Chapter 523: with translation of chapter title

Huuu—!

The wind howled furiously. - no.

Alone, he stepped onto the surface of Sahnoshche, only then discovering how harsh the environment truly was.

With vegetation gone, the land could not retain moisture, and the imbalance in climate and temperature stirred up raging winds that sent dust flying across the sky.

At this moment.

Under a dim, yellowish sky stood a temple complex of moderate size—about the size of four stadiums.

And at the center of the complex…

「…」

At this moment, seeing the unattended, badly deteriorated statues and buildings with exaggerated designs, plus the octagram symbol of chaos, Constantine and the Imperial Guard all remained silent.

If it were the Space Wild Wolves or the Astate of the Honor Hammer present, they would surely shout a few curses of 'Trash!' and 'Heretic!' to vent their hatred.

Those who had undergone what could be called a 'custom-made' exclusive surgery, the Imperial Guard who had completed their transformation, were far stronger than regular legion members in both mind and body…

Put simply, the Imperial Guard scorned empty boasts, preferring to maintain their dignity through silence and action.

And as the highest‑ranking Imperial Guard in bearing, and also the most ornate in armor, decoration, and weaponry, he slowly approached a statue with a graceful form, possessing both feminine and masculine traits, seemingly representing lust, and paused to observe it.

But with a 'Boom!', the blasphemous statue shattered outright, sending stone fragments spraying in all directions.

It was obvious that Constantine had smashed the lust statue with a punch at an unfathomable speed.

Clang! Clang!

Boom! Boom!

The six Imperial Guard brothers also raised their power spears, or used explosive bolts for convenience, or wielded spearheads flashing with black‑gold lightning, destroying every blasphemous object within sight.

It is said that the Limitless Warriors are the wealthiest of all legions, but that's because the Imperial Guard are not counted.

The antimatter explosive bolts that the Man‑Eating Sharks could only obtain by looting and trading with the legion were, for the Imperial Guard, merely 'a drop in the bucket'.

Moreover, being the father's most valued and 'relied‑upon' offspring, they didn't care about the consumption of explosive bolts, using them outright to shatter the chaos‑representing objects before them.

In the blink of an eye.

The temple lay in ruins, yet Constantine and his brothers proceeded slowly, passing through the plaza flanked by towering stone pillars to enter the temple interior.

The dim space posed no obstacle for this group of giants averaging over four meters in height.

Thud! Thud!

The footsteps of their magnetic boots on the stone tiles echoed through the hall.

Despite lacking helmet‑screen aid, Constantine and his Imperial Guard brothers, with their extreme vision, detected subtle differences in air flow and thus discovered a hidden door in the temple's right‑hand corner leading down to the underworld.

Afterwards, the group kicked open the hidden door with brute force and continued down the dark tunnel.

The feedback from pulse scans and the intelligence provided by the Red Empress both indicated that beneath the temple lay a vast, labyrinthine network of tunnels.

At the same time, from the information bar on their helmet screens they learned that the remaining Imperial Guard brothers, along with a hundred Grey Knights, were also gradually entering different temples and plazas to delve deeper into the underground network, while the flight squadrons would still need some time to reach the surface of Sahnoshche.

Without running or using fast travel, Constantine and his party followed the route given by the Red Empress and traversed the network for a full thirty minutes.

During that time they saw many blasphemous constructs, each of which they destroyed in turn.

They also wondered why, when the crusade broke the New Human Empire, there were no detailed records of Sahnoshche at all.

Or why even Luojia Aorulian had never known that beneath Sahnoshche's surface lay such a vast network.

After all, the father theoretically could know every secret of the Devout Star Region by using Spiritual Energy for interrogation…

Then the fact that this place is unknown to the Fallen OriginalBody shows that lust and other evil gods, controlling the chaos worshippers, concealed their construction from Luojia Aorulian.

Together with the extinction caused by Grand Apparatus 001, an entire star sector became an absolute lifeless zone, and because this underground network has Spiritual Energy shielding, no one noticed the anomaly of Sahnoshche.

They continued deeper.

