Chapter 511 - 476: Cleaner

Chapter 511: Chapter 476: Cleaner

’What terrifying power...’

Although the shockwave—powerful enough to cause the Annihilation of matter—hadn’t physically harmed him due to the Space-Time dislocation, passing through him as if he were an illusion, Roland still felt a tremor of apprehension.

He could clearly perceive the destructive force contained within that attack, a power that bordered on the level of a fundamental Rule.

It wasn’t brute force, but rather a "Destruction" Trait, exquisitely controlled and intensely focused.

He quickly raised his eyes and looked in the direction the attack had come from.

The scene before him made his gaze harden.

The once noisy and chaotic perimeter of the fire scene had now become unnaturally "tidy."

All the onlookers from the Lower City District seemed to have been cleared out in advance, vanishing without a trace.

In their place was a ring of grim-faced, fully armed Guards in gray uniforms. They had formed an invisible cordon around the perimeter.

And in the center of the newly "cleared" area, directly facing Roland, stood five silent figures.

They were utterly different from the ordinary Guards. They wore no standard-issue Armor; their attire seemed varied, yet it shared a coordinated, grim aesthetic.

They were dressed in some sort of matte, dark gray composite fabric, with runic metal that flowed with a dim light inlaid at their joints and other vital points.

Each wore a full-coverage tactical mask. The eyes of the masks were two dark crystal viewports, devoid of any emotion.

The leader wasn’t particularly large, but he projected a mountainous sense of stability. He was slowly sheathing a strangely shaped Longsword behind his back.

’Is that... the Primordial Core?’

Surprise was evident in Roland’s eyes.

In the cultivation system of the Knight’s Breathing Technique, condensing a "Source Core" was the mark of reaching the true peak. It represented a deep connection between an individual’s Life Energy and a fundamental Rule.

So far, besides himself, only Morne had managed to condense a Source Core.

And with it, Morne had founded an entire nation through his supreme power, a testament to its rarity and might.

Yet three of the five people before him were all emitting this unique rhythm—a steady, powerful pulse like a beating heart.

Just as he was processing his surprise, there was no assessment, no questioning, not even the slightest pause.

The moment Roland’s figure became fully visible through the dust, the five of them activated in an instant, like puppets controlled by the same strings.

Their movements were so fast they transcended the normal concept of "speed," appearing more like five different calamities erupting at once.

One of them acted first, making a brief hand gesture.

In the next moment, the space around Roland suddenly froze.

It wasn’t a simple restraint. The air itself was transformed into a transparent "crystal coffin" of immense weight, an attempt to seal him along with that pocket of space and strip it from reality.

Simultaneously, another person vanished from their spot.

In the next instant, seven Residual Shadows, their forms flickering between real and illusory, appeared around Roland, each delivering a strike.

This was not an assassination, but a precise Stripping of spatial nodes.

The target wasn’t Roland’s body, but the very stability of the space he occupied, an attempt to erase his existence from its coordinates.

’A Caster and... an Assassin?’

Seeing them attack, Roland frowned slightly. Just as he was about to leave...

The person who had moved behind him at some unknown point raised a hand. A rotating, pale halo composed of pure Order Runes materialized in their palm.

The halo expanded silently. Wherever it passed, even the swirling dust motes froze, arranging themselves into a grid according to an absolute Rule.

An invisible, compulsory force of "Returning Order" enveloped Roland, as if trying to forcibly correct all "abnormal" and "Chaotic" states about him, reformatting him into a basic template of "existence."

The final person took a step forward, and the ground beneath their feet instantly filled with beautiful yet lethal ice-blue veins.

With them as the center, a Domain of absolute zero suddenly unfurled—not freezing air, but a Stripping of concepts like "heat" and "motion."

As for the leader, they didn’t even draw their sword. They simply made a "slicing" motion through the air in Roland’s direction.

There was no brilliant flash of light, but a faint black rift—as if the canvas of the world had been cut open—appeared out of thin air and silently "sliced" through Roland’s position.

It wasn’t an Energy attack; it was something more fundamental—a severing of existential continuity itself.

