The Invincible Full-Moon System

April looked down; her foot was caught on something.

She frowned and covered her nose when she realized that it was a voidal monster's severed arm.

But that wasn't the only thing that she noticed.

On either side, there were more and more severed body parts, arms, legs, claws—and she even found a lower jaw with its spiky tongue intact. Each one has a ragged edge; the person who did this didn't sever these body parts cleanly, but roughly.

Most of them were brutally pulled, April could tell from the way the flesh was shaped.

'A soldier told me that Rex was helping them protect the rear breach,' April thought—her eyes shaking in coldness as the aftermath of the battle was bone-chilling. 'I haven't seen it in person. I'm helping the soldiers too, but this… is this really Rex's doing?'

April had seen Rex fight during the Forsaken Tower mission.

But back then, he was controlled, killing the monsters with quick and precise strikes.

Of course, she also knew the change Rex experienced when the Singing Lady turned out to be inside—the bubble. He became more feral. But she couldn't properly see how Rex ended the Singing Lady as the battle was far away.

And she was trapped on the summit of the tower.

Unlike Seekers who could see through the Black Rift, she couldn't.

So, what she saw Rex do back then was meager at best, but now she reckoned it must've been brutal.

'None of the people saw exactly what Rex did either. All of them said that the Singing Lady was somehow lured out. I could ask Priestess Viora, but we're not really on talking terms,' April thought, kneeling down to look at the severed arm closely.

At the center, she noticed the severed arm was missing a big chunk of flesh.

It looked like a bite mark.

'No, this couldn't have been Rex, right?' She thought dubiously.

Just then, Rick's hand tapped her shoulder.

She looked up and saw that he wasn't tapping her shoulder, but he was handing her something.

A monocle.

"What's this?"

"Go and have a look. You might want to see this."

"Hmm?"

April took the monocle and stood up, turning to face where Rick was facing.

She frowned and looked at Rick for the second time, asking what was wrong without words—but Rick only nudged his chin forward, signaling for her to look. Hesitantly, April placed the monocle before her right eye and peered through it.

Once the scene beyond cleared, her breath caught hard in her throat.

Along the way to reach this rear breach, she had already passed carcasses.

Even a few seconds ago, she was inspecting severed body parts closely.

All of these gory sights were enough to turn her stomach; she was not used to this kind of thing.

Never in her life had she witnessed something so filthy, so soaked in blood. During her noble training with her teacher, she had learned to fight and kill various strong voidal monsters, but her teacher always told her to kill them swiftly.

Blood is not alien to her, but mangled carcasses were.

In fact, the other time she had seen this kind of sight was when she and her siblings were tailing Rex as he hunted Voidal Knights. She was still gradually accumulating experience of the battlefield—at a pace that most would say extremely generous.

A privilege of being born a noble.

Her world had always been immaculate—the mansion of her house was polished to perfection, every corridor gleaming, every hall spotless. She had never once seen so much as a spilled drop of water left unattended, much less the ruinous stain of blood and gore like this.

Deep down, she understood.

Her life was one of privilege, sheltered from the grime and brutality that most others endured.

And to her credit, she wanted to at least learn to be better, learn the bad side of the world.

But what she now saw through the monocle was beyond anything she could have imagined.

She skipped a few levels of gore and instantly went to the peak.

'Perhaps because I had always been sheltered so much that I found the world boring, and perhaps the reason I was attracted to Rex was because he possessed darkness that I've never seen or felt,' April mused inside, eyes widening by the second. 'And this… this is a glimpse of that darkness I found so captivating in you, I presume.'

Stretching ahead for half a mile was the grotesque devastation given form.

For half a mile, the ground was unrecognizable, paved not with soil or stone but with blood and gore.

Mangled carcasses lay in grotesque heaps, bones jutting from twisted limbs, while intestines—and torn organs spilled across the earth—like discarded ropes. Some bodies were so mangled they were beyond recognition, reduced to nothing more than smears of flesh pressed into the ground.

Clearly, this was the reason the air reeked of copper and decay.

A stench so heavy it seemed to cling to her lungs.

Above it all swarmed the flies.

Countless of them, each grotesquely large—twice or even thrice the size of normal flies, they buzzed in a frenzy over the feast. Their wings beat together in a droning chorus, filling the air with a sound like a living beehive.

The oppressive hum pressed in from all sides.

It was as if April was standing in open air but within some vast, writhing hive of death.

Not to mention, oversized, monstrous vultures could be seen sitting atop the carcasses, pecking away a few chunks of flesh while looking around warily. Even though the gore was hard to look at for April—it was a total carnival of pleasure for these monsters that flocked around the dead.

Just from what she could see, there were easily a thousand, perhaps even two thousand voidal monster carcasses strewn across the field. Slaughtered—and discarded. Fighting Rex must've been a nightmare as their expressions before their deaths were still etched on their faces.

Rex must've been that overwhelming for them.

"I've always expected him to be someone like this," She smiled acutely.

April's mind reeled.

