Chapter 1938: Sky of Corpses (2)
Chapter 1938: Sky of Corpses (2)
For most, tonight was an ordinary night, but it wasn’t, as the night had grown teeth.
Above a steep precipice, the sky hung heavy with a hundred glowing stars.
Each one a cold, unblinking eye.
On this precipice, Lilliana leaned against an ancient boulder the size of a house; her posture was quite deceptively casual. Shoulders slack, arms crossed, and one heel hooked over the other. To anyone who saw her right now, she might have been a sentry at rest.
Someone stealing a moment of quiet.
Of course, that is the person who could go past the fact that she was wearing something utterly alien.
A fashion that doesn’t exist in this realm.
But regardless, her mind was a storm of silent voices; she wasn’t idling.
Inside, she was speaking without moving her lips, threading her thoughts across the miles to where Rex blazed through the dark. The telepathic link between them hummed like a plucked wire, carrying more than words.
Even as she communicated, her senses remained flared wide, tasting the air for hostile intent.
Her awareness was a net cast across the surrounding plain.
Nothing moved within a few miles that she did not feel.
Or at least, that’s how sharp her senses were normally. But now that she’s a proper werewolf, her senses reached even further, capable of sensing anything within a dozen-mile radius with immaculate clarity; and sensed further if there was a sudden high concentration of energy.
Around the area, the air shimmered with a geometry of light.
Lilliana had enacted thousands of energy strands, fine as spun glass—wove themselves into a lattice of interlocking hexagons that doomed the perimeter in a cage of pale radiance. The barrier pulsed faintly, breathing with a rhythm that matched her own heartbeat.
It was seamless and absolute.
Since Rex had told them to be safe, she created a sanctuary carved from raw energy.
One that no enemy force could breach without announcing its arrival in a scream of shattered threads.
Beside her, Davina sat cross-legged atop a flat-topped boulder.
Both her eyes were closed. Her face tilted slightly toward the heavens. Starlight pooled on the skin of her shoulders like liquid silver, tracing the curve of her collarbone and the quiet strength of her jaw. She was told to keep an eye on the continent’s situation, but she didn’t move.
She didn’t need to; the stars were her eyes now.
Utilizing her power to spread the entire continent like this is new for her.
Frankly, she didn’t know whether she could do it or not, but she never shies away from a challenge.
Rex told her to do that, and failing to do it would be a taint in her image.
And Davina doesn’t want that.
Every point of light that had crossed the vast and silent sky to reach this world became a window.
Davina could see through them; could see the continent manifested beneath her like a map rendered in pure light. She saw the mountain passes where a soldier in a red skull mask clashed with another armored figure wreathed in divine malice.
She saw the river valleys where spectacular explosions resounded.
In them, three wounded figures were fighting with all they had.
And she also saw the plains scorched black by energies never meant for this low-tier realm.
Each battle left behind a wound on the central continent, making it easy to locate the soldiers of the Red Skull Elite Force when one has eyes in the sky. Some were winning. Some were dying—it was a mosaic of violence spread across thousands of miles, and she watched every single one of them.
On top of that, she also marked these areas with a glowing star.
Normal stars for the battles their side had won, while the greenish stars meant their defeat. Changing the color of the stars like this shouldn’t have been possible, or at least by herself, but Lilliana helped to give the stars another color.
Channeling energy into Davina.
It was to make it easier for Rex to know which one was which.
And then, one by one, the glowing stars began to go dark.
Davina could see a shadow carving across the continent; a streak of absolute motion that treated distance like it was nothing and ignored terrain. Rex moved through the night—like a predator swallowed by its own blood-frenzy.
His passage was a blur that bent starlight and left the air screaming in his wake.
Had it not been for the vast mountain ranges of the central continent, the impact of his rush would be more devastating to nature. The enemy Demigods had scattered themselves across the central continent, seducing the factions to war against one another.
Each position was separated by hundreds, if not thousands, of miles.
But it doesn’t matter for Rex; he treated it like a morning sprint.
Davina watched him move from above and couldn’t help but shake her head.
’I’ve been watching him fight for quite some time now, but I’ve never seen him as clearly as this.’
She had seen how spectacular Rex can be when he’s in battle.
However, this was her first time seeing what he was doing so clearly without any distractions.
Rex went to the area marked by a greenish star, killing the Demigod there—and then moved on to the next with extreme precision. Some of the enemy Demigods were in hiding, hurt from the battle against a soldier from the Red Skull Elite Force, but they couldn’t hide from the black hunter.
As if smelling the malice in their minds, Rex located these hiding Demigods without fail.
One moment, a Demigod stood triumphant over the shattered form of a Red Skull Elite Force soldier, basking in the euphoria of having defeated an enemy Demigod. The next, a blur of violence coalesced into a figure, and the Demigod was given no chance to even raise a hand to retaliate.
His life ended in a heartbeat as his heart was clawed out of his body.
Several hundred miles away, an enemy Demigod was hiding inside the ground, merging with nature.
