Lankeluosi's Destiny

Eighth Progenitor Marquis Somerset instinctively took half a step back, his muscles tensing beneath his skin. Yet he was immediately pinned down by the sullen, ominous glare of Third Progenitor Duke Rasheal. "..." Duke Rasheal turned his gaze once more to the Pope. They had all been certain that the Holy Polant Pope must have plummeted from Tier 9, having walked down the final stretch of humanity's fleeting lifespan. An aging Pope of mere Tier 8 arriving alone in Blood Moon City was undeniably marching to his death. Lankeluosi was supposed to wage a desperate struggle against the Progenitors, only to have his Glazed Body shattered, his torso cleaved in two, and his limbs severed into a hideous human swine. He should have been paraded before the masses in disgrace, forced to see that the sacrifices of mere vermin were entirely meaningless, and end his pathetic, powerless life in bitter despair. He should not have—could not have—maintained a prime far exceeding that of four years ago! This was entirely contrary to Heriteer's divination. "Lord Pope, is there perhaps some misunderstanding between us?" Duke Rasheal turned toward the distant Pope, his boyish voice adopting a far more solemn tone as he asked. "You want to make peace?" Lanqi asked, amused surprise in his voice. "Of course," Duke Rasheal nodded earnestly. Heriteer's divination could not be mistaken. That the Pope was even alive right now was a miracle in itself, and his impending death was an immutable fact. In a matter of days at most, he would be buried in the earth. Three years ago, when they concocted an illusion of peace to secure a surrender and compromise, the Pope had not been this strong; he hadn't stood a chance of breaching Blood Moon City. Over the past several years, they had been constantly making preparations to prevent him from seeking vengeance along the way. There was no reason whatsoever to clash head-on with him now. "Are you joking?" Lanqi was genuinely amused by the Third Progenitor. This was bordering on an insult to his intelligence. Rasheal actually wanted another truce, hoping to stall until the Pope died before showing his true colors once more. "I still prefer how you looked when you were defiant and arrogant," the white-robed Pope remarked to Duke Rasheal. "Pope, do not push too far! We have faithfully upheld the Oberon Convention. You, on the other hand, wish to shatter the hard-won peace, become a sinner through the ages, and render the sacrifices of all your friends completely meaningless!" Marquis Somerset roared, leveling an accusing finger at Lanqi. "Now I understand why Tolyado specifically asked to deal with you," Lanqi said, letting out a sigh of enlightenment rather than anger. Back on the second floor of Brierda Opera House, he hadn't thought much about why the Cardinal of Dimensions, Tolyado, had singled out Somerset—a tough vampire brawler—as his opponent. Now it seemed Somerset was indeed the ideal target for Tolyado's brand of amusement. If Somerset had also happened to offend and provoke General Tolyado, a great demon, after being unsealed tens of thousands of years later, Tolyado would have naturally taught Somerset that every villain eventually meets their match. "Who is Tolyado?" Somerset frowned in bewilderment. He found the Pope utterly incomprehensible. "You'll find out tens of thousands of years from now," Lanqi replied with a soft chuckle beneath his mask. "Tens of thousands of years..." That offhand remark, which sounded nothing like a joke, caused a flicker of bewilderment to drift through the eyes of Seventh Progenitor Marquis Heriteer. "Pope, just which timeline are you in right now?" Heriteer demanded, as though she had stumbled upon a terrifying revelation. "Take a guess," Lanqi said. He knew that Heriteer, as a vampire astrologer, possessed an innate sensitivity to timelines, much like Pranay, the demon race's Observer. "Is this reality... or a future you observed? But if you come from the past, how could you possibly know of a future tens of thousands of years later...?" The more Heriteer pondered, the more frightened she grew, and with that terror came rising fury. "Feel free to assume I'm lying to you," Lanqi shrugged casually. "Lanqi, you've completely scrambled her mind, haha," Talia laughed as she observed the battle. She had realized that for an astrologer, the greatest terror was having their temporal perception thrown into chaos. There was no way Heriteer could ever comprehend that to her enemy, this