Five layers of attack, launched almost simultaneously from the levels of space, coordinates, Order, motion, and existence, formed a flawless, inescapable kill zone.

Any conventional existence within the attack’s range, be it a mighty Giant Dragon or a solid fortress, would likely be sealed, erased, reformatted, and frozen in an instant, only to be utterly terminated by the "existential slash."

However...

All of the terrifying attacks, at the moment they touched Roland’s body, passed right through him, just like the Guard’s Energy Beam had before.

The spatial seal closed and dissipated within him. The spatial Stripping strikes missed. The halo of Order swept over him with no effect. The Domain of absolute zero failed to form a single speck of Frost on his body. And the black rift of existence passed over him like a reflection on water, leaving no trace.

Roland remained standing in the same spot, completely unharmed, like a Ghost unbound by the Laws of this place.

The five Cleaners’ movements froze for an imperceptible instant.

Even though they wore masks, the cold shock of their perfectly coordinated attack being rendered completely useless was almost palpable through the metal faceplates.

The leader showed no anger or confusion. He simply lowered his head with extreme speed, moved closer to the communication node on his collar, and spoke in a voice devoid of any fluctuation.

"Target confirmed. Exhibits ’Phase Shift’ and ’High-dimensional Interference’ Traits. Conventional and Extraordinary attack methods completely ineffective. Requesting activation of ’Celestial Thunder Judgment Protocol.’"

A brief burst of static came from the communication node, followed by a cold, authoritative synthesized voice.

"’Celestial Thunder Judgment Protocol’ activation approved. Mission priority: Top Secret."

"Additional directive: Cleanse all witnessing units on site, including our own low-level Guards. Ensure zero information leakage."

"Understood."

The leader responded without hesitation.

He raised his right arm. A complex metal bracer on his wrist, which had appeared merely decorative, automatically unfolded to reveal a precise control interface and a crystal screen beneath it.

His fingers quickly and steadily keyed in several specific Rune sequences on the interface.

There was no earth-shattering roar, no flash of converging Energy.

But everyone present, including the gray-uniformed Guards on the perimeter who didn’t know what was happening, felt their hearts inexplicably tighten. It was as if something incredibly distant, yet immeasurably heavy, had "cast" its gaze upon this small area.

The sky seemed to have grown a few shades darker.

An unprecedented tremor seized Roland. It wasn’t born of Fear, but was a primal shudder erupting from the depths of his soul—an instinctual reaction to a magnificent threat that defied comprehension.

He snapped his head up toward the sky...

Above Silver Radiance City, a bizarre transformation was taking place.

It wasn’t clouds gathering. Instead, space itself in that region began to fold and dim, as if the world were being crumpled by an invisible hand, all light forcibly absorbed and refracted.

A "void" of absolute Darkness, its edges flowing with pale vortexes of Energy, slowly manifested and expanded in the dome of the sky.

It wasn’t a crack, but more like an impending, malevolent gaze.

There was no sound.

Or rather, all sound had been stripped away the moment the "void" appeared.

The crackle of the Flame, the sound of the wind, even the faint bustle of the distant city—all had vanished.

All that remained was dead silence and a hum so low it resonated directly in the marrow, as if countless strings of the world were being pulled taut.

Then, at the center of the "void," a point of supremely pure white appeared.

It was not light. It was a "color" beyond sensory comprehension, the result of "existence" being compressed and purified to an extreme degree.

The moment it appeared, the air grew as thick as glue, and gravity seemed to intensify tenfold. The ground beneath Roland, already "flattened" by the previous attacks, groaned under the immense pressure as a web of fine cracks spread out from his position.

The point of "white" rapidly expanded, transforming into a pure white pillar of light, barely a meter in diameter, that descended vertically.

Its descent was unnervingly slow, yet it carried an absolute will that could not be defied, as if Space-Time itself was making way for it.

Wherever the pillar of light passed, the air vaporized, leaving behind transient vacuum bubbles and blinding flashes of ionization.

It had no temperature. Or rather, it carried the power of "decomposition," capable of "reducing" all complex structures to their most fundamental state of Energy.

Finally, the pillar of light "slowly" struck the exact spot where Roland stood.