Chapter 509: The Soul Warden's Charge

“Did Emilia fire one of her spells at full power?” he mumbled.

It was certainly possible. Emilia possessed devastating spells, and if she encountered a particularly troublesome group of monsters, she would not hesitate to use her strongest attacks to finish the fight quickly.

Before Leon could reach a conclusion, however, another explosion shook the distant corridors.

BOOM! BOOM!

Half a second later, several more followed in rapid succession.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Leon’s expression gradually darkened as he listened to the sounds.

‘Yeah, it’s not the girls.’

The explosions were too powerful and too frequent to be the result of an ordinary battle, especially considering how far away they seemed to be.

Something else was moving through the floor and judging by the destruction it was causing, that being was either searching for something or actively attacking anyone unfortunate enough to cross its path.

Leon immediately increased his speed.

He needed to determine what was happening before the situation became worse.

If the creature responsible for those explosions had encountered one of the girls, he needed to reach them as quickly as possible.

He rushed through the halls, following the direction of the explosions as he passed several intersections.

However, something strange happened as he continued moving.

The explosions seemed to be getting farther away.

‘How is that possible?’

Leon frowned and pushed himself to move faster, but the sound continued to grow more distant despite his efforts.

It was almost as if the creature was moving away from him at a speed that made it impossible to catch up.

But in this maze-like floor, how?

Boom! Boom!

Another pair of explosions echoed through the tower, and Leon finally reached an area where he believed one of them had occurred.

What he saw immediately explained the strange situation.

“…Alright.”

Before him was an ordinary hall, but enormous sections of both walls had been completely destroyed.

The stone had been smashed apart, leaving wide openings through which he could see the corridors on either side.

Leon approached one of the damaged sections and looked through it, discovering that the destruction extended much farther than he had initially expected.

Dozens of other halls were visible in both directions, and almost every one of them had suffered the same damage.

Massive chunks of stone had been torn from their walls, creating a trail of destruction that stretched through the tower.

‘So something actually smashed through all of these things.’

Leon examined the broken stone before glancing farther down the corridors.

Faint clouds of dust still hung in the air, and in the distance, he could see more of them rising as additional walls were destroyed.

The creature responsible for this was not bothering to follow the passages at all.

Instead, it was simply creating its own path through the tower.

It was clearly powerful enough to destroy the tower’s sturdy walls with little effort, and the thought made him even more certain that he was dealing with the Soul Warden.

ROOOOOAR!

A terrifying roar suddenly echoed from somewhere ahead, sounding like a mixture of a mournful wail and the enraged bellow of a raging bull.

Leon immediately turned toward the sound.

Without wasting any more time, he passed through one of the destroyed sections of the wall and entered another corridor, continuing to follow the trail left behind by the creature.

If the Soul Warden had already located one of the girls, he needed to intervene before it was too late.

…

Meanwhile…

SMASH!

The Soul Warden burst through the wall of a closed chamber, sending enormous fragments of stone flying in every direction.

It had detected a strong soul nearby and had followed its presence through the tower, smashing through every obstacle that stood between itself and its target.

However, when it finally entered the chamber, it discovered that several monsters were already fighting an elf girl.

Emilia was in the middle of battling the creatures, and judging by the number of their fallen companions scattered across the floor, she had nearly finished them off.

She had been preparing another spell when the Soul Warden suddenly burst through the wall, interrupting her casting and forcing her to recoil in surprise.

The remaining monsters immediately turned toward the enormous newcomer.

For a moment, they seemed to believe that the creature had arrived to help them kill the elf, but they soon discovered how mistaken that assumption was.

The Soul Warden raised its electrified mace and swung it across the chamber.

Fwash!

A tremendous surge of electricity accompanied the attack as the weapon swept through the remaining monsters, killing every one of them in a single blow.

Their bodies collapsed before they could even attempt to defend themselves, leaving Emilia alone with the terrifying entity that had just interrupted her battle.

Only after the monsters were dead did the chamber’s doors swing open, revealing the exit.

At the same time, a glowing object appeared in the middle of the room: the [Gate Fragment].

However, Emilia had barely noticed the change. Her entire attention was focused on the massive creature standing before her.

And even if she had seen the fragment, she would not have been particularly concerned about it while facing such a dangerous opponent.

The Soul Warden slowly turned its attention toward her.

It stood a little over two meters tall, its imposing frame wrapped in a dark military uniform reinforced with heavy armor, while an enormous horned beast’s head rested above its broad shoulders.

Lightning coiled constantly around its body, illuminating its fierce eyes and jagged horns as sparks spread across the ground beneath its boots.

In its hand, an enormous mace crackled with electricity.

The aura surrounding it was so intense that the air itself seemed to tremble whenever it moved, while the floor beneath its feet continued releasing small bursts of lightning.

Emilia felt a slight headache as her talent’s passive activated, warning her of the danger posed by the creature in front of her.

She forced herself to remain calm and raised her scepter.

She needed to kill this thing before it reached her, and she was confident that one full-power spell would be enough to accomplish that.

Her [Heaven’s Wrath] was undoubtedly her strongest ability, capable of defeating opponents with combat power exceeding twenty-five million in a single hit.

Unfortunately, casting it would take too long.

The Soul Warden was already approaching, and Emilia could not afford to stand still while preparing such a powerful spell.

She needed to restrain it first, or else she would die, because she felt like two or three attacks from the Soul Warden would be enough to shatter her soul.