NOVEL NEXT Chapter 294: The Wrong Path
The silver purple radiance converged, condensing into an obsidian dragon as streams of silver purple energy coursed through its massive body, a mechanical halo rotating slowly above its head.
It flapped its majestic wings a single time, and the ground several hundred thousand meters below cracked directly from the sheer force, fissures spreading like spiderwebs across the battlefield.
Below the dragon, several thousand Infernals lined up one by one, their figures emerging clearly as the pressure descended.
They possessed fiery wings, unlike Lia's Infernals, whose backs remained bare.
Perhaps the summoning itself, or the summoner, altered the characteristics of the beings drawn from hell, reshaping them to better suit their master.
"Grey Lockhart." The red robed third ranker spoke slowly, his voice dripping with chilling intent. "You've finally arrived."
"Yeah, how could I not?" Grey replied calmly. "One of my precious Infernals fell to one of the dogs present here. Am I really a good summoner if I do not avenge it?"
"Its fate was not meant to end in the hands of some damn dogs who are nothing more than slaves to aliens from another world."
"Honestly, you lot are worse than slaves. Even slaves retain personal thoughts and dignity."
"At the very least, they would not drop to their knees at the sight of an abyssal being and start licking their feet." Grey smiled coldly.
"In case you forgot, all of you were once human beings, a part of humanity, and now look at yourselves."
His gaze swept across the army below, and he sneered.
"All this just to bring one man down. All this just to feed more strength to the abyss."
"What exactly did the abyss give you to make you choose their side? That part is beyond me."
His eyes shifted, landing on the abyssal mistress.
He had noticed her long ago, the cold and aloof demonic existence whose appearance was disturbingly close to that of a human.
Her skin carried a pale hue rather than the greyish tone he was familiar with.
At first glance, she looked like a beautiful woman, but in truth, she was a genuine abyssal being.
Having fought one before, it did not take him long to identify her nature.
At the same time, he noticed a trembling young man standing beside her.
A flicker of interest passed through Grey's eyes as a telepathic voice rushed into his mind, sharp and urgent.
He paid it no heed for now, only giving Lin Fang a brief glance before the red robed expert spoke again.
"You talk too much for someone who is about to die." The red robed expert's expression twisted coldly.
He slowly unveiled his hood, revealing a bald head with a single horn growing from it, along with cold abyssal eyes strikingly similar to those of the abyssal mistress.
As a third ranker, his abyssal characteristics had already synchronized deeply with his body.
By the fourth rank, complete transformation was possible.
There was, of course, the option of immediate full transformation, but that path came at the cost of madness.
The energy that corrupted all worldly forces was not something they could simply control at will, no matter how powerful they believed themselves to be.
"You are Grey Lockhart, I assume." The Abyssal Mistress spoke, her expression aloof and distant.
"That is indeed me." Grey replied with a faint smirk.
"I take it that you are one of those pigs from the abyss?"
The Abyssal Mistress did not react to his taunt.
Instead, she lifted her gaze, her eyes cold as she spoke.
"Several months ago, you killed an abyssal being in Nova City. Do you remember that, Grey Lockhart?"
"Of course I do." Grey snickered softly. "He was quite challenging for me at that time, but I still managed to defeat him."
"It goes to show how weak abyssal beings truly are."
"They lost to a human from a third rate city."
His words rang out clearly, intended for every being present to hear.
He, Grey Lockhart, had eliminated an abyssal being before.
That fact alone demonstrated the superiority of his evolutionary path.
The path these dogs of high order had chosen was wrong.
Why would they turn to the abyss?
The answer was simple.
First, for power. A kind of power never seen before.
Second, because of their circumstances as evolvers.
Looking at the second rank evolvers below, numbering in the thousands upon thousands, it was obvious they possessed a method to rise faster than any orthodox evolutionary path.
Devouring. Plundering. Corrupting one another.
In the end, that was how they grew stronger.
And it was also the easiest method.
Yet even with all of that.
What had they truly achieved?
Had they really chosen the correct path?
He, Grey Lockhart, had once eliminated an abyssal being.
Was that not definitive proof that their choice had been wrong?
In truth, it was not merely because he was special.
With his evolutionary path, anyone placed in his position back then would have emerged victorious.
This was the power of strengthening the three aspects that defined a living being.
Strengthened equally. Balanced perfectly.
Only then could absolute power and transcendence be achieved.
That was the essence of his evolutionary path.
Then, the Abyssal Mistress spoke.
"The abyssal being you killed, that was my son."
The words fell quietly, yet they carried a weight that crushed the surrounding air.
The Abyssal Mistress looked down at him, her expression calm, but beneath it lay an endless abyss of emotion.
"I watched him grow on the Blue Star after his father left him behind to enter the abyss."
"I carved his path with my own hands."
She took a single step forward.
"And now, you stand before me after erasing him from existence."
"For that, you, Grey Lockhart, will pay with your head."
Boom!
Dense and terrifying black abyssal energy erupted from the Abyssal Mistress, distorting the air as space itself groaned under the pressure.
For a split second, only her shining eyes could be seen in the distance as waves of power rolled outward like collapsing mountains.
The fury she had bottled up until now finally spilled free.