Boundless Cultivation-Chapter 77 - Rematch with The King

“If you think you’ve won,” Alaric spat as he discharged the concentrated mana-scrambling wave. “You are sorely mistaken. Aaargh…” he roared as the disruptive pulse surged through the air, disabling the parasitic tubes sucking his blood for a fleeting moment.

That was enough. Alaric ripped himself out of the tangle of twisted wires and bolted towards the system replica - the otherworldly machine. I have to stop whatever that thing is doing.

Anu-Khepra-Ra had revealed his true self - his face crumbling into flakes of sand, gaunt body wrapped in loose yellow bandages, and empty eye sockets blazing with a sickly green light.

Jagged teeth revealed themselves as he laughed like a madman, launching solar beams through the radiant crystal embedded in his ornate scepter. “There is no escape, hahaha.” he cackled. “Why are you running? Don’t you want to claim your reward?”

Laugh while you can, ghost. Very soon, you’ll regret the mistake of trying to fool me. Alaric knew that even now, the king didn’t take him seriously. Anu-Khepra-Ra fired the solar beams just a little late, a little off so that he could barely evade them.

However, another thought entered his mind. He eyed the wriggling parasitic tubes that disappeared somewhere below the ground. They were not meant to kill him; they were collecting his blood.

The king needs me for some purpose. No matter; I’ll find out the reason soon enough.

He launched mana blasts upon mana blasts at the complex construct to no avail. A shimmering barrier absorbed the force of the blasts, rendering them useless. He needed to escape this chamber, but he couldn’t do so without destroying the machine.

Perhaps, there is another way. I don’t have to destroy the whole machine.

Channeling all his mana into his forearm, Alaric encased it with a thick layered mana shield. He knew it was going to hurt even before he thrust his arms inside the web of wires shrouding the triangular object acting as the machine’s true power source.

Sparks turned to unstable lightning, crackling through the air as his forearm penetrated the shimmering barrier. “Aargh,” he roared as the potent energy corroded the solid layers of mana coating his forearm, peeling off the flesh and eating through his bones.

“Don’t you dare…,” Anu-Khepra-Ra screamed, hurling solar beams at his back. Alaric raised shields after shields, the moment they shattered, preventing fatal injuries. Still, the heat of the solar beams seared his back.

He didn’t care. He swallowed the pain, clutched the prismatic triangle burning a hole through his grip, and yanked. The machine powered down with a strange sound just as he hit the ground, the power core still in his grip.

The blast of blue light piercing the darkness above faded, and the hole in the space fixed itself.

“What have you done? You foolish mortal...” Anu-Khepra-Ra yelled as he clawed through the air, raising a horde of undead minions - ancient soldiers wielding scimitars, spears, and khopesh.

The mad king looked madder as an intense sickly grey aura rippled through the chamber. At that moment, Alaric knew he needed to escape and strike the king where it would hurt the most.

However, as he launched himself toward the exit, tendrils of yellow bandages coiled around his limbs and hoisted him in the air. Alaric struggled to escape as he prepared another mana-scrambling wave.

Anu-Khepra-Ra strode calmly toward him. There was no shred of doubt that the king was done with Alaric. “Oh, don’t glare at - ” he attempted to say, but an intense wave of energy invaded his very bones and shut him up.

“Silence, you imbecile,” bellowed the king. A paralyzing fear gripped his heart, and he felt as though his life was being weighed by an apex predator. He was under the grip of a bloodline attack — a powerful one at that. His opponent was a king, after all.

The king’s form radiated with a sickly green aura, matching the hate in his hollow eyes. He was utilizing the full force of his bloodline power - not only to kill him but break his mind.

It was incomparable to the aura he had felt in the presence of the inquisitor, who had been severely restrained by the presence of his father and the other adults.

Alaric felt his mind melt, his skills and abilities screeched to a halt, and the energy in his chakras became inaccessible as they ceased spinning. The invasive bloodline power was pumping his heart full of black energy - Tamas - an uncontrollable agent taking control of his whole power system.

The edges of his vision started to dim and slowly faded to black. He was on the verge of being erased from existence. And then, there was silence.

I must…not…give…up. He centered his focus on his heart, summoning all his remaining willpower to ignore the spark of his heart chakra once again. It resisted and refused to spin, but he didn’t give up.

For a while, nothing happened. Eventually, his willpower overpowered the grip of black energy restraining his heart chakra, and it started rotating like wheels mired in thick mud—struggling, stopping, and then pushing forward again.

“I am Alaric De Vermond. You will submit to my will.” He mustered the strength to roar. A thumping beat breached the silence as he voiced his intention out loud.

One…two…three — beat after beat coalesced into a steady rhythm, compelling his heart chakra to revolve with unwavering momentum.

A blazing white-hot energy erupted within his heart, incinerating the invading black energy with every pump of his beat.

His heart chakra had partially awakened. Within moments, the white-hot energy surged through his body, annihilating the last remnants of the foreign corruption.

