Chapter 160: Raiding the Abyss Cult

(Recovering well from my illness, normal updates are resuming (5000 words minimum).)

The Shadow of the Royal City, a black alley tucked away near the edge of the subterranean district, was a labyrinthine tangle of uneven streets that made one fear they might collapse at any moment.

These walkways, constructed from a motley assortment of questionable materials and rising in tiers like the scaffolding of a construction site, were a hallmark of the Shadow.

With no official funding for unified development, these paths were left to grow wild, built haphazardly by the residents for the sake of mere utility.

Those who traversed them had long since grown accustomed to the narrow, railing-less spans.

If a pipe from some alchemical workshop, haphazardly attached to these walkways, were to burst, a passerby might find themselves plummeted several stories down by the random spray of caustic fluids.

A few figures, their faces obscured by hoods and their long robes emblazoned with the gaping, abyssal pits that signified the Cult of the Abyss, picked their way across these suspended paths. They pushed open the battered, patch-worked metal door of a bar that clung to the cliffside in a precarious, grotesque posture, scanned the area behind them to ensure they weren't followed, and slipped inside.

The interior was mundane—the sort of low-end dive bar that spent nothing on cleanliness or decor. The air hung heavy with the rank stench of sweat and the sour, stinging odor of inferior alcohol. Thick clouds of smoke exhaled by the patrons choked the room; one could barely breathe upon entering.

"Skinworm ale, five servings. May the Abyss accept your soul," one of the hooded figures said to the middle-aged bartender, his tone dripping with a practiced, cultist piety.

The bartender’s expression soured—it was clear he held little love for these Abyss-worshipping fanatics. He turned the tap on a blackened, moldy wooden barrel that looked as old as the city itself and poured five mugs for the hooded men.

"On the house. Drink in the back," the bartender grunted, his face dark as he gestured toward the rear of the bar, eager to be rid of them.

"Heh, your generosity is noted. The Abyss will bless you."

The spokesman thanked him, reiterating the blessing, though the bartender’s scowl suggested he had no desire for any such benediction.

Without another word, the cultists took their wooden mugs and headed into the depths of the bar. The other patrons instinctively recoiled, though a few drunken louts couldn't help but jeer.

"Disgusting, those damn lunatics. Why don't you jump into the Abyss yourselves and save us the trouble? Stay away—I don't want to go mad and throw myself into that hole one day!" a drunkard slumped over a table spat out, his voice harsh and unsparing.

"Bad luck, running into these freaks..."

"Keep your distance. These guys do nothing but turn everyone they touch into a madman..."

The more sober patrons didn't dare provoke the group openly, but they couldn't resist whispering among themselves.

"The Abyss is magnanimous; it accepts all. May you soon embrace its arms and receive its grace," the lead cultist murmured softly into the ear of the drunken heckler, unbothered, before leading his followers away.

The drunkard shuddered, his intoxication vanishing in an instant, and he scrambled away from his seat, muttering curses under his breath.

No one in the Shadow wanted any association with the Cult of the Abyss.

These believers, who called the act of leaping into the endless dark of the abyss a "divine blessing," were a curse; those who grew close to them, or those who opposed them, would inevitably descend into madness, eventually screaming as they threw themselves into the void.

...

Inside the back room, the cultists didn't touch the cheap, free ale; they tossed it out the window with unconcealed disdain.

They knocked on the wooden wall in a rhythmic pattern and stepped through a passage that opened in response.

The tunnel had been carved directly into the cliffside supporting the bar. It had clearly been widened over time, and though winding, it was far from narrow. After walking for a while, the cultists reached an iron door set into the rock.

A small observation slot slid open, and after verifying their identities, the door creaked wide. Once inside, the cultists stripped off their stifling, foul-smelling robes and hoods, relieved to be rid of the garments that served only to mark them as targets.

"Well? Is that thing the Lancer family asked for ready? We haven't heard a word from those gray dwarves. If it's not done, we're in trouble."

The interior was far superior to the dilapidated tavern outside, resembling a staging ground like those used by the Night’s Edge.

Equipped with all manner of gear, it was hard to imagine that these men, viewed as lunatics by the rest of the Shadow, possessed such a professional base—though given their status as lapdogs to the nobility, it made sense.

