Omniscient First-Person’s Viewpoint-Chapter 395: It Didn’t Fall From the Sky - 14

Once known as the Verdant Overseer and soon to be called the Golden Overseer—or so it was expected—Peru, simply Peru, trembled as she witnessed the horror unfolding before her eyes.

Her values were crumbling. The very principles that had once brought her joy, despair, and faith now heralded tragedy. The Thunder Guardians, enshrouded in verdant alchemical steel, were falling one by one, their lives extinguished.

“...No...”

Dozens had already perished, with more than a hundred wounded, each bleeding from injuries that would not heal. If this continued, the grim statistic of casualties matching the wounded would become a reality.

“...This can’t... be happening...”

Life must be extracted from a human to create a corpse, and thus, a corpse holds less value than the living. It’s a simple equation, stark in its clarity, impossible to ignore no matter how much one might wish to look away.

Although the vampire incursion had provided a fleeting opportunity to escape, Peru chose to use that precious reprieve for what she believed in.

She staggered to her feet. Compared to the vampires, she was frail to the point of pity, but she didn’t let it deter her. With trembling hands, she did what she could.

Clutching the golden bell, she poured her desperate will into it and rang it.

“...Golden Mirror, hear me...”

A faint chime echoed, resonating with her resolve.

Meanwhile, Runken was shockingly on the verge of a technical victory against the juggernaut. Its advance had halted, its massive front wheels spinning uselessly in the air as it struggled to crush him. Runken, now brimming with confidence, roared triumphantly.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha! It’s light!”

His blood churned violently, and his muscular hind legs swelled like those of a beast. What would be the final death throes for an ordinary human were, for the once-dead Runken, proof of life. The closer he came to death, the more he reclaimed his vitality—a true berserker.

Covered in blood, Runken pushed against the juggernaut. The mountain of metal, comparable to a great peak, defied gravity under his power. Runken embodied the force to tear down mountains and overturn heaven and earth.

The Thunder Guardians screamed. The pinnacle of alchemy—the juggernaut—and Claudia’s thunder, their collaborative creation, were being overwhelmed by a single Elder. Their faith and beliefs teetered on the brink of collapse. Feeding on their terror and cries, Runken took another step forward.

Then he heard it—a faint chime, an alien sound amidst the chaos of the battlefield. For a moment, he paused to listen.

The juggernaut reactivated.

Every juggernaut was a creation of the Golden Mirror, a pinnacle of alchemical mastery that pushed the Overseers' unique magics to their limits. Though the Thunder Guardians’ adaptation of the juggernaut only reached a fraction of its original power, the Golden Mirror could replicate the full functionality of its former master’s alchemy.

The juggernaut’s heart, which had died alongside its original creator, began to beat once more. Its abrupt movements startled the Thunder Guardians, but no one was more shocked than Runken.

The juggernaut, which had rolled on wheels, suddenly extended its segmented body like a massive caterpillar, crushing Runken beneath it. Blood splattered beneath the steel behemoth.

At the same time, Kabilla slipped.

Seated atop her Bone Warriors as though they were her throne, she had been gleefully observing the carnage while sipping blood. But as the Bone Warriors supporting her crumbled, Kabilla found herself unceremoniously dropped to the ground.

Follow current novels on freewebnσvel.cѳm.

Landing hard on her rear, Kabilla wore a stunned expression. She hadn’t withdrawn her power—so who had destroyed her warriors from such a distance?

Her confusion didn’t last long, replaced by fury.

“To make me look so undignified...!”

Furious at the humiliation of falling, Kabilla scanned her surroundings. The Bone Warriors had collapsed, and the Thunder Guardians, emboldened, charged toward her with loud cries. Yet the rabble barely registered in her mind. Her keen magical senses honed in on Peru, holding the golden bell.

Kabilla quickly realized that Peru was the source of this change. Stretching out her hand, Kabilla snarled.

“I’ll make you pay for ruining my warriors with your blood!”

Kabilla clapped her hands sharply, aiming at Peru.

The bone shards and blood scattered across the battlefield beneath the Thunder Guardians erupted. Hundreds of fragments shot into the air, aiming to pierce human flesh.

Yet the explosion lacked its intended force. The verdant power of decay weakened even the destructive energy, rendering the shards incapable of penetrating the Thunder Guardians’ defensive aura. The shards clattered to the ground, deflected.

“Argh! Annoying!”

Despite her tantrum, Kabilla quickly assessed the situation with instinctive precision. Though she didn’t understand the exact nature of the force at play, she realized it was neutralizing both her Bone Warriors and the Thunder Guardians’ weapons. It was a collapse that spared neither side.

Reasoning that this power rendered weapons useless, Kabilla deduced the solution—direct physical confrontation.

However, loath to act herself, Kabilla turned her sights on Runken.

“Runken! It seems I’ve finally found a use for you. Get that woman!”

