Chapter 143: The Miasma Flood
Chapter 143: Chapter 143: The Miasma Flood
Chapter 143: The Miasma Flood
Cassian Stillbane pressed his palm flat against the heavily encrypted security terminal.
BZZZZT.
A massive, bone-rattling mechanical groan vibrated through the entire foundation of the underground megacity. The glowing green icon on the terminal screen violently shifted to a flashing, warning red.
High above the sprawling civilian sectors, the heavy energy shields protecting Bastion Six flickered wildly.
The brilliant, translucent barriers that had kept the horrors of the world at bay for over a century sparked with dying electrical currents. Then, with a sickening hiss, the shields simply died.
The Festival of Lights ground to a halt.
The loud, rhythmic music echoing from the mechanical parade floats distorted into a screeching burst of static.
The colossal holographic dragons twisting through the artificial sky suddenly glitched, fragmenting into broken pixels before vanishing entirely into the dark air.
Millions of cheering citizens fell into a confused, heavy silence. The sudden absence of noise in a city of millions was deeply unsettling.
People stopped dancing. Children lowered their glowing anti-gravity lanterns. Everyone looked up at the darkened, unprotected sky.
Then, the ground began to violently tremble.
It started as a low rumble beneath the central plaza, vibrating through the thick concrete streets. The rumble rapidly escalated into a deafening roar.
BOOM!
The heavy steel grates covering the underground transit rails exploded outward. Chunks of thick concrete and twisted metal ripped through the air, raining down upon the packed civilian crowds.
Screams of pure terror erupted across the plaza as a massive crater opened right in the middle of the festival route.
But it was not human Cultists climbing out of the shattered transit tunnels.
A sleek, terrifying monstrosity leaped out of the dark crater and landed heavily on the hood of a parade float.
It was a Level 150 Miasma Abomination. But it looked nothing like the mindless, rotting zombies of the Wildlands. This creature was a completely different breed of nightmare.
The beast was massive, standing over nine feet tall. Its body looked like it was made of liquid darkness, shifting and rippling unnaturally in the dim light.
It possessed four incredibly long, muscular arms ending in razor-sharp obsidian claws. Thick, jagged white bone armor covered its chest, spine, and face, forming a horrific, skull-like mask.
[System Alert: Null-Fiend Detected.]
[Threat Level: 150.]
[Warning: High concentrations of Mana-Void properties and Toxic Miasma detected.]
A squad of Vanguard Knights stationed at the parade route immediately reacted. They drew their weapons and charged the four-armed shadow beast to protect the fleeing civilians.
"Open fire!" the Vanguard Knight Captain roared.
The Knights unleashed a synchronized volley of high-tier elemental magic. Blazing fireballs, piercing ice lances, and crackling bolts of lightning illuminated the plaza as they slammed directly into the Null-Fiend.
The magic did not leave a single scratch.
The moment the elemental spells struck the jagged obsidian scales covering the beast’s body, the magic simply vanished. The scales acted like living black holes, completely absorbing the kinetic and elemental energy of the attacks.
The Null-Fiend let out a deafening, metallic screech. Its liquid shadow body swelled in size, growing significantly larger and faster from the absorbed mana.
The beast lunged forward with terrifying speed. It swung its four massive arms, tearing through the Vanguard Knights’ heavy armor as if it were made of wet paper.
The Knights screamed as they were thrown across the plaza, their elemental magic completely useless against the monster.
The Null-Fiend opened its jagged bone jaws. It exhaled a thick, billowing cloud of toxic purple gas.
The gas rolled over the screaming crowds, wilting the decorative lotus flowers instantly and causing the civilians to collapse into violent coughing fits.
It was the exact same untraceable Cult poison currently hidden inside the Lord Commander’s veins.
And this Null-Fiend was not alone.
Hundreds of them poured out of the shattered transit craters. The sleek, four-armed shadow beasts flooded into the pristine streets of Bastion Six, moving like a relentless tide of darkness.