The person in charge, who had been waiting for news, questioned the arrivals. He was the liaison between the noble families and the cultists.

The nobles issued the tasks, the cultists—disguised as madmen—carried them out, and the nobles provided the payment.

"It's done. Those gray dwarves were asking for it; they opened the crate and were burned to ash by the Destroyer Golem inside. The item has been delivered, but we lost many men holding off the Night’s Edge. The payment needs to be higher this time."

Morak, the leader of the cultists, spoke with a grim tone. The Lancer family had tasked them with delivering the iron crate to a location near the abyss, and they had hired the tunnel-savvy gray dwarves to transport it.

He hadn't expected the greedy dwarves to open the box, triggering the Destroyer Golem inside, which had promptly gone berserk and drawn the attention of the Night’s Edge.

To cover the mistake and ensure the Lancer family could collect their data, Morak had been forced to sacrifice his own men to stall the relentless Night’s Edge, a heavy price indeed.

"That is your own problem. Remember, your priority is completing the task, not the reward. Since you chose to use that corruption to establish a foothold in the Shadow, you must bear the consequences when the nobles refuse to provide souls to offset the taint. You wouldn't want to end up like the madmen you create, would you?"

The liaison’s tone was flat. These cultists didn't seem to understand their place. Ultimately, if the nobles lost these members, they would simply find others in the Shadow to do their bidding.

And without the souls provided by the nobles to absorb the mental corruption, the cultists' so-called "Abyssal blessing" would become the very joke that killed them.

"I regret working for you stingy bastards..." Morak’s voice was dark with resentment, but he had no choice; he was under their thumb and had to swallow the insult.

"Regret all you want. Do you think you're indispensable?" The liaison didn't bother to save face for Morak, mocking him as he pulled the payment and a few small vials—containing souls collected by the nobles—from under the counter.

"Is this all...?" Morak’s fists clenched. Looking at the noticeably light money bag and the fewer-than-promised soul vials, he could barely contain his rage.

"The Night’s Edge has been cracking down hard since that incident at the Academy, and the city guards who survived the war aren't so easily fooled. We paid a high price to get even this much. Take it or leave it."

The liaison remained unfazed. His words held a grain of truth, but ultimately, he just didn't want to pay more.

Morak’s fists finally relaxed. If he were alone, he might have risked everything to strike out, loot the place, and flee.

But having tasted the benefits of his status as a cult leader—a status feared and avoided by all in the Shadow—and now commanding a group of subordinates, Morak had lost the courage to gamble.

He couldn't abandon the perks of his position, and his subordinates, who were far from loyal, wouldn't hesitate to tear him apart if he jeopardized their income, replacing him with someone else.

"Fine. I accept it for now. But you must make up the difference later. Without these supplies, we can't fulfill the nobles' tasks," Morak said, his voice sharp but his resolve broken as he pocketed the vials.

"Uh-huh..." The liaison responded dismissively, not giving Morak’s threat a second thought. The nameless rage in Morak’s chest burned hotter, but he had no choice but to suppress it.

"Let's go!" Morak called to his men and turned toward the iron door, his hand reaching for the handle.

The moment his fingers touched the cold metal, a searing heat surged from his fingertips to his brain. The sudden sensation shocked him out of his rage, replaced by a chilling premonition that spread through his entire body.

His physical senses told him the handle was fine, so the heat could only be a warning from his inner potential!

His eyes widened. Years of life-or-death combat honed his instincts; he reacted instantly to the "danger sense," coating his body in battle aura and throwing himself into a backward roll.

Boom! The iron door, reinforced with magic runes, was ripped from its moorings by a violent blast from the outside.

The explosion hit the center of the door, buckling it inward, and the molten metal shrieked as it flew into the room at a terrifying speed.

The door grazed Morak’s back as it flew past. With a sickening "splat," the arrogant liaison was crushed into a smear of gore against the wall.

Had it not been for his inner sense, Morak would have been caught in the blast and flattened by the door. The charred, molten scars on the iron were proof enough of the explosion's horrific power.

A high-ranking formal knight, Morak quickly regained his balance. He roared to alert the other cultists in the base to prepare for battle, then dove behind the counter—which, despite its sturdy construction, had yet to be used—and took cover.

