Chapter 163: My lord, do you regret your decision?
With all the tentacles coming out of his mouth, Kael took out the mask of coins and placed it over his face. The tentacles, as if obeying an invisible force, slowly receded in strange and unnatural ways, writhing back until they were hidden inside.
Even so, some still seeped through, peeking out from the edges of the mask, feeling the air like hungry creatures.
Now, with this, Kael could move better. The pressure that had previously bound him dissipated for the most part, allowing him to act more freely. However, what caught his attention was the absence of the usual phenomenon: it had not appeared in the river of reverse-flowing blood.
Could it be because my rank is not the same as before?
When he obtained this Zu, he was at rank 9. Now, he was at rank 7; the difference was noticeable. Even so, he could feel his mana essence draining at a brutal speed, like an overflowing river rushing into the void.
Suddenly, a roar pierced the dead silence of the city:
"YOU...! ARE YOU ALSO A ZU MASTER!?"
The cry echoed from a gigantic head suspended in the air. The sound reverberated throughout much of the dead city, vibrating off the walls.
Kael looked up. The head belonged to a child barely five years old, with innocent features, but twisted by an unnatural expression of rage. His expression remained unchanged: the tentacles protruding from the mask of coins stirred weakly, as if responding to the hostility.
Deep within himself, Kael felt a connection. It was neither illusory nor fleeting. An invisible resonance bound him to that entity. And inside, he understood the truth: he was linking himself to the river of backward-flowing blood.
But he knew that once it was over, he would have to pay a heavy price for using this strange Zu. However, he didn’t care; the priority was to take down the Master Zu hidden in the city.
At that moment... The sky began to turn blood red.
Blood spilled onto the streets with no apparent source. It spread slowly and inexorably, like a river that had overflowed its banks, advancing unhurriedly but with the certainty of sweeping away everything in its path.
"Damn it... How can there be another Zu Master in this place?" cursed Zu Master, speaking through the boy’s head. His voice was steeped in fury and fear, a poison that corroded the air.
Before his eyes, the scene became increasingly oppressive. Everything he had created, everything he kept under his control, began to crumble. His creatures dissolved one after another, devoured by the endless river of blood. No matter how resilient they were, the torrent swallowed them up as if they had never existed.
On the other hand, Kael was focused on his connection with the reverse-flowing river of blood. His thoughts were sharp, his concentration was impressive, but at the same time, he kept part of his attention vigilant.
He wasn’t stupid enough to neglect his safety: Zu Master could launch an attack at any moment, and letting his guard down even for an instant would be tantamount to signing his death warrant.
As the seconds passed, the connection grew deeper and deeper. It was as if an invisible thread connected him to the river, and that thread descended further and further, passing through his body and sinking into his soul. The sensation was heavy, suffocating, but also fascinating.
Meanwhile, the city had no escape. Streets and houses were swept away, swallowed by the crimson torrent. The bloodwater flowed like a hungry beast, devouring stone, flesh, mud, and bone indiscriminately.
Even the nearby forest was slowly being consumed, its roots and trunks disintegrating under the corrosive touch of the river.
The black mountain began to turn red. It was a slow but relentless process, as if the earth itself were bleeding. Every inch of soil, every crack in the rock, was being invaded by the color of death.
The black mountain... was turning into a mountain of blood.
Following one of the heads floating through the city, you could see Audrey and Martha running across the rooftops, pursued by those abominations with different faces that were getting closer and closer with every passing moment.
They stopped, surprised by the phenomenon unfolding before them. But the moment they stopped, the heads rose suddenly and attacked furiously, seeking to incapacitate them.
Audrey reacted immediately. She dodged the attacks, moving nimbly to the right and left, while her hand slid to her waist to draw her rapier. With a swift movement, she counterattacked. She put more weight on her dominant foot and lunged forward, easily piercing the heads surrounding her.
Several were impaled on the blade of the rapier until they turned into rotten pulp and exploded like burst watermelons.
Audrey immediately backed away, dodging the slime that fell onto the ceiling with a sizzling sound. A single drop of that extremely toxic poison would have been enough to kill her instantly.
Meanwhile, Martha wielded the enormous scissors like a club, lashing out at the heads with brute force. Each blow sent the abominations flying through the air, bursting like grotesque fireworks.
Audrey continued to move from ceiling to ceiling, her rapier flashing with precision with each thrust, while her feet slid quickly, jumping backward and twisting her torso to dodge multiple attacks at the same time.
In a brief respite, she raised her leg and kicked one of the heads. It exploded in a cloud of rot, hitting others nearby. However, even with each explosion, new heads continued to appear incessantly.
"It seems endless," Audrey murmured as she continued to dodge everything. She also watched as the streets and houses filled with blood that was rising higher and higher.
She stopped defending herself and began running through the houses again, at such a high speed that each step buried itself in the roofs.
...
At the Kirth family mansion, Lucien Kirth sat on the roof, watching the city with a dark expression. The breeze ruffled his hair slightly, but his eyes remained still, fixed on the scene unfolding before him.
He could see perfectly well what was happening. But he couldn’t act: a contract stood in his way like an invisible chain, reminding him of his limits. His family was in the mansion, and that was his only obligation.
As for all the people who had died at the hands of Master Zu, he did not care in the slightest.
In the end, commoners always come.
Their deaths meant nothing; they were like dry leaves swept away by the wind. All it would take was to invent a rumor about a magical inheritance or stage a fictitious tournament to attract them. There would always be those who, out of ambition or ignorance, would climb the mountain in search of glory.
However, there was a problem... the city was about to be swallowed up by a river of blood; if I had anticipated that something like this was going to happen, I would not have agreed to it.
Lucien narrowed his eyes slightly. He could feel the presence of his most loyal subordinate sitting beside him, also staring at the city. Neither of them spoke at first.
"My lord, do you regret your decision?" asked the subordinate, his voice barely a whisper as he watched the city being devoured by a river of blood.
Lucien exhaled slowly, as if each word weighed a ton.
"Yes... But I have to bear the weight of that decision," he said with a sigh. His lips curved into something that was neither quite a smile nor a sad expression.
"Most likely, we will all die," he added later, his voice grave. "So all I can do is watch as my decision destroys the city that my ancestors built over decades."
The subordinate clenched his fists; his gaze wavered between despair and loyalty.
"My lord, why don’t we escape with your wife and children?"
Lucien turned his face slightly; his eyes were cold, empty of hope.
"Escape? That option no longer exists for us. Look..." He pointed a finger toward the horizon. The river of blood, barely visible before, now overflowed like a dark sea devouring every street. There was no refuge left, no path left.
The subordinate swallowed hard and, in a muffled voice, asked again:
"Then why don’t we die fighting?"
Lucien remained silent. His eyes darkened even more, as if he were looking into a void beyond the world. After several seconds, he replied in a low, resigned tone:
"There is nothing left to fight for. The city has become a river of blood, all its inhabitants are dead..." His shoulders seemed heavier than ever. "All we can do now is wait for our death."
Lucien and his subordinate just stood there silently watching as the city and the mountain were consumed by the river of blood.
...
Meanwhile, Kael found himself in the middle of the ever-growing river of reverse-flowing blood, and as his connection grew deeper, the head where Zu Master was watching him had long since fallen silent.
With his tentacles slightly visible through the coin mask, Kael fixed his gaze on a specific spot and began walking toward it.
The river had swallowed the city. Zu Master could no longer hide. And Kael, with the mask devouring his face, had already decided where it would all end.