place was in fact the future of the past. "Pope, did you cast Immortal Eternal Punishment on yourself?" Heriteer still couldn't understand everything, but one fact was now certain, and fury flared within her blood-red pupils. For the Pope to strike with such decisiveness, acting as if he knew everything, and to be ruthless enough to cast Immortal Eternal Punishment on himself to lock his condition without regard for cost or consequence—he must have seen something! "That's right," Lanqi said, placing a hand to his cheek and tilting his mask aside to reveal the jet-black brand crawling across his left cheek like a centipede. "So don't count on me weakening, and don't dream of escaping." He stated it plainly, giving them their answer. The cheek half-concealed beneath the silver-white mask, the mocking gaze above the creeping black centipede, and the emerald eyes gleaming with chilling brilliance struck fear into the hearts of all three Progenitors. "You lunatic..." Never had they seen a Holy Polant Pope so sinister and demonic. It was as though he had fallen completely into madness. "The demons... It's those damned demons again! It was definitely some demon relic left behind by that wretched Caliera that allowed you to divine the future!" Duke Rasheal screamed, exasperated and furious. "Lankeluosi... you unkillable relic... do you truly insist on standing in our way?!" The Third Progenitor no longer concealed the ferocity in his eyes. Knowing that a fight to the death with the Holy Polant Pope was inevitable, his blood-red mana surged higher and higher. The most terrifying aspect of Immortal Eternal Punishment was not casting it on an enemy, but upon oneself. No one knew what agonizing backlash this irreversible curse would inflict when turned inward. Perhaps what awaited him was an eternity of an undying soul bound to rotting flesh—a torment from which there was no release for all ages. Even so, the Holy Polant Pope had come to drag them down with him before his demise. "You would never hunt me; you would only slaughter the defenseless. I must bar your path—and I shall bar your path forever." Lanqi returned his hands behind his back. Rings of lightning rippled outward from his feet across the flagstones, spreading until an everlasting radiance illuminated all of Blood Moon City. His eyes, like the bitterest frozen lake in the dead of winter, gazed upon his adversaries through the piercing edge of electricity. In that instant, thunder crashed like a celestial deluge. Like a devouring tempest sweeping across everything, an incandescent storm enveloped the entirety of Blood Moon City! "Aaargh!" Bathed in the pure lightning that cleansed all worldly impurities, all three Progenitors let out shrieks like tormented fiends. "Using lightning magic you're not even proficient in—don't look down on us!" Among the three, Rasheal was the only one who could barely move within this widespread composite spell of light and lightning. Duke Rasheal struck first. Blood-red mana surged around his body, and his eyes instantly turned pitch-black, resembling two bottomless voids. Innumerable dark-red tentacles of psychic power erupted from him, cloaking the entire battlefield like a thorny thicket. "No matter how steadfast your will, before my mental magic, it is nothing more than dust scattered by the wind!" Rasheal sneered, driving the tentacles straight toward Lanqi. "Lest you forget, you still bear the Mental Trauma I inflicted upon you!" This frail human's mental world was already riddled with scars. Any seemingly tempered resolve was merely because the feeble Lankeluosi could grasp nothing more than such a solitary, desolate future! "Is that so?" Yet the moment the tentacles made contact with Lanqi, it was as if they had struck an invisible wall. They shattered instantly into fragments of bloody light and dispersed into the air. Rasheal's eyes widened, unable to believe that the mental magic he took such pride in had accomplished nothing. He was ten thousand percent certain that this person was Lankeluosi, bearing the Mental Trauma he had dealt him. That was an injury inflicted by a Tier 9 epic spell. How could he simply ignore it? "Are you truly Lankeluosi?! You possess his power and his memories, yet your state of mind is completely unblemished! Just who are you?!" Rasheal shouted. "I am the one who has come to hear your weeping," Lanqi replied calmly, as though nothing had happened. He raised his right hand. A bolt of lightning bright as midday erupted from his