Chapter 308

Chapter 308
## Chapter 308

Clash (3)

Whoosh—

The nearby atmospheric currents altered sharply.

The Master of Heaven’s Turn Society, who had maintained a serene expression until now, knit his brows.

Hahoe Mask, previously shrouded in a dark aura, had pulled back… but the Master could no longer dedicate his attention to him.

‘…Since when?’

In the clearing where he and Hahoe Mask had been engaged, stripping away the now-dissipated undead…

Clank— Clank—

“I have found you, grotesque blasphemer.”

…An uninvited participant had arrived.

Accompanied by a measured, metallic stride, a holy paladin, armored in pristine, white plate, stepped out from the treeline.

“I am Heinrich Saint Landguard, the primary blade of the Main God.”

A golden radiance shone from his eyes, visible through the visor of his helmet and the gleaming plate that reflected the surrounding illumination.

And wrapped within that formidable presence,

“Blasphemer, by the decree of the grand Main God—”

Swish—

“…I shall deliver your sentence.”

A magnificent blade, unsheathed by his hand, swept through the air, casting a radiant glow.

A brilliant halo flared from his form, driving back the lingering miasma of death and repelling the alien divine energy that had no place in this reality.

“…A champion of Auterica’s Main God?”

The Master scowled.

He had anticipated the Church’s interference, but not with such swiftness.

‘And… ’

That was far from the sole issue.

He shifted his gaze toward the flank.

“Khahaha! This is exhilarating!”

A burly titan, projecting a force every bit as dominant as the holy warrior, let out a thunderous roar of laughter.

His parted jaw exposed rows of razor-sharp, serrated teeth, entirely non-human in nature.

“This marks my first encounter with an angel!”

Harley, the monstrous creature, smirked, his eyes locked onto the Master with an eerie craving.

“Hey, would you mind if I took a bite out of those wings?”

His utterance was no jest; saliva spilled from his massive jaw, his frame already shifting and gearing up for combat.

“…Did I underestimate the capabilities of this reality? To think their response could be this rapid… And five individuals… of this caliber…”

The Master offered a quiet chuckle.

As he spoke, two additional shadows materialised from the darkness at his rear.

“Hmm, you have already perceived us. What a pity.”

“The World Tree has declared… Not a solitary breath shall be permitted to the raiders who desecrate this reality.”

A vampire possessing crimson eyes emerged from the darkness, straightening his dark suit coat, while a golden-haired, green-eyed High Elf perched upon a thick branch, his words heavy with solemn resolve.

They unified with the rest, forming a perimeter around the Master as their collective pressures surged upward.

Goooo—

The atmosphere vibrated with friction as contrasting forces collided and tangled.

[“Kuhut— You appear to be quite popular.”]

“Hahoe Mask…”

Hans’s derisive tone drifted through the air, causing the Master’s face to stiffen.

The current state of affairs was profoundly abnormal.

‘This coordination is far too precise to be mere chance. It is as though they were anticipating this… ’

The exact moment of their arrival, the method by which they traversed the void, their shared malice… everything signaled a definitive tie between them and Hahoe Mask.

A necromantic dark sorcerer, a holy paladin, a man-made chimera, a fae being radiating the essence of nature, and a vampire carrying a sinister pressure…

How could such formidable entities, each standing at the apex of their respective disciplines, unite and manifest here simultaneously?

What schemes had Hahoe Mask executed?

His brow twitched in deep perplexity.

[“Regardless, I shall leave you to your devices. They will handle the rest.”]

Yet, he lacked the leisure to contemplate the mystery.

Hans, stepping backward, had delivered the cue.

The remaining combatants, their preparations finalized, unchained their full capabilities.

“…Then you are merely a craven, Hahoe Mask. Fleeing after boasting so loudly…”

The Master, determined not to permit his target to slip away, spoke aloud to provoke him.

Kaboom—!

However, his sentence was severed as Harley, the volatile berserker, sprinted forward.

“Khahaha—! Focus your gaze on me now, companion!”

His frame, coated in rough scales and swelling musculature, projected a feral pressure—a cocktail of insanity and bloodlust.

Crack—! Koooong—

His titanic hand, expanding several times its original scale, tore through the empty space, its razor claws carving a profound trench into the soil.

A common mortal would have been ripped to ribbons in a fraction of a second, but his target was not so easily broken.

Rumble—

When Harley’s strike failed to connect,

His colossal form, traveling beyond the speed of sound, triggered a sonic detonation and a violent pressure wave, rattling the bedrock.

Yet, this was merely an introduction to the genuine devastation that was slated to transpire.

“Commence the sentence.”

“I am curious about the flavor of his lifeblood. Fascinating.”

“According to the decree of the World Tree…”

Heinrich, Heinz, and Harris dove into the skirmish, trailing in Harley’s wake.

[“Uninvited intruder. Defiler of a cosmos that shall never embrace you.”]

And Hans’s parting statement drifted across the theater of war as he made his exit,

[“Bear this in mind.”]

A freezing tone, akin to a fiend’s murmur from the lowest pits of the underworld, vibrated through the earth.

[“You are an outsider here.”]

It stood as a vow, a commitment to guarantee that exact reality.

—

Immortal King Hans dissolved from the theater of conflict.

He had weighed the option of participating directly, but deemed it counterproductive.

Ultimately, his specific energy did not align harmoniously with the other vessels, particularly Heinrich and Harris.

‘It would merely diminish our collective output rather than foster synchronization.’

The wiser course was to deploy them in a calculated sequence.