“To interfere in such cowardly fighting—!”

Having lost his clash with the juggernaut, Runken, enraged, charged at Peru. The juggernaut tried to pursue but was far too slow. Unburdened by unnecessary posturing this time, Runken reached Peru in the blink of an eye.

Gasping, Peru took a deep breath.

“Verdant Overseer...!”

A Thunder Guardian stepped forward to block Runken, instinctively realizing that Peru’s power was their last hope. It was a suicidal act of resistance, but the Guardian raised their spear.

A feeble defense. Runken scoffed, charging through as if the spear were inconsequential. Whether it struck him or not, he intended to trample both the Guardian and Peru in a single motion.

If not for the unexpected interference.

Runken was struck from the side. A powerful, unknown assailant slammed into him, bending his body at an unnatural angle and sending him flying.

Before he could recover, the assailant lunged again, biting into his shoulder and shaking him violently like a beast with its prey.

“Grrrhhh!”

Even in the chaos, Runken clenched his fists. Swinging his thick arms, he delivered two earth-shattering blows to the assailant’s abdomen. When that failed to dislodge them, he grabbed the attacker’s leg and slammed them into the ground with such force that the impact echoed across the battlefield. The assailant let out a pained yelp, rolling away.

The attacker had animalistic ears and a tail—a canine beastman.

But questions arose: What kind of canine beastman could toss the Elder Runken, the greatest boar beastman and terror of humanity, like a ragdoll?

Despite the confusion, Runken’s eyes widened as he recognized the figure before him. His instincts confirmed the attacker’s identity, and he roared in exhilaration.

“The King of Beasts!”

Spitting out vampire blood, Azzy howled in displeasure.

“Awoooooo!”

“So, you’re my match! Good—this is what I’ve been waiting for!”

All beastmen are descendants of the King of Beasts, created long ago through the grotesque sins of Agartha. Their inexplicable sense of yearning for the King comes from this shared origin.

But Runken felt no such sentiment. His blood had long since undergone irreparable change. With bloodlust surging, he bellowed at Azzy.

“You are not my king!”

“Woof! Grrrrr!”

Azzy growled back, feral and unyielding.

While humans might hesitate to intervene in fights between their own, unwilling to harm either side, their judgment was harsher toward vampires. Whether due to their otherness or invulnerability, vampires were treated without mercy.

Azzy had joined the fray to stop the tragedy of humans dying in droves.

The clash between Azzy and Runken sent shockwaves through the battlefield. Their bodies collided like drumbeats from a massive war drum. Azzy tore at Runken’s limbs, chewing on his bones, while Runken struck Azzy’s head with his remaining limbs. When Azzy tried to pin him down and tear him apart, Runken’s newly regenerated arm smashed into Azzy’s side, sending him flying. Both were drenched in blood, their ferocity and madness swirling like a storm.

If Runken had been a bit more cunning or cowardly, the fight might have ended quickly. If he’d used a human as a shield, Azzy would have been powerless to act. But Runken clung stubbornly to a fair fight, treating it as a blessing in itself.

Vladimir the Crimson Duke, watching the chaos, refrained from intervening. Elders were equals. Just as siblings are equal in the eyes of their parents, Elders who had received pure blood from the progenitor were without hierarchy. This was Runken’s life and death, and Vladimir respected it.

Instead, he turned to the Thunder Overseer, still in his grasp, and asked:

“The King of Beasts—an unfortunate creature rendered powerless if a human shield is used. That can’t be all you’ve prepared. What else do you have?”

[“V-vampire scum...!”]

“I suppose there’s no point in asking.”

There was no need to wait for an answer. If she had a contingency plan, he would find out soon enough. And if not, he would simply kill her.

Vladimir acted immediately. Like slaughtering a chicken, he gripped the Thunder Overseer’s neck tightly and raised his massive greatsword to cleave her body in two.

“Divine Sword Technique: Thunder Strike!”

A bolt of lightning descended.

The bolt, harnessed from the Thunder God, struck both the Thunder Overseer and Vladimir. To the Overseer, it granted power; to Vladimir, it was an attack. He could have endured it, but instead, Vladimir adjusted his sword to deflect the lightning.

“Is this the contingency you’ve prepared?”

The regressor, Shei, was still disoriented. Events had spiraled out of control beyond her comprehension. Tyrkanzyaka and Peru had clashed, followed by an invasion of Claudia by the vampires of the Mist Duchy. Perhaps both could have been allies. She could have mediated, at least until the King of Sins was defeated. The grand plan she had envisioned was now in shambles.

But it didn’t matter. Shei was a regressor. She would gather knowledge and use it to improve in the next iteration. For now...

“...Crimson Duke. Stand down and wait for Tyrkanzyaka. This can still be salvaged.”

Even if she didn’t know everything, she acted on what she believed to be the best course of action. Shei intervened to stop the fighting.