palm, carrying the weight of a thunderous tempest as it crashed straight toward Rasheal. Rasheal hurriedly raised a blood-red barrier in a desperate bid to ward off the lethal blow. But where the lightning passed, the barrier tore like paper. The bolt struck Rasheal squarely in the chest, hurling his slender frame backward and blasting a massive crater into the wall of the Blood King Palace. "Are you truly... human...?" Rasheal dragged himself up from the rubble, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Never could he have imagined that the Holy Polant Pope would not only wield such terrifying power, but possess an entirely transformed state of mind. It was as if he had sublimated all the agonizing trials he had swallowed down, learned to brew them into tea and digest them peacefully; everything that had once possessed him had awakened; the final blind spot of his mind had been cleared away, using suffering to enrich joy and adversity to reveal an enduring sweetness—he had achieved total enlightenment and understood the mortal world! "Do not underestimate humanity. This is the very humanity your Blood Clan bred during the Blood Moon Ruined World. Now it is your turn to face the consequences." Lanqi gazed at the three Progenitors, the corners of his lips curving slightly into a smile of confidence that chilled them to the bone. "I refuse to accept it!! Humans cannot defy us!! It is destiny!!" Rasheal roared, once again summoning a sky of blood-red tentacles that surged like devilish arms. They twisted and coiled, lunging to ensnare Lanqi's limbs while a barrage of dark-red psychic strikes followed in close pursuit. Yet Lanqi merely flicked his hand. A tempest unfolded before him, intercepting every attack. The moment the tentacles grazed the wind blades, they hissed as if meeting raging fire and burst into oblivion. Rasheal's psychic assault crumbled just as swiftly, severed entirely by the blades of wind, rebounding upon Rasheal and dealing him severe trauma as blood gushed from his lips. Seizing the opening, Eighth Progenitor Somerset charged forward with a furious roar. His muscles swelled, rock-hard as cast iron. "Pope, do you dare face my fists head-on?!" Every strike carried cataclysmic might, the gale of his punches so fierce that the surrounding air was pulverized. Even if the Pope was Tier 9 and could inflict multiplied damage against their Blood Clan, his physical durability was not meant to withstand such brutal strikes unscathed! Facing this savage beast, Lanqi moved with effortless poise. He deftly evaded Somerset's onslaught, his footwork light and graceful as if dancing to a waltz. Somerset's fists struck nothing but empty air again and again, slamming into the ground to kick up clouds of dust, while Lanqi remained completely untouched, not even a speck of dirt grazing his hem. "All you're good at is ambushes," Lanqi said with a laugh as he dodged. Timing his move perfectly, the moment Somerset threw another punch, Lanqi struck with a wind blade like a hand-chop toward Somerset's right arm. With a crisp crunch, Somerset's right arm was severed clean at the shoulder, spraying a fountain of blood. "Aaargh!" Somerset shrieked and recoiled in agony. He stared in disbelief at his severed right arm, his face etched with shock and terror. Before he could retreat to a safe distance, the spectral, masked figure in white robes swung a jagged, silver-white disc of light straight down at his neck. In just a few breaths, Somerset was hacked into several bloody pieces. Seeing two Progenitors fall in succession, Seventh Progenitor Heriteer knew disaster was looming. She swiftly provided healing and support to her two companions while attempting to predict Lanqi's next move. Countless starlight fragments flickered before her eyes, charting an intricate web of timelines. "Somerset, hold on a little longer! Rasheal, dodge, you are his target!" Heriteer guided Rasheal and Somerset's movements through invisible threads of linking magic. With her foresight, their attacks were no longer one-dimensional, and they began seizing opportunities. Yet Lanqi seemed to have seen through everything from the start. He always reacted one step ahead, appearing in positions Heriteer had never anticipated, and even turned his head to smile at her. Gradually, Heriteer's telepathic guidance grew increasingly frantic. Her predictions were not helping her allies; instead, they were ushering them repeatedly into deadly peril. "How... How can you do this?" Heriteer's