Chapter 189: Arthas’s Greeting to the Stonemen

"Come on, move..."

Magna lay on his back on the ground, pushing against the smooth surface of the rock with his feet with all his strength.

His legs were more powerful than his arms thanks to one of his early mutations, which had given him the leg muscles of a red lizard.

Still, the huge rock didn’t even budge.

Since Rhadak had left him there and returned outside, Magna had been trying every possible way to move the stone blocking the exit.

Using his legs wasn’t his only idea. He also tried digging into the ground, hoping he could somehow get underneath it and pass through, but the area around the entrance was made of stone just as hard as the door itself.

He also tried punching the rocks, hoping he could break through them, but the result was the same. The only things that got hurt were his hands and his pride.

The worst part was the growling coming from his stomach, sounding like the whisper of death in his ears and making it harder for him to concentrate.

"Should I really eat those worms?"

His face fell as he thought about the disgusting and probably poisonous black worms that seemed to be the Stonemen’s usual meal.

Maybe he could use his fire spell to barbecue them, making them safer to eat while also reducing their disgusting taste a little.

But that was his backup plan, as he was currently watching his mana and waiting for it to reach a certain point so he could try a spell on the huge rock.

His most powerful attack at the moment wasn’t his punches or kicks, but the Glacial Calamity spell he had learned from Celeste.

The last time he used it, it had consumed 100% of his mana, but since then, he had gone through 6 more mutations, each of which had almost doubled his mana capacity.

So the spell that had once consumed 100% of his mana could now be cast by Magna while using only around 2%.

His mana was currently at 1.2%, and his natural mana regeneration restored around 1% every 24 hours.

If he could just wait that long, he would use the spell on the rock.

Since the spell’s main strength was freezing, if he could freeze the rock completely, he might be able to break it more easily. That was currently the best plan he had.

Trying to push the rock would only make him more tired, so he backed away and sat on the ground, deciding to pass the time by resting and conserving his energy until his mana reached the required amount.

While waiting, he also started looking around at the walls. The drawings made by the Stonemen covered almost the entire cavern.

’These drawings look even better than those in the corridor.’

Not only were the drawings better, but they also seemed to tell a story, with each part following the previous one.

He searched all the walls and eventually found what he thought was the beginning of the story.

Surprisingly, it was a drawing of a woman. She had no visible expression because her back was turned, with long hair flowing all the way down to her heels.

There was no hat on her head, which made Magna guess that she wasn’t actually a depiction of a Witch.

Her head was slightly tilted downward as she looked toward the world beneath her feet, as if gazing at the ground from high above.

A little farther along in the drawings was an image of the sun.

Magna found it quite interesting, considering there was no sun in the Underworld.

And standing directly in front of this sun was another female figure, seemingly blocking its light as she looked directly at the other woman.

Magna’s thoughts started working as he realized the scene looked quite similar to a story he had recently read.

As he followed the drawings and saw how the story continued, he became certain that it was the story from the book 5 Stages of the Genesis.

And surprisingly, it depicted exactly the section where Magna had stopped reading, the closing scene of the Matriarch of Death’s story and the beginning of the Matriarch of Fate’s story.

—

The crimson sky, like the blood of a divine being, continued to shine over the ashen ground below.

The air was hot, and the land was black and dry, stretching as far as the eye could see with no sign of any sane person living or having ever lived there.

But even in this godforsaken place, there was a man walking calmly.

He looked like he was simply walking, but to the eye, it was almost like an illusion. With every step, his body would disappear and reappear several meters farther ahead.

His long hair flowed with every step as his deep black eyes looked straight ahead, seemingly able to see all the way to the end of the endless, dry land as he made his way toward the 3 mountains in the distance.

It hadn’t been long since Arthas came to the Underworld, but finding Magna’s trail had taken him quite some time.

When he passed through the entrance, unfortunately, the exit hadn’t brought him to the exact spot where Magna had fallen, so he had to walk around for a while before finally finding the right place to begin his search.

At last, after following the tracks, he found that they led toward the 3 mountains where the Stonemen lived.

Under the hot air, his full-body dark knight armor made a metallic clanging sound with every step, yet he didn’t even seem to sweat.

Step by step, he came closer to the settlement, the distance shrinking incredibly fast with every step until he finally stopped in front of the Stoneman village.

The Stonemen, who were busy with their daily routines, took a few seconds to notice the stranger who had appeared in front of their village.

But as soon as they noticed the silhouette wearing dark armor standing there like a Desolation, they all stopped whatever they were doing.

Instantly, the sound of stone hitting stone began to rise from the entrance of the settlement as the Stonemen clenched their fists and struck their chests, greeting an old friend as well as a man they respected for his strength.

Seeing them greet him, Arthas’s expression didn’t change.

He simply returned their gesture by raising his fist and striking it against his chest.

BOOM!

The impact produced a deafening metallic sound that echoed through the settlement, far louder than any of the sounds the Stonemen had made.

A powerful shockwave burst outward from Arthas, sweeping across the ground and sending clouds of dust rolling away from his feet.

The wave rushed through the settlement, passing over and around every Stoneman before continuing toward the mountains.

It finally crashed against the mountain slopes, making the ground tremble slightly.

It was almost like a signal, announcing Arthas’s arrival to every Stoneman living in the territory.

With every eye in the village entrance now fixed on him, Arthas calmly continued forward, making his way through the Stonemen and toward the largest house in the place.