The king recoiled and collapsed to his knees, unable to withstand the backlash of his bloodline power being thwarted.

“Im…Impossible...” Anu-Khepra-Ra muttered weakly as he struggled to regain his strength. Alaric discharged another powerful mana-scrambling wave, effortlessly severing the tangle of yellow bandages before darting toward the exit.

Once outside, he flung a few mana blasts at the entrance of the obsidian cube chamber, causing a portion to cave in. He picked up the four key fragments and the king’s golden sun disk crown as they clattered to the floor and raced to reach the sealed chamber.

“Wait…you scoundrel…come back,” the king howled in pain, still suffering from the backlash of the bloodline attack. But the ancient ghost wasn’t out of cards, and he was recovering fast. With an outstretched hand, he mumbled something too softly to hear.

The soldiers chased after him, and Alaric channeled a burst of mana into his legs to run faster. He was nearly at the exit—the staircase leading up to the great hall was within sight. Suddenly, the walls trembled, and the stairs seemed to recede into the distance.

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An illusion attack? He smiled. No matter! Alaric had already been prepared for the king’s tricks.

That’s why he had been mapping every nook and cranny with his [Mana Pulse] skill. Activating the same skill again, he saw through the visual illusions and deftly navigated his way to safety.

Fire erupted in his path, lightning crackled overhead, and a tsunami surged toward him - he didn’t stop. All of them were illusions - a last attempt by the king to thwart him. Within minutes, he faced the sealed chamber, the ghostly soldiers still struggling to keep pace behind.

The king was nowhere to be seen. Alaric retrieved the crown with one hand and pressed his other hand on the door of the sealed chamber. With an effort of will, he attempted to channel a concentrated burst of mana pulse through his palm.

Whatever protections the king had placed on the door didn’t allow his [Mana pulse] to fully penetrate, but during his previous inspection, he had already caught a whiff of the weakness.

For a while, the skill refused to obey his command. Alaric concentrated deeply as everything faded to a distant whisper. After a while, something clicked into place and a huge pulse of mana radiated from his palm, soaking through the door and breaching the door’s defenses.

Alaric ignored the chime of the notification and focused on the intricate network of channels that unveiled themselves across the door’s surface. He steadily fed mana into these channels as a portion of the door caved in, revealing an indentation - a hidden key slot.

That’s more like it! Alaric placed the crown on the indent, where it fit seamlessly.

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Strange mechanical clicks and reverberations erupted from within as the sealed door slowly parted with a groan and revealed the hidden chamber beyond.

The mid-sized room was illuminated by flickering golden torches — their glow casting eerie shadows upon an ancient relic sculpted from a single slab of black basalt — a sarcophagus.

The lid bore a regal effigy of the mummy’s once-magnificent form - a proud noble king with his hands crossed over his chest, clutching a crook and flail. A collection of ancient runes etched into the ground marked the boundary of a powerful seal.

They pulsed like a lazy heartbeat. A thin beam of light connected the center of the stone coffin to the ceiling above.

That must be the king’s true body — and its sole weakness.

Wasting no more time, he launched a flurry of mana blasts, whipping up a storm of dust clouds and shattered stone fragments just as a horde of ghostly apparitions reached his location.

“Ala…ri…c,” Anu-Khepra-Ra howled in agony somewhere within the stone halls outside. Apparently, he didn’t like what Alaric was doing to the coffin. Unfortunately, all his attacks proved to be useless.

A blazing violet barrier materialized at the edge of the runic boundary, protecting the king’s fragile body within the stone coffin. Alaric clicked his tongue as he evaded the assault of the ghosts and counterattacked with mana blasts.

He glanced at the thin beam of light. Is that the power source of the coffin barrier?

He hurled a few mana blasts at the ceiling, barely chipping away at it. The whole chamber was composed of the same black stone, surprisingly resistant to destruction, even under his mana blasts.

Alaric wasn't disheartened. There must be a way to destroy that sarcophagus.

He refrained from attempting the same maneuver he used to seize the power source of the system replica. This violet barrier radiated danger — his instincts screamed at him to tread carefully.

Instead, he used [Mana Pulse] to thoroughly scan the sarcophagus within. The harmless pulses of mana easily slipped through the protection of the violet barrier - apparently it only protected against lethal attacks.

Inside, Alaric perceived the withered form of the Pharaoh’s real body, wrapped in linen bandages etched with golden glyphs. A burial shroud - no doubt, once immaculate - now lay tattered, discolored with time.

You’ve got to be kidding me. Goosebumps prickled his skin as he detected the presence of the same parasitic pipes that drained his blood.

The hollow tubes connected to the king’s body through an opening beneath the sarcophagus, vanishing into the ground — only now did he realize where they led.

Further analysis exposed a chilling truth. While most of the Pharaoh’s body had deteriorated into skeletal remains, fragile enough to crumble into dust, a section along the spine was regenerating — fresh flesh, complete with muscle fibers, blood, and nerve endings.

