Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 326: Undead Horde

Jamie cut the link right after Aikess’ response, then turned his gaze towards Lapis, who was on the ground.

The curse mark was spreading at an alarming rate, and the sight made Jamie click his tongue in annoyance.

|Authority of Time: Halt Progression.|

His command to the law of time caused cosmic energy to surge into Davina’s body and Lapis’ soul within it, halting the progression of the curse’s activation.

That would pause the curse. But it wouldn’t dispel it.

Even killing the undead ASB wouldn’t remove this curse. That much had been proven.

They had killed the real one 450 million years ago, and the curse had lingered. Even after Amara’s soul had passed on, the curse remained.

Clearly, the answer wasn’t as simple as killing the caster.

Jamie had a method in mind, but he couldn’t exactly use it now; not with an impending battle.

So, Lapis would have to wait.

◇　◇　◇

The enormous spatial energy that the undead ASB emanated was harnessed by an invisible force that condensed its power into multiple focal points around its colossal corpse.

These points served as spatial anchors for the gates that were torn open a moment later, and from these spatial gates, thousands of Deity Realm space beasts emerged.

And just like the current ASB, they were all undead.

The corpses of the millions of space beasts that had been slain by the Pinecone Galaxy’s defenders over countless years had been secretly collected. And now, with the resurrection of the Amorphous Space Beast, they too were unleashed.

Their controller watched them emerge from the spatial gates with narrowed eyes, but their attention was on the phone-like device floating beside their head.

"How did you find out about this?" they inquired.

[We’ve been monitoring Pinecone for millions of years. For some reason, Lapis Argeryan’s presence vanishes for several days roughly once every million years.

We’ve also confirmed that no matter what happens during those gaps, she never reappears until at least five days have passed.]

The voice on the other end revealed that Lapis’ periods of absence—while switching bodies—had not only been noticed but deliberately exploited in planning this attack.

[It’s a shame the node in the Gnocyl region didn’t work out, but we’ve gathered enough. Send the beast to our target.]

"...Mhmm."

The controller ended the call after that, before turning their gaze towards a certain direction in the galaxy.

"The Authority that had blocked the Space Beast’s roar..."

It was far weaker than they remembered, but it definitely felt like the Azure Void.

"That’s Jamie Westley’s Authority...

Hadn’t he left the galaxy? Or was this some sort of defensive mechanism he’d left behind?"

The one speaking—the Dragon of Death who had resurrected the Amorphous Space Beast with their Authority—could not be blamed for thinking Jamie had left.

After all, when Jamie had vanished into his Cosmic Gate following his encounter with John and Olivia in the Amphitheatre, he had been forcefully redirected into the special dimension where Amara was.

There, he had been completely cut off from the rest of the universe.

So when they searched and scanned the galaxy, even deploying Cosmic Beings from their organization to scour space for the telltale distortions in space and large-scale disruptions of spatial perceptions that Jamie’s mere presence always caused, they found nothing.

As such, they had concluded, logically, that he, like John and Olivia, had left Pinecone.

Jamie also hadn’t made a single public appearance since then. Only a handful knew he was still within the galaxy—Lapis and some of her subordinates.

So truly, they could not be blamed for thinking he was gone.

"But if he is still here..."

The dragon didn’t finish that thought.

Not because they simply chose to stop thinking, but because, at that moment, the thousands of undead space beasts—emerging one after another from the spatial portals surrounding the Amorphous Space Beast’s corpse—were suddenly engulfed in a massive explosion of fire.

The explosion erupted with the force of a hundred kilo novae, instantly obliterating the thousands of undead space beasts in its path.

The flames and shockwaves slammed into the undead ASB, ripping through its flesh, blasting off chunks of its scales, and sending a fountain of black, rotting blood spraying across space.

This caused it to let out a roar of rage, its long neck twisting as it turned to glare at its attacker. Its gaze pierced through space, down its body and towards the entity at its tail region.

As for the Dragon of Death who was much closer, they saw the attacker clearly without having to zoom their gaze.

A ginormous phoenix wreathed in crimson flames, unleashing a laser beam of extinction energy that deleted the undead space beasts from existence.

"...Beast of the END?!

Why the hell is that genderless motherfucker here?!"

Clearly, they hadn’t expected to see Aikess.

