Chapter 57: The Beast of Chaos City

Dense, blood-red tendrils swept over, boiling sword slashed horizontally, and soul marrow burned.

Sirian conjured a circle of flames that wrapped around him, incinerating the flesh into ash.

But even as the ash dispersed, it was still flesh.

Though Sirian was giving his all, he could at most prevent the Mountain of Decay from healing; he couldn’t kill it completely.

“This chaotic creature… is at least close to City-state level,” Sirian murmured to himself.

The civilized world classified chaotic creatures into three levels based on their strength: City-state, Perilous Domain, and Calamity.

City-state.

As the name suggests, the existence of such a chaotic creature was enough to impact a City-state, and in certain specific circumstances, even capable of destroying a City-state.

The Mountain of Decay before him, with the terrifying corrosive power of its blood rain, was subtly approaching City-state level.

Fortunately, chaotic creatures often lacked clear minds, acting only like beasts; otherwise, with everyone’s current ranks, they wouldn’t be able to stand before it.

“Burn… point…”

Suddenly, intermittent sounds came from the communicator.

The chaotic power affected communication, but Sirian still deciphered the meaning of these fragmented words.

At present, signal flares couldn’t penetrate the grey mist, but Sirian himself was a blazing torch.

“Let’s take a gamble,” a hint of madness appeared in Sirian’s eyes.

Source energy surged, and soul marrow ignited instantly.

Sirian splattered blood and raised his flaming sword.

This was his self-sacrificing strike, but it didn’t slash towards the Mountain of Decay before him; instead, it cleaved towards the boundless darkness above.

Flames shot skyward.

Regrettably, no matter how scorching these flames were, in this thick grey mist, they were but a fleeting spark.

But sometimes, a single spark is enough to set an entire wilderness ablaze.

“I… see it.”

An aged voice came from the distant darkness, and guided by this faint glimmer, a surge of majestic source energy erupted from the ground.

That was a power far beyond Sirian’s sensory limit.

A faint light flickered in the darkness.

Then, beams of light descended like a meteor shower, calmly passing through the boundless darkness.

The beams precisely struck the body of the Mountain of Decay; the touched flesh was erased from existence, leaving only bloody holes covered in granulation tissue.

A mournful wail echoed, and within a mere few seconds, the already shattered body of the Mountain of Decay further collapsed, almost turning into a pile of rotting flesh.

But this was not the end.

A beam of light crashed down, completely engulfing the pile of rotting flesh and foul blood, evaporating even the pervasive grey mist, leaving only a crater several meters in diameter.

Sirian swallowed, staring intently at the spot where the Mountain of Decay had vanished.

The concentration of soul marrow in his body rapidly climbed, and Sirian used this to confirm the death of the Mountain of Decay.

As long as he participated in the battle, even if he wasn’t the one to deliver the final blow, he could still gain power from the blessings.

Sirian looked back in the direction the light beams had come from; amidst the dense fog, the sound of a cane tapping the ground echoed.

The newcomer had a wrinkled, aged yet dignified face, with white hair tied back in a ponytail, and was cloaked in a black robe that almost merged with the night. A buzzing sound, like a swarm of bees, reverberated around him.

As the elder approached, Sirian saw the source of the buzzing.

They were several large mechanical hummingbirds, their translucent wings vibrating at high frequency, circling the elder as guards.

Demons emerged from the grey mist, but before Sirian could swing his sword to assist, the mechanical hummingbirds flashed a beam of light, effortlessly piercing through the demons.

Sirian was momentarily stunned, then belatedly realized that the beams of light that had annihilated the Mountain of Decay had come from these mechanical hummingbirds.

“A City Guard Bureau officer?” The elder smiled as he scrutinized Sirian. “You’re a new face I haven’t seen before.”

Chatting in the Liminal Gray Area wasn’t a wise thing to do, but the elder’s composed demeanor made it seem as if this were his living room.

He certainly had the strength to treat it as his living room; a single, calm strike had completely obliterated the Mountain of Decay.

Sirian breathed a sigh of relief and introduced himself, “I am Sirian, I just joined recently.”

“Then you truly are dedicated,” the elder looked around. “This hellish scene isn’t something a rank one Transcendent would have the courage to step into.”

“It’s my duty,” Sirian calmly replied.

“Good, very good.”

The elder’s admiration grew, and he extended his hand proactively.

“Rolf, it’s fortunate to meet a young man like you.”

Sirian wiped the blood from his hand and met him, grasping a cold, mechanical prosthetic hand.

“Hmm?”

Sirian paused, looking up at Rolf, and noticed his left eye visibly contracting. It was a prosthetic eye.

