Chapter 1439: 100 Heads, 100 Arms_2

“Is it necessary?”

The Demon Hunter raised his iron hammer again and roared at Anthony. His words were indistinct, but Anthony knew what he was asking.

Was it necessary to step into the darkness.

Once the Secret Blood was let out of control, the Demon Hunters would inevitably gain a tremendous boost, but that also doomed them to step into Demonization. All these reliable combat forces before his eyes would be ruined. Even if they could slaughter all the Soul-Reviving Corpses, who then would kill the out-of-control Demon Hunters?

Reinforcements?

The thought flashed through Anthony’s mind and was immediately discarded.

Anthony never expected any reinforcements. He believed only in himself, and in what he gripped tightly in his hand. This was the Demon Hunting Order’s war; the only ones they could rely on were the members of the Order themselves.

“No, there’s no need! No need to kill them all—drive them back!”

Anthony roared. He had no idea how many bloodthirsty Soul-Reviving Corpses lurked beneath that pitch-black breach. To expend all their strength here would be nothing but a futile death match.

They needed to conserve their strength and wait for a turn in the battle.

Hearing this command, the others also shifted their offensive. Instead of hacking madly, they tried to push the Soul-Reviving Corpses back, while others continued to shove the remnants of the stone pillars, trying to block the gap.

Everything seemed to fall back under control, and to Anthony’s surprise, a faint joy arose within him.

Yes, this was yet another Night of the Holy Arrival; Anthony had already lived through such a night. All they needed was to follow what had been done that night.

Drive those Soul-Reviving Corpses back into the Static Holy Temple, seal the Gate of Celestial Kingdom, turn the Static Holy Temple into a deadland, and there stage the final struggle.

“Keep going!”

Anthony raised his sword and shouted, completely unaware of the danger rushing toward him.

A scorching wave of air surged; tiny points of fire rose in the darkness beneath the breach, then the firelight flared to its fullest, like an erupting volcano, bursting outward.

The entire Saint Nalos Cathedral was thrown into a quake. Gravel and dust flew; the Gate of Celestial Kingdom shook violently, cracking even further. From beneath the cracks there shone light, then blazing flames spilled from the fissures and vented from the breach.

The Demon Hunters guarding the Gate of Celestial Kingdom were all hurled up and thrown back. Even the Soul-Reviving Corpses entangled with them suffered the same fate, smashed hard onto the ground, leaving ashen-white marks.

Anthony fell to the ground. Under the brutal impact, his world spun wildly. He struggled to rise and saw the roaring blaze behind the gate.

As though the Celestial Kingdom beyond the gate had also fallen into the same warfire, or as if a Flame Demon had walked out from Hell.

A thunderous pounding rang from behind the Gate of Celestial Kingdom, and the cracks upon it grew ever wider. With another heavy blow, bricks and stone collapsed, the reliefs of Demons and Angels shattered together, revealing boundless firelight.

“It’s… it’s broken through.”

Someone stared at all this in terror, and in that firelight, a twisted, loathsome carcass was burning with flames. It stretched out a hundred twisted arms, pried apart the remnants of the Gate of Celestial Kingdom, and its deformed, grotesque body was fully revealed.

Anthony stared at the monster in the blaze, his stomach churning, almost to the point of vomiting.

It was an aberration beyond common imagination. Its bloated, massive body was like a ball of flesh, covered with bluish veins and swollen pustules. Twisted legs strained to support this body, and at its sides were countless slender, jagged arms.

The number of arms reached into the hundreds. With only those fragile legs, it could not support its bloated body, so the hundred arms spread out, bracing on the floor, clutching at the walls, almost filling the entire space.

The creature’s head was a great mass of flame, as though a blazing sun had been set atop its neck.

Wait—that was not a blazing sun.

Anthony saw, within the wavering white-hot light, a vague suggestion of heads—human heads, countless heads.

