Chapter 478: The Colossus of Calamity

Count Puyfer plunged into the wildly shifting weather, struggling against the gale, rain, and lightning, while the "fairy" wearing a blue beret—the manager of the "Inn"—being close to the darkness of the Breeze Dance Hall, seized the chance and passed through the mysterious, illusory iron gate.

She knew it would be dangerous inside, but the gods' will was her own thought; even if she died because of it, she had nothing to fear, for it would earn her the gods' approval and return her to that eternal fantasy realm.

Unfortunately, her appearance placed her directly in midair, deep within the storm, smoke, and flames.

Within her eyes, the towering figure was clearly reflected:

It resembled a charred, terrifying giant—its flesh long gone, its blackened metal skeleton filled with roaring purple flames that formed what appeared to be a complete body, yet crisscrossed with fissures from which lightning, hail, mist, and other illusory symbols continuously erupted.

This radiant purple flame and iron-black metal skeleton seemed to contain knowledge beyond description, representing countless true phenomena—ineffable, indescribable.

Drip, drip—thick, magma-like pale yellow pus, tinged with blood, slid from the giant's cracks, bursting into blackened purple flames and various weather phenomena upon the air and ground.

Merely witnessing this scene caused the "fairy" wearing the blue beret to ignite from within to without.

Her eyes revealed clear, instinctive terror as she frantically reached out and pressed against the empty air before her, entering an untouchable state.

Yet her physical condition changed not at all.

With a whoosh, every clump of flesh, every cell of the "fairy" ignited—including the transparent, dragonfly-like wings on her back.

She twisted in agony for a moment, becoming a "fairy" composed entirely of crimson flame, her gaze utterly hollow, devoid of any spirit.

As the flame-formed dragonfly wings beat, the mutated "fairy" circled the giant's figure, as if in adoration.

Boom!

Lightning struck around Count Puyfer, and purple flames erupted nearby.

Soaked by the downpour, enduring hail that smashed blood from his head and body, he finally burst through the thick smoke.

Perhaps due to his Sorren family bloodline, he was fortunate enough to suffer no other effects.

As soon as he saw the smoke thinning and the rain no longer obscuring his vision, Puyfer lifted his head in excitement, gazing at the towering giant figure.

He saw, within the purple flames beyond the iron-black skull, a face of extreme twisted agony, flickering in and out of view.

And that face bore six or seven-tenths resemblance to Puyfer himself—the main difference being its eyes were not brown-red, but black like petrified blood, utterly dead, profoundly empty.

Upon seeing the giant's figure, Count Puyfer also ignited.

It brought violent, unimaginable pain, yet his head remained raised, his gaze fixed on the giant's face.

Within the purple flames encircling the iron-black skull, faces—filled with malice, hatred, or mad curses against all living things—flashed one after another: men and women, resembling the giant and Count Puyfer to varying degrees, growing upon the withered hearts floating within the purple fire.

Puyfer saw the portraits of many ancestors from his family's oil paintings; on his own twisted, burning face, his lips strained upward into a smile.

With a whoosh, he too became a being forged of flame—but instead of circling the out-of-control giant, drawn by his bloodline, he plunged into the perilous purple fire of the iron-black head, into the face of Fumenda, flickering in and out of sight.

In an instant, the two merged.

On Fumenda's hollow, agonized face, his lips twitched slightly; a trace of spirit returned to his eyes.

He opened his mouth and let out a scream brimming with destructive desire and madness.

Accompanying this scream, the ground, burned bare by purple flame, shook violently as one after another clay golem crawled from the depths.

They too were towering, three to four meters tall, their surfaces blackened iron as base, speckled with dark red blood.

These clay golems writhed and transformed, as if gaining their own life, becoming soldiers guarding this region.

Almost simultaneously, a blazing meteor fell from the heavens.

The meteor tore across the sky and plummeted toward the edge of the mist.

Boom!

Amid the thunderous impact and shaking, like a meteor striking earth, a figure emerged from within the meteor and stood upright.

It was Sarnalna Einhorn, clad in iron-black, blood-stained armor.

This angel, over one meter eighty tall, with deep red long hair and extravagant earrings, showed no hesitation—he expanded his body, revealing a mythic form strikingly similar to Fumenda Sorren's current state.

It was a giant composed of fire and other symbolic elements, representing calamity.