Having departed the immediate fray, Hans concentrated on restoring his reserves and bracing for a potential secondary intervention.

‘Operations are advancing smoothly across the remaining sectors. I am uncertain how critical this will prove, but preparation is never wasted.’

He monitored the condition of his remaining vessels and their respective coalitions via 「Monarch’s Authority」, offering a slow nod.

It was preferable to be excessively prepared than to misjudge the opposition and suffer the same fate as Ganghwange.

‘Very well.’

Meanwhile, the clash on the field, currently a four-on-one scenario… or rather, a rapid succession of isolated engagements…

Kaboom—!

…persisted in its escalation.

—

The peak, already devastated by the prior engagement between the Master and Hans, was presently enduring an additional catastrophe.

Multiple crests had completely dissolved, fresh chasms had been gouged into the terrain, and the environment was altered past the point of recognition.

“Huu…”

Harris, the High Elf, exhaled silently, his expression somber.

He shared responsibility for this environmental ruin, but it was an unavoidable cost.

He inhaled deeply, clearing his consciousness, and maintained his rapid, silent transit through the canopy.

Securing an ideal sniping perch, he retrieved a projectile forged from a branch of the World Tree and fitted it against Themis, his legendary bow.

Wooong—

The projectile glowed with a multitude of hues, a spectrum of pure light.

「Gentle Eight Trigrams Secret Art (Modified)」 alongside other wilderness-attuned talents triggered, reeling in the ambient mana.

Even the latent power of the woodland funneled toward the arrowhead, its currents visible to the naked eye.

‘Now.’

The moment the gathering power hit its peak, he loosed the string with a faint resonance.

In the fraction of an eye’s blink, it arrived at its mark.

Rumble—

A cataclysmic detonation reverberated across the skies.

The strike, mirroring the previous exchange, was intercepted by the grand wings that now formed a bulwark before the Master… yet it achieved its intended goal.

It disrupted his positioning, yielding a vulnerability.

“Main God!”

“Merely a single mouthful! Grant me this!”

Heinrich and Harley capitalized on the opening, surging inward.

The Paladin of Radiance, his form combusting with sacred power, swung his five-meter-long divine blade, while the mutated chimera, its massive bulk emitting a malevolent pressure, bounded forward, its cavernous maw baring rows of jagged teeth.

“Ugh, you irritating insects.”

As they sustained their fierce assault, Harley’s momentum ground to a sudden halt.

He found himself immobilized by an intangible wall.

Crackle—!

Heinrich’s divine blade and the Master’s palm, saturated with holy force, traded repeated, high-speed strikes in a tempest of motion.

Blemishes manifested on Heinrich’s pale armor, only recently mended following his duel with the Immortal King, while the neighboring flora and stone splintered from the resulting shockwaves.

“Kyaaa! Allow me into the entertainment!”

Crackle—!

Suddenly, as a crimson and emerald glow flared from Harley’s pupils, the containment barrier pinning him shattered into fragments.

Having completely embraced his monstrous state, Harley dove back into the melee, adding further disruption to the Master’s defense.

“Huu…”

Yet despite retaining the tactical advantage, the Master’s countenance remained dark.

He cast a glance down toward his palm, where the tears left by Heinrich’s divine blade were knitting together at a sluggish pace.

His physical resilience and cellular recovery speed were experiencing a decline.

The uninterrupted combat following his duel with Hahoe Mask was exacting its price.

“…Maddening.”

Furthermore, Heinrich, though inferior in raw power to Hahoe Mask, held an elemental superiority.

It was unavoidable. This domain belonged to the Master.

And there existed a separate complication.

“You are bleeding.”

An icy phrase drifted from the flank.

Koooong—!

Immediately following, a colossal detonation, a cyclone of raw force, consumed the ground where they had just been positioned.

The marksman, exploiting the pandemonium, had executed a secondary strike.

The Master countered with a sacred discharge, parrying the brunt of the strike, yet the archer persisted in vexing him, his volleys unceasing and unpredictable, surfacing and vanishing like vermin.

‘They are each so… unyielding.’

He forced his lacerations to seal, tasting the pale ichor on his hand, and scowled upon witnessing the vampire dissolve into nothingness.

He remained capable of tracking his location, but it proved tedious. He could not afford a single lapse in concentration.

And if he lacked his elemental advantage in holy force…

But he had no time to linger on the thought.

Heinrich, utilizing 「Blessing: Leap」 to bridge the gap, was already closing in on his position.

It was a meticulously structured blueprint, an unyielding sequence intended to slowly grind away his endurance.

—

Thump!

Crack—

“Tsk, tsk, I must quicken my pace.”

Harley, who had been sent crashing down, swatted the loam from his frame and righted himself, rotating his neck with a pop.

Only shallow blemishes remained where his flesh had been torn.

Crunch, crunch—

He loosened his joints, and a handful of pale plumage drifted from his teeth.

He had managed to rip away a portion of the Master’s wing even as he was repelled.

“What a pity! I was a fraction away from a proper mouthful.”

It amounted to mere plumage rather than muscle and blood, meaning the nourishment was minimal… but it was preferable to nothing.

And he would inevitably claim his prize if he maintained the pressure.

Tenacity stood as one of Harley’s defining traits.

‘The conclusion draws near.’

Merely banishing him from this reality was insufficient.

This was a mere opening skirmish, a preliminary act.

He needed to harvest as much capital as possible prior to their definitive confrontation.

“Excellent! Let us begin!”

The musculature of his lower limbs swelled with power.

Kaboom—!

With an explosion of velocity, he launched himself back into the heart of the storm.