Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic

Chapter 1952: Allies, Coffins, and Machinery

Worried about Shard’s situation, the doctor and priest walked briskly. The closer they got to the mansion, the thicker the fog became, so the doctor, who originally insisted on leading the way, wisely let Priest Augustus go ahead.

The priest held a compass made of white bones, but instead of guiding them to the old house hosting the banquet, it led them further away from the town.

"Priest, this..."

Looking at the dense forest shrouded in night fog around them, Dr. Schneider hesitantly spoke, reluctant to directly say that Priest Augustus was also lost. But Priest Augustus didn’t think he was on the wrong path, and he was proven right when five or six minutes later, they heard the distant thunderous sound of battle.

"Quick!"

The "distance" was actually just a result of the fog making even nearby places seem far away. The two quickly ran towards the source of the sound, and soon, in the dense fog of the night, they saw the glowing silhouette of a green giant and felt its majestic life force.

Even Dr. Schneider, who had no research on the power of death, could feel the indescribable force of the undead.

The clashing of two different powers, life and death, caused the red-surfaced graveyard to sprout wild grass, which grew wildly, withered, revived, grew, withered, repeatedly undergoing this process.

When the doctor and priest finally reached the graveyard, they saw that the one fighting Shard was a bizarre humanoid, draped in a tattered dark red robe, floating in the air.

There were no legs visible beneath the robe, making one wonder if it even had legs. Its shrunken face was gray, with ghostly green flames in its eyes.

But the most striking feature was the nine skulls hanging from its chest, stringed together. The central skull among them was unmistakably the last remaining sixth of the skull of the Death Angel.

This cloaked monster did not directly attack Shard; instead, it summoned creatures with red spines directly connected to skulls, which were battling Shard and the partially overlapping green giant.

Their spines were only halfway down, making the heads seem exceptionally large.

Despite their bizarre and almost comical appearance, each skull had a floating, illusory Ring of Fate behind it, some high ring, most inner ring. Although their strength wasn’t as formidable as living Circle Sorcerers, they were still quite powerful.

During the Witch’s Secret Arts "Avatar of Nature," no matter how bizarre his opponent was, Shard could still rely on sheer fist force to shatter each enemy.

The battle seemed extremely fierce, but both the priest and doctor could see that Shard was at a disadvantage. Shard was well aware too; the borrowed power was fundamentally like water without a source. In the first half minute, he dominated with raw power, but as the strain persisted for half a minute, the power of life started to fade.

"Evil Object - Bone Collector."

Priest Augustus muttered, having clearly recognized what this entity was:

"Like a lich, it’s a top-tier undead that can be artificially created. Due to its terrifying nature and power, it’s specifically classified as an evil object, a highly sinister thing. I recall its creation method was lost in the Mid-Fifth Era. It can now only be encountered in some ancient tombs or lost ruins of ancient times. This thing kills the living, extracting their skulls and spines, making them under its control... May death be with you and me!"

Priest Augustus suddenly shouted loudly, like a bronze bell ringing in the ears. That loud sound wasn’t just meant to frighten both sides of the battle; on the skull that the "Bone Collector" had hanging on its chest, the sixth of a skull of the Death Angel that was previously shimmering suddenly dimmed.

The green giant behind Shard finally exhausted all its power, and as he retreated gasping, the doctor and priest stepped forward.

One wielded a black cubus densely formed into a shovel that looked familiar to Shard; the other solemnly prayed, as if confessing to committing a forthcoming crime, then pointed at the floating skulls with spines, which immediately turned and, under the priest’s control, attacked their summoner.

"You go first!"

The priest said to Shard:

"The doctor and I will handle it here. Once we take care of the situation, we’ll catch up with you immediately."

"Are you sure you can manage?"

Shard asked while resting to catch his breath. He hadn’t consumed much Spirit, but his stamina was heavily depleted.

"If you can, we certainly can."

The doctor said as the shovel in his hand, which Shard had taken from the gatekeeper of Osenfort Estate, glowed with a blood-red light.

Shard nodded:

"The entire space on the island is chaotic. Remember, the door to Edwards’ old house is here."

