Chapter 570: One Last Option

"...You have the Heart!"

The Demon of End’s roar continued to echo through the enormous prison.

Lian stood on the black platform, keeping his eyes on the red eyes of the enormous creature in front of him.

A few moments ago, the dragon had still been trying to break its chains and escape from the prison where it had been trapped for centuries.

But now? It was no longer even looking at the chains.

All its attention was focused on him, as if its own freedom meant nothing compared to what it had just discovered.

"That Heart..." The dragon’s voice was lower this time, but there was a strange tremble in it. "That Heart should have been destroyed. There shouldn’t be any trace of it left!"

Lian slightly furrowed his brows.

The Ruined Heart.

Ever since that broken black heart had appeared inside his body, he had had many questions about it.

Even the System couldn’t identify it, and every time he had tried to understand its true nature, he had only received incomplete information.

Now, a creature at the Demon rank had not only recognized it, but its reaction looked more like fear than curiosity.

"What do you know about the Heart?"

The enormous eyes of the Demon of End narrowed, and for a moment, anger replaced its disbelief.

"You don’t even know what you’re carrying?"

A harsh laugh came from between its enormous teeth, but it sounded more nervous and disturbed than amused.

"Idiot! That thing must not exist! No one should ever allow it to exist again!"

The young Vorhelm kept his eyes on the dragon’s face, and one thing caught his attention more than anything else.

The Demon showed no interest in taking the Heart for itself.

It didn’t want to pull it out of his body, nor did it try to negotiate with him about how he had obtained it.

It only wanted to destroy it, and a creature that was willing to risk its chance at freedom just to destroy something probably had a very good reason.

Seris took a step and stood beside Lian.

Her sword was still in her right hand, and a faint silver light moved around its blade. The Ancestral Mark on the back of her hand was also still shining, despite the pressure of the previous battle.

The Demon of End noticed the girl’s movement.

"Move aside, Pendragon!"

Seris showed no change in her expression.

"No."

Those two words were enough to make the Demon let out a terrifying roar of anger as it raised its half-freed arm.

But this time, Lian immediately noticed something different about the attack. The space around its claw had started to change.

The distance between the claw and the platform itself became unstable for a moment.

Predator’s Instincts sent him a warning.

"Seris, move back!"

They both moved at almost the same time.

The enormous claw passed far away from where they had been standing, but what it left behind was much worse than an ordinary shockwave.

A black line appeared in space.

For a moment, it was as if the two sides of that line were no longer connected. Part of the stone platform split in half without the claw even touching it, and after a short delay, its upper half fell into the sea of red mist.

He landed on one of the intact parts of the platform, his eyes narrowing slightly.

This was no longer ordinary destructive power, the Demon of End was using something that was probably the main reason for its title.

The Essence of the End.

A power that could bring an end to any structure, existence, or concept, even if that structure was part of the surrounding space.

Of course, the dragon was still inside the prison, the enormous golden spike was still piercing its chest, and most of the ancient chains were preventing it from releasing its full power.

But even this limited amount of power was dangerous.

If that tear had passed directly through Lian’s body, even the World-Devourer Bastion would probably not have been able to stop it like an ordinary physical attack.

"Kill him!"

The Demon of End’s roar shook the prison once again.

He turned his eyes toward it.

"I think you should decide whether you want to get free or kill me first."

But contrary to his expectations, this taunt only made the creature even angrier.

"Freedom?!"

The dragon pulled at the chains around its neck with all its strength.

Grrrrrrrr!

The golden light on several rings shook violently.

"If that Heart has truly returned, what does my freedom even matter?!"

The young Vorhelm remained silent for a moment, this sentence was stranger than all its previous threats, but before he could ask another question, the Silver Elf’s voice came from near the heart of the seal.

"Enough!"

The silver creature stood between the golden rings. Her clone had become somewhat unstable, but she was still connected to the prison’s network.

"If you keep going like this, you’ll destroy the chains along with our own paths! We didn’t work this hard to free you just so you could ruin everything yourself!"

The Demon didn’t even look at her.

"That human must die."

The Elf remained silent for a moment, then her gaze moved between Lian, Seris, and the newly repaired chains.

She seemed to have reached a decision. If she couldn’t calm the Demon of End, she would have to bring the plan to an end faster.

Even if doing so increased the risk of destroying the entire prison structure.

She hadn’t wanted to go this far. Her original goal was to secretly free the Demon and then erase all evidence of her presence here before disappearing.