eyes widened in utter disbelief. As the most brilliant astrologer of the Blood Clan, her predictions had never failed. Yet today, Lanqi saw through them with trivial ease. It completely upended her understanding. Even if he had somehow used a special method to divine the Blood Clan's plots beforehand, he possessed no innate talent or ability for astrology; it should have been impossible for him to continually counter her foresight in real-time combat! "Don't understand?" Lanqi chuckled softly. With a wave of his hand, a volley of stone spikes burst forth, pinning Somerset firmly to the ground so that he couldn't budge. Then, with a flicker of movement, he appeared beside Rasheal, stepping down onto Rasheal's back and casually sitting atop him as if lounging on an invisible chair. "As long as I attack completely at random, you can't predict what I'm going to do next." Lanqi was constantly shifting his intentions. Whenever an attack offered multiple possibilities, he simply randomized them and chose on a whim. "Don't go too far!" Duke Rasheal roared in rage, yet he could not budge the Pope, who sat upon his back as heavy as a mountain range. Never had an enemy treated them with such utter contempt in a fight to the death! "Get off Rasheal!" Having reassembled his body, Eighth Progenitor Marquis Somerset was consumed by fury. His eyes turned bloodshot, his muscles swelling to their absolute limit like an enraged beast. Raising his left fist, he hurled a punch toward Lanqi. The shockwave tore through the void, making heaven and earth tremble in its wake. Lanqi remained unhurried. He deftly leaned aside, barely evading the brute-force strike. Immediately afterward, he placed one hand on Somerset's arm, while the other darted upward like lightning to tap Somerset between the brows. A surge of incomparably pure light poured from his fingertip, rampaging through Somerset's body. Somerset let out a curdling shriek, feeling as though every drop of blood in his veins was being purified. "Somerset, get away!" Rasheal pushed his mana to its utmost, conjuring a massive blood-colored mirror before him. The surface reflected Lanqi's silhouette, yet with subtle differences. The mirrored Lanqi had hollow eyes and an ashen complexion, draped from head to toe in an ominous aura. "Look upon it, Pope! This is the reflection of your inner heart!" Rasheal smiled viciously. "You act self-righteous on the surface, yet an endless darkness festers within your soul! You are no different from us!" If the Pope lost his composure for even a second, the dark Pope in the mirror would step out and become Rasheal's summon. Lanqi merely looked at the mirror, a touch of innocent nonchalance on his lips. "Rasheal," he murmured softly as a gentle breeze stirred his silver-white hair. "You can only say that the side you see is black. You cannot prove that the side you haven't seen isn't pure white. What if there is a goat in this world that is half black and half white?" He raised a hand, and the illusion within the mirror shattered on cue, dispersing into flecks of luminous dust. The true Lanqi stood tall where he was, surrounded by a soft, luminous halo. He was like the warm spring sun, forever immaculate and pure white. Rasheal's eyes bulged, unable to accept that the counter-spell he took such pride in had been dismantled so effortlessly. They were fighting with everything they had. Yet their opponent seemed merely to be playing with them. Rasheal roared in fury, once more conjuring a deluge of blood-red tentacles, determined to tear Lanqi to shreds. Lanqi merely waved his hand, and a brilliant arc of light severed every tentacle. He stepped toward Rasheal, each stride creating the illusion of the earth trembling beneath them. Before him, Rasheal's mana was as fragile as a house of cards, collapsing into ruin in the blink of an eye. Lanqi extended his right hand and pressed it against Rasheal's forehead. Incandescent light surged from his palm like a scorching sun. "Aaaargh..." Rasheal screeched in agony, feeling as though thousands of needles were piercing his brain and his very soul was burning. Somerset assaulted him frantically, unleashing every tactic at his disposal, but Lanqi's silhouette was like an impassable silver-white barrier that deflected every strike. "Somerset, fall back! Watch out for his lightning!" Heriteer shouted through the private telepathic channel exclusive to their Blood Clan while manipulating starlight. Yet her warnings were always a beat too late. Before