บท 12: Too Bad
Time seemed to have slowed down as the Celas slowly inched closer and closer to the safety zone's barrier. A suffocating level of corruption was condensed in its horns, potent enough to pierce through the barrier easily and instantly corrupt everyone within.
Its eyes darted about, focusing on the figure of Felix staring from a faraway home window, remaining in a protective embrace around his family as he seemed to be screaming in despair.
Its other pair of eyes darted towards the figure of Rhizen that was farther away behind it, becoming confident that he wouldn't be able to interrupt it this time.
But suddenly, its eyes trembled in shock as realisation finally set in. Its brain was operating at speeds dozens of times faster than normal, at speeds surpassing its mental capacity, causing its brain cells to rapidly die as a result.
And, the cause seemed to be the potent venom that had been injected into its body all along. Even though it had digested the venom and converted it into its corruption, it seemed there was a hidden effect within it that hadn't been processed yet.
Everything tangible could be digested by it. So, this only meant that Rhizen had injected it with something intangible.
The moment this thought resounded in its mind, its eyes widened as it noticed Rhizen's whale-like face slowly creeping up with a smile as a sense of dread pervaded its body.
Luck Arts—Bad Luck!
At the same time, the whale's features morphed, now fused with a cobra as it turned into a giant serpent of the sky, opening its mouth as a formless effect slammed into the Celas.
Roar!
Fusion Arts—Devouring Heaven!
It was a power resultant from the fused activation of the Apocalyptic Arts of Thieving Heaven and the Apocalyptic Arts of All-Devouring Whale.
Suddenly, the Celas became absolutely weak as all the corruption in its body was stolen by Rhizen's power.
And at the same time, Bad Luck condensed within its body in torrential amounts, suddenly causing its body cells to fail as the cell division became more and more faulty, rapidly resulting in a spike of useless cells that appeared throughout its body.
These cells weren't just useless, but they also consumed ten times the energy to be created as compared to the regular cells, resulting in a rapid energy loss. As all its corruption had already been stolen, this deficit tapped into its muscular energy, weakening them just to prolong the cell division.
Bang!
The Celas slammed into the safety zone barrier, partially piercing through it as cracks spread throughout it. But, unlike before when it would have destroyed it entirely, it just lay there now, trapped in the barrier.
"Attack!" Rhizen bellowed as the majestic serpent in the sky collapsed within the safety zone, exhausted to the limit for having used too much Bad Luck—a power it didn't exercise much control over.
The Bad Luck gradually became more and more in the body of the Celas as it continued to weaken. At the same time, the Society Members grabbed hold of it, dragging it into the safety zone while the Tower of Purification worked hard in mending the damage.
"Everyone! Attack the Aberrants! Stop them until the barrier heals!" Yulna bellowed at the top of her lungs, condensing a crossbow as she took off to the air, ramming arrows into the Aberrants that charged at the safety zone.
Each of her arrows took down at least a couple of Aberrants while she summoned her Whale, sending it out of the barrier to gobble up the weak Aberrants, replenishing her Nacre this way.
Moreover, her All-Devouring Whale helped a lot in reducing the number of charging Aberrants.
"Guh!" The gigantic snake that Rhizen had transformed into shivered in pain, unable to fully digest the enormous volume of corruption that it had devoured.
Some of the corruption leaked out of its body from time to time as four Whales hovered beside it, consuming all the excess corruption.
Moreover, a couple of Whales began to gradually eat the weakening Celas that was unable to resist their actions.
This way, they were keeping things under control. But, everything would fail if Rhizen couldn't keep the corruption in him. After all, the volume of corruption in him was everything contained in the Celas, the strongest Aberrant of this apocalyptic world.
"Gaah!" The gigantic snake screeched in pain, thrashing around as patches of its skin began to peel off while portions of the flesh underneath began to rot, showing signs of becoming an Aberrant.
Boom!
The Tower of Purification worked in tandem, rapidly doing its best to absorb as much corruption as it could from Rhizen, causing a spike in the Nacre production within the safety zone. But, this was only a last-ditch effort.
By stressing itself now to produce more Nacre, it was giving up on long-term sustainability. There was a good chance it might implode soon after.
But, they had no other choice but to do this.
"This is bad!" Yulna observed Rhizen, noticing that his condition was slipping gradually, "We'll be done for if he falls prey to the corruption."
"Do I have to kill him now?" She considered the thought once before gritting her teeth, "No, that would imply we lost this war. The Apocalypse would digest all the gains from here, including us and become even stronger. We definitely cannot allow that."
