Novel Full Chapter 914: It’s Over
Chapter 914: It’s Over
The creature that had lunged froze mid-motion.
Then its head slid off cleanly.
Its body remained standing for a fraction of a second before collapsing heavily onto the ground. Then the others followed. One by one, every monster in the surrounding area lost its head, blood spreading across the cracked street in uneven lines.
Slowly the people below looked up.
High above them, suspended in the air, was a figure in black clothing. Even from a distance they could see the glowing green eyes, empty of any emotion.
The father’s grip tightened unconsciously around his son. The boy stared upward, trembling. The mother, still half on the ground, felt her breath catch in her chest.
The figure did not speak. A second later it vanished.
Across Brightgate the same scene repeated. Again and again and again.
On one street, a group of civilians cornered inside a collapsed bus watched as something flickered into existence above them. A figure in black with glowing green eyes. The creatures clawing at the metal split apart before they even understood what had happened.
In another district, a squad of exhausted cultivators from the Supers Association branch bracing for the worst saw a blur cut through the battlefield around them. Every monster in range lost its head in the same instant. When they looked up, they caught a glimpse of a figure standing in the air for less than a second before it disappeared.
In a narrow alleyway choked with debris, five survivors pressed against broken stone as monsters closed in from both sides. One man raised a trembling weapon, even if he knew it was not enough to do anything.
Then everything froze.
The creatures collapsed one by one, heads sliding clean off before their bodies hit the ground.
They looked up to find a figure floating in mid air.
Then it was gone a second later.
High above the city, Michael watched in silence as something stirred inside him.
Below, his undead had spread throughout Brightgate. At the same time he spotted other figures moving through the chaos. Cultivators from the Supers Association branch, some coordinating evacuations on the ground, others flying through the air and striking at larger threats, working to stop the damage from spreading further.
Thanks to being in Fade’s state, none of them noticed him hovering above.
Michael’s eyes trembled slightly. To think a day would come when he had the power to help defend an entire city. And it had not even been a full year since his awakening ceremony.
That thought stirred too many things in him at once. Shock. Pride. Disbelief. Gratitude. And a faint trace of bitterness as well, because he knew exactly how much it had cost him to reach this point.
Part of his attention remained fixed on his undead. Nearly two hundred of them were now spread across the city. Looking at their identical black clothing, Michael found himself thinking it might be worth finding a wider variety of outfits for their human forms.
Then he immediately shook his head. Later, perhaps.
Besides, it was the most practical option. Most of his undead reverted to their true forms during combat anyway, and that usually left them without clothes once they returned to human form. Spending resources on clothing that would be destroyed every few fights was not sensible.
Still, watching those black-clothed figures with glowing green eyes appear and vanish all across the city did produce a certain impression.
Michael stared for a moment longer, then let out a breath somewhere between amusement and resignation. "...I really do look like some kind of evil final boss."
He shook that thought away. "In any case, with this many undead spread across the city, even when the remaining cracks open the situation should hold."
The intensity of this attack felt similar to what had happened in Woodstone, where the strongest threats had capped out at Rank 3. That level of danger was almost nonexistent to the current Michael, given that all his undead operated at that level.
The only thing that genuinely concerned him were the demonic supernaturals still hidden somewhere in the city. Even if he wanted to root them out, in a place this large it was not impossible but it was far from easy. Maintaining stability across the city was the better use of his focus.
As he watched the situation below, another thought surfaced. What could he actually gain from this?
Back in Woodstone, every monster he killed had been sold to the Federation, earning him the largest single sum of money he had seen in the early days of his awakening. With his current capabilities and the potential to account for most of the monsters in this attack, he could not even begin to estimate what this might be worth.
"With this I might be able to pay my debt to Rynne and leave some funds for my family before I leave. At least thanks to Director Lin I do not have to worry about the cost of repairing the manor."
Then a different thought surfaced. What about the debt he owed the elves?
Michael conveniently directed his mind elsewhere. That particular debt was not something the current version of him could afford to even begin thinking about.
"After this I should also deal with the situation inside the coffin," he thought, already feeling a mild headache forming. There was Lily’s lightning tribulation still waiting. The frozen Rank 4 demonic supernatural. Beginning, who would need to advance soon. And the body of the foreign Rank 4 from the Drake race.
As the situation across Brightgate slowly began to stabilize, a very different kind of panic was spreading in another part of the city.
The demonic supernaturals hidden within the city felt their blood run cold.
"More than a hundred King-rank experts have appeared!"
"That’s impossible!"
"Didn’t he say the barrier was working?!"
The accusations immediately turned on the figure seated within the magic circle. Voices rose with each passing second, curses mixing with fear as they demanded an explanation for how so many powerful existences had entered the sealed city.
The man at the center had barely opened his mouth when space itself shook.
A crack tore open within the chamber. The next instant, a man stepped through.
The aura that entered with him was suffocating. It crashed into the room like a mountain falling from the sky. Every person present except the one inside the formation dropped to their knees instantly, bones straining, organs trembling, faces draining of color from the pressure alone.
A King-rank demonic cultivator.
The moment he appeared he struck first. His palm smashed into the figure maintaining the barrier, sending him crashing sideways out of the formation’s center. Blood burst from the man’s mouth and chest simultaneously. Half his meridians collapsed from the single impact and his aura fractured into disorder.
The others pressed lower in terror, not daring to breathe too loudly.
The King-rank cultivator looked down at the injured man with cold fury. "You told us the barrier was stable."
The man coughed blood, his face pale with pain and fear. "It was. It is. I sensed fluctuations, but—"
"But what?" The voice was like ice.
The entire chamber felt colder.
One of the kneeling supernaturals, unable to contain the fear any longer, forced out a trembling question. "How could so many people have entered the city?"
The King-rank cultivator’s expression darkened. He had already checked. The number of hostile presences inside Brightgate had grown far beyond what should have been possible.
He stared at the half-crippled man for a few seconds longer, his expression unreadable. Then he exhaled slowly.
"It doesn’t matter."
He straightened and withdrew his pressure slightly, his gaze moving across the kneeling figures one by one. "From the beginning, our numbers here were never large. And with the Federation’s forces appearing at this scale, the plan is already beyond salvaging."
He turned away. "If you want to live, leave the city. This place is finished."
No one argued. The moment his figure began to fade, several of the others moved immediately as well.
The departure of the demonic supernaturals caused no noticeable disturbance. Michael was not aware they had begun to retreat. From his position, the threat still appeared to be present within the city, so he did not relax for a single moment. He continued focusing entirely on suppressing the ongoing disaster, and the few demonic supernaturals who passed through his range of perception did not survive long enough to escape. The moment any of them revealed even the faintest presence, they were eliminated without hesitation.
As the battle wore on, the final wave arrived. Rank 3 monsters began descending from the sky in scattered numbers, emerging from the last remaining unstable cracks. They met the same end as everything before them, cut down mid-descent before they could reach the ground.
Then, one after another, the cracks began to close. The unstable tears in space sealed shut completely.
And just like that, it was over.