Rasheal could flee or Somerset could react, Lanqi's attacks struck them squarely. Somerset had his arms impaled by a volley of stone spikes, while Rasheal took a thunderous bolt of lightning straight to the chest. "I spend twenty-four hours a day dealing with an old hag who reads my mind. It would be bizarre if your divination actually worked on me." Pressing his advantage, Lanqi gathered brilliant white light in his palm and slashed toward the Progenitors. A colossal blade of light sliced across the battlefield. Wherever it swept, blood splattered and severed limbs tumbled. Before Third Progenitor Duke Rasheal, Eighth Progenitor Marquis Somerset, and Seventh Progenitor Marquis Heriteer could evade, their bodies were cleanly cleaved through, cries of anguish ringing out incessantly. At this sight, Heriteer finally lost all composure. She frantically burned her mana, scouring the timelines for a pivotal juncture that could turn the tide, but every single line led to the exact same outcome—indecipherable chaos. She sank to her knees in despair, the starlight shattering before her eyes, unable to chart a path forward any longer. "Why... Why can't he be defeated...?" Heriteer murmured, trembling. Lanqi stood with hands behind his back, looking down upon the battered Progenitors. "I told you: I shall bar the path of your Blood Moon Ruined World forever," he said slowly, his voice calm and even. He extended a hand. Jet-black, translucent stone pillars erupted from the ground, locking together into an indestructible cage. The three Progenitors struggled desperately to escape, but an invisible force bound their bodies firmly in place, leaving them unable to move. "To you, who know nothing of what forever means, it is time the answer was revealed." Lanqi no longer toyed with them using elemental magic; instead, he unleashed his sealing arts: Immortal Eternal Punishment and Chimeric Edict. "This cage is formed of my will and will endure for tens of thousands of years at least. Do not dream of taking a single step outside. Repent well here—until the day we meet again." The moment the words left his mouth, the stone pillars began to sink slowly into the ground, dragging Seventh Progenitor Marquis Heriteer and Eighth Progenitor Marquis Somerset down into the endless abyss. Only the strongest among them, Third Progenitor Duke Rasheal, continued to resist. "I am the Third Progenitor, second only to the True King and the Princes! Sealing me won't be that simple! Aaargh!" Duke Rasheal strained against the interlocking chimeric pillars, wrestling against their descent as he screamed in hatred, "If that damned True King hadn't abandoned us, how could we ever have lost to you?!" Unadulterated resentment filled Rasheal's crimson eyes. "So you're actually discarded failures, then?" Lanqi asked, eyeing the Third Progenitor as the pillars were about to close completely over him. "We are not!!!" Rasheal shrieked at the top of his lungs. Duke Rasheal was dragged into the interlocking pillars by the invisible force. Refusing to surrender to his fate, he fought back with every ounce of strength, eyes bloodshot, veins bulging, bloody foam bubbling from his lips. "See you in tens of thousands of years, Rasheal." Driven by Lanqi's mana, the chimeric pillars groaned like the doors of a confessional booth. As the seams gradually shut, each was swallowed from the other's sight by encroaching darkness. "Lankeluosi, do you really think you've won?! Do you think we prepared nothing?!" Rasheal bellowed, his voice hoarse and maniacal. "You think that sealing us brings an end to everything?!" No sooner had the words left his mouth than he burst into chilling laughter. The laughter echoed across the ruins of the Blood King Palace, sounding fierce enough to tear the very space of Blood Moon City asunder. Lanqi knitted his brows slightly, though he didn't pay it much heed at first. He raised his hand to finalize the seal on Third Progenitor Rasheal, then turned to leave, preparing to bring an absolute end to this Blood Moon Ruined World—only to catch Rasheal's next words: "The Horning Empire is already doomed! Every citizen in the south has been infected with the Second Progenitor's blood poison, and it was I who was suppressing their demonization! Once I am sealed, the people of Horning will all devolve into demons, and the Holy Polant Pope's domain to the north will suffer the same fate!" Having spat out these words, Rasheal laughed with savage delight, heedless of the blood he was