount in order to deal with the sheer number of Death Crows that had breached the fortress barrier. Yet, she didn’t feel tired in the least. On the contrary, she felt more energetic the more she fought.
This shouldn’t have been possible. It was a moonless night. This defied the nature of her bloodline. She didn’t understand the reason behind this phenomenon, but she could somehow feel it.
After killing yet another Death Crow, she turned her gaze to the eastern horizon, where she sensed a mysterious power was resonating with her mana. That, she knew, was the reason behind her overflowing mana.
…
Roel was excited by the reappearance of the Witch Queen, especially now that he was in a precarious situation.
Despite his frantic attempts at evasion, the Wingman Sovereign’s soul still managed to land numerous attacks on him, filling his heart with immense fatigue and coldness. He had never suffered attacks on his soul before, but he instinctively knew that he was close to death.
He couldn’t accept dying just like that, but he had no way out of this situation. None of his means were effective on the enemy. Even Grandar and Peytra could only watch helplessly as death slowly pulled him closer into its embrace.
Artasia’s timely return at this moment marked an opportunity for a comeback.
Roel knew that the highly knowledgeable Witch Queen would be able to do something about this situation, but the latter’s reaction confused him. His bewilderment only intensified when he noticed that her gaze was not directed at the Wingman Sovereign’s soul but the eastern horizon.
Are we… not worrying about the same matter?
In this brief moment of distraction, a tingling feeling that Roel had subconsciously ignored in the heat of the fight suddenly intensified. This familiar sensation made his heart lurch. He turned his gaze toward the eastern horizon as well.
His golden eyes widened to the brim.
What he saw enlightened him to what Artasia had been warning him about all this while.
A treacherous fog had obscured the eastern mountain range and was quietly advancing in his direction. It was pressed tightly against the ground, almost like a covert assassin sneaking up on its prey. It had come extremely close before anyone could notice it.
Goosebumps rose all over Roel’s body. His body stiffened up from the intense threat he felt.
Shrouding Fog was the strongest of the Six Calamities he had encountered, and it had crept close while he was busy fighting the Fallens. The puzzle pieces were finally clicking together.
“Artasia, who’s the one blocking you all this time?”
“It’s the Mother Goddess! She has been planning this ever since you got into Her line of sight!” Artasia replied with a livid face. “She planted a delayed curse that triggers only when that monster is within range of you. As soon as I sensed its presence, the curse severed my connection with you. It was only a moment ago that I…”
She looked visibly shaken, as if she couldn’t believe how powerful the Mother Goddess was to actually be able to seal off her, the Witch Queen, albeit temporarily.
The fog abruptly froze up when Roel’s gaze fell upon it, then it began to billow furiously. A blurry face emerged from its midst.
“!”
Roel’s heart skipped a beat.
When the terrifying calamity took off its innocuous disguise, the world shook.
Boom!
The fog that had been pressed closely against the ground all this while suddenly surged into the sky, revealing its true scale. Mana pulsations of unimaginable prowess hammered everyone’s mind, declaring their impending doom.
Every single being in the vicinity halted what they were doing. Even the Death Crows stopped their cacophonous cries, but this unnerving peace only felt like a prelude to something worse.
The humans guarding the city shivered uncontrollably. The spiriteer in the sky roared as its crimson eyes flickered. The two brawling titans loosened their grip on each other as they lost their will to fight.
It felt like the boundaries between the sky and the earth had been blurred. Everything was no more than a foil to Shrouding Fog.
As someone who had fought with the Six Calamities on numerous occasions, Roel instinctively understood something: This is not a fight we can win.
Unlike the newborn Flooding Death, the ancient monster that had presented itself before him was a mature entity after having devoured Tark Stronghold. The terrifying power it harnessed was not something the Origin Level 3 him could deal with.
None of the powerhouses on the battlefield was fighting anymore. Even the Wingman Sovereign’s soul had stopped its pursuit of Roel to gaze at Shrouding Fog with frightened eyes. They instinctively realized what the ancient monster was after.
Shrouding Fog was planning to devour everything within its reach to complete its growth.
The responses to the sudden appearance of this massive threat varied.
The army of Death Crows immediately scattered to the west like a flock of agitated birds. Moments later, the Wingman Sovereign’s soul and the Three-legged Dracocrow did the same.
Meanwhile, Ascart City’s fortress barrier was activated to its greatest extent, emanating an almost blinding light.
The spiriteer in the sky didn’t make his retreat right away. The Savior’s will was ordering him to finish off the severely wounded Roel, but every single bit of his existence was screaming at him to get away from Shrouding Fog. This contradiction caused his body to shudder nonstop.
In the end, he opted for a compromise.