“Part of it was a necessary ritual during my promotion, and some were injuries I sustained when I was young that I was too lazy to heal, so I simply replaced them with machinery,” Rolf said indifferently.

Without needing further explanation, Sirian immediately understood that Rolf belonged to the Mech-Corpse Destiny.

Dailin once joked that it was simple to determine a Spirit Artisan’s rank: just look at the extent of their mechanical modifications to themselves.

“The stronger the Spirit Artisan, the less flesh they have on their body, almost entirely replaced by prosthetics.”

Sirian wasn’t sure how much flesh remained under the loose black robe, but from the fact that Rolf’s source energy intensity exceeded his own sensory limit, he knew that Rolf was at least a Spirit Artisan of Rank Three or higher.

Above Rank Three?

Rolf should be among the top Transcendent in Heer City; with the arrival of a deadly wave, his appearance here was indeed reasonable.

Sirian suggested, “The Mountain of Decay has been dealt with, we should head back.”

“The Mountain of Decay? No, I didn’t come for it.”

Rolf shook his head, casting a cold glance at the deep pit beside him, as if what he had just dealt with wasn’t a chaotic creature that could endanger Heer City, but merely a squashed bug.

Sirian was filled with doubt. Immediately, an intense heat emanated from the ouroboros seal, like a red-hot coal pressed against his palm.

Vast chaotic power poured out from the darkness, its extremely high concentration even causing a certain degree of distortion in the earth.

The soil turned grey-white, losing all vitality, and began to seep blood, collecting into a pool that rose above Sirian’s feet.

Only then did Sirian realize that while the Mountain of Decay was fearsome, with everyone’s combined strength, they were fully capable of slaying it; there was no need for a Spirit Artisan as powerful as Rolf to intervene.

Then there was only one reason for Rolf’s appearance here.

Something had arrived, not emerging from the darkness, but rising from the blood, from beneath the ground… from the Spirit World itself.

A colossal body slowly broke through the boundary of blood pool and soil, each scale shimmering with a cold, eerie light.

Its head… if it could be called a head, was more like a constantly twisting and changing mass of darkness, and the ground trembled with increasing intensity.

Sirian saw the chaotic creature’s form: it was a worm, a worm as massive as a tower.

“The chaotic creature, Devouring Worm. Its mouthparts are capable of chewing through stone and iron; even high walls would crumble before it. At the same time, its esophagus connects directly to the Spirit World, meaning anything it devours is banished… In other words, it can eat endlessly,” Rolf introduced the suddenly appearing chaotic creature to Sirian, sighing with emotion.

“Compared to the Mountain of Decay just now, this is truly a genuine City-state beast.”

The surrounding air solidified, leaving only the deep howling and the rumbling of the trembling ground, along with the occasional faint and desperate cries for help from a distance.

Sirian knew well that this was an existence he could no longer contend with, and his gaze turned to Rolf.

Rolf said with a helpless expression, “A City-state beast of this caliber isn’t something I can kill alone.”

Sirian calmly said, “But you still came, alone.”

“That’s right, so I don’t need to kill it.”

Rolf liked Sirian’s composure; anyone else would probably have been scared witless.

“Then what do you plan to do?”

Sirian mobilized his source energy; even with the blessings, he was starting to feel the strain after these consecutive major battles.

“It’s simple: just prevent its descent.”

The mechanical hummingbirds swarmed out, flying around the Devouring Worm, continuously releasing beams of light that sparked against its scales.

“Once a City-state-level chaotic creature successfully reaches reality, it will bring terrible disaster to the area of its descent.

Therefore, under normal circumstances, we don’t choose to confront it head-on, but rather repel it back into the Spirit World before it fully descends.”

As Rolf spoke, a ferocious steel construct emerged from the darkness behind him.

It was a steel giant with only an upper body, heavily armored from head to torso. Each armor plate was meticulously forged, sharp-edged, and gleamed with a cold metallic luster. The gaps between the armor were interlaced with dense, intricate cables, resembling surging blood vessels.

Most striking was the blazing power core in the giant’s chest.

It emanated a pure white and sacred source energy glow, which, via precise cables, flowed to every corner of the giant, even ingeniously connecting to its absent lower body—though the lower body no longer existed, the source energy, in a way beyond imagination, constructed an invisible energy field, supporting this heavy construct as it floated in mid-air, moving slowly.

“This is the Sharpening Edge-type Dominance Armor,” Rolf introduced, while simultaneously releasing his source energy, silently demonstrating his rank with its sublime power.

Mech-Corpse Destiny.

Rank Four · Eternal Steel Pioneer.

The source energy light in the Dominance Armor’s chest surged, its shoulder missile pods opened, and its arm-mounted burst cannons charged.

Full firepower!