The space was swarmed with enemies on every side, clad in blue armor, weapons poised to spill blood, eyes stripped of all will.

It was a room vast and wide, reminiscent of a lavish hotel's waiting hall yet here, it served as nothing less than a vestibule to the afterlife.

Ruined surveyed the figures encircling him, his bloody mask hiding a face carved in stone, his grip tightening around the black greatsword until the metal groaned with a faint crunch.

Before him stood a man of equal stature, shoulders broad and thick with muscle, navy-blue hair falling against sharp green eyes, a thick chain coiled in his hand, its length studded with vicious spikes.

Unlike the hollow-eyed slaves around him, this man's gaze burned clear, proof he was no brainwashed puppet like the pitiful husks at his side.

He gazed at Ruined with naked contempt.

"So the rumors were true," he spat, his voice heavy with disgust. "That bitch betrayed us to side with you."

Ruined didn't bother to answer. He simply weighed the ranks arrayed against him.

The man was Grandmaster. The slaves around him were Masters. On paper, a difficult fight.

But only on paper.

Ruined had ascended to Grandmaster by devouring every blade Abomination had reaped from slaughtered humans, and by consuming the offerings Vaela had gathered — weapons meant for a future alliance with the Warborns.

He devoured them all, and through that feast became Grandmaster. Not a common one. A beast even stronger than he had been in the dungeon.

Faster. Stronger. Deadlier.

Calm, Ruined raised his greatsword and leveled it at the man who sneered at him, certain of victory because Ruined stood alone.

"Ocean of blood," Ruined growled. The next instant a thunderous boom cracked through the air as he launched himself forward, not at the Grandmaster, but at the surrounding Masters.

His sword swept downward into a cluster of six who scrambled to parry in blind desperation. Useless.

His blade cleaved through them like a hot knife through butter, ripping into the floor with a quake. The moment steel met stone, Ruined was already gone, streaking toward the next group, leaving behind a geyser of flesh and rock that burst upward, painting the white ceiling in wrinkled gore.

He crashed into another cluster of Masters, his ears twitching, and instantly ducked. The air above screamed as a spiked chain scythed through it, shredding not only the air but the unlucky slaves in its path.

"DAMN IT!" the Grandmaster Cerveau bellowed, fury blinding him, long enough for Ruined to seize the retreating chain. With monstrous strength he wrenched it off course and flung it sideways into another wave of charging Masters, their glassy eyes alight with hollow resolve as the weapon smashed through them.

But Ruined wasn't finished.

Overhead, black spears materialized like an avalanche of death, their presence corroding the very air. In a flash, they rained down on the disoriented, mangled Cerveaux, like a torrent of doom.

Screams tore through the chamber as the spears impaled bodies, shattered bones, and drenched the floor in rivers of blood.

Ruined stood amid the carnage, unnervingly still. He lowered his gaze to a trembling puddle of blood.

His frown deepened. Dissatisfaction. He craved more. Not a puddle. An ocean.

A ragged cough broke the silence as the Grandmaster dragging himself upright. Heavy footsteps echoed soon after, indicating reinforcements rushing closer.

"Ocean of blood," Ruined whispered again, masked face devoid of expression. The ceiling darkened once more beneath a storm of black spears.

Kni Cerveau cursed aloud at the sight. Yet deep inside, he felt no true fear. He commanded endless slaves willing to die for him. Victory was inevitable.

He rose to his full height, chain coiling in his fist.

"Let's see how long you last," he spat, already summoning his slaves to shield him.

Ruined only shook his head.

"I shall last as long as my Lord lasts," he said, shifting his stance.

"And my Lord cannot die."

The next heartbeat he was there, upon Kni. His greatsword tore into the advancing slaves while his fist hammered into Kni's left temple with blood-soaked fury.

Kni's skull cracked, his left eye burst in a spray of gore, his face twisted grotesquely as he smashed into the floor, stone splitting apart in a storm of rubble.

Ruined's expression never changed.

"Ocean of blood."

…

Ruined was not the only one drowning his enemies in blood within the Crimson Veil.

Abomination was doing the same. She appeared in a vast open field lined on either side with rows of iron cells.

Inside each cage, children wept. Their voices raw with terror, begging to be freed, or at the very least granted the mercy of death.

Like Ruined, she was surrounded the moment she arrived, as if her enemies had been waiting for her. A wide, delighted smile spread across her face as her gaze locked onto the Grandmaster before her — a woman with blue hair and black eyes.

Abomination tilted her head, studying her. Then, with a sharp, mocking lilt, she shook it and spoke, her voice carrying like venom across the silence:

"You are so gorydamn ugly." She tittered.