Raising his hand, he issued one last order to the Wingman Sovereign’s soul, which prompted the latter to turn its attention toward Roel once more.
Damn it!
The gaze from the Wingman Sovereign’s soul drove Roel into a panic. He was left with no choice but to hurriedly back away in order to avoid this immediate threat. The spiriteer nodded in satisfaction before hurriedly making his escape.
The Fallens had decided to retreat for the time being in order to avoid the terrifying calamity, but they would have to be naive to think that their enemy would simply let them escape.
Fog tendrils ripped across the sky like ghostly hands to snag the escaping Fallens.
A mere second was all it took for half of the Death Crows to be devoured whole. The spiriteer found himself encircled by the fog tendrils. The gargantuan Three-legged Dracocrow was caught by one of its legs and was slowly decelerating under the pull.
Grar!
The Three-legged Dracocrow furiously struggled to free itself, but it was futile. More and more fog tendrils shot forth to hold it down. Out of desperation, the gargantuan monster turned around and released a powerful Dragon’s Breath, only to have it devoured whole by Shrouding Fog.
“This…”
When Roel saw how even the Dragon’s Breath was ineffective, his face completely darkened.
Meanwhile, Ancient Treant Kayde calmly stared at the monster pressing in from the east, not making any attempt to flee. Instead, it slowly retracted its branches and soothed the earth’s wounds. Knowing that an immobile treant could never escape from Shrouding Fog, it would rather face its final opponent with composure and die with grace.
The people of Ascart City had no choice but to remain where they were.
Roel’s face turned severe as he solemnly made up his mind.
Unable to accept that his family, his friends, and his people would be devoured by Shrouding Fog, he had already thought of a plan to resolve this situation. While it would be risky, he knew that there was no other way out.
“Artasia, do you think that we can break out of Shrouding Fog’s encirclement?”
“Of course.”
Artasia layered multiple speed buffs on Roel, allowing him to temporarily achieve speed that surpassed even the Wingman Sovereign’s. Without any hesitation, he began flitting around the encirclement in search of an opening to escape through.
This prompted Shrouding Fog to prioritize Roel and maneuver its body accordingly to block off his path of escape. As much as it wanted to devour everyone present, it knew that its key target was none other than Roel.
Little did it know that this was what Roel was capitalizing on.
Currently, there were two threats standing in Roel’s path, so he thought that he should start off by getting rid of one.
When two pursuers were chasing after the same target, it was almost inevitable that those two would eventually encounter each other. The Wingman Sovereign was horrified when its soul came into contact with a fog tendril, but it was already too late for it to do anything about it. It could only screech in pain as the fog slowly consumed its existence.
With that, Roel had finally settled one of his enemies, but he didn’t loosen up at all. He knew that the true battle had just begun.
He flew all around Shrouding Fog’s encirclement, forcing the ancient monster to devote more resources to completely entrap him. It didn’t take long for his surroundings to be fully covered in white fog, sealing off his paths of escape.
It looked as if the battle was finally over, but to Shrouding Fog’s surprise, Roel suddenly stopped running around and instead charged straight at it.
That very instant, the ancient monster finally understood what Roel was after, but it was already too late. It had already spread itself thin trying to fully entrap its target.
Roel activated the power of Glacial Touch, Time Devourer, and Death Rain and tightly wrapped them around him as a protective layer before charging straight into Shrouding Fog’s body.
Even though Shrouding Fog was caught off guard, it wasn’t going to allow its target to escape just like that. It frenziedly devoured the protective layer around Roel in order to lay claim to him. In response, Roel desperately channeled his Crown’s Stones to maintain the protective layer.
It was a battle against time.
In the end, Roel managed to charge out of Shrouding Fog’s body before his protective layer was fully eroded, thus clinching victory in this clash.
Whoosh!
A furious wind suddenly blew.
Shrouding Fog had turned around. It wasn’t going to fail the mission the Mother Goddess had entrusted to it. It immediately chased after Roel, and with the speed the two of them traveled at, it took mere moments for Ascart City to disappear behind them.
A life-and-death chase commenced, but the outcome had already been determined. Roel was barely holding on with his injured body, wounded soul, and depleted mana.
Through sheer willpower, he squeezed out every last bit of strength within him to continue flying ahead. By sunrise, his consciousness was already fuzzy. He looked beneath him and saw an unfamiliar mountainous terrain.
This… should be far enough, right?
With such a thought in mind, Roel finally slowed down his pace.
A mocking smile seemed to flash across Shrouding Fog’s blurry face as it surged forth to devour its exhausted prey whole.
Standing before the ancient monster, Roel calmly reached into his shirt and took out an ancient box containing a crystal. This was the item that Ro Ascart had left for him, the Ascart House’s family heirloom.