Chapter 72: Chapter 72: The Descent of Zero

Chapter 72: The Descent of Zero

FWOOSH! BOOOOOOM!

The war started with a blinding, earth-shattering bang.

Thousands of destructive spells, fireballs, concentrated lightning lances, and jagged ice spears, rained down from the top of the Great Wall, crashing into the front lines of the Beast Wave.

The explosion was biblical. The vanguard of the Abyssal Razor-Hounds was instantly vaporized in a sea of magical fire, their bone-spiked bodies turning to ash before they could even touch the concrete.

But for every hundred monsters that fell, a thousand more rushed over their burning corpses.

THUD! THUD!

The Goliath Siege-Turtles marched through the inferno, their four-story-tall, heavily armored shells completely shrugging off the Vanguard’s artillery.

Corrupted Storm-Vultures rained acidic bile from the sky, melting the stone battlements and forcing the Academy’s anti-air mages into a frantic, desperate defense.

The two armies collided at the base of the wall with the sickening crunch of steel meeting bone. The screams of monsters and men blended into a horrifying, singular chorus.

High above the carnage, three figures did not wait behind the defensive barriers.

Lord Commander Helion Goldmane, Guildmaster Seraphina Vance, and Patriarch Vance Hennessey stepped off the edge of the Great Wall. They didn’t fall; they descended like meteors.

KRA-BOOM!

Helion landed first, driving The Bastion’s Anchor into the corrupted dirt.

A localized, directional earthquake erupted from the impact, instantly liquefying the earth and completely flattening a thousand Razor-Hounds in a one-mile straight line.

Seraphina landed beside him, her Silver Requiem whipping out in a liquid-silver blur, cleanly slicing through the legs of a towering Siege-Turtle without breaking her stride.

Hennessey touched down a second later, a wave of venomous, holy golden fire incinerating everything within a fifty-yard radius.

They did not look back at the wall. They surged forward, cutting a perfectly straight, effortless path through the endless ocean of monsters.

The feral beasts were entirely irrelevant to them. They were hunting the generals.

---

Ten kilometers out, at the edge of the artificial rifts, the three Elders waited.

Elder Martha watched the three human powerhouses tear through her horde. A sickening, fanatical smile stretched across her scarred face.

The ambient mana around her began to twist, turning the air pitch-black and rotting the very earth beneath her boots.

At the absolute pinnacle of human and demonic evolution, crossing the legendary threshold of Level 200, beings no longer just manipulated mana.

They commanded the fundamental laws of reality. For humanity’s greatest champions, this manifestation was called a Valor.

For demons, and the humans corrupted enough to serve them, it was known as an Edict.

"They come willingly to the slaughter," Martha rasped, her eyes bleeding black tears as she unleashed her power.

"[Edict of the Rotting Abyss]."

A wave of concentrated decay rushed outward, instantly turning a mile of the Wildlands into a toxic, inescapable mire.

The sheer pressure of a Level 215 Cult Elder was enough to suffocate a normal Vanguard Knight from miles away.

Helion Goldmane stepped into the mire. The rotting darkness curled around his heavy armored boots, trying to consume him.

Helion did not even draw his breath. He simply looked down at the dark magic trying to eat his flesh, and scoffed.

"You think this shallow trick has the ability to devour the might of the Sun?" Helion’s voice was calm, but it vibrated with a terrifying, absolute authority.

"Tell me... which fool convinced you that I could be stopped?"

A blinding, incandescent golden light erupted from Helion’s core.

It wasn’t just heat.

It was the physical manifestation of his unyielding pride and supremacy.

"[Valor of the Zenith Sun]."

FWOOSH!

The rotting darkness around him instantly evaporated, burning away into nothingness.

The sheer, overwhelming radiance of Helion’s Valor pushed the Cult’s Edict back, illuminating the dark Wildlands like a second dawn.

"You dare look down on the Eclipse, Helion?!" Martha shrieked, her voice twisting with demonic distortion.

"Our God brings a new era! Your light is dying!"

Helion rested his massive meteorite hammer on his shoulder. He looked down at the shrieking, Level 215 fanatic with eyes full of overwhelming, serene pity.

"My light will not permit the old world to die," Helion stated, taking a slow, world-shaking step forward.

"So long as my will remains unbroken, this world shall not fall. Its survival has already been decided. You stand against that decision. What could that be, if not foolishness? Burn."

The clash of the Apex predators began.

---

Back at the Great Wall, amidst the chaos of the artillery fire, Draven Mordis stood entirely hidden in the shadows of a watchtower.

He watched the Lord Commander and the elites charge out.

He knew exactly what the Cult’s plan was. Martha and the Elders were acting as a massive, irresistible distraction.

They wanted to tie down the Level 200 powerhouses in the deep Wildlands while their "hidden card" breached the city walls.

It was time to move.

Draven opened his inventory and pulled out the Mask of Numerous Identities. It was a sleek, featureless white mask. He pressed it against his face.

[System Alert: Mythic Item Equipped. Establishing Persona parameters...]

Draven felt a strange, thrilling shift in his psyche.

The cold, exhausted military commander took a backseat in his mind, allowing a deeply theatrical, twisted, and playful alter-ego to bleed into his consciousness.

The mask bonded to his skin, shifting his clothes into a sleek, dark tactical suit.

He was the First Finger of the Embracing Hands.

He was Zero.

’Oh, this feels wonderfully light,’ Zero thought, a manic, wide smile forming beneath the featureless white mask.

’Let’s go play.’

Down below, the main gate of Bastion Seven was groaning. A massive Goliath Siege-Turtle had reached the concrete.

The Vanguard Knights were screaming, desperately firing their rifles at its impenetrable shell.

Standing atop the massive beast’s head was a Level 120 Cult Elite. He was laughing maniacally, channeling dark magic to drive the beast forward.

"Crush the gates! Feed them to the abyss!" the Cult Elite roared, raising his staff.

TAP. TAP.

The Cult Elite froze. Someone had just tapped him on the shoulder.

He spun around. Standing casually on the slippery, moving shell of the giant turtle was a man in a dark suit wearing a featureless white mask.

The man was leaning on an invisible cane of gravity, his legs crossed elegantly at the ankles.

"Excuse me, sir," Zero’s voice was light, musical, and dripping with playful sarcasm.

"I know you’re very busy driving this oversized soup-bowl, but I seem to have lost my invitation to the party."

"What?! Who are you?!" the Cult Elite screamed, raising his staff to cast a point-blank spell.

"Die, insect!"

"My, my, so rude," Zero sighed dramatically, shaking his head.

"Knock, knock."

The Cult Elite sneered.

"I said die!"

"You’re supposed to say ’who’s there,’ you uncultured swine," Zero chuckled darkly.

"But I’ll give you the punchline anyway. It’s Gravity."

Zero lazily snapped his fingers.

BAM!

A localized, Level 150 kinetic vector slammed directly onto the Cult Elite’s shoulders.

The man’s spine shattered instantly under the invisible weight of a falling mountain.

He was crushed flat against the turtle’s shell, his eyes bulging out of his skull as his internal organs ruptured.

"Oof. Looks like you’ve fallen flat," Zero laughed, a chilling, psychotic sound that sent shivers down the dying Cultist’s spine.

Zero casually raised his right hand. He compressed the air molecules around his fingertips using Spatial Rend.

"Here, let me take a little weight off your shoulders."

SWISH.

An invisible blade of pressurized space cleanly decapitated the Cult Elite. Blood sprayed across the massive turtle’s shell.

With the driver dead, the Siege-Turtle let out a confused, bellowing groan.

Zero didn’t stop there.

He dropped his hand and applied a massive, concentrated downward vector straight through the severed neck hole of the beast, driving an invisible spike of kinetic force directly into the creature’s brainstem.

The four-story-tall Goliath collapsed instantly, its massive body crashing into the dirt just twenty feet from the main gates, creating a barricade of dead flesh that crushed hundreds of smaller Razor-Hounds beneath it.

---

Down on the ground, Aegon Logcheville and a squad of Vanguard Knights stared up in absolute shock at the dead monster.

Standing on the crest of the fallen shell was the man in the white mask.

Zero looked down at the stunned "Hero" and the terrified soldiers.

He placed a hand over his chest and offered them a highly exaggerated, theatrical bow.

"You’re welcome, audience!" Zero called out cheerfully.

He tapped two fingers against the side of his blank mask in a playful salute.

"Enjoy the show! I’ll be in the VIP section if you need me!"

FWOOSH!

Before Aegon could even shout a question, Zero completely vanished into thin air, leaving nothing behind but the massive, bleeding corpse of the enemy’s siege weapon.

Zero moved through the shadows of the battlefield, his manic grin widening.

The foot soldiers were irrelevant.

He was hunting for the real prize.

He was hunting for the Corpse Titan.