Chapter 278. Invasion

Chapter 278. Invasion

Emerging from n0v@lbin☆, this material harbors clandestine details.

A few withered black tentacles shot out from behind Charles and pierced the chest of a machine gunner. The tentacles wrapped around the corpse and dragged it behind Charles. A grotesque chewing noise echoed afterward as Anna consumed the corpse to recover.

Anna was in her true form as a member of the Diois Tribe. Her tentacles wrapped around Charles' waist as she stuck to his back like a barnacle.

Charles swooped down to snatch a rifleman. The soldier died instantly as Charles allowed his vampiric thirst to take over him. Just as the soldier ran out of blood, another soldier on the brink of death was handed over to Charles by Anna's tentacles.

Charles opened his monstrous maw. He bit the soldier and carried him in his mouth as he rushed toward the nearby troops.

The soldiers stationed on top of Ronker fought back. Anna's tentacles writhed, and a soldier holding a grenade stuffed the same grenade into his mouth before running toward his horrified comrades.

It seemed that almost all forces were told to attack the Pope, which meant the Ronker itself was relatively defenseless. Charles and Anna easily slaughtered the troops on top of Ronker, but Ronker's weak defense didn't mean it was easy to conquer.

Ronker's massive and expansive frame posed a significant obstacle to both Charles and Anna; they couldn't locate Swann at all.

Charles pondered briefly before tapping on one of Anna's tentacles. The tentacle monster loosened her grip on Charles. Having been released, Charles flew quite a bit of distance away from Anna before opening his maw to let out a piercing shriek at the metal floor.

The metal floor in a thirty-meter radius around Charles started to crumble, exposing the partitions down below. Charles folded his wings and took a stance to jump into the depths of Ronker.

"Watch out, Charles!" Anna's piercing cry stopped him in his tracks.

Shwik!

A flash of cold light reflected in Charles' pupils. A soldier had thrust his sword toward Charles at an unbelievable speed. It was so fast that Charles couldn't dodge it in time, but the swordsman's arm suddenly twisted at a weird angle.

It seemed that 372 had decided to lend him a hand. 372 had to have climbed onto the swordsman's arm at some point, and it gave Charles the chance to avoid the sword thrust.

Charles seized the opportunity and spread his wings to widen the distance between him and the swordsman. Charles took a moment to observe the swordsman—from the man's mask designed with intricate gears to the tubes sticking out of his back—Charles had no doubt that he was one of Swann's men.

Anna nodded. She slid off Charles and clung to the bronze-colored pillar covered in bolts and screws. Soon, a grating noise echoed as the enormous supporting pillars began to crumble beneath Charles' assault.

Charles was surprised to find that the supporting pillar wasn't filled with something solid. Rather, it was filled with a hot mixture of steam and gray fluid that seemed to be serving as hydraulic fuel.

The mixture spurted haphazardly into the air, and the fast-moving Ronker slowly began to buckle. The airspace above Ronker was suddenly filled with the distinct sound of aircraft propellers, but the noise was quickly replaced by shrieks and explosions. Anna had annihilated the helicopters in mid-air.

It seemed that it was more effective to attack the pillars rather than to pursue the elusive Swann. Ronker's supporting pillars crumbled one by one, drastically slowing it down.

Soon enough, the Pope finally found the golden opportunity to strike. He dove straight into the metal construct; the sturdy steel in his way seemed like pieces of paper to him rather than steel.

Pipes, gears, pistons—every obstacle in his way conceded before him.

Charles spread his wings and brought Anna to the hole that the Pope had torn open.

"You did great, my child. If it weren't for you, this fellow would have escaped," the Pope said as he sliced a masked man in half using an unknown power.

Bullets, cannonballs, and even the unidentified relics inside Ronker couldn't hinder the Pope.

Recalling Tobba's warning, Charles asked, "You're hiding a lot from me, right?"

"My child, are you suspicious of me? I'm afraid it's a bit too late for that."

"Better late than never," Charles replied.

"Your intuition is wrong. We're not the same as these riffraffs. We're the chosen ones, while they're nothing but vulgar commoners," the Pope said. He raised his hand gently, and the half-meter-thick steel doors split open to reveal Swann seated in front of multiple monochrome monitors.

The Pope lifted his hand once more, and Swann's chair spun, revealing his half-metal and half-flesh figure to both Charles and the Pope. Madness suffused Swann's eyes as he glared at the Pope and Charles.

"You think you've won, don't you? Do you really think that you're so clever by plotting this kind of scheme?" Swann smiled coldly, and the madness in his eyes intensified.

"If you've got any tricks left, show them to me now. All mortal tricks and schemes are meaningless before the Light God. You will simply be wasting your time; your efforts are in vain," the Pope said with an amiable expression.

"Is that so? Then, what if it's the efforts of another fellow Divinity?"