coughing up. Over the years, they had long prepared for the destruction of the Holy Polant Theocracy; the inhabitants of the Horning Empire could be dragged to the grave alongside them, and obedient two-legged sheep could simply be bred anew later. It had to be said that the Horning Empire's testing ground technology was a marvelous thing. Once researched and refined by the Blood Clan, it had allowed them over the years to slip massive doses of demonic human toxins into the daily lives of Horning's populace without anyone noticing. If they wanted anyone to turn into a demonic human, all it took was loosening their psychic suppression! "Gyahahaha! Hahaha! You never expected it, did you?! The very means of salvation the Horning Empire devised to combat our Blood Clan became our final trump card to obliterate them!" The piercing laughter reverberated across the Blood King Palace plaza. Lanqi's footsteps halted. He turned around, an imperceptible tremor flickering through his green eyes. Yet swiftly, determination returned to his gaze. "Lankeluosi, what will you do now?! Watch this world perish, or like a mantis trying to stop a chariot, slaughter with all your might—only for you, as a demonic human yourself, to be lumped together with those monsters and branded by surviving witnesses in future generations as the very instigator who unleashed this catastrophe...?" As the chimeric stone pillars sealed shut completely, Rasheal's voice faded from the Blood King Palace. At the same time, the earth began to tremor violently, forcing Lanqi to steady himself as he looked upward. He could sense that above Blood Moon City, across the lands of the Horning Empire, noxious miasma billowed, fiends ran rampant, the earth rumbled, and blood seeped into the soil. Though it had been broad daylight only moments before, it now seemed as though a solar eclipse had begun, a sun-blotting miasma blanketing the entire Horning Empire. Lanqi lifted his gaze, his sight piercing far into the distance. The sky was swallowed by dusky black and blood-red; an ashen sun hung limply in the heavens, devoid of warmth and radiance. The earth fractured and collapsed in the violent quakes, fissure upon fissure spreading like spiderwebs. The grand architecture of St. Trick crumbled with deafening crashes, reduced to rubble. The weeping and wailing of citizens and desperate pleas for help rose and fell, only to be swiftly drowned out by far more terrifying sounds. Crowds of residents contorted and mutated in agonizing terror, transforming into grotesque demons. Stripped of humanity and reason, they were left with nothing but an insatiable thirst for blood and destruction. Even more people were crushed into corpses amidst the chaos, trampling, and carnage before they could even finish their metamorphosis into berserk demons. Across the Horning Empire, every human had become a fiend. Wherever they rampaged, forests were consumed in moments, rivers dammed and diverted, and hills flattened. City-states stood as fragile as cardboard before their fury; churches were trampled to dust with ease, debris raining down like hail. A pungent stench of blood and raw flesh saturated the air. The once-bustling cities were now reduced to ruins and living purgatory, the entire country enshrouded in death. "Lanqi, what do we do?" Talia's heart raced frantically as she asked in panic. In this moment, she understood the web of cause and effect linking the Horning Empire between the previous simulation and this one. Once someone devolved into a frenzied, failed demonic human, they would burn away their life force until death, their combat prowess multiplying exponentially! The north had no chance of holding back this cataclysmic tide of demonic humans! Sealing Third Progenitor Duke Rasheal had yielded an outcome every bit as dire. "..." Standing atop the subterranean ruins, Lanqi looked up at the devastation, not a trace of expression on his face. Yet his fists clenched tighter and tighter. Lanqi gazed into the far distance, light flickering in his emerald eyes. For a fleeting moment, he glimpsed the shadow of the future—a beautiful world free of the Blood Clan's tyranny, where humanity lived in peace and security. This, surely, was the future Lankeluosi had seen when he used the Mirror of Tiberius for the second time. "Even a chosen throne requires someone to sit upon it with composure." He murmured to himself, his voice steadfast as bedrock. He seemed, at last, to understand. [This is—] [Lankeluosi's destiny.]