Chapter 463: What Now?
At this moment, everyone stood frozen in place, despair written across their faces.
They could still handle the thirty-seventh level peak skeleton, even after suffering backlash for no reason. But Barris... that was the soul of a Heavenly Tier powerhouse. Even without a body, he could kill them in an instant. And now Barris possessed the avatar of the Wasteland Lord.
It was simply a dead end...
"We're doomed, doomed, this time we're really doomed..." Councilor Weiss plopped down on the pitch-black earth, all the dignity of a Black Tower Councilor gone. He kept muttering, sometimes with a bitter smile, sometimes with a twisted grin, looking completely out of his mind: "This is a conspiracy, a conspiracy that's lasted thousands of years..."
"What exactly are you hiding?" Leon, standing nearby, looked at Weiss with a grave expression and couldn't help but furrow his brow. He'd long suspected that Weiss and Solan Monty hadn't come to the Turin Mountains by chance, but for some deeper purpose. "If you tell us now, maybe it'll help."
Instantly, everyone's gaze fell on Weiss.
"We've all been deceived..." Weiss let out a bitter laugh, tilting his head to gaze at the gray, hazy sky. He spoke slowly: "Ten years ago, Solan Monty and I encountered a royal descendant of the Third Dynasty in the Azure Plane..."
"Wait!" Dalson immediately interrupted Weiss, and at this point, he seemed to have forgotten Weiss's status as a Black Tower Councilor. "Is it that branch of the royal family from the Odin Kingdom?"
"No, not them. Strictly speaking, that line from the Odin Kingdom doesn't count as royal descendants at all. They're all Barris's offspring, implicated by Barris back then, expelled from the royal family, and cast into the bitter north. That's precisely why, after the fall of the Third Dynasty, they managed to survive intact..."
Weiss smiled and continued, "The royal descendants we met in the Azure Plane were actually the true royal bloodline. Thousands of years ago, when the Third Dynasty fell, those people fled to various planes. Signs of their activities lingered in many planes for ages, but a thousand years ago, they finally vanished from the Endless Planes. Back when they were in the Azure Plane, they set their sights on the Azure Dragon, wanting to seize its power..."
"That thing is beyond the Heavenly Tier..." Leon shook his head. Coming from thirty thousand years in the future, he knew just how terrifying the Azure Dragon was. Over thousands of years, it had slain countless powerful beings, including Heavenly Tier masters. For those exiled royal descendants to even think about taking on the Azure Dragon—they must have had a death wish...
Forget about them—even the Long-Legged Emperor and Ronan back then probably wouldn't have dared to provoke the Azure Dragon...
"Exactly..." Weiss nodded in agreement. "Back then, the Azure Dragon was asleep, which is why they dared entertain such thoughts. As for the outcome, I don't even need to say it—you can probably guess. Most of those royal descendants died, and the survivors took the bodies of their kin with them. But before they could bury them, the Azure Dragon came hunting. The survivors fled, leaving the dead unburied. That place was so well hidden, it went undiscovered for a thousand years—until Solan Monty and I stumbled upon it."
"Does this have something to do with Barris?" Leon's heart skipped a beat.
"Yes, it's definitely connected to Barris. Even they were deceived by him..." Weiss let out a long sigh. "At first, I didn't know who those people were. While examining their remains, I discovered a recording. The information in that recording revealed the whole story and the true identity of those royal descendants. Following the instructions in the recording, I buried their bones, and that's when I uncovered a secret about Barris."
"Through a bloodline curse, Barris sent a message to the royal family at the time. The gist was: Come to the Turin Mountains, summon the Wasteland Lord, sacrifice a powerful figure, enter the Chained Palace to obtain a fragment of the inheritance, then descend to the Wizard's Spire to claim all the power of the Heavenly Tier mage Barris. Back then, I was only a level-four Title Magus, nowhere near a Black Tower Councilor, and I didn't dare rush into the Turin Mountains. So for the next ten years, I frantically researched the era of the Long-Legged Emperor."