After another ten or so minutes, Constantine and his six Imperial Guard brothers finally left the tunnel, which was only a little over ten meters wide and high, and arrived at an extremely expansive underground world.

Firelight washed over them.

On Constantine's helmet screens, blazing light flashed, and the warnings shown on the left—'201℃', 'deadly toxic'—indicated that the environment had become even more hostile.

All they saw at the tunnel's exit was a plaza‑like floating island with marble‑like floor tiles and numerous stone pillars.

As for the 'firelight', it was the rolling hot magma flowing and spreading beneath the floating island.

Sometimes the magma lake would emit a gurgling sound, bubbles forming and rising to the surface before erupting violently outward and upward.

Looking outward in all directions, Constantine and his party saw that besides the floating island beneath their feet, numerous islands dotted the magma lake, linked by iron‑chain bridges standing about ten meters above the lake surface.

On the central island stood a structure roughly sixty meters in diameter and height, appearing to be entirely covered in rust and shaped like the character 'hui', its purpose unknown.

At first glance, Constantine and his men thought the actual function of that 'hui'-shaped building was merely a door.

Seeing this,

The seven Imperial Guard brothers wasted no time, striding straight toward the central island.

However, when crossing the iron‑chain bridges, to avoid breaking them and to increase efficiency, they activated their levitation stance and flew straight across the magma lake to the central island.

Heh… heh…

However, as their feet touched the ground, a faint, gender‑indistinguishable laugh echoed in their ears.

!

Hearing the commotion, Constantine immediately gripped his right‑hand Cassius gun, while the six Imperial Guard readied their power spears and kept a wary watch on the 'hui' door.

"Heheh~" At that moment the indistinct laugh sounded again, growing clearer, and the unseen speaker who was making it finally spoke:

"I thought I'd have to wait at least a hundred, or even a thousand of your human Earth years, until you humans gradually forgot the terror of the divine and feared the divine, before the first visitors would arrive; I didn't expect this to come a bit earlier than I predicted…

"But it doesn't matter; arriving a bit early lets me shake off boredom sooner. Otherwise, if I had beforehand plundered trillions… no, tens or hundreds of trillions of souls from other worlds, wouldn't that have been pointless?

"Oh well, I'm too lazy to crunch the numbers—that's someone else's hobby…

"Cough cough! Here, your beloved and respected father can no longer give you any aid!

"Not only Him, but also your friends waiting outside will think your underground actions are completely normal, while I…

I can also enjoy it properly—my favorite little～toy～s～！！

「…」

When the guy who was laughing emphasized the word "toy," even the usually unemotional Constantine and his companions felt a wave of nausea.

Moreover, after they arrived in the subterranean world with its magma lakes and countless floating isles, the Red Empress who had been helping them stopped updating any information.

Although quantum communications and the responses on all channels were normal, they still couldn't contact the outside world…

Just as that androgynous-voiced, or perhaps lust‑filled, speaker had said, the outside world thought they were perfectly fine at the moment.

Not sure if the Short‑Range Teleportation Device still works, but Lust dares to guarantee they're in a desperate situation, so they'd better stay put; rashly activating the teleport might just land them right into a trap.

Know that the evil gods aren't just Lust—there's also Depravity.

It seems the alternate space hasn't abandoned "persistence" and "perseverance" because of the "vaccine"; on the contrary, to corrupt and devour humanity of the main universe and the multiverse—including Lust—those evil gods have never ceased their various researches.

Now, following the guidance of Assasutiye, Constantine and his companions triggered the evil gods' trap a hundred, a thousand years early.

Then the Lord of Fire Dragons, Wokan…

Is probably just a bait, after all, aside from the terror‑gods, most evil gods know where Wokan is hidden by them.

Next…

Accompanied by a "Boom~~!!" blast, a visible spatial distortion, like a pulse wave, spread outward rapidly from the "hui" character gate as its center.

When the spatial distortion wave reached Constantine and the six imperial guards stationed on the island's perimeter—those who had received the special vaccine and were blessed by the G‑gland—they actually felt a hint of endless "indulgence," "pleasure," and "enjoyment."