As if some mad doctor had used corpses to sew and patch, countless heads were entangled together, forming a gigantic furnace. Fierce firelight gushed from their mouths, noses, and eye sockets, and as they burned they let out a shudder-inducing wail.

The wails overlapped, echoing, colliding.

Everyone froze until a stream of fire erupted and struck the Hundred-Headed Demon. The fire stream did little to harm it, could not even shake it.

It waved a hand, sending out countless red threads that fell upon the collapsed Soul-Reviving Corpses. Like marionette strings, they hauled the fallen bodies upright again, lifting them high. The hundred hands stretched out, and sharp claws easily sliced off the corpses’ heads; before they could fall, another hand caught each head and stuffed it into the burning blazing sun.

The corpses’ hands met the same fate. It was like a damaged machine, stripping out usable parts. The red threads stitched the hands into the hundred arms, while the useless torsos were pressed against the swollen body, then began to slowly seep into the bloated flesh, as if being eaten.

It devoured greedily, not only Soul-Reviving Corpses, but also the corpses of Demons, Demon Hunters, Holy Hall Knights—it spared none.

Cutting, stitching, devouring—again and again.

“Stop it!”

The Demon Hunter roared and charged forward with his iron hammer.

The Hundred-Headed Demon imposed a pressure on everyone that was almost impossible to resist, and now it had not yet fully crawled out from behind the gate. This was the Demon Hunters’ last chance: to drive it back into the Static Holy Temple.

The Secret Blood surged, rising toward a higher firmament.

The Demon Hunter felt that this was the moment—to pour everything out.

The Secret Blood broke through its threshold; power beyond reason wrapped itself around him. The fire on his body burned ever more fiercely; he was like a burning meteor.

The hundred arms, bearing blades, dropped down, trying to block his advance, but before they could touch him they were crushed by the soaring heat. Dodging and darting forward, he brought his hammer down hard upon the Hundred-Headed Demon’s thin, fragile knee.

Bone shattered; the entire leg bent grotesquely, and the bloated body toppled out of control. But before it could fully crash down, the hundred arms propped against the floor and steadied it again.

Then more arms, bearing blades, fell. They came from all directions, cutting off any path of escape for the Demon Hunter.

He was doomed. His Authority was not the ironclad defense of Medanzo, nor the undying body of Yanar—he was only a mass of fire, a flame that was hard to extinguish.

The blades, like a rain of arrows, pierced through the Demon Hunter’s body, tearing through flesh, then nailing into the ground beneath his feet.

Under Anthony’s gaze, the Demon Hunter slowly loosened his blood-stained iron hammer. It hit the ground with a clear ring. Anthony wanted to say something, but found himself mute, unable to utter a word.

His gaze drifted upward; he saw the Demon Hunter, and the Demon Hunter saw him. A smile broke across that battered face.

Rising, ever rising, breaking through all obstacles.

The blades tried to dismember him, to take his head and arms, but suddenly they all snapped. More blades and arms broke in turn, fountains of blood spraying out, mingled with dust-fine shreds of flesh.

The burning hundred eyes looked down and saw another Demon baring its fangs and claws at it.

“With such grievous wounds, a Demon Hunter might die… but a Demon will not.”

His voice turned warped and hoarse; overheated Secret Blood had Demonized him. Razor-sharp claws tore through his skin, like blades growing and stretching from his very bones.

Rage surged. The Demon Hunter leapt high and, like cutting wild grass, hacked off every arm that barred his way.

Cold metal joined the fray at that moment. The Nail Sword whirled in, slicing off the Hundred-Headed Demon’s other leg. The bloated body toppled sideways; the arms groping for the edge of the Gate of Celestial Kingdom were also struck fiercely and severed one by one.

Its body began to tilt backward, almost falling into the darkness.

Yet as though unwilling to die, crimson threads gushed from its wounds like spooled spider silk, wrapping everything around in a bloody hue and steadying its form—but then a Nail Sword plunged into the blazing sun.

Anthony gripped the Nail Sword tight, his face contorted, as he faced the hundred blades hurtling toward him.