Chapter 204 — Monster

Considering her strength, it only took Liora a few moments to arrive at the capital. But the moment she approached the city, she felt that something was amiss.

"An illusion?", she whispered as she sensed the lack of "realness" in her surroundings.

Immediately, her demonic energy boiled. It coursed through her body like scorching magma, flowing through her veins.

The next moment, the space around her began to shatter as if it were made out of thin glass.

The illusion was dissolved.

Not much had changed. The landscapes around her and the scenery remained unchanged.

The only thing that was different was the capital in the distance.

The original bustling city had now become empty, devoid of any signs of life, much less of people.

There was only a single aura in the entire city, belonging to the person located deep within the imperial palace.

"Oh no! It has started!", the Duke, who arrived a few seconds later than Liora, exclaimed loudly.

He seemed to have guessed something terrifying.

Without hesitation, he moved.

The sound of buzzing reached Liora’s ears. When she turned around, she saw that it originated from the Duke’s shadow, which was now squirming.

From within it, countless creatures jumped out, insect-like, yet not really alive.

The shadowy insects did not stay here for long.

Like wolves smelling the scent of blood, they rushed towards the imperial palace at an astonishing speed.

Their mouthparts opened wide, and they began biting on it, like a swarm of locusts that had met fresh crops.

It took less than a couple of seconds.

Before, the entire imperial palace had been destroyed, pulverized into dust that entered the insects’ stomachs.

Only the large mausoleum behind it remained standing, surrounded by a lit-up, already activated formation.

Liora’s crimson eyes reflected the formation’s flickering light. Within her pupils, a trace of confusion flashed.

But she didn’t step forward to stop the Duke.

She let him control the insects and lead them to fly towards the mausoleum, munching on the formation around it just like they had done to the buildings before.

The formation, though powerful in defense, soon crumbled.

And before long, the mausoleum followed in its footsteps.

Its walls made of rare materials, the items inside, and even the earth around it were erased from existence, eaten by the shadowy insects.

But before the dust could settle and the Duke could celebrate, the buzzing of the insects ceased.

One by one, they began falling from the sky, hitting the ground like a swarm of dying flies.

Liora noticed that Duke Dandelion seemed to have suffered some kind of backlash as a result.

But she didn’t pay much attention to him.

Her eyes were glued to the only thing remaining of the mausoleum.

It was a pulsating black cocoon made of thin dark threads, about four times taller than an ordinary human.

The cocoon was floating where the center of the mausoleum should have been, right above a small pool of fresh blood.

Surprisingly, both Liora and the Duke discovered that the rising aura came straight from this cocoon.

Obviously, the Founding Emperor was inside it. Liora’s gaze grew strange.

This scene was not exactly unfamiliar to her.

However, sensing that the Founding Emperor’s aura was growing increasingly powerful, she didn’t linger for long.

Before the Duke could recover from the earlier backlash, her demonic energy had already surged.

It gathered into her hand and transformed into a golden spear, surrounded by eerie flames.

Grasping it with her two hands, she launched it at the black cocoon with all her strength.

The spear arrived instantly next to the cocoon.

The spear’s tip lit up with a sharp light and subsequently struck at its threaded surface.

A cracking noise echoed in the otherwise silent capital. A fracture appeared on the cocoon while a small fragment was chipped off of it and fell to the ground.

For a moment, the rising aura’s momentum stopped. But it quickly resumed soon after.

The cocoon shook, and blood flowed upwards from the pool, flowing into the cracks and repairing them.

Unfortunately for it, Liora was not planning to give up just yet.

Before the cocoon could heal completely, the Spear of the Blighted Sun struck once again.

This time, the tip penetrated through the already open gap and embedded deep inside it.

Following Liora’s command, the demonic flames surrounding it tumbled violently.

They pounced on the cocoon, drilling into it from its gaps, and began corrupting it from the inside.

This seemed to have targeted the cocoon’s biggest weakness.

The high temperature melted the cocoon from the inside. In just a couple of seconds, it had transformed into liquid and dripped down.

The rising aura’s momentum stopped again, this time for good.

However, Liora could not be happy.

The aura had already faintly surpassed the Lesser Devil stage.

Moreover, its owner had now been revealed.

It was a sleeping man with four horns growing on his head, two on each side of his temples, whose body was covered in a thick black carapace.

A pointed tail extended from his back, curling around the rest of his body.

Such an appearance was bizarre. If she didn’t know any better, Liora would have guessed that he was a beast, a Devil, or some other kind of monster.

But the place, the aura, and the somewhat strange resemblance to the man she had seen in the bloodline memories made Liora recognize his identity.

And her thoughts were confirmed.

"How did the Founding Emperor turn into this? What happened to him?", the Duke’s shocked voice sounded from the side.

Although the Duke had guessed that there was something wrong, he had never expected... this.

His rhetorical question did not receive any answer, but his words seemed to have activated something.

The moment he finished speaking, the sleeping monster’s eyelids twitched. Then, they parted.

A pair of pitch-black eyes was revealed hidden beneath them, not only the pupils, but the eyes as a whole.