That way, the human world, which had been divided into several parts because of the accusations the powerful forces had made against one another, would also have a monster at the Demon rank causing destruction everywhere.

But with things like this, it seemed she had no choice but to use her last option.

"Fine."

The Elf raised her hand.

"Then there’s no reason to preserve the remaining seals anymore."

Lian felt the flow of mana change at that very moment. At the center of the prison’s core, the small silver seed from which all the corruption had started began to spin.

[Silver Corruption Seed]

[Rank: S]

[A special artifact created by the Silver Elves. It can corrupt and disable various formations and reverse the original commands of mechanisms.]

The silver threads spread throughout the chains and pillars began to return all at once, instead of redirecting energy through different paths as they had before.

At first, he thought the Elf was trying to retreat.

But [True Sequence] quickly revealed something else.

The threads were gathering the corrupted energy, all the energy that had been stolen from the defensive network and the Dragon Marks over the past several hours was now returning to a single point.

Her goal was to release all of it at once.

Lian lowered his gaze toward the golden paths beneath his feet.

If all that energy was released at the center of the network, the original commands of the seal would be reversed for a moment.

That meant the chains that were supposed to be strengthened by the energy would begin to lose their power instead, and the entire prison could collapse from the inside.

"Seris!"

The girl looked at him immediately.

"The root! She’s attacking the root directly!"

Seris raised her right hand, and her Ancestral Mark shone, but before she could access the main flow of energy, the Silver Corruption Seed released its final command.

BOOM!

A heavy sound rose from the depths of the prison, and the golden light of several pillars went out at the same time.

The enormous chain restraining the Demon of End’s neck loosened for a moment, and part of the dragon’s body moved upward under the pressure.

The red mist at the bottom of the prison moved aside in a massive wave.

The Demon of End roared.

This time, its roar was not caused by anger alone, it had sensed that the prison was weakening and that it had gained a new chance to move.

At that moment, a blue window appeared in front of Lian.

[Emergency Quest]

[Prevent the release of the Demon of End.]

[Failure Consequence: Possible destruction of a large part of the European continent.]

[Objective: Prevent the seal from collapsing and return the Demon of End to its restrained state.]

[Success Rewards: Level up by 2, 200 Fragments, 200 Stat Points.]

He looked at the message for a few seconds. The destruction of a large part of Europe, so even the System considered the possibility of the Demon being released serious enough to issue an Emergency Quest.

Seris was also looking at a window in front of her, apparently, she had received the same quest.

He slowly let out a breath.

"Well, it seems all our efforts were useless."

The young Pendragon gave him a brief glance but said nothing, instead, she immediately turned her attention back to her Ancestral Mark.

Because something inside it had changed. Golden lines from the Mark shone across the back of her hand and reached almost to her wrist.

This time, instead of the usual pain, a network of paths appeared in her perception.

Thousands of paths, each connected to one of the active Dragon Marks of the Pendragon Family.

Some were inside Verendal, while others were much farther away, but they all led back to the same root, and that root was now collapsing.

To put it simply, everything the Silver Elf was doing directly targeted the core of the sealing formation, and she wanted to destroy it directly.

Her original plan had been to slowly disable the chains first and then go after the core of the sealing formation, but it seemed she had decided to take the noisier approach now.

Seris remained motionless for a few moments.

Lian noticed the change in her expression.

"What did you see?"

The girl didn’t answer. Her gaze remained fixed on the Mark, and then she spoke in a quiet voice.

"There is a way."

"To stop her?"

She nodded, but something in her eyes made him guess the next part before he even asked.

There was a cost, and it probably wasn’t small.

The young Pendragon lowered her hand slightly.

"The Marks."

Lian furrowed his brows.

"What?"

"They all have to be returned."

It took him a few seconds to understand what she meant.

All the Dragon Marks received by the younger generation of the Pendragon Family were stored and connected to the main root, and they served as a source of energy for the seal.

But they shouldn’t forget that the formation had also spent a great deal of energy to create them. To some extent, it was an investment, a large amount of energy was spent to create those Marks, and the Pendragons who possessed them returned that energy over the years, along with its benefits.

So if all the Marks were destroyed, a large amount of energy would return to the formation.

If their energy returned to the center of the prison, it might be enough to fight against the Silver Corruption Seed.

But what would happen afterward?

"Does that mean all of them will be destroyed?" He doubted the Pendragons would be happy about that.