They scaled the glass skyscrapers with their claws. They tore through the residential arcologies. They spread the toxic purple gas through the ventilation systems.
---
Up on the high balcony of the command center, Cassian Stillbane stumbled backward.
The traitor’s face turned completely pale. The smug, arrogant smile he wore just moments ago melted into a mask of pure, unadulterated horror.
"No," Cassian whispered, his voice trembling violently.
He gripped the edge of the titanium table to stop his knees from buckling. He stared down at the sheer carnage unfolding in his brother’s kingdom. The Null-Fiends were slaughtering everyone in their path.
"No, no, no!" Cassian shouted, turning toward his Cultist aides.
"This was not the deal! We agreed on a small, localized strike! A surgical assassination to draw Gunther out! Not a massacre! What are those things?!"
Vane, the lead Cultist aide, stood perfectly still. The dark tattoo on his neck seemed to pulse with wicked delight.
"They are the Null-Fiends, my Lord," Vane answered calmly, showing no sympathy for the screaming civilians below.
"The Fifth Elder decided that a true rebirth requires a complete purge. Bastion Six must be baptized in the shadows."
Cassian hyperventilated. His grand illusion of control completely shattered.
He was not a mastermind playing a brilliant game of chess. He was just a foolish, arrogant pawn.
He had made a deal with a doomsday cult, expecting a world-ending terror organization to honor a gentleman’s agreement.
He had willingly unlocked the front door of the safest city in the world and invited the starving wolves inside.
"I am ruined," Cassian choked out, falling to his knees. "I destroyed it all."
---
While the traitor lost his mind in a pathetic puddle of regret, Draven Mordis stood perfectly still on the edge of the glass balcony.
The Warlord did not panic. He did not show a single ounce of fear.
Draven looked down at the apocalyptic warzone through his featureless white mask. He pushed his Warlord senses to the maximum limit. His invisible fifty-meter conceptual domain, the Event Horizon, hummed silently around his body.
He could not reach the plaza from this height, but his Warlord intellect analyzed the battlefield with terrifying precision.
He watched the Vanguard Knights fail repeatedly. He saw the Null-Fiends absorb fire, water, and wind magic, growing stronger with every single spell they consumed. He noted the density of their bone armor and the speed of their four arms.
’They are designed to counter this city,’ Draven realized in his mind.
’Bastion Six is renowned for its elite elemental magic casters. The Fifth Elder brought a specific breed of monsters completely immune to elemental mana. Pure magic only feeds them and make them stronger.’
Draven narrowed his eyes behind his mask.
’But they are not immune to physics.’
The Null-Fiends absorbed magic, but they still possessed mass. They still relied on gravity to anchor themselves to the streets. They still used kinetic momentum to swing their claws. They were bound by the strict laws of physical reality.
Magic failed against them. But pure kinetic force would break them into pieces. In simple language, Smash them up.
And Draven Mordis was the undisputed god of kinetic force.
Draven turned away from the blood-soaked plaza. His long white coat whipped violently in the wind rushing through the open balcony. He looked at his elite strike team.
Aegon gripped his Blood Fire Spear. Bram held his heavy titan-stone shield. Reina’s eyes burned with cold fury. Lucien sparked with blue lightning. The Eclipse Hunters were staring at their Warlord, waiting for a single command.
Cassian was still sobbing on the floor, babbling about his ruined kingdom. The traitor had completely surrendered his authority.
Draven stepped past the weeping traitor. The Warlord’s Warlord aura flared, heavy and undeniable, suffocating the Cultist aides in the room.
"Cassian has lost his mind," Draven stated coldly, his modulated voice cutting through the panic like a blade.
"The deal is void. The Vanguard Knights cannot stop those beasts alone. If we do not step in right now, millions of innocent people will die."
Draven raised his hand, pointing directly toward the shattered central plaza below.
"Eclipse Hunters," Draven commanded, his voice echoing with total, Warlord supremacy.
"Deploy."