"Fast reflexes. Must be inner potential... Gilbert, you and I will handle this high-ranking knight. The rest of the Night’s Edge, clear out the other heretics!"

As the dust at the entrance settled, Wang Yu appeared, his "Furnace Fury" revolver still glowing red from the heat of the shot. His command rang out clearly.

"Night’s Edge!? When did they find this place? Damn it, aren't they afraid of the mental corruption?!"

Morak’s mind raced. Most people avoided the cultists because of their unique, maddening abilities. How had the Night’s Edge suddenly breached their defenses? Were they not afraid of the Abyss?

"You heretics will be cursed! The Abyss will devour your souls!"

Morak knew fighting the Night’s Edge was a losing battle, so he tried to threaten them into retreating.

"Don't listen to his nonsense. Kill them all. And kill the lights!"

Wang Yu’s order shattered Morak’s hopes. He had no intention of debating with these fanatics who used the guise of a cult to serve as noble lapdogs while pursuing their own filthy ends.

As the lights went out, plunging the cliffside base into darkness, Morak’s ears were filled with the terrified screams and dying wails of his followers.

The sound of blades cutting through flesh echoed through the room. The Night’s Edge was playing for keeps. Stripped of their facade of madness, these cultists were nothing more than cowards, weeping in the face of death.

Perhaps for the sake of profit, they could be as reckless and desperate as they were when blocking the Night’s Edge from reaching the Destroyer Golem, but when ambushed and slaughtered with no time to prepare, they could not summon that familiar, frenzied madness.

"What is this darkness? Since when did the Night’s Edge possess such power? Argh!"

Morak was frantic, his thoughts racing in a chaotic blur; the endless gloom before him pressed down with crushing weight. He could not fathom how the Night’s Edge had acquired the ability to blanket everything in such vast darkness, nor why they remained unaffected by it.

In the pitch-black void, he could only rely on the heightened senses of a high-ranking knight to perceive his surroundings, but the prickling sensation in his left shoulder and a sudden, sharp agony in his forehead forced an involuntary scream—the warning of his innate "Danger Sense" triggered!

He ducked and rolled, a projectile whistling past his scalp to shatter the wall behind him, while a razor-sharp blade grazed the skin of his shoulder, drawing a fresh bloom of blood.

"No time to hold back, I must survive!" The premonition of death never ceased; the pain in his neck and the trajectory of the blade that had narrowly missed his shoulder told him that two foes of equal strength were hunting him.

In this suffocating dark, even with the ability to foresee attack paths, death was merely a matter of time! The rising chorus of screams and the thud of falling bodies all signaled the grim fate awaiting Morak.

"Snap!" Just before the bullet from the Furnace Fury could pierce his skull and Gilbert’s blade could cleave his shoulder, Morak crushed a gem he had kept hidden against his chest; space rippled for an instant, and he vanished.

"A short-range blink gem, he won't get far..." Wang Yu holstered his revolver and, alongside Gilbert, began tracking the point of Morak’s reappearance.

By using the Lady of Night’s power to shroud the space, Wang Yu and his team could see clearly, making it effortless for the Night’s Edge to slaughter these cultists blinded by the unnatural gloom.

What unfolded within the cult’s lair was a one-sided massacre, a calculated strike against the unprepared; the Abyss Cult had never imagined the Night’s Edge would risk the threat of mental corruption to launch such a brutal assault.

"There..."

Without the need for stealth, the ripples of the Shadow of the Royal City spread further, instantly sweeping across the entire space, and Wang Yu pinpointed exactly where Morak had teleported.

He immediately activated Blood-Burning Drive and surged forward, signaling Gilbert to coordinate, and the two closed the distance toward their prey with terrifying speed.

"If I am to die, you shall all go mad with me!" Driven to the brink, Morak knew that without descending into absolute insanity, he would never survive the onslaught of the Night’s Edge.

Glancing at the soul jars he had acquired to ward off mental corruption, he made his choice: if they dared to attack the cultists without fear of the void’s influence, then let them all be crushed by the weight of that very madness!

He pulled a lever, triggering a mechanism that opened a passage to the abyss beneath the cliff, and instantly, a torrent of mental corruption surged upward from the pit used to dispose of the cult's discarded targets.