…………

Beneath the silently burning invisible flames high above, on the other side of the wilderness, Puaris de Rochefort, dressed in a black elegant long dress and matching veil, gazed at the magnificent city nearby.

She had not allowed her husband, steward, or children to enter the "Inn," but arranged for them to temporarily leave Trill and reside in a suburban town beyond the city walls.

After a brief gaze, Lady Puaris turned her head and looked at the man standing only twenty to thirty meters away.

Though he appeared over fifty, his thick golden hair was only lightly streaked with gray, and his lake-blue eyes held no trace of cloudiness.

His beard was neatly trimmed, his features profoundly deep—clearly, he had been a strikingly handsome man in his youth.

He was the "Circle Man" of the "Sinner" organization: Vazan Sanson!

Father of Loche Louis Sanson.

Lady Puaris returned her gaze to the seemingly boundless city, sensing something within it calling to her, slowly contracting and expanding, like a mother's embrace long forgotten in the depths of memory.

She took a step forward.

…………

Franca had not expected that stepping out of the mirror world, she would see Gardner Martin, presumed "missing."

As a double agent for both the "Tarot Society" and the Witch Cult, she instinctively felt guilt and impulsively wanted to greet him with "What a coincidence!" But she was no longer the naive newcomer who had just crossed over; her experiences and battles, even within the "Curly Baboon Research Society," ranked among the highest, so she reacted swiftly—shouting at Anthony Reed, "Get down!" while vanishing from sight and diving sideways toward the ground.

Almost simultaneously, Gardner Martin, with deep eyes and clad in silver-white full armor, summoned dozens to hundreds of pale-white fireballs around him—they screamed forth, saturating the space where Franca and Anthony Reed had just stood.

Anthony's eyes held only the figure of General Philip wrapped in a black cloak; his ears echoed Franca's cry: "Get down!"

He was experienced enough—even without understanding what was happening—to follow his teammate's warning and dodge, then refine his movement based on instinct—he pushed hard off his feet, not sideways, but straight toward General Philip.

Amid a series of explosive booms, General Philip stared in shock as a greasy, middle-aged man in military camouflage stared at him with hatred and lunged forward.

Do I have a grudge against him? The thought flashed through Philip's mind as his pupils darkened, losing focus.

He "saw" countless fates intertwined, saw where the threads likely originated.

So it was one of the survivors from that sacrifice unit… You were lucky enough to escape back then, and now you dare return for revenge? General Philip sneered with contempt.

As a Sequence 5 "Harvester" of the "Hunter" path, he chose to worship the Great "Goddess of Fate" and accept her blessings because he saw the limitations and flaws of his original path in the realm of mysticism, saw the inescapable apocalypse.

He wanted to become a demigod in a short time, to gain the protection of a great being and survive the apocalypse—something normal channels could never grant him.

So although the early stages of the "Goddess of Fate" path were extremely weak and heavily restricted, he accepted it without hesitation.

The Sequence 9 "Dreamless" blessing granted him only a state of never dreaming and the ability to sense the flow of fate, and he lost the ability to gain spiritual insights through dreams.

Sequence 8 "Musician" was slightly better; in some worlds, "Musicians often blind themselves to focus more intently on listening to fate's voice and playing it out," but this required extensive preparation and sufficient time to play before altering a target's fate to any degree.

Sequence 7 "Fate Seer" and "Fortune Teller" had no essential difference—only that they could directly see or hear fate's revelations without using a medium.

At Sequence 6, the "Goddess of Fate"'s blessed finally gained relatively powerful abilities—the one who sees fate can narrate it directly to influence the target, but each use required prolonged silence and self-imposed muteness, imposing heavy restrictions.

This sequence was called "The Mute."

Only after completing a false death and detaching from his original fate could Sequence 5 "The Departed" shed those prior restrictions and function normally.

Having seen the source of Anthony Reed's hatred within the tangle of fate, General Philip, a dual Sequence 5, laughed, releasing a voice from his chest as if long imprisoned:

"Fate cannot be escaped. You will become my sacrifice."

As these words echoed amid the booming explosions, Anthony Reed remembered the bloody scene of the camp's ambush and trembled uncontrollably in midair.

Thud! He fell to the ground, hugging his head in terror.

Not far away, behind a half-collapsed gray stone pillar, Lu Mi and Yu Yu Jianna both heard that cry of "Get down!" and recognized Franca's voice.

Did Franca come in too? How? Lu Mi's heart jolted.

(End of Chapter)