Chapter 116: Is that a new Death Zone?
Blackish-purple mist expanded for kilometers, continuing to grow as if it wanted to consume the whole planet.
Anything that didn’t have the power to survive was devoured. Plants, trees, monsters, and beasts, the mist was uncaring.
Alze-beus, who was closest to it, received the full brunt.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, his other incarnation had just teleported into the region, only to be hit head-on by the mist.
...
Far away in Dream City, the guards ran into the safety of the walls when they sensed a danger level well beyond the mortal rank.
Standing on the city wall, one soldier looked at the endless, expanding blackish-purple fog. "Is that a new Death Zone?"
Another soldier replied, "Since when does a Death Zone act like that? It’s clearly a powerful monster, probably a Demigod."
The surroundings Soldier looked at the mist with awe and dread. They discussed among themselves.
"Maybe its a treasure?"
"Treasure? It feels more like a curse"
"A new dungeon perhaps?"
"Maybe someone is Smoking?"
"Did your father smoke like that?"
"Don’t you dare bring my father into this.... he never touched a cigarette"
"Then definately its your mother... I caught her smoking with my dad once"
"What? Even if she wanted to smoke why would she do it with your dad, when did this happen?"
"I don’t know, it was arround the time your sister was born"
"-_-"
Just then, a General shouted, "Attention!"
All the soldiers turned to the General, straightened their backs, held their weapons, and fell into formation with practiced ease.
"Everyone!" the General declared. "We don’t know what it is, but if it threatens our home, we will show them why Dream City stands strong!"
The soldiers hardened their faces, resolve appearing in their eyes.
....
Zora appeared together with Arthur at the borders.
Zora felt chills looking at the fog, but she also felt a strange attraction to it, as if it shared a similar nature to her.
Arthur looked at the mist, then suddenly fell into a daze.
Zora, standing near him, got worried he was being targeted by the Void God again, but she quickly calmed down when she saw him return to his senses.
"Tell the guards not to leave the city," Arthur said.
"You know something," Zora noted.
Arthur had a complicated look on his face. "It’s the Nightmare World Seed."
"What is it doing here, and why do I feel Dream Aspect as well?" Zora asked.
Arthur let out a sigh. With his sister’s help, injuries that should have taken months to heal were almost completely gone in a week. He was shocked by her methods, but as a brother, he couldn’t help feeling proud.
"My Patron God said he mutated and acquired the Dream Aspect," Arthur replied.
Zora was shocked that there was something else with a similar nature to her in this world, but something about his wording caught her attention. "He?"
Arthur’s expression grew even more complicated. "Yes, he, as in it is now a human."
"How is that possible?" Zora asked, stunned. "What else did the Patron God say?"
Arthur shook his head. "I asked her as well, but she refused to say anything more."
Zora narrowed her eyes. "That’s so unlike her."
Arthur looked at her, bewildered. "What do you mean?"
"Normally, whenever you ask her something, she tells you freely, even if it’s not something you should know."
"It’s not exactly like that," Arthur clarified. "It’s just that the boy is also a Chosen now. He is the Chosen of the Primordial God [Blaze]. That’s why there is secrecy."
"So now we have another Primordial God Chosen among us? Or can we even count him as part of us?"
Arthur shook his head. "Only time will tell. For now, as [The Sleepless Sword] advised, we stay out of this."
Zora looked at the blackish-purple mist, her thoughts unknown.
....
Alze-beus, now reduced to three heads, cursed. "Damn, it hurts!" Most of his body was gone, and he hadn’t expected something like this to happen.
Another Alze-beus, the lion-headed one, or whatever remained of it, spoke. "This thing is devouring us." This incarnation had more of its body left, managing to preserve its torso and a single limb.
Though the situation looked dire, neither were afraid. This devouring was not like the one [Zethe-thoth] executed; that had been truly terrifying.
This devouring was relatively weak, meaning the parts they lost could be recovered with time.
"stUpid foOd, dOn’t unDerstimAte iT," [Zethe-thoth] interrupted.
