Chapter 170: His Falling Foundation

Lithos woke up unrestricted, and it started climbing out of the abyss.

Raziel pressed his right hand against the cold stone floor and pushed his body up.

His left arm hung useless at his side.

A thick trail of blood ran down his fingers and pooled on the dusty tiles.

His muscles screamed and his knees shook under his own weight.

The East Basement dissolved into chaos.

The sub-audible frequency from the Silencer artifact ripped through the ceiling.

The noise bypassed the physical stone and drilled straight into the foundation of St. Celeste.

Zorya gasped for air and clutched her chest.

The liquid silver ink flowing through the veins in her hands stopped glowing.

The bright silver turned pitch black.

The unchained Inscriptor coughed up a mouthful of dark blood and stained her gray tunic.

The ancient magic died around them.

Raziel watched the brick walls. The silver runes of the Primordial Pantheon lost their light. The geometric shapes turned black and cracked open.

The dead magic peeled off the stone and fell to the floor in useless flakes. The building lost its voice. St. Celeste went mute.

A heavy grinding noise echoed from the massive sinkhole in the center of the room.

GRIND.

CRASH.

Lithos climbed the sheer vertical drop of Level -5.

The colossal stone construct drove its bedrock fingers into the dirt and pulled its massive weight upward.

The containment seals holding the guardian in the dark vanished when the Silencer erased the runic network.

Caius ran to the edge of the abyss. The transfer novice looked down into the pitch-black hole.

He raised his scarred hands and channeled the raw power of the dead gods. He tried to speak the ancient syntax to command the weapon.

FZZT!

The magic sparked and died in his palms.

The deletion frequency smothered his Gift. The connection between the guardian and the Pantheon severed.

“I lost the tether!” Caius shouted over the grinding noise.

“The Silencer killed the command runes! Lithos does not recognize the Seventh Gift anymore!”

Raziel gritted his teeth.

The guardian reverted to pure, unguided instinct. The construct wanted to destroy the anomaly, and Raziel stood right in its path.

“Help me lift her!” Raziel ordered.

He stumbled toward Zorya.

He grabbed her right arm and hauled her off the floor. Caius rushed over and grabbed her left side.

They dragged the bleeding Inscriptor away from the sinkhole and headed for the shattered iron door of the workshop.

The blue interface exploded in Raziel’s vision.

[CRITICAL ALERT: NODE INTEGRITY FAILING.]

[ENVIRONMENTAL DELETION RATE: MAXIMUM.]

[WARNING: LETHAL ENTITY APPROACHING.]

Raziel dismissed the text. He ignored the burning pain in his sliced forearm. He forced his exhausted legs to move.

They stepped over the five dead Inquisitors bleeding in the corridor and reached the bottom of the main staircase.

“Lara!” Raziel yelled through the communication rune painted on his collar. “Give me a surface report!”

Static hissed in his ear. The connection fought the interference from the black sphere.

“The courtyard is gone!” Lara screamed through the magical link. “Lucian and Gideon are down! Mordecai is in the chapel! The static is eating the walls!”

Raziel tightened his grip on Zorya’s arm. He lost his best fighters.

He lost his shield. He operated on a drained mana core and an empty stamina bar.

The entire academy shook.

BOOM!

A massive stone hand reached out of the sinkhole and slammed onto the workshop floor. The kinetic impact shattered the remaining bricks.

Lithos pulled its colossal head into the East Basement. The golden runic eyes flickered with corrupted, chaotic light.

The construct did not roar.

It crushed the wooden reading table into splinters and dragged its massive torso into the room.

It locked its golden eyes on the three novices standing near the stairs.

“Move!” Raziel shouted.

They dragged Zorya up the dark stone steps. They abandoned the East Basement and fled toward the ground floor.

Up on the surface, the Main Chapel of St. Celeste tore itself apart.

The red digital static from the Silencer flooded the sanctuary. The glitching polygons chewed through the heavy oak pews and erased the red carpets.

The deletion code crawled up the marble walls and ate the stained glass windows.

The physical architecture turned into jagged white wireframes and vanished into the unrendered gray void.

Elector Mordecai stood in the center of the destruction.

He rested his hands on the pommel of his crystal cane and watched his weapon work.

The black iron sphere sat directly on top of the sacred marble altar.

The artifact pumped out the maximum destructive frequency. The red static consumed the marble statue of the Goddess Zhalyr.

The stone face of the deity dissolved into broken polygons and ceased to exist.

Mordecai showed zero emotion. He possessed administrative access to the game board, and he executed the cleanup protocol without hesitation.

The Elector turned his head and looked at the heavy oak doors.

His thirty elite Inquisitors secured the main courtyard outside. Lucian and Gideon lay incapacitated in the dirt.

The perimeter walls ceased to exist. The architectural counter-shield broke into dead sparks.

Mordecai achieved total tactical supremacy.

He achieved his primary objective. He silenced the ancient magic and crippled the heretics. He possessed the power to delete the entire academy and walk away without a single scratch on his robes.

He looked down at his boots.

He stared at the stone floor of the chapel. He knew the exact architectural layout of the ancient temple hidden beneath the Church’s foundation.

He knew the central runic node sat directly below this exact spot.

He knew the six Forbidden Gifts rested in the dark.

The Elector did not plan to walk out of the chapel. He did not plan to walk down the main staircase and navigate the underground corridors to find the surviving anomalies.

He planned to bypass the physical maze entirely.

Mordecai raised his bare left hand and pointed his open palm straight down at the stone tiles. He prepared to swipe his hand and delete the floor.

He prepared to drop straight down into the abyss of Level -5.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep