Chapter 175: Ch 175: Fate finds a way

"Elena, what happened? Are you alright?"

Lyra looked at Elena with a worried expression as the necromancer jumped back in her seat. Her face looked pale and lifeless, and her eyes were trembling.

Currently, she had been training her powers to send her consciousness through the Realm of Death and observe what lay beyond, and so far she had been successful.

But then she had suddenly encountered a presence in the real world unlike anything she had ever seen before. Curious, she had tried to investigate it, only to run into a wall of corruption.

She had tried to pull back, only to be caught by a terrifying presence she had never encountered before.

"I-I don’t know what I saw. I just know that it was horrible and filled with corruption. I...never expected to make it back alive."

The heavy feeling of corruption still lingered on her skin, making Elena shudder as she asked for help.

"Don’t worry. Whatever it was cannot reach you. For now, I will call for purification. Should we inform Kael about this? If it involves corruption, then the hero needs to know."

Lyra was not concerned about corruption or the human world, but she did not want Kael to be disappointed in her either.

That was why she made the decision, and Elena nodded.

It was easy and quick to send a message to Kael, but his reply did not come back as quickly as they had expected. It made Lyra worried, so she decided to use her powers to pinpoint Kael’s location...only to be met with complete silence.

Something was preventing her powers from reaching Kael, and it was frustrating.

"What the hell-! Is there someone capable of blocking me? Elena, we’re heading out. I have a bad feeling about this."

Lyra told her, and they quickly followed Kael’s presence, only to arrive at the edge of a barrier. It was filled with corruption, leaving no way inside.

But Kael was inside, and his presence was growing fainter by the second.

"What the hell-! This barrier is blocking our way in. What should we do?"

Elena asked, and Lyra bit her lip. There was only one solution she could think of.

"Kid, step back. I’m going to break this barrier and create an opening for us to get inside. We’re only going to get one chance, so make it count."

She warned Elena seconds before blasting the barrier. Her power tore through the corruption, giving them just enough time to slip inside.

Now, they needed to find Kael.

But the stench of death inside the barrier was overwhelming. It was starting to make Elena feel intoxicated, and she could feel the sleeping part of herself trying to awaken.

For now, she suppressed it and headed toward Kael’s location. But the closer she got, the heavier the stench of death became. Just what the heck was happening to Kael at the moment?

Was he seriously about to die again?

And why did that not surprise her?

’Mother, you better be alive. If you are, I might...just might stop calling you Mother.’

__________

"How are we going to find Anjou? You said he managed to get away last time."

Gladion asked in a worried voice, but Kael was already planning his next move. He had chosen the spell he wanted to use, and now it was time to cast it.

As for what he would do afterward? It was simple.

He would catch Anjou, make him confess his crimes, and then head back home to relax.

"Don’t worry about it. For now, let’s focus on the task at hand."

He told Gladion, and the younger man nodded and followed his lead.

It took only a second for Kael to begin casting his magic, and he felt the spell taking shape. It was almost complete when he sensed something trying to force its way inside.

Corruption surged rapidly, causing Kael to cancel the spell just seconds before it was finished.

"Grand Master Kael, is something wrong? You stopped your magic halfway-"

Marsha sounded worried, but Kael had far more important matters to deal with than reassuring her. Two seconds after dropping his spell, he quickly erected a barrier around himself and the others, just in time for the corruption to erupt.

"W-What is going on? What is this?"

Marsha asked as she looked up at the massive blob of black flesh towering over the village. Kael had only one answer for her.

"That...is a corrupted body. And from what I can sense inside it, it’s Anjou. That fool got himself corrupted, and now his consciousness has been devoured. The man you once knew is gone."

Everyone gasped in shock as they stared upward. They were not worried about Anjou—they were worried about their own lives.

Usually, Kael would have told them not to worry because something like this was not a major problem.

But he could not say that this time.

The mass of corruption towering above them was far too dangerous to be left unchecked.

"Grand Master Kael, what do we do now?"

Gladion asked in a worried voice, and Kael had only one piece of advice for him—and everyone else.

"For now, focus on evacuating everyone from the area. I’ll find a way to bring that monster down. In the meantime, contact the temple as well."

Kael would not need the temple’s help to defeat the corrupted beast, but he was not willing to deal with panicking civilians.

Moreover, he was not going to risk his family getting involved and complicating the situation.

So once he was done dealing with the monster, he planned to dump the aftermath on the temple and head back home for some well-deserved rest.

At least, that was the plan for now.

But he had a feeling things would not go as smoothly as he hoped.

The corrupted beast let out a deafening roar, and moments later, it launched its attack.

Naturally, Kael immediately expanded his barrier to encompass the entire village.

The strain was considerable, but for now, he was able to protect the village without issue.