Chapter 216: A dud? A terrible divine will!
On the ninth floor of the Artificial Dungeon, faint cries for help were already nearing.
The secret room's walls were violently torn open, and the Xenos poured in.
They picked up the skeletal survivors from the ground and rushed out of the dungeon without looking back.
"Faster, faster! Just emergency treatment with healing potions! Get everyone out first!"
A frantic Reid, carrying two young girls on his shoulders, grinned maliciously at the one human and one cow still standing in the depths of the tunnel.
"Friends, we're heading out first!"
"Asterius, show some Xenos backbone!"
The jet-black bull, Asterius, nodded with a solemn expression.
She hung the double-bladed axe, taller than a person, back on her back, then exerted all her limbs, digging them firmly into the green flesh of the floor.
"I'll clear the way! Friend, follow me!"
Before her words finished, she had already launched a fierce, jet-black charge!
Boom—!
A terrifying roar exploded within the dungeon, and a cannonball of pure brute force erupted from her massive body!
The jet-black charge shredded the endless magical vortex ahead, scattering sparks!
She accelerated madly through the tunnel, which was riddled with magic circles, as a rain of magic hammered her body, tearing her skin and splattering blood!
However, the direction of her charge did not deviate in the slightest!
Arthur moved with the wind, watching the figure of the mighty bull, plowing furrows in the ground and stirring up a storm, his eyes grave.
Reid's words were true; the Xenos named Asterius was powerful enough to rival Ottar, the "Strongest."
The tunnel was forcibly breached, revealing a colorful magic pillar encircled by purple and green mist!
The magic circles spread across the floor still emitted a malevolent glow full of toxins, and an enormous magic pillar stood in the center of the altar!
The upper half, a Spirit female body, was still singing loudly, but below the magic pillar, there were three ugly, twisted monster faces!
Countless green flesh tentacles, as thick as tree vines, twisted and converged near the grotesque faces, and various poisonous flowers parasitized and bloomed on the faces, moving without wind!
Arthur's eyes were dark: "A bombardment-type monster with no limbs, completely abandoning mobility? No wonder it can cast magic across several floors."
Asterius glanced at her continuously bleeding wounds, snorting and shaking her nose.
"Giant treants, I've seen these things in the deep levels."
"No matter what it originally was, it's now the vessel of the Filth Spirit."
Arthur shook his head indifferently, raised his hand to draw durandal, and the wind pressure solidified.
"Be careful, it has two lives, we have to kill it twice."
Asterius grinned, took the double-bladed axe from her back, and roared to the sky, as if seeking a thrilling and magnificent death match!
No tactics, no strategy needed!
The jet-black bull once again transformed into a war chariot, charging forward with pure brute force!
She braced her indestructible hard horns and slammed them fiercely into the Filth Magic Pillar!
The world seemed to tear apart, with explosive sounds reverberating and shockwaves shaking the entire altar!
The grotesque face, filled with fury, shattered into dust at the impact!
The Filth Magic Pillar, unbalanced at its base, tilted to one side, and the Spirit female body rolled her eyes in disbelief.
The next moment, the magic circle spread across the entire area, with no blind spots, releasing spears of lightning that could reduce everything to nothingness!
But the fastest slash, which stifled the five senses, had already crossed space, not only shattering all the lightning but also wildly churning on the lamenting grotesque face!
Astonishment and confusion flashed alternately across the Spirit female body's face, and bloody tears flowed from her cloudy golden pupils as she abruptly looked up.
Arthur ignored the disgusting tentacles that whizzed through the air, fiercely plunged durandal into the Spirit female body's chest, and the wind blades annihilated!
The Steel Gale precisely shattered the Spirit female body's colorful magic stone, causing the entire green-flesh-covered altar to tremble violently as if struck by a plague!
The collapsing and disintegrating Filth Magic Pillar emitted a sharp shriek from top to bottom, and Asterius, who had just raised her axe to smash the sneering grotesque face, felt a warning sign!
The battle situation overturned in an instant; viscous black ink overflowed from the Spirit female body's tattered body, like a venomous snake flicking its tongue, splashing towards Arthur!
A brilliant golden light flashed in his palm, flinging all the ink away, and that ink actually merged into the altar, which was now surging with a jet-black ground wave!
Asterius, following her wild instincts, gripped her blood-red double-bladed axe tightly and brought it down with a heavy chop!
The Artificial Dungeon shook continuously from this brute force, and even the Filth Magic Pillar in the center of the altar twisted eerily!
"Not just a treant, even the altar has become part of the monster?"
Asterius instantly understood the meaning of "second life"; she looked up at the human standing on the wind and roared loudly.
"Will breaking its main trunk work?"
Arthur carefully sensed the altar's Veins, then suddenly turned back and shook his head at the Xenos who were struggling to maneuver on the ground, their movements restricted.
"No use! This thing's recovery power is beyond imagination! Unless we blow up the entire altar, we can't kill it!"
"Blow up the altar?"
The fierce fighting spirit in Asterius's eyes did not diminish but intensified, and she began to wreak havoc on the altar like a natural disaster!
Brute force poured out, the dark green flesh stuck to the floor was blasted into powder, and plumes of potent poisonous smoke rose from within the altar!
Attacks capable of reshaping the dungeon's terrain plunged the altar into chaos, but Arthur tightly gripped the neck of the inner Spirit, his brows furrowed.
He and Asterius became the sharpest spearheads, swiftly destroying one magic pillar with lightning speed.
But this was utterly useless against the "Ring Poem" that was being chanted and prepared.
His mission was to destroy the altar's core, but the altar's patterns flowed with dual divine power, completely obscuring the core that should have been at the intersection of the six rings?
No!
Dionysus had altered the structure of the Ring Poem!
This world-shattering bomb, which was supposed to destroy the Evil Dragon (Orario), now only had six fuses but had lost its most crucial powder keg!
That bastard, who enjoyed witnessing human tragedies up close, would never be satisfied with just blowing up the surface!
This thought pierced Arthur's mind, causing his pupils to contract sharply, his gaze like a sharp sword, piercing into the deepest part of the Artificial Dungeon!
...
The Artificial Dungeon's counter-magic has fallen silent! The Sixth Unit's operation was successful!
Healers, move! Prepare for the magic pillar annihilation battle! Immediately restore the combatants' injuries!
Undeniable commands erupted from the eye crystals held by each unit, causing the exhausted healers at the back of the Team to raise their staves once more.
Although the Artificial Dungeon dedicated most of its power to compiling the spell for urban collapse, having devoured a god, it still possessed endless magical reserves.
In this magical vortex capable of engulfing the entire army, the adventurers' ability to break through this far was entirely due to the healers draining every last bit of their mental energy.
The pure white magic circles flickered erratically and shook violently; the magic-depleted healers delivered their final chants, then collapsed one after another.
The adventurers, enveloped in green luminescence, watched their comrades fall, swallowed their grief and indignation, and the clanging of swords and halberds resounded across the battlefield.
We, who rush to our deaths, are not nameless heroes; the flowers that wither here, their names shall be carved on gravestones, sung by the world.
In exchange for this ultimate trial, we prove that we… will never succumb to malevolent divine will!