Chapter 1259: Knights of Vasrun Family and Dungeon II

"Right path," Reyukal decided.

Without hesitation, the group veered toward the passage on the right.

They moved carefully, their formation tight and controlled. Reyukal led at the front, his senses fully extended. He had no intention of rushing blindly into the unknown. His role as captain demanded that every step be measured.

One wrong choice could doom them all.

The passage stretched on, gradually widening as they advanced. Darkness clung to the walls, where thick patches of mold spread unevenly across the stone. The flow of energy in the air was unstable... subtle, but unsettling. Only a few dim, luminous rocks offered any source of light.

Time passed.

After nearly half an hour of cautious travel, a faint glow appeared in the distance.

"There’s light!"

"Did we find something?!"

Excitement rippled through the knights, their voices betraying their anticipation.

But Reyukal remained silent.

If anything, his expression darkened.

As a Seventh Shackle Realm expert, his perception far surpassed the others. What he sensed ahead wasn’t reassuring.

The energy... was wrong.

Distorted.

Unnatural.

Still, he pressed forward.

Moments later, they reached the source of the light.

What greeted them was a vast, open expanse.

The space stretched for several kilometers, its scale almost impossible to comprehend at a glance. Above, luminous crystals embedded in the ceiling bathed the entire area in a cold, radiant glow. In the distance, mountains rose, and rivers carved through the land as if this were a world of its own.

The air was thick, humid, heavy with an overwhelming density of energy.

"What... is this place?"

"Where are the treasures?"

"This doesn’t feel right..."

The knights murmured among themselves, scanning their surroundings, searching for anything of value.

Reyukal raised his hand.

Silence fell instantly.

His gaze sharpened as he stared into the distance.

"Who’s there?" he called out, his voice echoing across the vast space.

For a brief moment... Nothing.

Then,

"Ehhhh~ your senses are sharper than I expected."

A voice, old and amused, broke the silence.

"I’m impressed you managed to detect me."

From within a cluster of trees, an old man slowly stepped forward.

He looked ordinary at first glance Aged and unassuming but the calmness in his eyes told a different story. He stood on the ground below, gazing up at the group floating in the air.

Reyukal’s eyes narrowed.

With a single glance, he could already tell that this man didn’t belong to the depths.

He wasn’t one of them.

Most likely... He came from the surface and somehow he was already here.

Reyukal frowned, his gaze locked onto the stranger. "Who are you?" he asked again.

A slow smile spread across the old man’s face.

"I could ask you the same," he replied calmly. "Who are you, to dare invade this place and plunder what lies within?"

Reyukal didn’t answer.

He simply stared.

The silence stretched for a moment, heavy and suffocating. Then, without warning, he glanced at his subordinates.

"We’re leaving," Reyukal said flatly. "Now. Forgive us for the intrusion."

The decision was immediate.

Instinct.

Every sense in his body screamed the same thing... Danger.

But the old man’s smile only deepened.

"Too late."

His voice dropped, losing all warmth.

"I am Franklin," he continued. "Sent here to guard this place."

His eyes gleamed faintly.

"And none of you are leaving alive."

For a split second.

A surge of killing intent erupted from his body. It was overwhelming, violent, and suffocating.

The entire space seemed to tremble as the bloodlust spread, pressing down on everything like an invisible weight.

The knights instinctively recoiled, their formations breaking as they felt the crushing pressure.

Before anyone could react, Franklin moved.

He shot into the air like a streak of darkness, his speed blurring his figure. Pulling back his fist, a massive amount of energy condensed around it, distorting the space itself.

[Mad Demon Warrior]!

His aura exploded.

[Unbound Sky Destruction Fist]!

A colossal black fist materialized in the air, blotting out the light as it surged forward.

The surrounding energy went berserk.

The air boiled and the ground trembled.

Everything in its path warped under the sheer force of the attack.

"Brace—!" someone shouted.

Too late.

BOOM!!

The explosion shook the entire domain.

Reyukal’s expression shifted instantly. Without hesitation, he drew his sword and unleashed his power.

He condensed his energy into his blade, the water-attributed force swirling violently around its edge.

[Destruction Water Wave]!

A massive bluish energy blade manifested in the air, rippling like a tidal force compressed into pure destruction.

It surged forward.

Franklin’s black fist met it head-on.

BOOM!!

The collision detonated across the space, releasing a violent shockwave that ripped through the surroundings. The air itself distorted as raw energy exploded outward, tearing through the ground and scattering debris in all directions.

The knights behind Reyukal were instantly forced back.

