Chapter 129: The Apostles of the Crying Moon

The two men in front of Ella didn’t even have time to scream.

Under the pressure released by Klein, their bodies were gripped as if by an invisible giant hand.

The crisp sound of breaking bones was drowned out by the dull squelch of compressing flesh.

In the next instant, they were transformed into two pools of mangled meat, splattering across the cold floor.

A thick scent of blood, mixed with the aura of decay, instantly filled the entire catacomb.

Lia instinctively held her breath.

Klein stood where he was, expressionless, as if he had merely crushed two insects.

As Ella looked at the filth on the ground, the look of pity for all living things vanished from her face.

A sense of ease gradually surfaced instead.

She even lightly clapped her hands.

“Truly magnificent!”

Her voice carried a strange hint of admiration.

“Such crushing power, such decisive methods… I’m beginning to appreciate you, Eighth-Circle Mage of the Capital.”

Klein ignored her delirious rambling and took a step forward.

The floor of the catacomb shook once again.

“Your last words should be finished by now.”

A cold killing intent locked onto Ella.

Ella, however, began to laugh, opening her arms as if welcoming something.

“No, the show has only just begun.”

“Did you think you destroyed my companions?”

She lowered her head, looking at the two piles of gray dust on the ground, her tone full of pity.

“No, you simply helped them complete their Return. Look, they are rejoicing because of it.”

As she spoke, two nearly imperceptible gray currents rose from the piles of dust and actively merged into the “Crying Moon” emblem on her chest.

The glow of the emblem seemed to brighten by another degree.

“And you,” Ella looked up, her gaze burning as she stared at Klein.

“Your power, your very existence, has already met the conditions for activation. You shall become the key.”

“A key… to play the final movement for this rotting world!”

The crying moon emblem on her chest suddenly erupted with a piercing gray light.

The walls of the entire catacomb began to warp, and thick, living shadows seeped from the cracks between the stone bricks.

Those shadows converged on the ground, elongated, and then slowly stood up.

One.

Two.

Five.

Ten.

Full ten silhouettes wearing the same gray robes stepped out from the distorted light and shadow.

The aura of deathly stillness emanating from each of them was several times thicker than that of the previous two combined.

Upon appearing, they silently fanned out, surrounding Klein and Lia in the center.

The smile on Ella’s face became fanatical and twisted.

“Welcome to the Mad Feast of the Crying Moon.”

“Now, let us witness together the beauty of a powerful soul descending into silence amidst despair!”

Her voice had not even faded yet.

Klein made the first move.

He waved a hand backward.

A thick wall of ice rose from the ground, instantly shielding Lia behind it, cutting off all sight and attacks.

Almost at the same time, the ten Apostles of the Crying Moon launched their assault.

There was no brilliant magical radiance or elemental fluctuation.

Their attacks were silent and stealthy, yet everywhere they breathed of the bizarre and the end of all things.

Threads of gray light shot from all directions; wherever they passed, even the air hissed with corrosion.

Clusters of thick black mist appeared out of thin air, and from within the mist came countless overlapping, malicious whispers, attempting to burrow directly into one’s mind.

Furthermore, two apostles’ bodies turned directly into shadows, merging into the ground like underwater venomous snakes, gliding toward Klein’s feet.

Their magical system was filled with the concepts of chaos, decay, and termination, completely deviating from any existing school of magic.

Klein’s brow furrowed.

The space around him began to oscillate violently.

The gray threads shooting toward him were sliced into fragments by invisible spatial faults before they could get within three feet of his body.

The ground beneath his feet crystallized instantly, turning into indestructible blue crystals that firmly sealed the two shadows attempting a sneak attack inside.

As for the mental attacks, they were blocked by a stronger spiritual barrier, unable to trigger even a ripple.

Klein raised his hand and made a phantom grip toward an apostle directly in front of him.

“Space Fragmentation.”

The space around that apostle instantly collapsed inward, forming a sphere of pure black that swallowed him whole without a sound.

In a flash, one was resolved.

But more attacks followed in quick succession.

These apostles were fearless of death and coordinated perfectly.

As one fell, the attacks of the other nine immediately filled the void.

Meanwhile, the shadows beside Ella writhed again, and a new apostle began to emerge from the distorted space.

A gray halo expanded above Klein’s head; beneath the halo, all elements began to decay and fall into silence.

Another apostle pressed both hands to the ground, causing the stone structure of the entire catacomb to rapidly turn to sand and rot.

Black spots also began to surface on the ice wall behind Klein—traces of magical erosion specifically designed to decompose structures.

He could no longer remain standing still.

Klein’s silhouette pulled out a series of afterimages within the narrow catacomb.

Every flicker was accompanied by the fall of an apostle.

Spatial severing, absolute zero freezing, flame eruptions…

The formidable strength of an Eighth-Circle mage was revealed without reservation at this moment.

But there were too many apostles.

Their methods of attack were far too bizarre.

They seemed completely indifferent to their own lives; their sole purpose was to exhaust Klein or open a gap in his defenses.

They appeared bottomless.

But Klein’s mana would eventually hit a limit.

Lia was trapped behind the ice wall.

She listened to the constant muffled sounds and energy collisions outside, her heart leaping into her throat.

She leaned against the cold wall; the aftereffects of her overextended spiritual power left her body weak, making even standing a struggle.

She knew very well how difficult the situation Klein faced was.

Individually, these servant apostles might not be very strong, but their magic was filled with the characteristics of negative entropy and annihilation; every defense and counterattack cost Klein far more than a conventional battle would.

More importantly, he had to divide his attention to protect her.

Lia could sense that the ice wall Klein had constructed was not just a physical defense; it was layered with dozens of complex spatial stabilization and mental defense arrays, the maintenance of which required a massive amount of mana.

Lia clenched her fists.

This feeling of only being able to hide behind someone else, of being a burden, made her extremely frustrated.

Boom!

A loud explosion echoed.

The entire ice wall shook violently.

Through the semi-transparent ice, Lia saw Klein’s figure forced back a step.

An exceptionally tall apostle had tanked one of Klein’s mana rays, using his own body as a shield to create an opportunity for his comrades.

Another apostle took the chance to lunge forward, a short sword made of gray crystals in his hand piercing the spatial barrier in front of Klein, aiming straight for his heart.

Klein dodged to the side.

The short sword grazed his ribs, trailing a string of eye-catching blood droplets.

Lia’s pupils contracted sharply.

With a backhand palm strike, Klein slammed his hand onto the assailant’s crown.

Blue frost erupted instantly, freezing the apostle into an ice sculpture that immediately shattered into a flurry of ice shards.

But he had exposed a brief opening.

Ella, who had been standing outside the circle of battle watching everything with indifference, captured this moment.

“Now,” she whispered softly.

One of the newly appeared apostles, who had been standing beside Ella without moving, suddenly became flat and distorted, like a painting being thrown into water, melting into his own shadow.

Alarm bells rang wildly in Lia’s heart.

She whipped her head around.

That vanished apostle emerged soundlessly from her own elongated shadow.

He was less than three steps away from her.

A gray spear had already coalesced in his hand, its tip aimed at Lia’s neck.

The ice wall isolated the inside from the outside, and Klein was busy dealing with the frontal siege; he had no time to look back.

In Ella’s script, this girl’s death would be the final straw that broke the powerful mage.

The outcome was decided.

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