The words dropped like a blade.

For a moment even time seemed to falter. Nara Cerveau — Grandmaster of the Cerveau family — froze in disbelief. Even the children's sobs cut short as their young minds tried to register what had just been said. An amateur's hesitation.

In the very next instant, Abomination was upon her. She seized Nara's face in a clawed hand slick with purple poison.

A banshee shriek ripped from the woman's throat as her flesh sizzled, her face beginning to bubble and melt like salt dissolving in water.

A foul stench spread through the air, thick and suffocating.

"My children… arise. It is time for an ocean of blood." Abomination's voice rolled out, dark and devilish.

Nara tried to fight back, but it was too late. Her lips melted from her skull, then her eyes, poison eating deeper until it seeped into her brain and began liquefying thought itself.

She had no mouth left to scream, and yet she still wailed…a sound obscene to the ears, a weeping like the damned and forsaken.

Around them the slaves still stood motionless, awaiting command. Abomination only laughed, the sound jagged and mocking, as she leaned close to Nara's grotesque, melting face.

"SCREAM LOUDER, ugly cunt! Scream until your throat rots! Know this…your whole wretched family will suffer the same fate!"

Nara's shrieks pitched higher, fear running through her veins like the poison consuming her head. Behind Abomination, the dead clawed their way back into the waking world, her undead spilling from the field to butcher the slaves as easily as farmers hacking through headless chickens.

Abomination lifted her head then, her eyes falling on the children who now stared at her as though at some monstrous vision.

She was breathtakingly beautiful, stunning even but to them, that beauty felt like a mask, a deception meant to fool the world.

And then she smiled at them. Sweet, almost tender. But in that softness lurked something ugly.

"Hello, cuties," she said, her voice lilting and gentle, though her hand was still dissolving Nara's skull. "I am the Masked Abomination of the Crimson Veil. I've come to save you by the will of my master, The Harvester."

She grinned wider, pressing her palm harder against Nara's melting face as the woman writhed underfoot. "How would you like to escape this place with me?"

At that moment — her clothes like blood wrapped around her body, her bloody mask, her undead shrieking and howling behind her, the air dripping with rot and despair — Abomination looked less like a woman and more like a devil risen from the blackest pit of hell to erase humanity.

But to the children, when her voice spoke of freedom… she became something else.

The Devil of Salvation.

And without hesitation, their cries rang out — desperate, eager — begging to be taken, begging to be saved.

Abomination cackled, the sound wild and unrestrained. She was enjoying this war far more than she should.

…

Elamin's Estate.

The sky above the Elamin's Estate cackled with purple thunder, the lightning tasting the air and leaving the whole space electrified.

On the ground, before the mansion's main door, a calamitous battle unraveled, with death itself working overtime.

The earth was littered with corpses and blood, the stench of death pressed against the throat.

Two sides fought. One side carried the sigils of many households at once, the symbols on their armor and the flags whipping in the wind were not identical.

The other side was a single host, wrapped in purple-silver robes that fluttered with the blasts of their elemental powers.

They were terrifyingly powerful: each swing of an arm, each snap of a finger, each bellow of voice shook the sky as wind and fire and water and every elemental force surged to rip the enemy apart.

But they were losing.

They were outnumbered five to one.

"When are the Caelion coming?" one of the Elamin commanders — a thick-faced grunt with brown hair and brown eyes, earth coiling around him like a sleeping dragon — bellowed at his companion.

The woman beside him, eyes like living embers and hair that seemed aflame with a fire bird perched on her shoulder, shook her head, her face was carved into a grim refusal.

"We don't know. We called them and they said they're on their way." She answered, and hurled a colossal fireball into the enemy ranks, eating away at their numbers. But the foe was hard to kill.

They appeared to have some healing abilities that kept them fighting and bled their losses slowly back into life.

"They've been coming since when? Damned merchants, I told you they care for nothing but coin and profit!" the grunt roared, eyes scorching with anger.

The woman only shook her head and turned back to the slaughter. There was no time for blame when they were dying.

Above them, their matriarch were fighting two enemies at once, each crackle of lightning seeming to tear at the heavens, and they could not expect rescue any moment soon.

She bit her lip so hard it went white and then shouted to her legion, fear and fury braided together in her voice.

"LET'S BURN ALL OF THESE BASTARDS DOWN!!!!!"

"FIREEEEEE!!!!!"

—End of Chapter 255—

A/N:

Once again, it was a delightful month. Thanks for the continuous support!

Thanks for the reading!

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