Chapter 1144: On the Streets- Frozen Decay.
---Eastern Part of the Pythian Village---
Dust Crunched under his heavy boots as he reached the place Luf told him about. Looking around, he frowned grimly and slightly disgusted. The whole street was filled with withered bodies. Seeing the scene and connecting it with the crunch, made a shiver run down his spine. Maybe all the dust here was the bodies of victims.
He had a hard time thinking of many things worse than this. Maybe it was comparable to the memories of the war with the maritime empire in Y-City, but those times were still worse in his opinion, as it was his comrades that littered the streets, ripped into pieces, not a bunch of strangers turned to husks.
Judging by their attire and weaponry who seemed mostly untouched, it wasn't hard to guess that they were cultivators. Whether they were part of the alliance or not, he couldn't tell at this point. Still, he doubted all of them were hostiles. Whoever did this just didn't care about friend or foe.
Nervously, his right gripped the handle of the pipe harder, while the left did the same with the , the upgraded version of his original shield. It shared all the original functions, except that it was made of , had higher base stats, and added 120 to Strength and Endurance.
When he turned around the corner, he found the probably weirdest situation, yet. He found two confirmed hostiles fighting each other. Even weirder was that one of them was actually supposed to have died a little earlier.
On one side was a criminally handsome cultivator. His pale skin like jade stood in stark contrast to his fingers covered in crimson blood. The other was a lanky man hiding his face, swinging a rusty saber around.
How did the Priest of Corruption, who fled from Cade, get involved in a fight with the Dark Sovereign Caleb had supposedly killed? The thing was that he originally wasn't here for either of the two.
According to Luf, Alphalfa Bignoggin the Sword Summoner was supposed to go on a killing spree here. He was one of the participants of the tournament's first round and was a mix of swordsman and summoner. During the current chaos, his actions outed him as an agent of Spatia.
However, there were no traces of anybody, but those two duking it out. the fearsome corrosive saber the priest wielded clashed with the blood claws of the Dark Sovereign over and over. Although his hands sizzled, there were few signs of the Dark Sovereign suffering any damage from the holy weapon that had wrecked quite a number of people during the tournament.
Tekar was still deliberating who to take out first when the fight finally took a decisive turn, as the cultivator managed to grasp the priest's neck and wrist. Holding the saber at a distance, the claw choked the priest, who started withering at a visible speed.
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“Jump'em! Sock'em!”
“Originally, i didn't come for either of you, but since I found you, i will have to take care of you,” Tekar spoke with his calm, deep voice as he towered over the Priest of Corruption.
“Take care...of me? Hah!” he laughed out as intricate tattoos started glowing across his body. The saber jumped up and slashed across Tekar's chest, but it didn't cut anything. In the tournament, flesh and armor were decomposed by this weapon, but facing the master of defense, it could only slide off his personal shield.
“Although Corrosion is a higher concept compared to basic effects, I have 75% resistance against it. The damage of your weapon can't even get past my defense to touch my equipment,” Tekar explained, almost feeling sorry for the man.
“Haha, that means I can't damage you, but you can't kill me either! Just let me go, I will leave Urth quietly,” the priest offered a compromise.
“You are right, I can't kill you. As a matter of fact, I can't even deal enough damage to kill the other one. However, I can keep you here until I called someone that CAN take care of you,” he added with an amused smile, as he proceeded to call Luf for backup.
“I will send Cade your way.”
...
--- Cinema Dimension---
For the first time in a long while, the whole hall was absolutely silent. All gods present were watching various perspectives of the war with rapt attention. Even Seth decided not to complain that Minas Mar wasn't going all out, a it made for a more exciting battle.
However, a sudden clapping broke the silence. Happily slapping her hands together was a new figure sitting in the front row, right beside Hades and Persephone. She was a mountain of a woman, giving off a motherly aura. Hades looked over at his grandmother clapping excitedly.
“Yia yia, what happened?” he asked, leaning over to the personification of earth. She gifted him a bright smile, a witty glint in her eyes.
“Kuku, you will see soon,” she said mysteriously, not intending to spoil her grandchild's fun. For Gaia to be this happy, he had some ideas about what he was supposed to look forward to. Amused, the god of the underworld leaned back in his seat, waiting for the show to start.