Chapter 226: Condemnation!

Raven did not wait for Magnus to speak. The moment her boots touched the ritual chamber floor, the air pressure shifted violently, as if the room itself had inhaled in shock.

Her aura unfolded with an immense and terrifying precision that made all the Abyssal lights stutter and the blood sigils dotted around falter for the very first time since the ritual began.

“Albedo,” she said, voice sharp, controlled, already layered with calculation, “Study the array and Break it as fast as you can. I’ll buy you time.”

Magnus recovered quickly, his earlier flicker of surprise hardening into something vicious. He spread his arms slightly, cloak rippling as the elders regrouped around him, their auras knitting together again under the ritual’s reinforcement.

“You?” Magnus scoffed. “You think you can stop this? This rite is anchored to the Abyss itself. Even if you kill us all, the sacrifice will complete.”

Several elders laughed softly, the sound wrong, distorted by Abyssal resonance.

“She’s already condemned,” one elder said calmly. “BloodHaven ends tonight.”

Raven’s eyes flicked to Lilian for a fraction of a second. The girl hung suspended in the lattice, blood-mana pulsing weakly now, her face pale but her gaze still burning with defiance. Then Raven looked back at the Everglades.

Her expression changed.

“Then die knowing you were wrong,” Raven said.

She moved quickly, to the point where the first elder never even saw the attack. Raven crossed the distance between them without traversing the space in between, her blade already drawn, already buried through his chest before the sound of movement arrived.

She twisted once and ripped upward, severing heart, spine, and blood-core in a single motion. The elder collapsed, body unraveling into ash before it hit the ground.

The chamber exploded into chaos as Magnus roared an order and the remaining elders surged forward together, abandoning restraint entirely.

Blood oceans manifested midair, crashing toward Raven with crushing force. Abyssal constructs howled into existence, claws and maws tearing at reality itself as they lunged for her.

Raven did not retreat, instead walking forward into the flood of blood, her aura snapping outward like a guillotine, slicing through blood constructs with contemptuous ease. She stepped on one elder’s shadow and crushed it flat, pinning him in place before driving her heel through his skull.

Another tried to bind her with Abyssal chains, she grabbed them barehanded and pulled, tearing the caster off his feet and smashing him into a ritual pillar hard enough to shatter it.

“You rely too much on borrowed power,” she hissed, blade flashing again, “Pathetic, selling your Souls, your dignity to the Abyss, I’ll send you to the afterlife myself you dirty rats,”

Meanwhile, Albedo forced himself upright fully and turned his attention inward. Source Code expanded to its limits.

The ritual array unfolded in his vision, not as lines and runes, but as an interlocking engine of intent, sacrifice, and Abyssal law.

BloodHaven essence was the keystone. Lilian wasn’t just fuel, she was the bridge to another Dimension, the Abyssal Dimension. Her Pureblood lineage was being offered directly to the Abyss in exchange for amplification and manifestation.

And worse was that this wasn’t a one-time ritual. If it succeeded, the Everglade Clan would become permanent Abyssal anchors, constantly able to repeat this with other talented geniuses to become more and more powerful.

It was a cruel, evil plan that Albedo was determined to stop, feeling a coldness spread through his chest as he got to work.

He poured what remained of his mana into Source Code, ignoring the alarms screaming at him about imminent collapse. Layers peeled back brutally. Safeties shattered. He began learning the ritual in real time, his mind racing faster than his body could ever follow.

“This is…” he muttered. “This is insane.”

The Abyssal Monstrosity wasn’t meant to be fully summoned, not yet. The first manifestation would be partial, an avatar, a herald. Enough to stabilize the Everglades’ ascension and permanently corrupt the Northern Region’s ley lines.

And Lilian would be gone.

“Not happening,” Albedo whispered.

Behind him, the chamber shook violently as Raven went to war.

Magnus himself finally moved.

He clapped his hands together once, and the ritual array surged, Abyssal light flaring blindingly bright. A colossal arm of shadow and bone began forcing its way through the summoning circle at the chamber’s far end, reality screaming as it resisted.

“Too late!” Magnus shouted, laughter bleeding back into his voice. “The Abyss has answered! Your struggle only feeds it!”

Raven intercepted him head-on.

Their clash shattered the floor beneath them, shockwaves rippling outward as blood and shadow collided with razor-edged intent. Magnus was powerful, it seemed like either he was possessed by someone from the past, or he had done multiple rituals before, because his level of strength was far beyond what someone at his level should be achieving.

Even Albedo didn’t reach there with his System, so he knew something was fishy.

Raven still managed to meet Magnus blow for blow with relative ease, her movements were impossibly precise, every strike aimed not to overpower but to dismantle. It seemed even with Magnus’ methods of improving strength, there was a tier he couldn’t reach.

“You’re panicking,” Raven said coolly as she deflected a blood-forged spear inches from her throat. “That’s how I know you’re losing.”

Magnus snarled and unleashed everything, Abyssal power roaring through his veins, his form warping slightly under its influence. “I only need seconds!”

Meanwhile, Albedo found the lynchpin of the Ritual, realizing that the ritual’s stability relied on three converging flows, blood essence, Abyssal resonance, and elder amplification. He couldn’t stop all three.

But he could desynchronize them.

Hands shaking and his vision dimming from Mana Exhaustion, Albedo reached into the array directly with Source Code, ignoring the agony as Abyssal feedback tore through his nervous system. He rewrote sigil logic on the fly, fracturing the timing between sacrifice and summoning.

The array screamed.

Lilian gasped sharply as the lattice around her destabilized, blood-mana surging violently. Her eyes met Albedo’s across the chamber.

“Do it,” she said weakly. “End it.”

“I will,” Albedo replied hoarsely. “Just hold on.”

Raven drove her blade through Magnus’s side, pinning him momentarily to a collapsing pillar. He roared in fury, tearing free, but blood was finally spilling freely now.

“Albedo!” Raven shouted. “Now!”

Albedo slammed everything he had left into Source Code.

The ritual shattered. Runes imploded inward. Blood-sigils detonated. The sacrifice flow snapped violently away from Lilian as the array collapsed in on itself. The summoning circle destabilized, but it was too late to stop it entirely.

The Abyssal breach tore wider. Half of the Monstrosity emerged.

A colossal torso of blackened bone and void-flesh forced its way into reality, howling as its incomplete form strained against the broken summoning. Abyssal energy flooded the chamber, crushing stone, warping mana, drowning everything in suffocating pressure.

Albedo collapsed to one knee, blood pouring from his nose and mouth.

But Lilian fell free.

The lattice shattered and she dropped—only for Raven to catch her mid-fall, pulling her close with one arm while turning to face the half-formed horror.

Magnus stared in disbelief.

“No,” he whispered. “No!”

Raven’s eyes burned as she looked at the Monstrosity.

“Albedo,” she said calmly, deadly calm. “You did enough.”

The chamber trembled as the incomplete Abyssal entity roared, reality buckling under its presence.

And the battle was far from over.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep