Chapter 1094: Chapter 1094

With a chilling sound, a massive bundle of tentacles dragged her body downward, but Rinne managed to slip one of her hands free.

“Rinne evaluates this sticky sensation lowly.”

Powder-like particles began gathering in her hand, quickly transforming into a protective guard around her wrist.

As the guard shimmered, a blue lightsaber was formed. She powered it up and swung her arm.

Trails of light instantly sliced through the area, and Rinne emerged from the bundle of cooked red tentacles moments later, them all exploding with a thunderous boom.

First landing softly to get her bearings, Rinne quickly launched herself upward to confirm what she had just seen. It had been slightly above her current location, somewhere in a dark cave that looked to be the nest of the bundle of tentacles.

Of course, there was no way the tentacles would simply let her go so easily. Once another wave of tentacles erupted from the ground while smashing it apart, Rinne’s blue eyes gave a flash. She crouched low before springing upward with explosive force.

What blocked her path forward was a thick, solid layer of bedrock. The tentacles had been able to make their own small passage, but more were constantly flooding out and trying to wrap around her.

Her mind raced. Rather than forcing her way through that disgusting mass, she figured it’d be a hundred times better to expend some output and break through the bedrock.

Soaring through the air in a flash of light, she slashed through the oncoming tentacles without hesitation and reached her other hand toward the ceiling.

A massive cannon simultaneously formed around her other arm, beginning to gather high-temperature particles.

“Rinne chooses the particle heat cannon. Output set at twenty percent. Rinne rates this highly.”

Like metal melting under extreme heat, the bedrock liquefied and began to drip away. Blasted back by the massive recoil of her arm cannon, Rinne gave up on using her wings to keep herself afloat and let herself fall, turning her gaze toward the tentacles once more reaching out.

“Look at that, the perfect rope.”

Still falling, she grabbed one of the tentacles with a firm grip. Just like snapping a rubber band, she let herself fall and stretched it taut before using the tentacle’s recoil to launch herself upward. Combining that momentum with her own levitation ability, she shot up at incredible speed, rushing through the hole the beam had melted.

Her output reached levels far beyond what it had been in the past. The main cause of her performance boost was the Sephirothization—in other words, the awakening of the White Wings—but at her core, her heart was powered by the ultimate essence of alchemy across all worlds and dimensions. It was the Deus Ex Machina, also known as the God of Machinery.

Tentacles chased after in a frantic attempt to catch her, but nothing could stop her acceleration.

Unlike the bedrock below, the ceiling she eventually reached was made of special stone infused with mana. Rinne slammed into it full force, demolishing it like she was tearing down a wall, and entered a massive gathering chamber.

She landed softly with a flap of her wings. At the same time, the tentacles that had been chasing her suddenly stopped as if they had gone beyond their territory, instead slowly slithering back to wherever they came from. Discover more novels at novel•fire.net

“Rinne confirms they do not enter this region. Rinne analyzes her accurate calculation ability highly.”

Praising herself, she raised her head and got a good look at what she had only caught a glimpse of while being dragged earlier.

“Master Davey, Rinne discovered an unusual structure. Rinne accordingly requests additional orders.”

She carefully attempted to make contact with Davey, only to hear heavy static come through as no proper communication reached her. Without any orders, she believed the situation to be far too serious a matter for her to handle alone.

It was then that she saw someone walk toward her. It was the boy Belga, struggling to move forward with one arm missing, strenuously dragging his body somewhere.

Rinne reignited her lightsaber, eyes glinting blue. Nonetheless, Belga kept limping toward the largest test chamber in the center, surrounded by many others.

Unlike the rest, the chamber didn’t contain a person. Instead, it held something beautiful—like a gem—radiating a strong green light.

“F-Found it...” he muttered, stepping closer to the chamber as if possessed.

He slowly reached out toward it with a trembling hand. Alas, he was quickly stopped by Rinne holding her lightsaber close to his neck.

“Rinne warns that any movement may result in the loss of your life. Rinne requires an explanation. What is this place?”

Turning his head toward her, Belga replied with a weary expression, “What the hell are you? Magic doesn’t do much damage to me, but your attacks... they feel like magic, yet they’re still lethal to me.”

“Rinne asks the questions,” she warned him coldly. She then pushed the edge of her lightsaber closer to his neck, making the high-temperature beam even more threatening.

Seeing her look that said she’d kill him if he didn’t answer, Belga stared at her in silence before finally responding in a quiet voice, “I don’t know. I just... somehow ended up here without realizing it.”

Rinne tilted her head slightly.

“I assumed she was here.”

“Rinne requests elaboration.”

“I don’t know either. It’s just...” He slowly reached out toward the test chamber containing the gem.

Rinne moved to stop him, but Belga looked at the gem and grew certain that it was not just a gem, instead being a soul vessel.

The soul he saw within was unmistakable—he saw Tsuna de Murgent, the girl who had once handed him jerky with a smile.

When he learned of her death, he had started moving without even realizing it.

People dying—humans dying—had never been his concern before. He had no clue why he had tried so desperately to get there after hearing she was gone, let alone what he could even do now that he was there.

“Final warning. Rinnes reminds you that any movement may result in the loss of your life.”

Belga didn’t answer. With a sudden roar, the gem containing Tsuna’s soul began to vibrate as the surrounding area started to shift.

Pipes connected to the countless test chambers all began to glow a bright green. Every one of them linked up, forming a single massive system that resonated with the chamber holding Tsuna’s soul.

The human bodies inside the hundred or so test chambers began to melt away, eventually disappearing completely. Even though all of the human figures inside the test chambers were gone, Tsuna’s soul gem continued to tremble.

It wasn’t long before deafening crashes shook the area. Startled, Rinne instinctively swung her lightsaber behind her.

In that instant, a mass of tentacles—ones that hadn’t been there mere moments before—wrapped around her.

“Highly unpleasant. Emotion circuits overheating rapidly! Rinne identifies this to be rage!”

She swung her lightsaber wildly, slashing through the incoming tentacles without mercy. She couldn’t figure out what had suddenly changed to shift the situation so drastically.

Rinne could feel a shaking from the ground. She could instinctively tell something massive like a giant was coming. Something dangerous.

Unlike Rinne, who was distracted by the external noise, the tentacles had never lost focus. They relentlessly targeted her, quickly binding her arms, legs, neck, and thighs to render her completely immobilized. Once finished, they began to tighten and drag her in, as if preparing to swallow her whole.

It had only been a short time since Rinne had used Sephirothization, and the rebound hadn’t fully worn off. She was thus in a dangerously vulnerable state.

Just as she began to consider overloading her heart, Belga staggering forward, reaching out and touching the bundle of tentacles binding her. He then drained the vitality from them.

The tentacles crumbled and turned to dust, scattering like sand in the wind.

Startled by his unexpected assistance, Rinne quickly stabilized her overloading heart and looked at him.

“You... You're strong, aren't you?”

Rinne didn’t respond to his question.

“I don’t really get what’s going on either,” he continued, “but I don’t want that thing to die.”

He spoke like a pure, innocent child. “I don’t want her to die. She’s my key, so please help me.”

Belga couldn’t understand why he suddenly wanted to protect Tsuna, who had once been an enemy.

He was certain of one thing, however. From the moment he had formed his will, the relentless hunger had never left him; the only way to end it was by destroying the avatar of Goddess Freyja, the being who had defied the very structure of the world itself.

That was the shared will of all the spiritual entities, including Belga. They each had their own desires, and Belga, who housed countless spiritual entities within his body, bore an unbearable hunger. That same hunger had then been filled by a single human.

He couldn’t explain how it worked, but could never forget that fleeting moment of fulfillment.

Hearing his proposal, Rinne didn’t hesitate. She simply pointed her lightsaber at his neck. “Master Davey ordered that the target must be subdued. Captured. All commands come only from Master Davey.”

Belga silently looked at her.

“Fine, I get it. If you help me first, I won’t resist. I’ll go with you once it’s done.”

As Belga finally offered something up, seemingly having thought it through, Rinne turned to glance behind her at the gathering masses of tentacles. She could tell those things would keep chasing her endlessly. A war of attrition would yield no advantage until the rebound was gone.

Belga’s power was incredibly deadly to the tentacles.

“Rinnes requests a detailed plan.”

The monstrous creature advancing toward the capital let out a sound eerily reminiscent of someone laughing—or perhaps crying—as it pressed forward.

The knights and guards defending the capital reacted with confusion at the sudden appearance of such a monster.

Donna, pinned to the ground, wore a crazed smile on her face. “It worked... It actually worked!”

“What the hell is that?”

“The pinnacle of human modification. That’s the ultimate evolution!”

“No way... You tampered with taboos?”

Humans were a species meant to evolve, but crossing a certain line was taboo.

Just as that thought crossed his mind, Goddess Freyja appeared without warning and held out her tablet.

It really was impossible to tell what she was ever thinking.

“Curious? Eh, I suppose it’s not like I can’t tell you,” Donna said with a chilling smile.

“That thing...” She looked Davey straight in the eye. “Is a human created using ancient relic technology. To be exact, it’s the result of a failed modification, formed from over a hundred discarded bodies fused together with a sacred soul.”

Modified humans like Donna, created in the Vatan Kingdom, had an extremely low success rate. Naturally, a lot of failures came out in the process. That was where the strange being came into play.

Using a mithril and adamantium frame, over a hundred humans were liquefied inside special chambers and fused together into a single humanoid form. Considering it was made from a hundred people, the creature’s enormous size wasn’t actually that unusual.

Of course, a body pieced together like that wouldn’t just move on its own. At most, it’d be a lifeless doll. As such, it needed a soul to serve as its core.

Donna giggled as she pulled a twisted, violet dagger from her robe, “You know what this is? It’s something we found in the ancient ruins. Anyone stabbed by this... gets their soul sealed inside.”

The way to make an immobile avatar of destruction move was simple—shove a living human soul into it.

“The odds were pretty low as we made our attempts. Fortunately, it just worked for the first time. Wanna guess whose soul we used?”

“No need to guess, I already know who it was.”

Jeo-Seung couldn’t find Tsuna’s soul, despite her soul having already left her body.

His answer made Donna cackle. Hearing her laughter, he couldn’t tell if it was sorrow or madness.

“That monster’s soul! It’s Tsuna de Murgent! We locked her soul in and used it as the core! Ahahaha!!”

Still maniacally laughing, she clenched her fists. “There’s no turning back now! She’ll suffer in agony forever until she vanishes. No matter how mighty that avatar of destruction is, it’ll fall eventually.”

“If you knew all that, why go this far?”

“Even then, Alberta will fall first! After that, her soul can be released. Honestly, it’s better this way; at least she won’t remember destroying the homeland she was so loyal to.”

Her voice, devoid of emotion, made Davey sigh. He then reached into his Pocket Plane and retrieved his staff, the Transcendence’s Demise. He gave it a spin before aiming its tip toward the approaching monster beyond the city wall.

[9th Circle Light Element]

A burst of searing light erupted and pierced clean through the monster. It was a beam of such intense heat that the surrounding air was warped and melted in its path. A massive hole, ten meters wide, was torn through the creature’s abdomen.

Even so, the monster didn’t stop. In fact, it began regenerating rapidly, the wound closing until it appeared unscathed.

Davey hadn’t expected it to regenerate after being seared with a beam designed to prevent regeneration. Frankly, he thought it was quite impressive.

“Even the demons of hell would be speechless looking at you freaks experimenting with human beings,” Davey remarked.

Donna scoffed in response. “Yeah, I’ll give you that, but I’m not here to cry about the past. The old geezers back in Vatan didn’t give a damn about that stuff, either.”

Once the monster reached the city walls, it raised its massive arm.

With crimson tears streaming down its face, it brought the arm down. The soldiers firing arrows from atop the wall screamed, but the creature showed no signs of stopping.

Of course, there was no way Davey was just going to stand by and let it do whatever it wanted. He knew intervening here was going to be a pain, but he couldn’t let it slide.

“Anyone who tries to argue about this later... will have to pay the price.”

He gave a dry laugh. He really wasn’t in a position to call anyone else a sucker. After all, what he was doing was nothing but a loss. “I'm such a damn pushover.”

[That makes you even cuter.]

Ignoring the tablet Goddess Freyja was waving at him, Davey reached his hand forward.

“First things first—I’ve gotta stop that thing.”

It was an avatar of destruction with incredible regenerative powers, sure. However—

“Hah. Even for someone like you, killing that thing won't be easy. After all, it’s got adaptive resistance! Your attacks might work the first time, but they’ll become less effective the more you use them. That is combined with its regenerative abilities that are beyond absurdity.”

It was ancient tech, far beyond contemporary scientific understanding. It was a remnant of what Davey liked to call ancientology. He wondered how far civilization must have advanced to in the days of Hercules for something like that to even exist.

Letting out a sigh, Davey stepped on Donna’s hand which lay sprawled out on the ground. “Hey, how about you shut that mouth?”

She burst into maniacal laughter again, so Davey ignored it as he returned the Transcendence’s Demise into his Pocket Plane with a sigh.

“Shall we join in as well?” one of the Shadows asked.

“No need.” Davey shook his head before pulling out a gauntlet. “First time trying this one out.”

Drawing in a short breath, he slid his left foot forward and pulled his right hand back, charging power.

[Devil Ylgr's Ultimate Strike]

Power condensed in his hand, demonstrating a technique that was essentially the secret move of Ylgr, the King of Martial Arts.

The official name was different, but as always, Davey liked renaming legendary heroes’ refined techniques to suit his own taste. A single hit powerful enough to knock a soul clean out of a body—Soul Detachment was the perfect name.

Disregarding the distance, the formless blow went flying and struck the monster squarely. The creature, having withstood all sorts of attacks until then, abruptly had its upper body blasted off in an instant. Yet that wasn’t all. The space behind the monster shattered, unable to withstand the excess energy from the strike.

The defense forces of Alberta, distracted by the monster, were left in disarray, unable to comprehend what had happened. They didn’t know what hit it, just as they were unaware when Davey’s mana barrier had protected them from the monster's strike earlier.

“It’s useless,” Donna said smugly with a sneer. “Tsuna’s soul isn’t inside that body, it’s linked to it. Unless someone removes her soul from the test chamber, she’ll stay that way.”

Davey casually pointed at the monster. “But it’s tipping over.”