novelraw Chapter 496 : My Lord, Please Save Me
Chapter 496 : My Lord, Please Save Me
Chapter 496: My Lord, Please Save Me
Before stepping through the city gate, Hunter cast a fearful glance at the iron-clad giants standing on both sides.
He had seen these towering guardians back in Blood Harbor, yet even now he still could not tell whether they were empty suits of armor or whether something truly lived inside them.
So tall… they could not possibly be human, right? Maybe they were some kind of twisted monster.
Hunter turned his head to look at the Holy Guard. Perhaps people of the Church knew more about these creatures—and were also afraid of them.
And then he happened to see the Holy Guard wave at one of the steel giants.
“Hi, Nini, punished to stand guard again?”
“.”
“This time we brought a scholar from the Northlands. He studies mechanical engineering. Maybe he’ll be assigned to work under you in the future.”
The giant clad in heavy armor slowly turned her head and looked at him.
Hunter was horrified. Th-this giant was actually alive?
Wait—what did they mean by ‘assigned under this giant’? What terrifying job required someone this huge? Was this some kind of coded message? Were they going to sacrifice him?
The steel giant’s gaze lingered on the Holy Guard for a moment, and then stared directly at Hunter.
Hunter backed up a few steps, his legs beginning to tremble again.
Why did he feel a hint of anger in that gaze?
“It was your army that collapsed in three minutes?” the giant’s voice sounded unexpectedly pleasant, yet Hunter felt as if he had fallen into a freezing winter. That voice carried undisguised malice and fury.
“N-no, the commander of the Allied Forces is Viscount Frey. I’m just a scholar…”
“I only went to fetch a little more ammunition. I came a few minutes late—and when I reached your position, there wasn’t a single one of you still standing!”
“Uh…”
“Do you know that I waited for half a year—half a year—just to finally get a battle? And then all I could do was stand over there holding a gun writing a report!”
“Do you know how much that hurt me!!!”
The steel giant’s voice trembled with rage. Six arms slowly extended from behind her. It wasn’t just Hunter who backed away—the two Holy Guards’ eyes were shifting everywhere, looking like something terrible was about to happen.
Nini had clearly lost her reason. The banshee beside her pulled at her anxiously: “Hurry inside, stay away from Nini!”
The three of them no longer cared about who was escorting whom. They clutched their heads and sprinted desperately into the city gate.
After running through several gates, the towering cathedral finally appeared before them, and Nini’s furious roar still echoed faintly from afar.
Hunter was still shaken: “What was that?”
“A Banshee—Nini. She’s impulsive at times, but she’s actually very nice. You all… well, maybe you’ll be colleagues in the future.”
Hunter’s face twitched. “Does Lord Hughes not care? This is Castel after all.”
“Of course he does. All the Banshees swear allegiance to Lord Hughes. He always keeps them in check. Lady Nini has helped us many times.”
“I see. Allegiant to Lord Hughes… that isn’t strange.”
Hunter nodded, instinctively accepting the existence of a Banshee.
A being this powerful should have terrified him, but if Lord Hughes was here, then there would be no problem.
Along the way he had seen so many miraculous things—any one of them, if shown outside, could be praised as a divine miracle by any church.
The lord who ruled this place naturally must possess abilities beyond what mortals could imagine. It made perfect sense.
The Holy Guard led Hunter toward the central shaft, then up a long set of stairs.
“This is the Stellar Furnace. Since you already guessed its nature, you shouldn’t have many problems. But still, I suggest you stay away from the stair railings. It’s a bit deep here, easy to feel dizzy if you look down.”
Hunter forced a reserved smile, not paying much attention, and glanced downward.
This must be Castel’s greatest hidden secret—something related to the Church of the Sea God. Maybe a statue—
His foot abruptly froze mid-step.
It felt as if something scorching hot from below seared his eyes, and he snapped his gaze back immediately.
In that instant, his heart tightened as if he were about to die. His rational mind screamed wildly, warning him with everything it had.
What had he seen?
His memory blurred, unwilling to retain the moment he caught a glimpse.
He vaguely remembered a massive furnace, crimson flames, and something leaping within it.
Something?
“What’s wrong?”
“This… Stellar Furnace… isn’t something off about it?”
“Huh? Something wrong?” The Holy Guard leaned over and looked.
“No problem. Looks completely normal.”
Hunter forced a smile, maintaining his polite expression.
He must have been seeing things. The guard looked without issue, so nothing should be wrong. No need to frighten himself.
Hunter inhaled deeply, ignoring his reason which was still screaming, and cautiously looked downward again.
He saw… an eye?
Inside the furnace, an eye was pressed against the viewing glass, quietly meeting his gaze.
An eye?
A Stoker walked past the viewing port and tapped the glass with his wrench. The eye vanished.
Only then did Hunter notice that the viewing port was larger than the Stoker himself.
If he calculated proportionally… since the eye was larger than a person, then inside that boiler—
What was in that boiler?
Hunter suddenly felt the space around him empty out.
The scorching furnace radiated waves of red heat. The ventilation fan rotated slowly, slicing the sunlight into fragments.
There was no one beside him. He stood alone above the furnace.
The shrill whistle of a pressure valve grew louder.
The clatter of gears, the spinning of a flywheel, the pounding of pistons echoed through the empty room, growing heavier and heavier.
The furnace—this furnace in the cathedral’s central shaft—Hunter felt himself spiraling downward along the stairs.
The stairs were spinning, the world was spinning, but the gigantic eye before him stared unwaveringly at him.
Eye.
Eye.
His heartbeat matched the mechanical pounding, beating faster and faster.
Hunter stared at the furnace, at those massive pipes extending in all directions, becoming more and more familiar.
A furnace whose pipes became walls where enormous black-rye grew, extending toward the sea…
In a flash, his soul understood, though his body remained lost.
The sound of waves rose and fell with the opening and closing of steam valves.
His descent stopped.
His consciousness paused for a moment, and then the rotating world seemed to be wound again—turning toward another direction.
He was no longer falling downward, but rising rapidly along the stairs.
The clicking sounds grew faster.
He burst out of the cathedral’s shaft, past the ceiling, past the clouds, past the sky, arriving above the world.
He looked down.
Countless twisted tentacles writhed within the Stellar Furnace, reaching outward in all directions, spreading from the island into the sea.
From Castel, past the Eye of the Storm, past the Corridor of Despair, they blanketed the entire Storm Ocean. At the bottom of the sea lay tentacles packed densely together like fungus mats, coiling and intertwining, filling the entire ocean.
Hunter understood everything instantly.
This was no statue of a Sea God.
No petty trick of the Church of the Sea God.
No existence that any lowly mortal like him could imagine.
Hunter slowly withdrew his gaze and turned his head.
Behind him was an unimaginably enormous eye, silently watching everything.
It was as if thousands of bells rang at once, as if countless beings chanted together. His sanity and soul were torn apart at the same time, pain and ecstasy intertwining.
With the last of his will, Hunter devoutly recited within his heart:
“Please save me.”
“My Lord, Hughes.”