Chapter 72: A Plea for Rest

Lia’s consciousness observed the unfolding monologue with a detached gaze from within the dim stone chamber.

The old monster’s fingers frantically traced the sanguine lines etched across the diagram, his lips muttering incantations, his expression a blend of madness and rapture.

“A perfect masterpiece, an unparalleled conception!

“The town shall be the crucible, and lives the kindling!”

Lia’s consciousness felt a distinct weariness settling upon her.

‘Another ritual demanding the sacrifice of an entire town?’

‘Do these ancient monsters, having lived for centuries, possess only single-threaded minds?’

‘Beyond such crude and inefficient energy conversion, can they not conceive of something more refined, something truly ingenious?’

‘Their theoretical understanding is inferior even to that of a freshly admitted undergraduate in her past life’s laboratory; it is, quite frankly, a disgrace to the world of magic.’

After a long indulgence in his self-adulation, the old monster finally stirred into action.

He retrieved several pieces of obsidian, each inscribed with core runes, from a box, and handed one to the Three-ringed Corpse standing silently in the corner.

“Go, my first child.”

An inexplicable tenderness imbued the old man’s voice.

“Proceed to the lumberyard and place it in the location I have already chosen.

“This will mark the commencement of our grand ritual, the first cry of our future!”

The Three-ringed Corpse accepted the obsidian, its pallid eyes shifting slightly before it turned and lumbered out of the chamber.

Its gait remained stiff, yet its speed was unnervingly swift.

Lia’s consciousness followed its trajectory, traversing the ruins and moving towards the direction of Leaf-fall Town.

Simultaneously, her physical body opened its eyes within the inn room.

There was no more time for waiting.

While she might remain indifferent to the old monster’s fate, she could not stand idly by as the vibrant lives of an entire town became fuel for a madman’s failed experiment.

Those townspeople, toiling for their livelihoods on the streets, were not mere statistics, nor were they interchangeable background props to be casually erased.

Lia’s form vanished from the room in an instant.

It was already dusk.

Activating the Box-Wielder’s Veil, she leaped from the inn’s rear window like an invisible gust of wind, silently weaving through the town’s narrow alleys.

Her speed escalated to its zenith, the cobblestone path beneath her feet blurring into indistinct lines as it rapidly receded in her vision.

A novel experience now unfolded within her.

Her physical body streaked through the town’s streets, a fleeting dance of dappled light and shadow.

Meanwhile, another facet of her consciousness remained linked to the corpse, sharing its perspective as it moved through the mountain forests.

On one side, streetscapes and houses flashed by; on the other, the unchanging tableau of dry branches and crumbling rocks in the mountains.

These two vastly dissimilar sensory inputs coexisted harmoniously within her mental landscape, forging a peculiar sense of disjunction.

The lumberyard lay on the eastern fringe of the town, bordering the dense forest.

During the day, it resonated with the clamor of sawmills and the shouts of laborers.

But now, as twilight descended, the entire lumberyard was enveloped in profound silence, only the towering stacks of timber, bathed in the crisp moonlight, emitted a faint, clean scent of pine resin.

Lia arrived a step ahead of the corpse.

She surveyed her surroundings, her spiritual energy unfurling like a finely woven net, instantly enveloping the entire lumberyard and swiftly pinpointing the location with the most anomalous magical residue.

It was a hollow space beneath a massive pile of timber.

The old monster had clearly been here before, meticulously preparing everything in advance.

Without hesitation, she shimmered into the hollow.

Inside the hollow, a rudimentary pedestal had already been carved, imbued with the same sinister magical residue as the diagram.

This was the first node of the ritual array.

‘Should I destroy it directly?’

‘No.’

The thought was dismissed as quickly as it arose.

The old monster would undoubtedly sense the node’s destruction instantly, which would immediately alert him to her presence.

‘A more subtle approach is required.’

Lia swiftly rummaged through her spatial ring.

‘Attack scrolls are out; they’d cause too much commotion.’

‘Defense scrolls are useless.’

‘I have it!’

She pulled out a scroll intricately patterned with complex chains.

A five-ring confinement spell – Inertia Shackles.

