Novel Full Chapter 1502 Nightmare
Chapter 1502 Nightmare
‘Eager to get back into the fight, huh?’
He tightened his grip.
Below, in the northern quarter, the pikemen finished off the last soul soldier pinned against the granary. The translucent figure flickered, dimmed, and vanished. A ragged cheer went up from the formation. The sergeant raised his pike and screamed victory.
Hope. They were finding hope. Every dispersed soul was proof that the enemy could be beaten. Every small victory rebuilt the conviction that they could outlast this nightmare and hold until reinforcements arrived.
Quinlan raised the saber.
“[Awaken].”
The blade screamed.
Light erupted from the steel, pale blue and blinding, pouring from the blade and cascading down the rooftops. The souls answered.
In the northern quarter, the pikemen had just finished their cheer. The sergeant was clapping a young soldier on the shoulder. Grins spread through the formation. They’d held. They’d fought the ghost soldiers and won. The tide was turning.
“Now we focus on the dwarves outside!”
“Let’s break this damned ice so we can see.”
“At least it also kept the midgets out.”
“What a dumb decision from the Villain. If he didn’t erect this wall, his allies could’ve used the chance and stormed us.”
“Right! We can fight back properly now!”
“Hail his arrogance!”
Then a figure materialized in front of the sergeant.
The same figure he’d just killed.
It stood three paces away, translucent and glowing, cold blue eyes fixed on the man who had dispersed it moments ago. The same height. The same weapon. The same blank face.
But something had changed.
The soul’s expression was empty, neutral. No rage, no malice, no battle cry. But the air around it had shifted. A pressure radiated from the translucent form, subtle and wrong, like standing too close to a fire that gave off cold instead of heat.
Hostility.
These soldiers had been given a simple command. Subdue. Those who resist the Master’s will are to be annihilated.
The defenders had resisted. They had struck down the souls with concentrated force.
The souls remembered that.
“No,” the sergeant breathed. “No, we just…”
The soul moved.
Across the city, the pattern repeated. Every dispersed soul returned. The battlemage in the eastern quarter who had burned through three souls watched all three reform in front of her, their cold eyes locked on her face. The rooftop archers saw their targets reappear on the same rooftops, standing between them and their escape routes. The kill squads found themselves surrounded by the things they had just killed.
The cheering stopped.
“They’re back!” someone screamed from the southern gate. “They’re all back!”
“How?! We destroyed them!”
“They just keep coming?!”
Quinlan watched from the bell tower for a single moment, then he stepped off the roof.
The fall was forty meters of cold air and blue light. He let gravity do the work for two seconds, then called lightning.
The air split around him as his descent became a bolt.
‘Lightning,’ he thought, flexing his fingers as sparks jumped between them. ‘You might just be my new favorite.’
A sharp pulse of displeasure rippled through his core.
A collective indignation radiating from somewhere deep inside his mana pathways, from the place where his Abyssal Genesis Physique anchored every element he’d ever bonded with.
Fire, the oldest and most loyal, burned a little hotter in protest. Water pushed back with a sullen current. Wind gusted through his channels like a scoff. Even Earth, steady and patient, rumbled its discontent. Ice, the newest and already neglected, became frosty.
Quinlan chuckled.
“Right. I don’t play favorites. It was just a momentary slip.”
The elements settled. Grudgingly.
He was already moving.
The city blurred beneath him. Streets, rooftops, barricades, all of it reduced to streaks of light as he cut through the air faster than the eye could follow.
He felt it before he saw it.
Mana concentrating on the eastern wall. Clustered tight, channeling in unison. The familiar hum of siege equipment charging. Someone down there had figured out that the ice dome was their prison and was trying to open a window.
Quinlan adjusted course.
The eastern battlement came into view. Dozens of ballista, mounted on rotating platforms, were being set up, replacing the cannons they’d been using to shoot at the dwarves in the distance.
From this close, another tool was needed.
Each ballista had been loaded with siege-grade bolts, the kind tipped with mana-disruption crystals meant to punch through magical defenses. A captain stood at the center of the formation, screaming orders.
“All batteries, maximum charge! I want coordinated fire on the dome’s lowest point!”
The crews moved with desperate efficiency.
“READY!”
Shaky hands gripped the release levers.
“AI-”
Quinlan appeared above the cluster, already mid motion.
“Ready to surrender?”
The captain looked up, drew his sword, and jumped toward Quinlan.
“Never!”
The captain’s blade came up in a rising cut aimed at Quinlan’s throat.
Quinlan finished his motion.
The lightning had already left his hand before the captain’s sword reached him. A massive discharge, white-violet and screaming, slammed into the cluster of ballistae and crew below. The bolt branched on impact, forking through metal and flesh in a web of arcing devastation that swallowed the entire artillery position in a single blinding pulse.
Notifications flooded his mind.
[You’ve slain Dorren Ashvale (Level 52). You’ve gained 37,500 XP.] [You’ve slain Maeven Crestfall (Level 55). You’ve gained 41,000 XP.] [You’ve slain Tormund Gallick (Level 61). You’ve gained 53,500 XP.] [You’ve slain Ysolde Kerrath (Level 54). You’ve gained 39,000 XP.] [You’ve slain Brennan Whitmore (Level 63). You’ve gained 58,000 XP.] He chuckled. Killing level fifties was becoming far too easy these days.
Though, to be fair, artillery crews weren’t exactly sturdy warriors.
The captain hit the battlement hard. He’d taken the brunt of the discharge, enough to blow him out of his lunge and send him crashing into the stone. His sword was gone. His armor smoked at the joints. His limbs refused to answer.
But he was alive, looking up at Quinlan.
Defiance burned in his eyes.
Then it faded.
“Please,” the captain rasped. “Spare my family. Let them surrender, despite my actions.”
“Anyone who surrenders will be spared. I wasn’t lying.”
Quinlan looked down at the man as he added,
“However, the dead shall join as well. One way or another, I’ll absorb the entire population of your city, Captain.”
The captain’s brow creased. “What do you-”
Quinlan killed him.
Quick. Clean. The saber moved once.
[You’ve slain Captain Buldrek Voss (Level 68). You’ve gained 72,500 XP.] “You’ll know soon enough.”
He sheathed the blade and turned.
On the wall to the south, a figure moved through the defenders like a brush stroke of violence. Purple steel flashing. Bodies falling. No wasted movement, no flourish, no hesitation. Black Fang carved through a squad of veterans the way a scalpel carved through paper, and she hadn’t slowed down since the Warp Gate.
Quinlan watched for exactly one second.
‘No simping.’
He tore his gaze away and rolled his shoulders. His fingers flexed around the saber’s grip.
‘I learned from Dragnar. The art of utilizing pain.’
He stepped forward.
‘From Kiryssa. The art of killing efficiently.’
His pace quickened.
‘From Hanae. The art of swordsmanship.’
Lightning crackled across his boots. The stone beneath his feet began to crack.
‘Let’s put it all together.’
He launched himself toward the enemies.