They quickly stabilized themselves, erecting defensive barriers just in time to withstand the lingering shockwaves.

At the center of the chaos, the two attacks neutralized each other.

"Tch!" Franklin clicked his tongue.

"Not bad," he muttered.

Then, he moved.

Kicking off the air, Franklin shot forward like a comet of dark energy, closing the distance in an instant.

"You’re quite capable!" he called out, grinning wildly. "I hope you can entertain me!"

He arrived in front of Reyukal in a blink.

A brutal kick came down.

Reyukal crouched low, narrowly evading it. At the same moment, his sword flashed upward in a clean arc.

A streak of cold light sliced through the air.

Franklin twisted his body mid-air, bending backward at an unnatural angle to avoid the strike.

The sword light passed just inches from his face.

Whoosh!

Without losing momentum, Franklin rotated his body and drove a fist straight toward Reyukal.

Reyukal raised his blade to block but in the next instant, a second force slammed into his side.

"—?!"

The impact landed cleanly, sending a jarring shock through his body.

His expression tightened.

He had blocked the front...

But the real attack had already arrived from another angle.

’A feint?’

Reyukal gritted his teeth as he registered the kick that had struck his side.

His body was sent flying through the air, crashing back hundreds of meters in an instant.

Franklin did not pursue. He simply remained where he was, a faint smile on his face.

His gaze shifted.

Not to Reyukal but to the knights.

Reyukal’s eyes widened.

He understood immediately.

"Don’t you dare—!" he roared, kicking off the air as he shot forward at full speed.

But Franklin was already moving.

"Don’t think about it," Reyukal snarled.

Franklin lifted a hand.

And the surrounding changed.

A terrifying pressure erupted from his body like a volcanic explosion. The entire space shuddered violently as something far more sinister than ordinary energy unfolded.

His power was not just released, it descended.

[Extreme Nightmare Art]!

[Third Stance: Slicing Dream Blades]!

The surroundings warped.

Reality itself seemed to blur at the edges as countless blades materialized in the air, each one roughly three meters long, each forged not from metal, but from pure dream manifestation.

There were thousands, no, tens of thousands.

Every blade pulsed with dense, oppressive dream power, hovering in perfect stillness for a brief moment.

Franklin’s eyes darkened.

"Die."

With a single word, the blades moved.

They rained down upon the entire battlefield like a descending apocalypse.

Reyukal’s heart tightened.

Franklin had changed.

In the past four months, he had endured countless life-and-death battles within the Dream Realm. Every struggle, every challenges, and every nightmare had sharpened him further.

He had survived them all and he grew stronger because of them.

His dream power had already reached Stage III, on the verge of breaking into Stage IV.

More importantly, he had mastered the [Extreme Nightmare Art] up to the fourth stance.

A level of control unmatched among the Astros. Even Souta had not reached this depth of mastery.

Franklin’s talent in this path was undeniable.

Whoosh!!

As the ten thousand blades descended, Reyukal’s expression sharpened.

"Elemental Drive!"

Water surged violently beneath him, spiraling upward as he channeled it into his sword. The surrounding knights followed suit, activating their own elemental drives in unison.

Swords were raised.

Spells were cast.

Energy erupted across the battlefield as they braced themselves for impact.

Bang!!

The first wave struck.

Blades of condensed dream power collided with their defenses from above. The knights’ combined barrier flickered violently and then shattered under the overwhelming force.

"Hold the line!" someone shouted.

They regrouped instantly, shifting formations mid-air, working together to intercept and deflect as many blades as possible.

But the attack did not stop.

Bang!! Bang!!

The rain of blades continued without end. Each impact sent violent shockwaves through the space below. The ground fractured, then collapsed entirely in places as destructive energy rippled outward, tearing apart the terrain.

Explosions of power lit up the battlefield.

The weaker knights began to fall.

One after another.

Their bodies were pierced cleanly by the dream-forged blades.

But the damage was not merely physical.

Their eyes lost focus.

Their expressions went blank.

Their dreams were severed, directly cut away from reality itself.

Their consciousness fractured, leaving behind empty shells that could no longer even dream, sleep, think, or recover.

They dropped silently.

Like hollow husks.

The remaining knights froze for a split second, not from pain but from fear.

They didn’t understand what had just happened. Their comrades had been struck, yet it felt... wrong. As if something deeper than flesh had been destroyed.

Reyukal, however, understood.

As a Seventh Shackle Realm expert, he had some awareness of higher-dimensional forces.

His pupils contracted.

"D-Dream power...?!"

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