Its purpose was to reduce the flow of magic within an area to a freezing point, rendering any magical structure dormant.

If she deployed this magic here, the moment the obsidian was placed on the pedestal, its inherent energy would be instantly frozen, preventing it from resonating with other parts of the array, and triggering no alarms.

The old monster would merely assume the node was malfunctioning, rather than suspecting any clandestine sabotage.

Lia swiftly unrolled the scroll, channeling her spiritual energy into it and beginning to guide the magic.

Just then, a stiff figure materialized at the entrance of the hollow.

The Three-ringed Corpse had arrived.

Its pallid gaze immediately fixed upon Lia and the scroll radiating magical fluctuations in her hand.

Roar!

A guttural roar tore from its throat.

It raised an arm, and a formidable ice shard instantly condensed, whistling through the air with an icy gale, rocketing directly towards Lia’s face.

Lia deftly sidestepped, the ice shard whistling past her cheek, its immense kinetic energy driving it deep into the timber pile behind her, sending splinters flying.

The corpse charged forward, striding with the ferocity of a thoroughly enraged beast.

Its left fist glowed with a heavy, earthy-yellow light, while its right palm suddenly splayed open, a sphere of highly compressed air whirling frantically within its grasp, emitting a piercing hum.

‘A Piercing Cone!’

Lia dodged while swiftly activating the scroll in her hand.

The spell model for Inertia Shackles unfurled before her, invisible chains shooting forth to coil around the charging corpse.

The corpse’s movements instantly became sluggish, as if it had plunged into viscous quicksand.

It struggled, the magical radiance flickering erratically across its form, yet its speed steadily diminished.

Just as Lia prepared to bypass it and complete the spell’s deployment—

The corpse’s movements abruptly ceased.

It no longer thrashed wildly; instead, it simply raised its head, its lifeless eyes fixed intently on Lia.

Its mouth opened and closed, seemingly striving to utter some sound.

“Ugh… kill…”

A broken, almost unrecognizable syllable, hoarsely shrieked, was painstakingly forced from deep within its throat.

Lia’s movements halted.

She regarded it with a flicker of disbelief.

The deathly stillness in the corpse’s eyes seemed to recede by a fraction.

A glimmer of emotion, a poignant mix of pain and supplication, flickered deep within those pallid orbs.

Its body began to tremble violently, caught in the conflict of two wills.

The old monster’s controlling commands and the remnants of its own soul, imprisoned for untold years, were now waging a silent, brutal war within this decaying husk.

“Kill… me…”

The second syllable emerged with greater clarity.

It raised the arm bound by the Inertia Shackles, pointing with all its might to the obsidian clutched in its hand,

Then, it gestured towards its own heart.

Lia instantly grasped its meaning.

It was pleading with her to end its existence.

And, in doing so, to destroy the core of the ritual node as well.

This soul, trapped within a decaying husk for an unknown number of years, had briefly reclaimed a sliver of control, spurred by Lia’s magic.

It chose to use this solitary opportunity to thwart the impending catastrophe that threatened to engulf the entire town and to seek its own ultimate release.

Lia’s heart lurched.

Yet, she could not comply.

Should the obsidian be destroyed, the old monster would instantly become aware.

What further madness he might unleash then was beyond anyone’s prediction.

“I can’t…”

Lia’s words trailed off unfinished.

The Three-ringed Corpse’s body gave a violent tremor, and the glimmer of its own consciousness in its eyes rapidly dimmed.

The old monster’s control had once again asserted its dominance.

Roar!

It let out another bestial roar, tearing free from the Inertia Shackles, which had lost their target, and lunged at Lia once more.

Its assault was now more frenzied, more reckless than before.

As if enraged by its brief moment of rebellion.

Lia gazed at the body, once again transformed into a beast, and made a resolute decision.

She ceased her evasions.

Increasingly intricate spell models rapidly coalesced before her.

“I may not be able to kill you as you asked.

But at the very least, I can grant you peace.”

She murmured softly, as if making a promise to the soul fragment that had already faded.

“And let you… help me with one last task.”

A soft, radiant light bloomed from Lia’s hand, instantly engulfing the entire hollow.