Furthermore, the center point of the "hui" character gate, as it burst forth with the spatial distortion, first manifested a deep‑purple light cluster the size of a ping‑pong ball, then continued to explode outward at great speed.

Fortunately, this time Constantine and his comrades, via their own armor, actively raised a thin golden Spiritual Energy barrier to resist this dazzling purple Spiritual Shock.

"Thud! Thud!"

Though the seven men could hard‑resist the shock, they were still forced back several steps, and one brother almost fell into the magma.

Although the thousand‑degree heat isn't enough to melt through the energy shield, let alone harm the armor, this shock shows that whoever released such a Spiritual Shock must be Lust, or someone who has received Lust's blessing or favor—a great demon no different; otherwise they couldn't have moved these imperial guards.

Soon.

Once the purple Spiritual Shock enveloped the surroundings and completed some kind of isolation, the subterranean space instantly ceased trembling, and even the "surging tide" magma lake, under some mighty will's control, became calm.

As for the "hui" character gate, instead of staying calm as before, it formed a vortex portal whose edges were mixed with pink, red, and purple, resembling a tiny "Eye of Fear."

「…」

Still, Constantine and his six guard brothers, watching the scene before them, remained silent, at most gripping their weapons tighter.

Because they believe that, even if the evil gods have greatly improved against the vaccine, their bodies harboring the G‑gland and having undergone multiple dedicated surgeries enable them to contend with any threat in the material universe.

"Roar!!"

A sharp, thin‑voiced howl came from the far end of the portal.

Before a few seconds passed, a four‑armed, two‑legged demon with light‑purple skin—whether bull‑headed or goat‑headed—emerged from the portal, waving blades that reflected an eerie cold light, intending to step into the material world.

"Rou~~!!"

But a piercing sky‑rending whistle interrupted the demon's arrogant proclamation.

It turned out that, as soon as the demon's silhouette appeared, Constantine hurled his Cassius spear with all his might.

"Pfft!!"

The spear tip easily tore through the Spiritual Energy barrier and directly pierced the demon's body.

Moreover, the Cassius spear should have retained its force after penetrating the demon and continued charging toward the portal's far side, yet in reality the spear's flight path halted abruptly, and it even brought the demon hanging on its shaft back the way it came.

Finally, the Cassius spear returned to Constantine's right hand while the first demon to enter the material world was seized by Constantine's left hand around its neck.

"Click!"

That demon was completely immobilized, then Constantine pulled it off the spear shaft and casually tossed it into the magma lake.

One could say this demon never even managed a true "step‑footing" act before its soul returned to chaos.

"Roar!!"

At the same time.

More and more demons and fiends poured out of the portal, rushing toward the imperial guards who were outnumbered by over a hundred to one, preparing to drown these giants with a "sea‑of‑tactics."

But the result was the opposite…

"Rattle‑rattle‑rattle!" The 1.0‑cal caliber burst‑fire gun roared, instantly drowning out all the demons' howls.

"Boom! Boom!" Following closely were ton‑level, even ten‑thousand‑ton‑level matter‑antimatter annihilation explosions.

In an instant, the violent explosions filled this subterranean space that contains a magma lake.

At this moment, Constantine and his companions no longer wondered whether the explosion would cause a collapse or a magma eruption, for even in the most extreme, harshest environment they could simply brute‑force their way back to the surface.

Just…

"Whoosh————!"

The shockwave from the annihilation reaction dissipated with a roar.

Although vast numbers of demons have vanished without a trace, not even a speck of residue remains, yet the structure of the subterranean space stays intact, as if the shock couldn't even penetrate the surrounding rock walls.

The seven men protected by the energy shield are also unharmed, after all they couldn't possibly be affected by their own attack.

"Scum!" At this moment, Constantine used his battle‑cry, which leans left from his steady nature, to jeer:

"As long as I and my brothers are here, you and your disgusting companions will never succeed! Moreover, the Emperor's icy sun will ultimately pierce the gloom, scorching and purifying all filth in the alternate space!"

"Emperor?" When Constantine's words fell, a figure nine meters tall stepped out of the portal and said:

"Heh, a false emperor, that's all."

(End of chapter)