<h4>Chapter 986: Internal Mayhem</h4>


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    There seemed to be an indescribable confusion, darkness, and unusualness lurking.


    This was a dimension beyond human understanding, a ce that was hidden on this since the beginning of time, veiled from themon people. In this strange dimension, where direction and distance did not seem tangible, one could see numerous damaged towers and copsing pces floating around in space. These warped buildings were connected to each other via mysterious long bridges. Amid the deep, dark chaos, indescribable star clusters and nebe illuminated the ck space as they always had for hundreds of thousands of years. The strange architecture cast elusive shadows like a herald of cmity.


    No one knew who built these structures, or who once lived there. Only one thing was certain, and that was, the previous owner was incredibly powerful and technologically very advanced. The seemingly fragile structures floating in space were all unusually immune to damage. Even the strongest unusual creature would have found it difficult to move them by an inch.


    Currently, the ce was an active war zone.


    A fragment that broke off a pce structure was floating there. Despite its damaged state, the fragment still reflected the pce’s glory days when it was still whole. At the main pce structure, where the fragment broke off, there were shes of white fire and moving shadows of people in ck coats. There was screaming and killing everywhere. This once sacred and peaceful space had now be the grand stage for a war of betrayal and evil.


    Arge, high-ranking demon hunter with dark skin stood before the pce’s entrance. He wielded a massive, odd-looking cross and used it to deflect arrows that came his way. Behind him, in front of the entrance to the pce, a shimmering light screen flickered. The light screen trembled like it was about to copse. It had already received much damage before this. A small group of exhausted demon hunters hid behind several copsed pirs as they fought against long-ranged magical attacks with their arrows. One of the soldiers cried out, “Master Teuton! We can’t hold on much longer!”


    The burly demon hunter, Master Teuton, hammered hisrge cross into the ground. A bright sh followed, and a shield was created around the pce. Master Teuton looked around with knitted brows and saw howpletely overwhelmed they were—his soldiers were mostly injured, and the protective runes outside the pce were about to give way.


    Despite having soldiers guarding the entrance, their physical defensive line was about to copse.


    When he realized all of this, he suddenly heard a loud explosion in the distance. A bright sh illuminated a one-kilometer radius from the center point. He looked up to see a peak of a spire burning furiously a few hundred meters away from him. The spire lit up the surroundings like a torch, and the runes on the spire structure exploded from top to bottom—they were defenses put in ce byter inhabitants of the dimension. Compared to the nigh indestructible building structure itself, these magic tricks were simply too fragile.


    “…We’ve lost the energy node.” Teuton watched the disaster without expression and gestured to release the light screen outside the pce entrance. “Retreat behind the second defense line.”


    The weary soldiers scurried into the pce like their lives depended on it. Teuton was thest to enter. When the soldiers began their retreat, the arrows and magic grenades came at the light screen even more fiercely. These attacks avoided the pce’s original structure and aimed for the weaker defenses, which wereter added to it. The light screen shed as the attacks on it grew stronger. It was only a matter of time before it yielded.


    Teuton strode along the pce hallways, the ground shaking asionally from nearby explosions. He could tell by the explosion sounds and all the shaking, that the enemy had begun to use more powerful siege weapons against them—perhaps the insurgents who attacked the energy node were already there. Teuton halted one of the young hunters running past him and asked, “Where is Mistress White me?”


    The young hunter looked terrified and nearly cried out when Teuton got a hold of him. He panted heavily and replied, “She-She just came back from the nk defense line, and is now resting in the inner hall.”


    Teuton nodded solemnly and made for the inner hall, but then, he turned back and called the young hunter again. “Stay calm, son. From the day you pick up your weapon of holy silver, there is no reason to fear death.”


    The young hunter stared at Teuton in a daze, looking thoroughly devastated. “I do not fear death by the hands of demons, but those outside are—”


    “Go, secure our defenses,” Teuton cut him off. “Those who stood behind you are also your brothers and sisters. Compared to the mad traitors outside, those who fought beside you are more worthy of your loyalty.”


    In the inner hall…


    When Teuton stepped inside, he felt heat radiating from all corners. It seemed to burn his body and soul. He looked up to see a young woman standing in the middle of the Sacred me, her long, silver hair going down to her waist. White mes burned around her like actual fire, spreading outwards until they covered the entire hall. In fact, the heat was the only palpable thing about the white mes. Nothing in the hall was burning from the Sacred me. Teuton was absorbed in the scene for a while before he stepped right into the fire. “We’ve lost the Western Spire’s energy node.”


    “I know. I could feel it.” The young, silver-haireddy turned to him and pressed her side with one of her hands. There was a gaping wound there, but instead of blood there was a white me flowing out of the wound. “The light screen outside is almost at its limit as well.”


    “How’s your wound?” Teuton frowned. “I heard you were ambushed.”


    White me smiled easily, as though she was not directly involved. “He almost seeded. If his mind had been much stronger, or if he had been able to stand half a second more of the pain from the Sacred me…”


    She lifted her hand up from her side wound. Her flesh was healing perceptibly. Her healing power was almost as good as a werewolf’s.


    *Boom—*


    Another explosion came from outside the pce. The inner hall shook violently. Teuton looked up at the dome-shaped structure of the inner hall and continued to speak without losing his calm. “It shouldst for a few days. The building itself is sturdy. Once the light screen outside is breached, they will have to send in small troops of soldiers to fight us in hand-to-handbat. The best meleebatants are here with us.”


    “It is meaningless to fend them off for just a few more days.” White me shook her head. “Should we consider closing off the Ster Spire? Or just blow up the ce…”


    Teuton frowned. “We will lose this sacred ce forever if we do so. Besides, we may not seed in sealing off this dimension—the sages may have found a way to reactivate the Ster Spire from the inside.”


    The two of them went silent for a moment. As White me gradually recovered, the sea of white fire in the hall dwindled away. Teuton then broke the silence once again. “Hasse is probably still alive.”


    White me’s eyes widened. The news finally broke herposure.


    “Teacher’s alive? He—”


    “He was abducted, but the sages will probably not kill an elder so carelessly. ording to our intel, the insurgents are more inclined to capture the elders alive and use them.” Teuton looked White me in the eye. “I was worried about this, but it seems that the sages did not really go mad—or at least, not entirely. They have strategy and purpose, and this will make them even more difficult to deal with.”


    White me’s breathing grew heavier. Tiny bursts of white mes began to appear around her.


    “White me, there is something that only you can do,” Teuton said. Despite being a master level demon hunter like White me, their levels of experience were still very different. In the demon huntermunity, he was still White me’s superior. “Take this to the Countess.”


    He produced a small box made of white gold from his person and opened it. Inside was a blood red crystal.


    “This is…”


    “Hasse left this behind. It’s said that Sage Beetholis gave it to him about a month ago. The sage also said this, ‘If there’s an emergency, or if something truly disastrous urs, give this box to the Countess.’ I think our current situation is what Sage Beetholis was referring to.”


    “The Countess…” White me was stunned by the news. “Do you mean…”


    “There is only one ancient being in the entire universe that Sage Beetholis would refer to as such.”