Chapter 179 The Grey Knight and the Doom Slayer (2)

After briefly reading the instructions, Vane dismissed the notification and started walking toward the enormous rift above the city center.

The farther he advanced, the more demons appeared in the streets.

But dressed in his Aegis Terminator Armour, Vane was practically a walking bulldozer.

He smashed through every obstacle in his path and crushed anything foolish enough to stand against him.

Whenever his Nemesis Force Halberd swept through the air, silver-white psychic energy flashed along its blade, reducing nearby demons to ash.

His Storm Bolter barked in short, controlled bursts, each explosive round striking a demon squarely in the head.

When he charged his Psycannon, torrents of devastating psychic energy erupted from the weapon, vaporizing entire groups of monsters.

And whenever demons tried hiding among the ruins, his Incinerator unleashed blue-white purifying flames that burned them down to the last trace.

Vane carved a bloody path through the city.

He cut down demons with such ridiculous ease that the entire battle looked less like a desperate struggle for survival and more like a one-man hack-and-slash game.

By the time he reached a major intersection, the streets behind him were littered with corpses.

Then he heard something unusual.

Gunfire.

“Huh?”

Vane turned toward the sound.

“There are still people alive this close to the city center? That’s practically a miracle.”

Curious, he followed the gunshots.

He soon arrived at a commercial building that had partially collapsed.

Inside, several special operations soldiers were desperately defending a narrow position with Argent-powered weapons.

Demon corpses were scattered all around the building.

Judging by the sheer number of bodies, these soldiers had clearly been holding their ground for quite some time.

“Don’t move!”

Vane strode toward them.

With a powerful swing of his lightning-wreathed Nemesis Force Halberd, he cleaved through several approaching demons.

The remaining monsters were quickly dispatched as well.

Just like that, the soldiers’ immediate crisis was over.

The special forces operatives stared at him in absolute disbelief.

Since when did humanity have soldiers this ridiculously huge and powerful?!

And what the hell kind of unit wears armor like that?

Why haven’t we ever seen it before?!

“You guys all right?” Vane asked.

“We’re good!”

The sergeant leading the group hurriedly nodded.

“Thanks. Seriously, you saved our asses.”

He looked over Vane’s enormous armored frame again.

“Mind if I ask what unit you’re with?”

“I’m not with any unit. Just a traveler passing through.”

Vane kept his answer brief.

“What about you guys? How’d you end up trapped here?”

“We were sent to shut down the portal.”

The sergeant quickly explained what had happened.

His name was Marcus, and he was the captain of this special operations squad.

His team had been equipped with the latest Argent-powered weapons, which were highly effective against demons.

Because of that, their superiors had assigned them a mission to infiltrate the city center and shut down the Hell portal.

Unfortunately, they’d barely made any progress before a massive wave of demons overwhelmed their formation.

The squad had been scattered, leaving only Marcus and a handful of survivors trapped inside the ruined building.

“The portal’s core mechanism is inside Hell,” Marcus explained.

“The portal on Earth’s side is just an exit. The actual core is on the other side.”

“If we want to permanently close the portal, we have to destroy that core.”

“Oh?”

Vane looked interested.

“So how exactly were you planning to destroy it?”

Marcus patted the backpack hanging behind him.

“We brought a high-energy annihilation bomb.”

“Once detonated, it’ll reduce everything within a five-hundred-meter radius to elementary particles. That’s more than enough to destroy the core.”

He gave a bitter smile.

“Originally, we were supposed to carry the bomb through the portal and blow the entire mechanism apart.”

“But, well…”

Marcus gestured toward the mountains of dead demons outside.

“You can see how that worked out. We couldn’t even get close to the portal.”

“What a coincidence!”

Vane’s expression brightened.

“My mission is to go through that portal and destroy the core too.”

He held out his hand.

“Why don’t you give me the backpack? I’ll blow the thing up for you.”

“No need to thank me too much.”

“You?”

Marcus blinked.

He looked past Vane, searching for any other soldiers.

Then he looked back.

“Wait. You’re going in alone?”

“Yep.”

Vane nodded casually.

“Just me. But that’s more than enough.”

Marcus stared at Vane’s enormous armored body and the terrifying weapons he carried.

After a moment of hesitation, he finally nodded.

“All right. I’ll trust you.”

He removed the backpack containing the high-energy annihilation bomb and handed it over.

Then he retrieved a data pad from one of his teammates and began explaining the portal’s layout.

