Chapter 777: Magic Circle Activation! Cataclysm Across the City

The moment those words left his mouth, he wasted no time.

Lynn immediately spun around without the slightest hesitation, his hand whipping out a dagger in a blur of motion and gripping it firmly.

"How much do you need? I don't have much of anything else, but blood is something I've got in spades!"

Thanks to the Flesh Calamity, his blood-producing capabilities had always been exceptionally impressive.

The quill paused for a moment, then pointed at the ink bottle in front of it before writing:

【Just a small vial should suffice, though you may want to prepare a bit extra, just in case-】

Squelch-

The sound of a blade cutting into flesh.

Before she could even finish writing, Lynn had already unceremoniously slashed open his own carotid artery.

Spurt spurt spurt spurt spurt-

In an instant.

Blood sprayed everywhere like a fountain.

【Wait, let me finish writing first! Don't be so hasty...】

【That sticky stuff is a nightmare to clean off clothes!】

"..."

...

Outside, the sky was pitch black.

The colossal magic circle loomed like a celestial canopy, hanging over all of Nightfall City as if it could collapse at any moment. The streets were flooded with panicked crowds, and the Night Doctor's Garrison units were frantically evacuating people from every corner of the city, yet their efforts were proving largely futile.

Because getting every living creature in the entire city outside its walls in such a short span of time was practically an impossible feat.

"What the hell is that magic circle?!"

"Matriarch above, could our Nightfall City really be under invasion by some evil entity? But how is that possible!"

"What about Sir Aiwen and the others? The Garrison has already sealed off the central plaza. This calamity seems to be emanating from the Matriarch's temple itself. What on earth is going on?!"

The crowd grew increasingly frantic.

They had no idea what kind of situation they were truly facing.

Because everything had happened far too suddenly.

This might very well be the largest-scale crisis Nightfall City had encountered in the thousands of years since its founding. And yet, even now, they still had no clue where this calamity was coming from.

At that very moment.

Deep beneath the central High Tower, darkness spread wantonly, and viscous frost had already crawled across the entire passageway.

Boom-

A thunderous crash.

In the underground chamber, the silver-haired girl narrowed her eyes, her slender fist erupting with unimaginably vast blood energy as it slammed heavily into the pitch-black, colossal wing before her.

The Fallen Angel's body was instantly sent hurtling backward by the sheer force of the impact, countless dark feathers scattering through the air as she smashed heavily into the wall at the farthest end. In a purely physical contest of strength, she was still no match for the Colossus's Brain.

Her massive wings slowly unfurled, and that ice-cold face of hers still wore that faint, mocking smile.

"Wushen! Her ritual is about to descend. How's your progress? Can you stop it?!"

Sir Aiwen clutched his chest, his spectral body flickering like static on an old television set, gasping for breath between each word.

He was still at the Monarch rank.

Under these circumstances, all he could do was barely support the Colossus's Brain in combat. There was no way he could turn the tide of the battle.

Because he had only recently ascended within the Cursed City.

The suppression of the curse made it impossible for him to reach Root-level again in such a short time. So while they seemed to hold the advantage on the surface, in reality, the only ones truly facing her head-on were the Colossus's Brain and Little One—just one and a half Root-level combatants!

They had already broken through.

They had also cleared away every obstacle the Fallen Angel had set up for them in the great hall.

But the situation was still far from optimistic.

At the very center of the hall, the Godweaver Head had already seized the dominant position over the ritual magic circle. Her gaze flickered with malicious intent as Voodoo engravings were inscribed one after another between her massive tentacles, desperately attempting to unravel this colossal Dark Magic.

"No—absolutely impossible—while my witchcraft shares many similarities with Dark Magic—they are fundamentally two different systems—and although I did secretly study some dark rituals in the Sacred World—the vast majority of my magical expertise was taught to me by my older sister—"

"My older sister has lived for tens of thousands of years—before I was even born—she was already the First Holy Angel of the Sacred World—trying to unravel her magic circle—is harder than climbing to heaven—"

She gritted her teeth, black mist flickering wildly within her pupils.

She could only barely use her abilities to delay the Dark Magic's activation, but that was merely treating the symptoms rather than the root cause.

They had been forced into a hasty defense.

Meanwhile, the Fallen Angel had been plotting this for ages. Even before they arrived, this ritual had already reached a critical point of no return. To shut it down at this stage was practically impossible.

So she could only do her utmost to stall for time.

"Your efforts are utterly futile."

The pitch-black archangel touched the tip of her toe to the ground, her massive dark wings spreading wide as she hovered above the darkened hall. Her eyes were filled with nothing but cold indifference as she slowly looked down upon them.

"Though I suppose this makes no difference to you, does it?"

"You are all fallen Roots. This ritual cannot harm you in the slightest. It will only bring about some small changes in those lesser creatures. You have long since ceased to be the same kind of being as them, so why should you care about their fate?"

Her dark lips parted slightly, her eyes brimming with mockery.

"However, I am rather curious to see what expression that Holy Angel will wear when she awakens. Everything she so painstakingly built will turn to rubble today. I imagine her expression will be quite the spectacle."

Boom-

She collided once again with the immense force of the silver-haired girl.

The entire Nightfall City trembled from the impact. Countless cracks had already split across the ground and walls, and the entire High Tower above them was teetering dangerously from the shockwaves of the battle.

Her massive wings spread wide.

She abruptly extended her pale, bone-white arm, dark magic runes flickering before her as they instantly intercepted another devastating strike from the silver-haired girl.

But her expression remained perfectly composed.

And as hairline fractures spread across the runes, her eyes were like an abyss itself, and the corners of her lips finally curled upward ever so slightly.

"I believe it's about time."

And almost the very moment those words left her mouth, the ritual magic circle at the center of the hall—which the Wushen had been desperately suppressing—suddenly erupted once more with blinding, pitch-black light. Dense runes spread outward in every direction like crawling capillaries, cascading across the entire space.

The Godweaver Head jolted instantly, her face twisting into a savage, deranged expression as she cried out:

"Damn it—she's released the last shred of suppression on the ritual—the curse is starting to spread—!"

Hummm-

Almost in that very instant.

Under Sir Aiwen's paling gaze, a wave of pitch-black energy rippled outward from the great hall beneath their feet like ripples on water, surging outward across the entire city.

And outside, the black magic circle that had blotted out the sky underwent its own transformation at the same moment.

Dense arcs of black lightning crackled as the entire circle began to rumble and rotate.

Like the arrival of doomsday.

Black gale-force winds howled and raged through the streets, and when those winds swept over the panicked crowds fleeing desperately through the city, everyone's eyes went hollow in an instant, as if a drop of ink had fallen into them, rapidly spreading across their entire pupils.

As if their very souls had been disturbed. As if their minds had been polluted.

The crowds in the streets fell silent. One by one, they numbly and dazedly raised their heads to gaze at the colossal magic circle in the sky above, their faces slowly contorting into expressions of struggle, of madness, of vicious malice.

【Ding! You have been affected by Dark Magic. Your SAN -20!】

【Ding! You have been affected by Dark Magic. Your SAN -30!】

Racing through the streets.

Lynn nearly collapsed onto the ground himself. His left eye flooded with blood in an instant, and his mind was suddenly bombarded by countless cacophonous, maddening whispers. His vision began to warp and ripple like someone overdosing on drugs, the entire street shifting toward a bloody crimson hue before his eyes.

Everything seemed on the verge of total chaos.

And if even he was being affected this severely, then the other residents of Nightfall City stood no chance at all.