Roots crawled out of his body and spread across the earth as he began to heal his wounds.
A hand wrenched him out of the ground and broke his neck with relative ease.
No speeches. No mercy. Just instant death.
It was the clean absoluteness that made Davina watch from above in awe. And though werewolves are known to harness their anger to empower themselves—there was no anger radiating from Rex. Not even a glimpse of it.
Davina was far away from Rex, but through the starlight, she could see his lips moving.
He was counting the enemy Demigods he killed.
Most of the time, Rex was a predator—but at this moment, he was a hunter desiring nothing more than the death of his enemies. Having higher divinity points is completely meaningless against Rex—if they don’t have the physical prowess and abilities to match his.
Several hundred miles away.
Deep within the volcanic mountain, two figures stood upon a slab of rock on a river of molten lava.
"Original Fire Oustification: Burn Devastation!"
Bam—!
A barbarian’s flaming fist wrapped in torn knuckles—and spite connected with the red skull mask in a wet, crunching cross that snapped the figure’s head sideways. Original Fire seeped into the figure’s face, spreading across the veins and charring the insides and the mind.
Such a devastating punch clean against the face could drop anyone.
And the figure was no exception as he fell like a slaughtered ox.
Before the echo of the blow faded, a raw laugh tore from the barbarian’s throat—a sound with no humor, only elation. Judging from his condition—torn clothes that revealed a cut-filled torso, sweat dripping from his chin in big droplets, and the slouch of his shoulders—it became apparent that the battle was hard-fought.
For him to drop the figure was something he didn’t expect.
But it was a deserved win.
He breathed heavily through his mouth and seized the masked figure by the skull, fingers gouging the bone, and dragged him across the stone. The volcanic chamber pulsed with a sullen, orange glow, and the edge arrived too soon.
A shelf of black rock overlooking a bubbling mouth of lava.
Smiling, the barbarian shot his energy into the lava, and it burned even hotter to the point of melting the walls of the volcanic chamber and even the rock they were on right now. But it doesn’t matter. Right now, the focus was on the masked figure.
"Answer me now," the barbarian growled—leaning close enough that his matted long hair brushed the mask. "The rest of your Red Skull Elite Force filth... where are they? Answer me this, and I’ll make it quick and easy."
He pushed the masked figure’s face closer to the lava. "If not, I’ll melt your face slowly."
Even with the threat, the masked figure only smiled; his eyes narrowed into slits.
"You have no idea what High Lord Rashal has planned for you," He cackled, laughing at the barbarian as if the situation was reversed. He was the one holding the barbarian’s face against the lava. "Even if I die here painfully, I would take pleasure knowing that you’ll be right behind me."
Such a threat made the barbarian frown.
But he shoved the masked figure’s head without mercy.
Downward, into the molten glow, the masked figure’s face plunged halfway into the lava. Instincts kicked in, and the masked figure’s hand flew up, clawing wildly, and his fingers found the barbarian’s face—thumb gouging for an eye.
A desperate, animal scramble.
But the strength wasn’t there; the wounds had hollowed him out of strength.
And exhaustion locked his muscles like chains.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t push back. He couldn’t stop it, and his face met the lava.
"Raaargghkk!!"
The scream that tore from the red skull mask was not entirely human. It ricocheted across the chamber, a ragged shriek that layered agony over the bubbling hiss. Lava ate through the mask and kissed the flesh beneath it.
His face melted, turning one side a weeping ruin.
Next came the eye, a burst of black and red that dissolved into the glow.
"Let me ask you again," the barbarian pulled the masked figure’s head, allowing him to breathe without the sharp, burning pain against his face. "Where is the rest of the Red Skull Elite Force? And—what do you mean by what you said earlier?"
Just as the masked figure panted, the anger and panic on his face disappeared.
It was a change that caught the barbarian off guard.
"Okay, I’ll tell you something," the masked figure said with a nasty grin. "But before that, one of them is right behind you."
"Wha—?!"
Almost instantly, the barbarian turned around to look over his shoulder.
And there was a towering beast behind him.
Before he could even react, the beast’s hand clamped around his skull like iron—and hauled him to the other side. He thrashed wildly, clawing at the grip, but his struggle only made the pressure tighten. So hard that a grotesque bony sound resounded as his skull cracked a little.
"You like playing games, are you?" the beast’s baritone voice seeped into his ears. "Then let’s play."
Once they were on the other side, the barbarian’s head was shoved toward the lava.
"Where are the rest of your forces hiding?"
"Yo—"
Giving no chance for the barbarian to answer, the beast shoved his face into the lava.
Even though he was completely immune to fire or lava, the lava in this realm also had been infused by the divine strands from the divine sources like the air. It could burn through the immunity, and though slower, his face began to melt.
"Raarggghk!!"
"Are you going to talk?"
"Fuck you an—"
"RAARGHH!!"
Since there’s no use interrogating this barbarian, the beast shoved his entire head into lava.
He struggled for a moment before his body lost strength and became limp.
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