“The core mechanism is located on the third level of Hell, inside a facility called the Foundry.”

“Got it.”

Vane accepted the data pad and glanced over the information.

“You guys should head to the shelter in the southern part of the city.”

Marcus hesitated before speaking again.

“There’s something you should know.”

“Once that portal closes, you won’t be able to come back.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got that covered.”

Marcus studied him for a moment, then nodded.

“Well, good luck, traveler.”

“Same to you.”

With that, Vane turned around and stepped out of the ruins, continuing toward the massive Hell portal at the city center.

Along the way, several more demons lunged at him.

He casually split them in half with his halberd.

After fighting through another relentless wave of monsters, Vane finally reached the area surrounding the portal.

The enormous black rift hovered high above the ground.

Dark crimson light poured from the opening, illuminating the ruined buildings below and making the already devastated city look like something straight out of the apocalypse.

Countless demons crawled out of the rift, spreading in every direction like an endless flood.

And the closer Vane got, the more densely packed they became.

Eventually, the monsters were so tightly clustered that they formed a living wall.

Layers upon layers of grotesque bodies blocked the entire approach.

There wasn’t even enough room to squeeze between them.

Vane raised his Psycannon.

He adjusted its output to maximum power.

“Get in my way, and die.”

BOOOOOOM!

A devastating torrent of psychic energy erupted from the weapon.

The blast spread outward into an enormous fan-shaped wave of destruction, sweeping across the entire horde gathered before the portal.

Everything caught in its path was annihilated.

Demonic bodies were ripped apart and reduced to drifting ash.

And the instant the path was clear, Vane charged forward without wasting another second.

He plunged directly into the rift.

Crimson light swallowed his armored figure.

When his vision finally returned, he found himself standing in Hell.

The landscape before him was a vast expanse of scorched black earth.

There was no Sun in the sky.

Instead, an endless dark red glow poured down through enormous cracks overhead.

In the distance, jagged mountain ranges stretched across the horizon.

Molten lava erupted from their slopes, flowing through fiery channels before eventually joining an enormous sea of magma.

The air reeked of sulfur and rotting flesh.

The heat was so oppressive that an ordinary person would have struggled to breathe.

But Vane was hardly an ordinary person.

He fought his way through the demon hordes, cutting down everything in his path until he finally broke free of the surrounding monsters.

Once he had some breathing room, he opened the data pad Marcus had given him.

After confirming his destination, he started moving.

Several more groups of demons attacked him along the way.

They were dealt with just as easily as the others.

Clad in his Aegis Terminator Armour, Vane was practically a walking engine of destruction.

Nothing Hell threw at him seemed capable of slowing him down.

He continued carving his way through the demonic forces until he finally arrived at his destination.

The Foundry.

It was a colossal structure constructed from black stone and metal, towering more than a thousand meters into the air.

Countless massive pipelines extended from the facility, plunging deep underground and stretching toward the distant mountains.

Dark crimson energy flowed through the pipes, converging on an enormous core mechanism at the center of the Foundry.

According to the mission information, destroying that core would permanently close the portal connecting Hell to Earth.

A facility this important should have been crawling with demon guards.

But when Vane arrived, he found something completely unexpected.

Corpses.

Demon corpses were scattered everywhere.

And from the looks of it, someone had already slaughtered the facility’s defenders.

“Huh?”

Vane looked around in surprise.

“That’s weird. Someone actually beat me here?”

Curious, he stepped forward and entered the massive structure.

Almost immediately, the sounds of fierce combat reached his ears.

Explosions.

Violent impacts.

And the enraged roars of countless demons.

Vane followed the noise deeper into the Foundry.

Before long, he spotted an enormous figure clad in green armor, fighting against a seemingly endless horde of monsters.

Despite being surrounded, the armored warrior continued tearing through his enemies without the slightest hesitation.

Vane recognized him instantly.

“Wait… is that the Doom Slayer?”

There was no mistaking that towering figure in green armor.

It was none other than the protagonist of this universe.

The Doom Slayer himself.

“Well, then…”

Vane tightened his grip on his Nemesis Force Halberd.

“Time to give you a hand!”

With that, he charged straight into the densely packed demon horde like a tank moving at full speed.

Lightning crackled along the blade of his halberd as he swung it in devastating arcs.

Every strike cut through demons as effortlessly as a scythe through grass.

And just like that, two of the most terrifying demon hunters imaginable were fighting on the same battlefield.