While Celia was constructing the nest and planting Gaia’s body to prepare for the future, Kerrigan and the migratory colony had already fanned out, attacking literally everything in sight.
“The monsters are swarming!”
“You idiots, get ready for battle!”
The forces of the Goddess of Light Association dispatched to the Pioneering Zone fought alongside the local Yordles, but they were fundamentally outnumbered.
Although the local Yordles were numerous, by the standards of the Goddess of Light Association, they were far too primitive and weak, lacking the gear and weaponry to arm themselves properly.
“The north! Karlham needs reinforcements! There’s a Commander-grade—no, wait, it’s a Warband Commander-grade enemy!”
In the temporary headquarters where Governor Delta was stationed, desperate pleas for help poured in from all directions. Delta was pale and overwhelmed, unsure of how to proceed.
The Great Devourer’s methods were far too aggressive. As invaders themselves, the Goddess of Light Association was experienced in occupying and governing unfamiliar lands, but the Great Devourer’s approach was entirely different.
First, they killed. Then, they devoured.
There was no cooperation and no negotiation. It was as if they possessed an absolute confidence that they could claim the land entirely on their own, without any help from the locals.
“Hahaha.”
Kerrigan laughed, holding a blood-dripping sword as she looked down at the mountain of Paladin corpses piled at her feet. The Paladins stationed in the Pioneering Zone of Cadia were incomparable to those on Terra in terms of both skill and equipment.
Precisely because of that, it was all the more amusing and exhilarating. Kerrigan rampaged to her heart’s content, quickly becoming a figure of pure terror as rumors of her presence spread like wildfire.
The mad monster appearing in the city of Karlham was indeed Kerrigan. She ruthlessly cut down the Paladins who charged with suicidal resolve and tore through the priests who resisted desperately without a moment’s hesitation.
Even when facing elite knights or High Priests of higher Divine Status, the result remained the same.
“Ugh...”
Before such a monster, a Yordle warrior dropped his weapon and slumped to the ground, trembling and cowering in fear. To the Yordles, who only possessed initial magic power cultivation methods, the Paladins of the Goddess of Light Association—armed with high-civilization equipment—had seemed like an impenetrable wall.
Watching Kerrigan handle those same Paladins, slaughtering them like she was chopping wood, the Yordles saw her as nothing less than a walking disaster.
“...Coward.”
However, when the warrior finally lost his will to fight and his spear clattered to the ground, Kerrigan merely let out a sneer from behind her mask and walked right past him.
Even while waging a war of aggression in a completely different world, the Great Devourer’s behavioral patterns remained unchanged. Those who were weak, lacked divine protection, and possessed no will to fight were spared.
This pattern, which began with Lin Miao’s instructions, had now become an inherent part of the Great Devourer’s identity. Thus, after the Great Devourer invaded and razed the city, the surviving Yordles could only stare blankly at the monsters disappearing into the distance.
“When are the reinforcements coming?!”
“Do they still not understand the gravity of the situation?”
Delta clutched his head as he listened to the desperate reports coming from all sides. In this unremarkable, remote Pioneering Zone, effective counterattacks had become impossible.
Their already sparse forces were scattered, and the Great Devourer had seized the opportunity to strike through the Stargate, piercing their weaknesses with precision. All they could do now was open a spatial rift as quickly as possible to let reinforcements through.
In his eyes, the Great Devourer’s forces were like demons crawling out of hell, impossible to defeat with the civilization level and capabilities of the Pioneering Zone.
“Governor! The rift is open!”
“Oh! Finally!”
Sure enough, it didn’t take long for a spatial rift to tear open before him, and people began to step through. Delta was overjoyed to see a strapping human knight clad in heavy armor leading the way.
“Where is the enemy? The Holy Goddess has declared an emergency and ordered the deployment of all available forces. I am Vice Commander Yuno, tasked with overseeing the construction, management, and supervision of the new Stargate.”
A gruff voice echoed from beneath the knight’s helmet. After announcing her name, she and her subordinates immediately inquired about the enemy’s location.
Though they were only a small vanguard that had made it through the rift as it was being forced open, aid was aid. Delta cleared his throat and handed them a briefing manual.
It contained organized reports on where the enemies were and what they were facing.
“This is...”
Yuno stared at the data through her heavy helmet, which was engraved with complex holy spell formulas, and found herself momentarily speechless.
The data Yuno saw included visual recordings. In the footage, a monster attacked fully armed Paladins, using a power that was stronger, more viscous, and colder than their own to suppress their brilliant holy power before slaughtering them.
It had four arms and a body that looked like it was encased in heavy armor. Despite its face being hidden by a mask, it exuded a strange sense of beauty. The monster crossed two of its arms over its chest while using the other two to deflect attacks.
Then, the moment it uncrossed its arms, a Cross-Slash erupted, instantly slicing through the armor and weapons of elite Paladins, cleaving them in two along with their gear. Yuno listened to the accounts of Kerrigan’s rampage, unknowingly becoming absorbed in the details.
...
While Kerrigan was in her element, wreaking havoc on the front lines alongside Begrun, Celia was elsewhere.
“Is this how the Goddess of Light Association observes the world?”
Celia marveled as she looked at a massive, abandoned temple and the colossal pillar it surrounded, left behind after the migratory colony had swept through the area.
Calling it a pillar was an understatement; its scale rivaled that of a massive skyscraper. It was a Celestial Pillar.
These were like massive stakes driven into the twenty-four leylines where energy currents converged on the planets the Goddess of Light Association conquered. By injecting and connecting massive amounts of holy power into each pillar, they could bring an entire planet under the Goddess’s feet through Tuning.
“Currently, nineteen of the twenty-four have been installed. The southern continent is made up of massive islands, so development there isn’t complete yet...”
Chief Tech Kane’s body had fused with the parasite. His physical form writhed in agony as it rejected his brain’s commands, eventually forcing him into total submission.
He followed beside Celia, confessing everything about the Goddess of Light Association’s technology and habits to her—and by extension, to the entire Great Devourer colony.
“That was a close call.”
Celia felt relieved to hear the number nineteen. Even with limited manpower and resources, if only five pillars remained, it meant they had essentially secured a certain level of defense for the Pioneering Zone in the near future.
“It’s an eyesore. Destroy it.”
Elise stared at the pure white pillar, declaring her displeasure, and ordered Celia to tear it down. Celia said nothing, simply casting a spell toward the base of the structure.
There was no reason to leave such an eyesore standing, especially when it was a vital strategic asset for the enemy. A grand magic that had reached the pinnacle of its realm was unleashed, solely to destroy a single pillar.
However, precisely because it was a grand magic, the massive pillar struck by the spell began to fracture. Cracks spread until it could no longer support its own weight, and it collapsed into a heap of dust and debris, taking the temple below with it amidst violent tremors.
Rate on N.U.
