Chapter 578: The Strength of the Final Guardian!
The mini giant with the axe finally stopped ten paces away from the archway. Its crimson eyes slowly swept across the gathered groups, showing no emotion, no anger, no hatred, only a cold, mechanical intent to purge the intruders.
Liang stared at the giant, then looked down at his own trembling, pale hand. He could physically feel the qi he had spent decades cultivating being forcefully dragged out of his meridians and into the earth.
Suddenly, a memory of his emperor’s final instructions before they entered the tomb flashed through his mind.
"Go to the core, Liang. Offer your strength to the tomb. The ancestors will reward your devotion, and the seal will remain eternal."
’Offer your strength.’
Liang’s breath hitched in his throat. His eyes widened in sudden, horrifying realization. The Emperor’s sudden generosity in inviting the world’s top otherworlder guilds all slammed together in his mind like a physical blow.
"No..." Liang whispered, his voice shaking violently as he stared at the giant spike.
Evelyn looked at him, her face completely pale. "Brother Liang? What is it? What did you realize?"
"The exploration..." Liang said, his voice rising in panic as he looked at the surviving disciples. "The invitations to the otherworlders... the selection of the strongest geniuses... it was never to retrieve the spike. It was all a lie."
"What are you talking about?" Ares demanded, his hand gripping his spear with white knuckled desperation, though his arms were shaking from the sheer weight of his own body under the suppression field.
"The spike," Liang said, pointing a trembling finger toward the dark pit behind the giant. "It siphons energy to keep the seal locked. The Martial Council... the Emperor... they knew! They didn’t send us here to conquer the tomb or claim an inheritance. They sent us here because our energy reserves are the highest in the world. We are... we are nothing but high grade fuel! They lured us here to be drained by the spike to reinforce the seal on the dead god!"
The words fell like a heavy thunderbolt in the silent chamber.
"What?!" Ragnarok99 roared, his face turning red with raw, unbridled rage. "You bastards used us?! You invited our guilds here just to turn us into organic batteries for your dirty seal?!"
"We didn’t know!" Evelyn screamed, tears of frustration and fear finally spilling over her cheeks. "The Martial Council told us it was a holy mission to keep the dead god dead. They lied to us too! We are being drained just like you!"
The realization of absolute, systematic betrayal shattered what little morale the group had left. The disciples of the Martial Palace began to wail in despair, realizing that their own sect, their own Emperor, had sent them to this dark pit to be sacrificed as nothing more than firewood for a cosmic furnace. The panic was infectious, spreading like a plague through the weakened ranks.
However, the person who was hit the hardest was Liang himself.
’Father...’ he clenched his fist, struggling to believe his own father would push him to his death.
Clang.
The giant guardian did not care about their despair or their betrayal. It slowly lifted the massive double bladed axe with one hand, raising it high above its head. The silver blade caught the faint, eerie light of the chamber, reflecting the terrified, helpless faces of the weakened cultivators, mages, and players.
"Don’t let it attack!" Ares yelled, forcing his heavy, trembling legs to jump forward. He thrust his spear toward the giant’s chest, but without his skills and qi, the strike lacked its usual blinding speed and piercing power. It was slow, clumsy, and weak.
The giant didn’t even bother to parry.
BANG!
The giant simply swung its massive left arm in a casual backhand. The impact was devastating. Ares’ spear shattered into a dozen wooden splinters instantly, and his body was blasted backward like a ragdoll, crashing hard against the stone wall before sliding down, coughing up thick, dark blood.
"Father!" Aria screamed, rushing toward him, but she fell to her knees halfway, her body too weak to support the movement.
"Die, you iron bastard!" a high level Martial Palace disciple screamed, losing his mind to panic. He drew his sword and rushed the giant, attempting to swing at its knee.
The giant’s crimson eyes flickered. Without hesitation, the massive axe swung in a low, horizontal arc.
SLASH!
The strike was too fast for their suppressed reactions. The heavy blade cleaved clean through the disciple’s waist. Blood sprayed across the ancient stone, and the upper half of the cultivator’s body slid across the floor, his eyes still wide with shock before they went lifeless.
"Ahhhhh!" another disciple screamed, turning to run back toward the corridor.
But the giant guardian was merciless. It took a single, heavy step forward, the ground shaking under its boot, and brought the axe down in a vertical chop.
CRUNCH!
The escaping disciple was completely crushed under the weight of the blow, his body flattened into a horrific mess of flesh and bone. Because he was a native cultivator, there was no data fragmentation, only the brutal, bloody reality of death. The crimson blood began to flow along the grooved lines in the stone floor, actively siphoning toward the deeper part of the archway.
"It’s feeding on the deaths..." Liang whispered, his voice hollow as he watched the blood being pulled toward the core. "The more we die here, the stronger the seal becomes...no matter what you do don’t die!"
"Bastard, I’ll take it up myself!" Ragnarok99 roared, lifting his heavy greatsword with both hands and charging forward with raw physical strength, his muscles tearing from the strain of fighting the suppression field. "We either kill this thing or we all become fertilizer!"
He swung his greatsword in a desperate upward slash, aiming for the giant’s neck.
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