Priest Augustus manipulated the heads of the Circle Sorcerers to entangle the floating evil object. The doctor’s eyes glowed red, shooting beams that carved right-angle marks in the fog to change direction, striking directly at the ’necklace’ on the evil object’s chest.

Seizing the opportunity they had won, Shard stepped forward and immediately appeared at the door of the ossuary behind the enemy. He slammed the door open with his body, and sure enough, in the deepest part of the small room, he discovered a door that did not originally exist.

Reaching out to open that door, he frowned and looked at the coffin in the ossuary. The black metal coffin, originally small because it held Laster Edwards’ corpse, had now become the size of a normal person.

He reached out and lifted the locked coffin lid, and to his surprise, a shivering Durut Giles lay inside. Remembering that this person had once robbed graves here in the real world, Shard immediately thought of the cycle of fate and karma, while the shivering man realized he was finally rescued and recognized the sword-wielding figure before him, promptly saying:

"We were brought to the island. Laster’s father wants to take her away; she wants to follow me. We argued with her father, but he completely doesn’t understand affection or sentiment. Laster was crying when taken away, and I tried to save her but was almost killed by her father. It was only because she threatened him, a terrifying man in a robe and monocle, that he didn’t kill me but locked me in here.

Please let me join you..."

"I don’t have time. When the outside fight is over, talk to them. I’m in a hurry, don’t follow me, I don’t have time to protect you!"

Shard said as he opened the door in the deepest part of the ossuary. The space behind was pitch black, but once stepping inside, he found himself back in the brightly lit third-floor hallway of Edwards’ old house.

The numerous dancing guests had all vanished, leaving the corridor empty but still resonating with music. Shard shook his pinky finger; the red thread Megan tied there before she disappeared now indicated that the missing Grand Witch was in a room on the second floor, matching the location on the invitation.

But as Shard burst into the second-floor dining room of the suddenly desolate mansion, the door behind him slammed shut, and in the room, he saw only an empty space and, wearing a lavish red dress, a three-meter-tall woman spinning and dancing as if embracing an invisible partner.

She turned to face Shard, and the machinery’s sound could be heard vaguely as her body swayed. But before she could speak, a silver-white thunderbolt flew directly through her body.

The thunderbolt hopped over her flesh and mechanical frame, pinning the tall woman to the ground with Yggdrasil’s Staff. As the ’Darkmoon Sigil’ appeared on the floor, she didn’t even have a chance to utter a word before her flesh and mechanical mix transformed into white ash centered on the wound.

"I’m in a hurry, no time for your nonsense."

Shard retracted the staff, turned, and kicked open the closed door behind him. Outside remained the dark space symbolizing spatial connection, his mouth twitched a few times, yet he still walked into it.

After a brief dizziness, rain soaked his clothes again, and alongside the sound of surging tides, Shard smelled the particular musty scent of a lakeside.

He stood on the beach, facing the subtly glowing green lake under the night sky and the black reefs with holes covering the lake’s surface. This was a certain place on the island’s lakeside, and Shard barely recognized it as the beach strewn with garbage where he and Megan first landed and found the rotten-tailed fish bone.

Of course, the real island had garbage due to the lake’s circulation, but here in an independent space, external garbage couldn’t enter, so the beach was quite clean.

With tides surging, under the green lake’s surface, hordes of water ghosts were approaching the shore. Shard grasped the badge on his chest, but then frowned slightly. Because those water ghosts revealing their heads from underwater had nearly half of them gleaming with a metallic sheen.

"Never heard this guy who researched human alchemy also studied machinery... Is he a genius in prophecy, human alchemy, and mechanical creation... Oh, what am I thinking, it must be the Truth Society; they’ve also treated this place as their experiment ground?"

Taking a deep breath, the red moon mark on his right arm disappeared. Then he jumped lightly into the air, raising his right hand to the rainy sky, where crimson moonlight swiftly gathered in his palm.

The vibrant red moonlight seemed as though Shard was indeed holding the moon in his hand. Just for a brief second, the glow he lifted became as vast as a mountain:

"Arcane Technique—Fall of the Red Moon!"

This time, it was the power left to him by Miss Danester.