Chapter 302: Chapter 274: Crushing Its Body, The Dust Settles, Unknown Relic

Bagget’s figure moved like a dispersing blot of ink, lunging straight for the avian monster on the throne of flesh and blood.

As he moved, a silent flurry of blades sent dark red feathers and viscous fluid splattering in every direction.

"Urgh—!"

Struck by the attack, Nerva’s half-bird, half-demon body trembled violently. His lower limbs, rooted to the altar, convulsed in agony. What now spilled from his beak was not saliva, but scalding, black blood that reeked of sulfur.

But perhaps it was the sheer agony that did it. Nerva’s feathered head jerked stiffly. The chaotic light of madness that filled his crimson avian eyes briefly receded like a tide, revealing a sliver of broken, murky, human consciousness.

His gaze focused, riveting on Bagget’s indistinct face, which was shrouded in shadow.

"Ba... Bagget?"

A hoarse, broken voice squeezed out from his deformed beak.

"The Ministry of Internal Affairs... they actually sent you?"

Bagget’s form solidified a few paces before Nerva, as if rising from a pool of ink. The pair of dull, lightless daggers in his hands remained utterly unstained.

"Nerva Heta, traitor to the Empire, defiler of life, and consort of demons. By Imperial law, your sentence is death."

He paused, his cold, rough voice tinged with a hint of a sigh.

"Do you have any last words?"

That brief moment of clarity seemed to have exhausted the last of Nerva’s humanity.

Upon hearing Bagget’s last words, the astonishment in Nerva’s eyes was swiftly replaced by a twisted madness, a mix of agony and derision.

His deformed beak stretched into a grin, and he let out a string of horrifying, cackling laughter.

"Last words? Heh... hehehe... Tell Feldren... tell the Empire... they won’t get anything from me... Anything!"

"They sent you for *that*, didn’t they? But... don’t even think—!"

The Count struggled to straighten his long-since inhuman spine, as if trying to preserve the last, pathetic shred of his former dignity.

His gaze swept across the hall built of flesh and filth, over the writhing, twisting altar at his feet, and finally fixed on some non-existent point in the void. With a satisfaction and destructiveness that bordered on obsession, he roared.

"I will take ’it’ to my grave! And ’it’ will belong to the Heta family for all eternity!"

Bagget silently watched the monster, now completely lost to madness.

The "it" the creature spoke of was the objective of his other, covert mission.

’It seems this mission is now impossible to complete.’

’But on the bright side, in a situation like this, no one else will be able to get their hands on it either.’

’In that case—’

"You won’t be getting a grave."

The last flicker of light in Bagget’s eyes died. His voice was flat, as if stating an established fact.

The instant the words left his lips, his left hand shot into his coat. He pulled out a Scroll inscribed with dizzyingly complex, pale purple Arcane Runes and crushed it!

"VMMMM—!"

An unimaginable torrent of Arcane Energy was abruptly unleashed!

From where the Scroll shattered, a blindingly pure white light erupted, mixed with raging serpents of ethereal blue energy. It instantly swelled into an immense, all-consuming vortex of Energy!

The moment the vortex appeared, it swept through the entire main hall with unstoppable force.

The writhing flesh that formed the walls and floor let out piercing shrieks in the light, as if countless beings were being thrown into a furnace at once, instantly vaporized and annihilated.

The energy channels supporting the fleshy altar snapped one by one. The carpet of flesh covering the floor dissolved and dissipated in an instant.

Then came Nerva’s half-bird, half-demon body. He didn’t even have time to scream before he was utterly dissolved in the torrent of pure Energy, his twisted patrician coronet turning to ash.

The entire main hall—the living core and conscious hub of Red Crying Castle—was thoroughly, cleanly, and mercilessly erased by this immense and unstoppable display of Arcane might!

「At almost the exact moment the main hall was destroyed—」

"RUUUMMMBLE—!!!"

Outside, Red Crying Castle—the rock Giant that towered like a mountain and had, just moments before, been radiating a terrifying pressure—suddenly let out an earth-shattering roar, a sound so immense it was as if the very ground was groaning in agony!

The heavy mountain rock, the Bronze Castle Gate, the soaring towers... All the architectural structures clinging to its enormous body, now bereft of the core will that bound and drove them, could no longer maintain their blasphemous form.

Massive slabs of rock began to slough off and collapse like pieces of rotting flesh, crashing to the ground. They exposed vast patches of flesh and tissue underneath, writhing and twisting in a desperate attempt to repair itself!

However, without a central will to coordinate it, the writhing was futile and chaotic. Like a decapitated giant worm in its death throes, it only served to hasten the collapse of the entire massive structure.

Dark red ichor gushed like foul waterfalls from the gaps between rock and flesh, rapidly pooling on the ground into a viscous lake that reeked of sulfur and gore.

Sensing the moment had arrived, Jon didn’t hesitate to give the order.

"Esra! Target the torso! Remaining two shots—fire!"

"Yes, Mr. Jon!"

The black-haired girl, who had been waiting with rapt attention, narrowed her eyes. She subconsciously gripped the Crystal Disc in her hand as her Magic Power instantly flooded the control Runes.

VMM—!

The enormous cannon muzzles of the two Fortress-class Mechanical Bodies lit up in unison with a terrifying, brilliant golden light, as if concentrated liquid gold was boiling inside their barrels.

After completing the final targeting calibration, Esra clenched her jaw and pressed down hard with her fingertips!

BOOM! BOOM!

Two torrents of golden energy, far thicker and more brilliant than any previous shot, tore through the air with a deafening, righteous roar.

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