She knew the strength of a Master Immortal Spirit—that they could draw upon the terrifying might of their perfected Spirit Genesis. But even so, stamina was finite, their life energy was finite, normal spirits could only summon such power once or twice before exhaustion set it.

Fighting against such overwhelming numbers, even at their peak, would've been a grueling task.

And yet Rex had carved this wasteland of corpses without pause.

It wasn't that he lacked the weakness of others.

No—it was that he was too strong to be hindered by such things at all.

"You spoke as if you've known him," Rick muttered, raising a brow. "Do you know him?"

"Yes," April nodded, staring at the gory sight for as far as the eyes can see profoundly. "In fact, I might've been the one who knew him the most."

Hearing this, Rick looked away and smiled awkwardly.

'He's now a knight, he's young, and also strong… Even though he's engaged, women will still flock around him.' He rubbed his nose, or at least tried to rub his nose, but he forgot that he was poisoned; his hand didn't budge. 'He reminded me of my glory days.'

…

Meanwhile, inside the Vinarkin Bubble.

Althea headed for the city.

She frowned in confusion when she saw that the wall was still upright. Battle scars marred the ground before it and even its surface, but no breach could be seen. It was still robust. And from the markings that came to an end halfway up the wall, it suggested the voidal monsters had never managed to climb over it.

"Then how did the monsters get inside?" Althea questioned.

But as she was close to the wall, she noted the faint trace of voidal energy seeping through the stones.

One that was left behind by the monsters that got through, surely.

"They… phased through the walls?" Althea tilted her head, frowning in confusion. "Impossible. None of the White Mask's vassals possess such an ability. Not even the White Mask itself could phase through solid matter like this—it simply isn't part of its power."

Rumble!

Althea looked upward when she noted the sound of a battle in the distance.

She quickly went over the wall, recalling that Rex was supposed to be fighting the usurpers alone.

Upon going over the wall, she quickly fixed on the city ahead and flew there.

Levitating above the city to view the current situation—Althea's attention was immediately caught by the crimson mist that seemed to be swallowing the entire city. It wasn't one of the city's countermeasures against usurpers.

She knew the city well and knew it had nothing like this.

'A Spirit Genesis? And it encompasses the entire city?' Althea realized with a start—the mist was made entirely of life energy, which made it obvious that it was a Spirit Genesis. 'All I knew of Davina's fiancé was that he was merely a Master Immortal Spirit, but was strong enough to withstand Davina's Starfall Echo.'

'But to think that his Spirit Genesis is this impressive, what kind of Soul Artifacts does he have?'

Even though she came with low expectations, this made her change her mind entirely.

She became interested in this man called Rex.

Boom!

A loud crash thundered.

Althea looked through the mist and found that the battle was still going on—at the center, and the crash came from Rex slamming onto the Emerald Fortress. She also noted the piles of corpses, but she's going to handle it later.

Right now, Rex seemed to be in trouble.

"I should help him," She mused and descended to help.

On the other hand, Rex was slammed onto the Emerald Fortress, and his body bounced off of it.

Blood burst out of his mouth, but he landed on his feet still.

Boom!

Like an overlord of monsters, the Faceless Reaper landed a few paces away from him.

Compared to earlier, its form swelled, reaching at least ten feet, which towered over Rex immensely.

Rex wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand and looked at the abomination before him.

Pain racked across his entire body—his left arm hung broken, several ribs shattered, making each breath a struggle—and blood scars carved across his flesh. Yet his gaze remained fierce and unwavering, the fire behind it did not falter—if anything, the pain only fed it, stoking his resolve.

This was exactly what he wanted: the sensation of possessing a body and being alive.

One that he had longed for ever since he was let loose one time.

Of course, he could've avoided being hurt this badly.

After all, the armor that Princess Davina handed to him was incredibly powerful and sturdy.

But Rex, or rather, the Invincible Apparition, decided to take it off earlier.

He stowed it away in his inventory, leaving behind only a black fitted undergarment shirt now torn to shreds. What little fabric remained clung loosely to him, barely concealing his form, while the rest had been ripped apart—exposing the hard lines of his toned, battle-scarred torso for all to see.

Even before becoming a Werewolf, there were scars across his body.

Now, after the battle against the Fifthborn, the scars had only increased despite his regeneration.

Some of the most vicious attacks from the Fifthborn laid a permanent mark on him.

Rex cast a glance over his shoulder and beheld the Emerald Fortress—a colossal tree that speared into the heavens, its bark gleaming with the sheen of tempered iron. It loomed with an air of indomitable power, a living monument of strength and majesty.

It wasn't a surprise that it once bore an incredibly powerful Echo.

"Look," He pointed the Faceless Reaper with his thumb as if talking with the Emerald Fortress. "Your holy land is being invaded—don't you think you should do something? Well, it doesn't matter if you don't want to do it yourself. I don't mind dealing with it, as long as you give me proper compensation, what do you say?"

Just then, a notification appeared.

<The Emerald Fortress is giving the user its blessing!>

<Does the user want to accept?>

"Oh? A blessing?"