But their shock didn’t last long as their dragon eyes saw the truth, allowing them to calm down.

"That’s not their real body. Still, why is that thing here?"

Their monologue was cut short by the deafening roar of the undead Amorphous Space Beast. It opened its massive maw and unleashed a beam of energy straight towards Aikess.

But Aikess dodged with ease, letting the beam tear through and obliterate the swarm of undead space beasts that had just emerged behind them.

The beam also ripped apart and destroyed most of the spatial portals from which the undead were pouring.

Aikess had deliberately flown in front of them, baiting the undead ASB into destroying its own reinforcements in the process.

Seeing this, the dragon hurriedly ordered the ASB to stop attacking, before turning to glare at Aikess, who continued burning the undead space beasts.

Aikess let out a powerful shriek, and the energy contained in that shriek reverberated across space, crashing into the bodies of the thousands of undead space beasts, setting them ablaze as they writhed in pain.

The Dragon of Death clicked their tongue in annoyance. They wanted to intervene personally to deal with Aikess, but they couldn’t afford to show themselves in this situation. Not yet.

If it were any other creature, the dragon wouldn’t have been so worried. But it was a Phoenix. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Even though this one was a Beast of The END that specialized in destruction, phoenixes were a race with an absurdly high affinity for life, which was the bane of 99% of undead in existence.

The powerful life-law energy mixed in with Aikess’ extinction flames obliterated droves of the undead space beasts in an instant, forcefully returning any remaining souls to the underworld and preventing them from being resurrected once more.

But just then, a rift in space tore open behind Aikess, and ginormous space beasts with different forms emerged.

Each one of them radiated High-Tier Deity Realm power, and they lunged at Aikess from behind, aiming to execute a surprise attack.

But the phoenix could sense them from a light-year away.

Aikess spun around, swinging their wings and unleashing a blast of flames that the three space beasts dodged, before curving and shooting back towards the phoenix, unleashing attacks in response.

These three were some of the Space Beast Kings who had been hiding in fear of Lapis and her subordinate Vampire Kings who hunted them relentlessly.

But now, with the ASB’s resurrection, they had gained the morale to come out in the open, and they targeted Aikess, who looked like he was attacking the ASB.

Seeing that Aikess was now occupied with those three, the Dragon of Death recast his undead summoning, before ordering the undead ASB to redirect the attack it wanted to unleash on Aikess in the direction of the Amphitheatre of Eternity.

The undead ASB fired a beam of purple spatial destruction that rippled across the galaxy, tearing through all planets and stars in its path, each explosion adding to the wave of devastation that spread toward its target.

However, the dozens of Vampire Kings—Lapis’ subordinates—who were manning the Amphitheatre of Eternity didn’t just stand by and let it hit.

Sure, they were dealing with the other countless space beasts that were attacking the Amphitheatre at the same time, but they still had enough energy to spare to activate their Authorities, combining their energies for a defensive barrier that blocked the attack.

But despite blocking the attack, their defensive barrier completely shattered, and some of them received powerful backlash due to the strength of the Amorphous Space Beast’s strike.

Looking at this, one of the Vampire Kings gritted his teeth.

’That thing is thousands of lightyears away! It didn’t even look like it spent time accumulating energy for that attack, yet it was this strong.’

The man felt cold sweat run down his spine as he thought this. He pressed the button of the device in his ear, contacting Pinecone’s Central Command and asking.

"Have you guys been able to get in contact with Her Majesty?"

The response that came back wasn’t favourable at all.

[No, we haven’t found her yet. Christoph is still the one in charge of things for now.]

"Fuck Christoph! We need Her Majesty here! Those damned Race Emperors in the Amphitheatre aren’t lifting a finger! If Her Majesty doesn’t come, things are going to get bad really quickly!"

Before he could even catch his breath after the scream of frustration, a space beast lunged at him, forcing him to immediately take defensive manoeuvres.

Meanwhile, the ’Her Majesty’ that the Vampire King was after was currently heaving heavy breaths on Anadus Prime beside Jamie.

She staggered to her feet, looking up just as Jamie snapped his fingers, reconnecting the bodies of the Vampire Kings whom he had spatially severed in two earlier.

As their bodies reconnected, they regained consciousness as well as all feeling in their bodies and immediately jerked up.