Chapter 111: Blood Moon [8]

It was already halfway through when they arrived. What they caught was less of a battle and more of a one-sided domination.

Luckily, they were able to see the power of the man fighting against Alaric before he was helplessly destroyed.

Great green rays of light spread through the world, killing anything they came in contact with. At first glance, it became clear that this man studied the Poison Dao.

The artifacts across his body not only defended him but also attacked. They were able to take Spiritual Energy from the atmosphere and repurpose it into destructive qi.

This was not necessarily rare in an artifact. Many artifacts came with their own skills that utilized qi. However, it was extremely rare for so many of such artifacts to exist as part of one larger frame.

The man himself was also an Immortal. He was weaker than Alaric, but in terms of cultivation alone, the gap between them wasn't much.

The entire forest spanning for hundreds of kilometers had been destroyed. A mountain had been leveled and then further turned into a crater. These were the results of a battle that had only been ongoing for five minutes.

The man kept attacking fiercely, trying not to give Alaric the chance to counterattack. If one focused only on him, it looked like he had an advantage.

That was only until one saw Alaric. Alaric stood there without moving. He took every single attack that came at him with his own body, and despite the corrosive energy splashing across his body and trying to consume him, nothing happened.

"This won't work on me, Warden. You know that I have immunity to ten thousand poisons. Why continue this pointless charade?"

His words were stern and cut through the dark atmosphere. He took a step forward, his body still not taking a single ounce of damage.

The main perpetrator's name was Warden. That much became clear. As he responded, even more questions were answered.

"You wouldn't understand, Alaric. This matters more than anything else. The longer I delay you here, the longer this phenomenon continues. The longer this phenomenon continues, the more impossible it becomes to ignore my message. Look at it, Alaric! I have achieved the impossible!"

BANG!

The Calamity Dragon had heard enough. Atlas couldn't even recognize when he disappeared or when he reappeared. The next thing his eyes were able to detect was the man named Warden slamming into and through a mountain.

"Delay me? Is that what you think you're doing?"

He almost wanted to laugh.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Like he was teleporting, Alaric arrived before Warden once more. His fist struck out over and over again, slamming into the man and destroying his body.

It looked like Warden was just sitting and taking the attacks, but he would never do that. The entire time, he gripped onto Alaric's skin and filled his veins with as much foreign qi as possible.

He just wanted to do some damage. Any damage.

However, Alaric and Mireiya were a perfect combination. While Mireiya had a mind that neared perfection, Alaric was the same in body.

He grabbed Warden by the neck and lifted him.

"Is this what you call delaying?"

He turned the other man and forced him to look at the moon.

While they and the rest of the world watched…

CRACK!

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A crack appeared in the Blood Moon's surface.

Atlas' eyes widened.

'They've done it.'

As he spread his spiritual sense into the surroundings, he could barely sense any blood qi at all. The air also no longer smelled of slaughter, which was a good sign.

It had been over six hours since the Blood Moon first rose, but it was still destroyed in the end.

"What a fool you are, Warden. Even now, you refuse to escape Faust's puzzle. You remain trapped in a lie, wishing for things that are not possible. You will die now having achieved nothing. Is this what you wanted?"

Alaric looked his opponent in the eyes as the man hung limply in his grasp.

The moment the Blood Moon fell, Warden stopped fighting. He didn't need to fight anymore. He'd seen his experiment to the end.

And death…

Death was nothing more than a reward for him.

"It doesn't matter, Alaric!" Warden screamed.

"Even if you kill me, it doesn't matter! I have already accomplished my goal. I have already proved it! This Tower is not as inviolable as it leads us to believe! We, as living beings, are capable of destroying its rules! Don't you understand the implications of this experiment, Alaric?!"

BOOOOOOM!

Alaric's fist slammed into him and through him. Warden slammed into the ground with Alaric landing on top of him, preventing him from using any hidden tricks to survive.

"I win…Alaric. Even in death, I win. Next time…you will not be able to stop it."

Warden was happy in his final moments. He smiled, proud to die alongside his disciples.

Alaric sneered, disgusted by the man's behavior.

"There will be no next time, Warden. This is the first and last time that such a thing will happen under my watch." Sёarᴄh the NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

BANG!

One more fist went into the ground. Warden's head exploded into chunks of meat that decorated the destroyed surroundings.

The Blood Moon was shattered. The people behind the event were dead as well. Given time for the recovery efforts to ensue, the world would eventually return to normalcy.

However, Warden wasn't wrong. That was why the expressions on Alaric, Atlas, Artemia, and Malik's faces were all negative.

The Tower's rules. In this case, the fact that a Neutral Zone would always remain "Neutral." They were unquestionable in the eyes of all. The only thing keeping the Tower's ecosystem from falling into chaos was the fact that its rules could not be denied.

No matter how one planned or what one did, it was impossible to bypass them. This was the reason why societies that held great hostilities with each other were still forced to pick and choose their battles instead of going into all-out war.

Everything would change if this news got out. If people started to believe that they could challenge the Tower's rules…

Well, the repercussions didn't need to be mentioned.

A glum atmosphere clouded them, but nobody stopped moving. Once Alaric killed Warden, what remained was the recovery effort.

Atlas and Artemia returned to Rona and helped many demons with pills and aid. Malik went off with Alaric to discuss some things. Neither of them had been seen since.

Nevertheless, it was not for Atlas to worry about.

'From beginning to end, Warden knew he was going to die.'

Atlas eventually learned about the entire event. Warden left quite a bit of evidence behind, after all.

'Enslavement Collars.'

Vile devices that turned living beings into property. Using them, Warden created a large number of slaves and slowly bloodletted them, letting their blood flow into a pool together.

The condensed energy of blood created the conditions for a Blood Moon Phenomenon on its own. Wasn't that enough of a clue about the sheer number of people who had been sacrificed?

Only a few people saw that sight before it was destroyed, and Atlas was glad that he was not one of them.

'I have seen many things in my life, but that does not mean I've lost my sense of empathy. Such a sight would only enrage me.'

Involving mortals in the affairs of cultivators was an unspoken sin.

'However, the Den of Mysteries is feared precisely because that line does not exist for them. Truly, they are willing to do anything for their goals.'

It was an unnerving feeling.

The number of casualties was surprisingly small. Formations had been activated to contain all of the people of every city the Tatsuya Clan controlled. The rest of the realm was under the 36th Demon Legion's control, and they of course were dealing with the problem in their own way.

Overall, several thousand people did die, but the Blood Moon Phenomenon this time had the potential to kill millions. These thousands of deaths were still a miracle.

Nevertheless, it was unnerving.

'This Tower is not just a road to Godhood.'

It was a place where the schemes and trickeries that used to be spread out across the realms came together and clashed against each other.

It was a place where death was more common than life and a place where a cultivator could never find peace.

'Yet, it is the place that contains everything a cultivator could ever desire.'

Atlas put the worrying thoughts out of his head. The recovery efforts would take at least another few days to complete, but after that…

'After that, I must return to the Tower.'

And when he returned to the Tower, he had his own enemies and challenges to face.

Truly, there was no such thing as a moment of rest for a cultivator.