A vein in his temple throbbed as anger gripped his chest. The ancient ghost had attempted to use his blood and body to restore its own, striving to return to the land of the living. If the attempt had succeeded, Alaric would have been erased without a trace.

He discharged a potent mana-scrambling wave, followed by a mana blast. But even then, the violet barrier only shook for a moment before restoring itself. The thin beam of light was unshaked through it all.

He dodged to the side, avoiding a slither of yellow bandages before incinerating them with mana blasts. The king had arrived.

The mad look on his face eased when he witnessed that Alaric couldn’t breach through the coffin’s defenses. “Hahaha…” cackled, saliva dripping from his rotten gums. “Give up, Alaric, it's useless. You cannot destroy the coffin.”

He didn’t believe what the Pharaoh declared. The level had been designed by the system.

No, there must be a way to destroy the sarcophagus and defeat the king. Otherwise, it made no sense for the ghost to display so much vulnerability and caution.

The king raised his hands and mumbled an incantation.

The ground shook as infested hands clawed out of it. Skeletal soldiers pulled themselves out of the ground, growling death threats. An ancient withered tree erupted behind the king, crown glowing with a sickly green glow.

Just perfect. Exactly what I needed at the moment!

He wove through the horde of skeletal monsters, firing mana blasts nonstop. But the onslaught overwhelmed him — a scratch here, a cut there — and slowly, wounds accumulated across his body.

His body became bloody, painting the ground crimson. His intuition told him that activating [Restorative Flow] would be a mistake as long as the ghostly apparition of that tree loomed behind the king.

He cycled a drop of root chakra and used [Mana Empowerment] to decimate a group of nearby skeletal soldiers. But the opening he created was quickly filled up - there were just too many of them.

No matter where he looked, he couldn’t discover a flaw inside this chamber - a weakness that would grant him an edge. Except for the small opening in the ceiling that let the thin beam of sunlight into the chamber. Wait a minute, sunlight?

He frowned. Could it be possible? During his research into their culture, he had discovered the immense importance of sunlight. Alaric eyed the ornate scepter gripped tightly by the king, his expression malignant. And then back at the thin beam of sunlight streaming from the ceiling.

For some reason, the king had not once used his solar beam attack inside the sealed chamber. Why was it so when he wasn’t afraid to use it near the system’s replica? Alaric wondered.

And then it hit him like a truck. Now, everything made sense - Anu-Khepra-Ra’s scorn towards the system and why he was so afraid of Alaric discovering the chamber.

The answer to defeating the king was in plain sight all along. The system had cleverly designed this zone - as if to mock the king.

Condensing a huge amount of mana, he launched a giant mana blast at the king, carving a path through the horde of undead. The king, as ever, was nonchalant. The swirling ball of condensed mana couldn’t really hurt him, after all.

Alaric followed closely behind the blue sphere of devastation. As soon as it hit the king, unraveling his bandaged body, Alaric clutched the ornate scepter and yanked it from the king’s grip.

“NO…” The ancient ghost yelled as held on to the scepter for dear life. Alaric kicked it in the jaw, successfully seizing the key to defeating the ancient ghost. He immediately bolted toward the coffin, a grin spreading across his face.

Upon reaching the sarcophagus, he positioned the radiant crystal orb atop the scepter perilously close to the thin beam of sunlight.

Alaric chuckled. “I wonder what will happen if I touch this sunbeam here,” He had already concluded that the crystal orb was supposed to magnify the power of the sunbeam striking the stone coffin. He was just testing the king.

Something impossible happened. Anu-Khepra-Ra’s face turned a shade whiter. “Alaric, my friend...” he rasped. “Don’t betray me. I can become your greatest ally. Put that thing down and I’ll reveal everything...Everything about the system.”

Alaric considered the Pharaoh’s request. He did feel a tinge of sadness at how the events had to progress. Anu-Khepra-Ra was the only one in this new world who knew his true identity, and he was a veritable reservoir of knowledge.

Unfortunately, there was no other way. He shook his head to indicate his disapproval. “I don’t think you can help me any longer, my friend,” he murmured with a trace of sorrow.

“No, I can...The system is N**d lu*h *kg **d** Aarghh,” the king shrieked in agony as his form burst into flames. Alaric had thrust crystal orb directly into the path of the sunbeam, which transformed into a blazing pillar of starlight and engulfed the whole coffin.

He closed his eyes and turned around, shielding his body and mind from the torment of his victim and the searing heat of the starlight.

Although Anu-Khepra-Ra wasn’t his friend in any sense of the word—far from it, really—he was still somebody Alaric had shared food and drinks with for a time. He didn’t relish the agony the king was going through.

More notifications rang in his mind, but he chose to remain still until the last dying screams faded to a stark stillness.

The undying horde and ethereal tree disintegrated to dust upon the king’s death. Alaric plopped to the floor, completely spent. Releasing a long breath, he inspected his gains.