Chapter 39
Chapter 39: Authority – Vengeful Absorption
The ground lizard paced back and forth.
Its vertical pupils contracted as it watched Funiss half-kneeling at the entrance. Behind it, wherever its blade-like tail passed, floor tiles and pillars were sliced apart like butter, sparks dancing and flickering in the shadows.
Threat assessment.
The prelude to a predator’s attack.
This lizard was an extraordinary creature from the same branch as the fourth-sequence Black Wing Poison Dragon. They were close relatives—both fierce, brutal, aggressive, and quick to anger, never hesitating to bare their claws at humans who trespassed on their territory.
The Gravedigger sequence that Funiss displayed made the ground lizard wary. Both belonged to the Wrath pathway, so hypnotic toxins or anesthetic poisons would have no effect on each other. Otherwise, this beast would have immediately sprayed scorching toxic fog from its nostrils and charged forward to tear her to pieces.
And this gave Funiss the perfect opportunity to prepare in secret.
Her hands hidden behind her back drew several thread-thin needles from her needle pouch. Her gaze quickly swept across the entire underground room, calculating various positions and angles in her mind.
But she couldn’t move yet.
In this seemingly calm standoff, neither side dared act rashly. Action meant revealing weaknesses, and exposed weaknesses would be fatal.
However, beasts were still beasts. Seeing that this small human female remained motionless, the ground lizard charged forward on all fours, its blade-like tail sweeping horizontally.
The pillars along its path couldn’t stop its sharpness at all. Burning whale oil spilled across the floor, and among the broken rocks and debris, the heavy blade struck toward Funiss.
The silver-haired girl didn’t panic. Her light purple eyes flashed coldly, and her hands behind her back suddenly spread to both sides. In the dancing light and shadow, several nearly invisible transparent needles shot out.
The pillars cut by the blade tail hadn’t completely fallen yet. The thin needles collided with those rocks falling through the air, then changed direction at strange angles after glancing off them. The ricocheting needles then collided with other needles again.
Amid the faint series of chiming sounds, a gleaming web spread out in an instant, with those rock fragments like flying insects caught in the net.
Funiss smoothly drew her short stabbing sword from beneath her skirt and threw it toward the connection point of the web directly above.
The entire web trembled.
Countless rock fragments were catapulted toward the ground lizard charging straight down the middle of the path.
Of course, Funiss didn’t expect these small, weak projectiles to cause substantial damage to the Black Sword Ground Lizard, with its thick hide and steel-hard body covered in bone protrusions. She knew very well how extraordinary the defensive and counterattack abilities of this extraordinary creature with Agitator characteristics were.
Those stones posed no real threat, yet their momentum appeared fierce, like a violent storm covering the sky.
But before they could strike the lizard’s scaled shell, the sword-like bone protrusions on both sides of the creature’s thick body suddenly began vibrating violently, like an unfolding protective net. They shot out in the opposite direction like arrows at maximum tension toward the approaching threat.
The black swords that separated from the ground lizard’s body were unstoppably sharp, slicing the rocks and silk web to pieces before embedding deeply into the marble walls.
At the same time, the ground lizard had closed in. Its powerful blade tail tore transparent arcs through the air, its edge flashing with cold light.
And this was exactly the moment Funiss had been waiting for.
She leaped aside, stepping lightly on the side of the blade tail like a butterfly, lifting her skirt hem and dancing nimbly through the air. Her soft skirt spread in mid-air like a swan’s extended wings before she landed silently to one side.
She drew her revolver.
The cylinder was already loaded, the hammer cocked high, waiting only for the trigger pull.
But what her gun barrel pointed at wasn’t the dark, hard bone protrusions or scales she remembered, but dense clusters of pale, blood-streaked tender flesh holes. Those newly grown bone protrusions hadn’t had time to emerge, leaving only small tufts of bare, hard shells stuck in the flesh holes.
Just like a hedgehog with all its spikes plucked out.
This was the moment.
Funiss pulled the trigger without hesitation.
The recoil nearly dislocated her delicate shoulder, and flames flared brightly amid the thunderous roar. But Funiss saw not a drop of blood flow from the lizard, nor heard a single cry of pain.
The bullet was crisply deflected.
Those seemingly tender flesh holes were actually another layer of bone shell covered with adhesive protein membrane—part of the honeycomb-dense sword-like bone protrusions.
Funiss had only read and memorized part of the content about the Black Sword Ground Lizard’s body structure, not knowing that the author of that extraordinary creature encyclopedia was himself only half-informed.
Attacking weak points during the gap between loading and counterattack—this decision itself wasn’t wrong.
The mistake was that the current Funiss simply couldn’t find an effective attacking method with sufficient power. How could a small revolver possibly penetrate the shell of a sixth-sequence extraordinary creature?
The gap in strength.
An insurmountable chasm.
In that instant, Funiss recalled everything—those scenes and painful memories of her defeat at Cesia’s hands, the suffocating despair of higher sequences crushing lower ones.
Sticky, foul loading.
Blood-stained, rust-covered black sword-like bone protrusions sprouted collectively from the flesh holes.
The Black Sword Ground Lizard’s defensive counterattack wasn’t based on its subjective judgment—any hostility or attack would automatically trigger it. And just a second ago, Funiss’s bullet had hit the lizard’s flank.
Which was exactly where the dense sword edges pointed.
“Click.”
The crisp sound mixed with wriggling flesh seemed to stab into Funiss’s heart like a blade, as if pronouncing her death sentence.
But the current Funiss was no longer the powerless Sera of that time. She had already gazed directly at the master worshipped by those whispers in the stellar abyss and maintained her sanity, holding the ultimate authority symbolizing the end of the fourteen pathways.
Just before being pierced and torn apart by the sword bones—
The girl’s originally light purple eyes suddenly turned golden yellow, like blazing sunlight bursting forth.
Deep red flames drew a circle on the ground with her at the center. Layers of air waves rose up, blowing away the debris and burning oil across the floor. A tome of gold and diamonds opened with a flourish before her.
As if grasping a scepter.
A phantom crown appeared above her head.
Deep red flames beneath her feet outlined ferocious lions and leopards—fury and rage uncontainable, the omen of vengeance, the fallen angel about to descend following the totem’s call.
Black and red burning chains surged like a tide from within the totem.
He was forged from the flames of God’s judgment, born with the supreme mission of taking away devout souls, yet betrayal had turned His proud twelve wings to murky black.
He once stood nobly at the summit of the clouds, with the many wings of the fifth heaven following behind Him. Now He was furious beyond measure, and the fires of vengeance would descend upon the world like a raging torrent, destroying everything the Lord had made.
Countless black pearls reflected dazzling light—those were His eyes, the places He gazed upon and watched.
A massive scythe wreathed in fire and ash condensed from the chains.
He was positioned near-eternally at the end of the Wrath pathway.
The great demon Samael.
“Authority – Vengeful Absorption.”