She took her whistle, blowing into it with all her might.
Apocalyptic Arts—Rippling Whistle (V)!
Ripples cascaded from her, quickly travelling to the nearby safety zones as the Society Members there that were similar to her spread the news further.
"I can only hope that the reinforcements arrive fast enough." She muttered, causing the whistle to vanish as she looked at Rhizen in worry. Even though a lot of Whales were around him, trying their best to help him, the quality of corruption in him was just too much for them to handle, despite them having a seven-horned Whale each.
"Tch!" She grunted in irritation, causing her Whale to slam into the ground and shoot out its poop everywhere, unleashing a dense stream of Nacre through it that caused all the Aberrants to thrash about on the ground.
"Create a rampart using the Whale poop!" She shouted as those with a Whale arrived beside her, hailing down projectiles of whale poop that rapidly hardened to form a wall.
This wall emitted a mysterious radiation that began to corrode the bodies of the Aberrants the moment they closed in on it, causing the horde's approach to slow down.
And whenever they ran out of poop to shoot out, the Whales opened their mouths and gobbled up more Aberrants.
Kuuooong!
A Whale screamed in pain as it collapsed to the ground, having its flippers clipped by a Titan Aberrant with scythe-like wings.
The Whale crashed into the ground, causing a large crater as it formed a trench, killing countless Aberrants along the way. But suddenly, a Titan Aberrant appeared before it, kicking at its head, stopping its sliding, forcing it to stop abruptly.
The attack caused its head to cave in as the Titan Aberrant grinned in response, plunging its hands into the Whale's mouth before ripping it open.
Immediately after, countless Aberrants rushed inside and began to devour its muscles, cleaning its dental cavity of all flesh and blood.
Tears streamed out of the Whale's eyes as it was unable to extricate itself from the Titan Aberrant's hold that grunted from time to time, exerting force to pin the wriggling Whale to the ground.
The Titan Aberrant with scythe-like wings landed on its back, racking up countless gashes that the tiny Aberrants latched onto, devouring in frenzy.
Kuuuong!
The Whale emitted a high-pitched sound before it was drowned by the Aberrants. It wasn't the sole Whale that had fallen victim though as the many Whales forming the vanguard began to collapse one after another.
"Dammit!" Yulna's face paled as she noticed the flying-type Titan Aberrants that had begun to appear one after another.
She aimed her crossbow and unleashed a hail of attacks onto a Titan Aberrant that was trying its best to pry open the mouth of a Whale. The arrows slammed into its wrist, causing tiny holes as Yulna continued with the action, severing the wrist in a matter of seconds.
The Whale opened its mouth and unleashed a terrifying roar, momentarily stunning the Titan Aberrant and the smaller Aberrants around it, using the chance to fly away.
Once it gained some altitude, it transformed back into the human form of a youth that panted, coughing out blood as he gasped for air, quickly covering himself with his Celestial Armour, one that had become tatters by now.
"D-Dammit! The corruption is becoming stronger in me." He grunted, feeling a searing sensation permeate through his internals, causing his vision to become blurry.
"Retreat into the safety zone and recover!" Yulna shouted, "Don't die!"
The youth turned around and stared at the thrashing snake within the safety zone, "The Saint needs all the pure Nacre he can get to combat the corruption in him. If he fails, the Celas would recover immediately."
"My death is of no consequence. And hence," The youth took in a deep breath before summoning his injured Whale, "Before I die, I'll hold back our enemy as much as possible."
His Whale spanned a size of ten metres when it was summoned separately. A moment later, the Whale vanished as he transformed into the Whale himself, now spanning a length of fifteen metres, stronger than before.
Moreover, he began to use his other abilities in conjunction with his Whale transformation, rushing into the Titan Aberrants that were in the sky.
"Shit!" Yulna cursed in response, looking around the battlefield as the moment Rhizen was rendered helpless, their side began to be pushed back rather quickly as the Society Members fell one after another in droves.
"What the…?" Suddenly, something slammed into her, sending her flying to the ground, causing her to cough out blood in response, feeling her ribs cracking under the impact. She quickly got up, staring in shock as she looked around before gazing at the gigantic creature before her, "Didn't I already enter the safe zone? Then…why?"
She stared at the ginormous hole that had formed in the barrier as a Titan Aberrant casually entered it, sporting three wolf-like heads and six pairs of arms. It grinned while gazing at Yulna, opening its mouth to speak, shocking all the Society Members, "Nice try. But too bad,"
"You fell short."
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