"No wonder..." Leon gave Weiss a deep look. "No wonder you're so familiar with that history. You even know Ragulin and Barton."
Then Leon gave a wry, playful smile. "You went to all that trouble to train Solan Monty just to use him as a sacrifice, didn't you? But things went sideways, and Solan Monty tossed you out instead. Now you ended up as the sacrifice. That's just hilarious..."
"..."
Weiss's old face flushed red. He'd meant to keep these secrets hidden, but the young mage saw right through him. Weiss nodded gloomily. "You know the rest, don't you? This was a thorough conspiracy. Barris is a sly, treacherous bastard. If I'm right, Solan Monty's sudden surge of power in the palace was probably thanks to that fragment of 'inheritance.' He saw Barris's corpse and rushed over, thinking he'd gain all of Barris's strength, but Barris played a cruel joke on him and devoured him alive..."
Leon shook his head in secret. That master and apprentice pair really were something—on the surface, master and disciple, but underneath, scheming against each other. He'd even wondered if Weiss was involved in the Bone Plane affair, or the Rog Merlin Shipwreck, but now it seemed unlikely. With Solan Monty's personality, he probably wouldn't have shared anything important with Weiss.
Almost all the mysteries that plagued him were solved. The bloodline curse seemed to have been left on Solan Monty during Weiss's sacrifice. And there really was an inheritance in the Chained Palace—a demonic power, the avatar of the Wasteland Lord. Solan Monty absorbed it, but the bloodline curse kept him from being transformed into a demon.
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The second layer is a path you must take. To get out of here, you have to face Barris's corpse. After devouring Solan Monty, and with the bloodline curse as a medium, Barris's soul could enter the corpse, which would then grow flesh and transform into a human...
Barris's plan was almost flawless, but unfortunately, I threw a wrench in the works and ruined everything. At this point, Leon could only give a bitter smile as he looked at the skeleton—its skull was shattered, impossible to repair. Even if Barris's soul entered this body, there was no hope of resurrection...
Wait...
Suddenly, Leon's expression changed. If Barris, wielding the avatar of the Wasteland Lord, got his hands on that Necrotic Essence, would that count as another kind of fusion?
The thought sent a chill down his spine—he didn't dare hesitate. Leon dashed toward the pile of shattered bones. When he'd killed the skeleton, he'd seen a massive Necrotic Essence drop along with it. Barris's roar had echoed at the time, and Leon had completely forgotten to collect the Necrotic Essence.
"Boom!"
Suddenly, a thunderous crash rang out. A massive Necrotic Essence, glowing with eerie light, burst forth, scattering countless pale bones and shot straight toward the pitch-black fissure.
"No!" Leon's face darkened. He conjured a massive hand of mana, grabbing for the Necrotic Essence. A sizzling sound erupted—the Necrotic Essence was wrapped in demonic energy, instantly vaporizing the mana hand, trailing a long plume of black smoke as it sped toward the fissure.
"Stop it!"
The sudden turn of events jolted everyone awake. Seeing the Necrotic Essence flying away, they instantly realized what was happening and desperately cast every spell they could, trying to bind the Necrotic Essence.
If Barris really got his hands on that Necrotic Essence, his power would undoubtedly reach the Heavenly Tier. In that case, none of them would have the slightest chance of survival.
"We can't let Barris get it!" Dean roared, battle aura raging. Lightning surged from his Essence Longsword, sweeping toward the Necrotic Essence.
"Even if we have to destroy it, Barris can't have it!" Rolf's expression hardened. He unleashed his magical battle aura, and his Essence Relic longbow trembled, firing seven powerful arrows in rapid succession.
Everyone unleashed everything they had.
But...
The demonic power enveloping the Necrotic Essence was overwhelmingly strong. With just a faint tremor, it annihilated the lightning, arrows, spells—everything. The Necrotic Essence was about to fly into the fissure.