Both Alze-beuses paused. No matter how much time passed, they still couldn’t get used to [Zethe-thoth].
Alze-beus was not underestimating the mist. In fact, it was the Void God that was underestimating him. At some point, Alze-beus had found a way to hide some of his thoughts from the Void God, and it had yet to realize.
Still, he didn’t ignore the warning. Resolved to take this seriously, both incarnations walked toward each other and merged.
Their bodies twisted and melted together until all that was left was a huge mouth. Inside the giant maw, countless small mouths could be seen, and inside those, even smaller mouths existed.
It looked like an eldritch horror.
In this form, Alze-beus spoke. "The devouring power is weaker than ours as well." His voice was now even more distorted than what Night had released earlier.
The mouth then shifted. First, back legs appeared, then a torso, hands, and finally a head.
Opening his pitch-black eyes, Alze-beus now looked human, just fully black. Cracking his neck, he looked at the mist and said, "Much better." Now, the blackish-purple mist couldn’t hurt him. No matter how much it tried, it couldn’t do a thing.
It was like morning mist trying to move a mountain; all it could do was cover it and nothing more.
"lEt’s fiNd thE cOre, I wAnt tO eaT iT," [Zethe-thoth] demanded.
Alze-beus nodded and dived deeper into the mist.
....
Inside the Soul Space, Night’s Soul Projection stood in a daze.
Around him, the others stood in worry. System Girl could be seen hugging him and crying, but Night refused to show any reaction. It seemed as if he had externally frozen, reliving the moment of their death over and over again.
Lucy looked at Night and gritted her teeth. I promised to take care of him when I first bonded to him so confidently, and look at what happened. I was useless in the past, and even now, it hasn’t changed.
Lucy looked outside at the Devil casually walking through the mist as if on a stroll. She was so angry she wanted to eat it alive.
Off to the side, Lilith and Eve weren’t faring much better. They were frozen in place, as if their processes had malfunctioned.
After repeated calculations, they had arrived at the same conclusion: they were too weak to support their master. Forget about giving him a life of luxury; they couldn’t even protect him properly.
Zero was not as affected by what had happened, having known the group for less than a day. But this turn of events made her realize she was too weak to be of any use to her liege.
Death just stared at Night. Unlike the others, she wasn’t blaming herself; she knew her strengths and weaknesses more clearly than most.
What she didn’t understand was why things were spiraling so out of control. It had started ever since they left the Inheritance Ground.
Slowly, things were heading in a direction where she couldn’t find logical explanations. She knew it couldn’t just be the Natural Calamity Physique, as his master and the others assumed.
Another thing that puzzled her was their deaths. Because she had merged with the Death Stone, she was the one most in tune with death.
Yet, just now, when Sara was killed and when Blade somehow turned into a blade, she didn’t sense their true deaths.
Gripping her scepter tighter, she looked through Night’s senses. Another suspicious detail was that the snake that started all this had disappeared at some point.
Besides them, Sage was the most devastated by Sara and Blade’s deaths.
Ever since it happened, she hadn’t said a word. She didn’t cry, either. Instead, she just looked blankly at the situation outside. She would cry later once everything was over, but for now, the fight wasn’t done.
Like Death, she had also noticed the snake’s disappearance, but unlike Death, she wasn’t suspicious. She simply didn’t know what it was plotting. She wondered what it was planning, and if maybe she could help.
She then looked at the blade in Night’s hand, the weapon that had arrived just before he lost control and released his main body.
She didn’t know what to think of it. It was the last thing left of Blade. It looked powerful, but given the situation, it was no different than a decoration.
She also paid attention to [Dream], who seemed to be standing beside Night but wasn’t doing anything.
Sage knew she was very powerful, yet she hadn’t said or done a thing since the tragedy happened.
Sage didn’t know what was going on in her head, but if things continued like this, she was thinking of going over and begging her to intervene.
Just then, Alze-beus finally reached the core of the domain.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked up. The final moments of the fight had arrived.