Kreeeeaaak!
The Nephilim let out a guttural screech at the approaching man.
That was when it happened.
Crunch-crunch—
In an instant, the masked man's body swelled dramatically.
His muscles bulged across his entire frame, and veins protruded prominently.
He swung his bare fist toward the Nephilim roaring at him.
Booom!
An explosion erupted from the Nephilim's body with a force that was hard to believe came from a bare-handed strike.
Keeeaak—
The Nephilim, struck hard by the man, spewed blood from its mouth and staggered.
Seeing this, the man gestured, and the soldiers released the Chains of the Soul that had restrained the Nephilim.
Boom! Boom!
The Nephilim, which had been rampaging inside its cage, spread its wings the moment the chains were undone and charged at the man.
Kaaarrk—
The Nephilim trampled the man in a single bound and tried to tear into him with its teeth.
But astonishingly, an utterly unexpected scene unfolded.
Crunch-crunch—
The masked man grabbed the Nephilim's foot—nearly as large as his own body—and tore it off with both hands.
Kaaarrk!
The Nephilim shuddered in agony.
And then something even more astonishing occurred.
Whoosh!
The man grabbed the lower part of his mask and peeled it back, opening his mouth wide to devour the Nephilim's foot.
Crunch!
Chomp!
The Nephilim recoiled in terror at the sight of the man tearing into not just the flesh but the bone without hesitation.
But the man's bizarre actions didn't stop there.
Thud!
He kicked off the ground and leaped up, clasping his hands together to smash the Nephilim's head with a hammer fist.
Bam!
Flesh tore and bones cracked as the Nephilim collapsed to the floor with a heavy thud.
The bloodline descendant who had inherited the authority of a constellation lay there, unable to even steady itself after a single blow.
man mounted the fallen Nephilim and seized its shimmering silver wings. Crunch-crunch—
He ripped them out immediately, and silver blood poured from the wounds.
Overwhelmed by primal pain it had never felt before, the Nephilim screamed.
But the man ignored the cries entirely and tore off all four pairs of wings.
Thud!
He gathered the severed wings to one side and then began systematically devouring the living Nephilim.
Crunch!
Chomp!
With its wings gone and unable to move, the Nephilim could do nothing but scream as the man tore into its body, powerless to resist.
Before long, half of the Nephilim's body had been consumed, and it lay gasping for breath.
The resilient life force granted by the constellation's blood refused to let it die even in this state.
Soon, the man gripped the Nephilim's exposed ribs and forcibly tore them away.
Crack-crack!
A fiercely pulsing heart was revealed inside.
The man seized the throbbing heart of the still-living Nephilim and yanked it free. Screeech—
With its heart torn out, the Nephilim slowly closed its eyes.
Even a bloodline descendant of a constellation couldn't survive without a heart.
Yet the extracted heart still pulsed in the man's hand.
He carried the heart toward the demon statue.
The women in the blood pool knelt and offered censers to the man.
Zeke realized that the censers they held were identical to the one Richmond had discovered.
The man placed the Nephilim's heart into the censer.
Rumble-rumble—
An ominous energy emanated from the censer.
He took the censer from the women and approached the demon statue more closely.
Indecipherable, eerie incantations continued to flow from his mouth.
The man stepped into the blood pool and raised the censer high above his head.
The blood in the pool began to ripple as if alive.
Splash—
The blood surged toward the censer in his hands.
Rumble-rumble—
The blood, infused with deep resentment and terror, was sucked into the censer until the pool ran completely dry.
Beneath the now-empty pool, a grotesque pattern was revealed.
The man continued chanting, and soon black energy rose from the censer.
Watching this, Zeke suddenly realized that the energy emanating from the censer felt just like that of the outsider species he had encountered before.
man set the censer on the ground and plunged his hand inside.
It was filled with viscous black ichor.
He pulled something out from within.
It was the Nephilim's heart, still covered in black ichor and pulsing.
The man muttered something under his breath as he slowly brought his mouth to the heart.
Crunch-crunch!
Without hesitation, he tore into the still-beating heart of the Nephilim.
And with each bite he swallowed, something astonishing happened.
Thud!
The man's body began to change.
His already swollen form grew even larger, and his skin shifted to a pale gray. Grrr—
Sharp fangs protruded from his mouth, and his nails and claws sharpened.
The man was transcending his human flesh into something else entirely.
Kreeeeaaak!
After devouring the entire heart, the man looked nothing like before.
Two additional pairs of arms had sprouted from his back, and his body had doubled in size.
Amid his disheveled hair, mad crimson eyes blazed fiercely.
He lifted the censer and drank the remaining black ichor inside.
Then, he slammed it to the ground and roared.
Roooaaar!
A tremendous energy shook the earth, pouring from the monster.
"My god..."
In that moment, Zeke recognized the aura emanating from the monster—he had felt it before.
The transcendent being he had faced in the sealed karma data.
"Flesh-Devouring Emperor Ajitahaka."
The censer had contained memories from when Ajitahaka was still human. "To think this censer was the ritual vessel used in Ajitahaka's devouring rite." It made sense why so many vengeful spirits were sealed within it.
The traces of Ajitahaka's devouring—not just of phenomenal world races, but demons and Nephilim alike—remained intact inside.
Zeke realized that the power Ajitahaka had summoned through the devouring rite was that of the outsider species.
He had abandoned his human body to embrace the outsider species' power, aspiring to become something greater.
The shrine maidens, who had been performing the rite, knelt and began chanting toward Ajitahaka, now transformed into a monster.
The soldiers followed suit, kneeling and reciting the incantations.
At the same time, a blood-red moon rose in the sky.
Hummm!
The grand hall filled with an eerie energy under the crimson moonlight.
soldiers, empowered by it, let out frenzied howls, and their forms began to change
one by one.
Grrr—
Each soldier transformed into a grotesque outsider species.
They shed their armor and screeched monstrous cries toward Ajitahaka in the center of the hall.
It was like gazing upon the depths of hell.
Zeke recalled seeing something similar before.
"The countless outsider species statues in the Theia Temple."
The outsider species gathered to worship Ajitahaka overlapped with the statues slumbering in the temple.
Under the light of the blood moon, Zeke watched Ajitahaka, who had shed his humanity to become a fell god, and suddenly thought of Ramon Siemens.
"This horrific tragedy must not repeat." In that instant, Zeke's vision shifted.
Crackle—
The past memory data faded, replaced by the faces of Richmond and Bane watching him. "Master!"
"My lord!"
The two liches looked gravely concerned at Zeke, who had stood frozen, clutching the censer for a long while.
Zeke felt a brief dizziness before shaking his head and recovering.
It was undoubtedly far more natural to use Dragonʼs Wisdom now than before.
He stared at the weathered censer for a moment, then tossed it into his shadow.
Ssssh—
The vengeful spirits inside became his shadow spirits, but he judged the censer, infused with the ominous aura of the outsider species, too dangerous to keep.
At that moment, a message appeared before Zeke's eyes.
[You have absorbed the censer containing the aura of the fell god.]
[A portion of the incomplete authority of devouring has been unlocked.]
Because it was a ritual vessel from the rite, absorbing it unlocked part of Ajitahaka's authority.
'Though the authority of devouring wasn't particularly necessary for me, with the authority of the Shadow King.'
Wondering if there was some new function he didn't know about, Zeke activated the unlocked authority of devouring.
The moment he did, an immense hunger surged through him.
At the same time, an impulse to devour anything in sight overwhelmed him. Crunch-crunch—
Changes even manifested in his body.
His canines sharpened, his nails lengthened, his jaw hardened, and his mouth tore open wider.
Zeke hurriedly suppressed the authority.
Even with his indomitable will, controlling the urge to devour was no easy task.
Then, Zeke sensed something off.
'This?'
Far to the west, he could feel another being with the same authority of devouring.
If it possessed Ajitahaka's authority, it could only be Ramon Siemens.
By unlocking the authority of devouring, Zeke had become able to detect Ramon Siemens's location.
'Ramon Siemens, so you've been hiding there.'
Having pinpointed the location, Zeke thought for a moment before speaking to Richmond and Bane.
"Richmond, Bane. Cancel the plan to scout them. Clear the garden and stand guard around the perimeter. The forces to attack Siemens will assemble here."
Unlike before, the two liches tensed at Zeke's voice, commanding with the sovereign's presence, and bowed their heads.
Zeke's eyes flashed as he said,
"The time has come to end our long enmity with Siemens. This is our chance to wipe them all out."
*
Baranaon was a small kingdom, but it boasted a long history.
Ancient ruins of unknown origin, harboring profound mysteries, lay hidden throughout its lands.
Some scholars even argued that Baranaon, brimming with countless unsolved enigmas, should be designated as one of the continent's forbidden zones.
The "ruins where no grass grows" were one such unresolved mystery of Baranaon.
Currently, Knight Killers from Siemens's special magic corps and former imperial Hunting Dogs were lying in wait, guarding the site.
After the emperor's death, with their position in the empire becoming ambiguous, Ramon Siemens had pulled the Hunting Dogs unit under his command as his private forces.
The reason Knight Killers and Hunting Dogs were guarding the ruins was that the second consecration rite, which Ramon Siemens had prepared for so long, was set to take place there.
The Knight Killers, equipped with telescopes enchanted with vision-enhancement magic, were closely monitoring the surroundings.
But then, one of the Knight Killers spotted suspicious movement ahead.
Click!
He aimed his magic gun toward the movement.
Holding his breath, he scanned for it again.
Through the state-of-the-art enchanted telescope, he could see the surroundings as clearly as daylight even in the darkness.
And then, something darted by.
Bang!
A specially modified magic gun fired a round in an instant.
Thud!
Something hit by the bullet fell.
The Knight Killer signaled with a light, and the waiting Hunting Dogs moved toward the spot to check what had been struck.
They pushed through the reeds, searching for the suspicious object.
"What the hell."
But what the bullet had hit was just an ordinary rabbit.
As the Hunting Dogs picked up the dead rabbit and turned to head back, the same thought struck them all.
'Can there even be rabbits here?'
This place was called the "ruins where no grass grows."
Aside from the dense reed bed in front of the site, there wasn't so much as a blade of grass ahead—no animals, nothing.
The sudden appearance of a rabbit was suspicious.
Just as they tried to send an alert signal, Rustle!
Someone emerged from the darkness and swiftly snatched them away.
"Mmph!"
A gray-haired man laid them out in the reed bed and immediately stabbed their chests with a dagger.
It was none other than Bacchus Draker.
Bacchus led the Red Eye vampires through the reed bed, cautiously approaching the ruins.
The Knight Killer, watching from afar through his telescope, grew suspicious when the Hunting Dogs didn't return.
'What? Could it actually be an intruder?' He stood to send an alert signal.
Thud!
But in that instant, the Knight Killer's body sank into the earth without a sound or trace.
Soon, a hole opened in the ground, and Boris, Sion, Serena, Adol, Bisco, and finally Airen emerged from it.
Boris addressed the intelligence operatives.
"Airen, monitor their movements from here. Bisco, prepare the illusions. We're going to disrupt them."
With the intelligence unit at the forefront, Zeke Draker's side launched their preemptive strike.