novelraw Chapter 213: The Gateway Of Life and Death
Chapter 213: The Gateway Of Life and Death
The night of carnal depravity was over, but not the war.
"The border of the 7th Firmament lies just beyond this ridge, my Emperor. But the scouts have stopped. The path ahead is not a simple geographic boundary. We have reached the administrative anchor of this entire layer."
Adonis did not slow his pace.
"The Gateway of Life and Death," Adonis noted, "The threshold where the departed souls of this firmament are meant to ascend to the higher layers for systemic judgment."
"Yes," Sirius replied, her expression hardening into a frown. "But something is profoundly wrong. The standard spiritual currents have completely reversed. The ambient energy smells of rot, stagnation, and restricted essence."
As the vanguard of the army crested the final ridge of obsidian stone, the true magnitude of the disaster lay laid bare before them. The landscape dropped into a geometric chasm that seemed to stretch into eternity, separating the 7th Firmament from the lower structures of the cosmic ladder. Suspended directly over this infinite void was the Gateway.
In ancient eras, the Gateway of Life and Death was a magnificent, self-sustaining conduit of cosmic balance. It was designed to pull the wandering, fractured souls of fallen mortals and demons alike, drawing them upward into the 6th Firmament where their sins, virtues, and spiritual weight would be weighed by the high judges of the system.
Now, the gate was a grotesque monument to systemic dysfunction. The circular ring of the portal was heavily warped, its outer edges weeping a thick, black miasma that pooled in the air like oil on water.
Millions of translucent, weeping figures drifted around the perimeter of the gate. These were the suffering souls of the dead, trapped in an endless, agonizing loop.
They were pulled toward the light by natural spiritual gravity, only to be violently rejected by the distorted barriers, screaming in silent horror as their ethereal forms were repeatedly torn and reconstituted.
[System Notification: Warning. Regional Infrastructure Corruption Detected.]
[Location: Gateway of Life and Death - 7th Firmament .]
[Status: Critical Dysfunctionality. Soul Throughput Efficiency: 0.02%.]
[Current Backlog: 4,111,000,129,842 Unprocessed Spiritual Units.]
Adonis walked down the sloping path toward the edge of the chasm, his gaze fixed on the flashing red warning screens that began to manifest across his system interface.
"Look at them," Sirius whispered, "They cannot move forward, and they cannot return to the cycle. This is not a natural mechanical failure, Adonis. The system interface is being intentionally choked."
"It is a harvesting array," Adonis stated coldly as he looked at the invisible lines of golden energy that were wrapped around the gate’s pylons like parasitic vines.
"The gate has not broken on its own. It has been rewired."
Adonis stepped onto the ancient, floating platform that extended toward the center of the flickering portal. The moment his boots made contact with the weathered stone, the pale turquoise light violently shifted. The golden lines binding the structure flared with blinding intensity, and a resonant, metallic hum echoed through the chasm, drowning out the silent wails of the damned.
From the glowing center of the dysfunctional matrix, a massive entity materialized to block his path.
It was a towering, mechanical construct made of polished white marble and gold leaf, designed in the likeness of a multi-winged seraph.
However, its face was a blank, featureless mirror, and its chest cavity had been hollowed out to contain a swirling vortex of stolen soul essence.
"Halt, mortal anomaly," the construct bellowed, "This gate has been requisitioned under the authority of the Golden Heavens. The extraction of spiritual materials is restricted to authorized personnel of the Sword God’s domain."
[System Scan Complete:]
[Target: Inquisitor-Class Soul Warden (Construct)]
[Level: 95 (Elite Guard)]
[Affiliation: Ascalon’s Divine Vanguard]
[Core Function: Soul Siphoning and Conversion Management]
Adonis let out a short, mocking laugh.
"So this is where the souls are going. Ascalon is not just brainwashing the living demon kings with his false light; he is intercepting the dead at the border. He is turning the Gateway of Life and Death into a processing plant to fuel his soul furnaces."
"The purification of corrupt spiritual mass is a necessary prerequisite for the construction of the Golden Heavens," the Warden declared, "The souls of the lower firmaments are inherently flawed. By separating their raw ego from their energetic essence, we provide them the ultimate mercy of becoming the foundation bricks for Ascalon’s eternal kingdom. Step back, glitch, or your essence will be wiped and added to the furnace."
Sirius stepped up beside Adonis innopem defiance. "You dare speak of mercy while torturing millions of souls in a broken machine? You are nothing but a glorified bucket collecting scraps for a thief!"
"The system belongs to those who possess the strength to rewrite it," Adonis corrected her calmly, "The problem is that Ascalon lacks the imagination to build anything original. He can only steal, corrupt, and break what already exists."
The Warden’s eyes showed a cold glint.
"Blasphemy detected. Initiating permanent deletion sequence."
Whoosh!
The Warden moved with the terrifying speed of a high-level divine entity. The air hissed as the golden light-blades launched forward, targeting Adonis’s vital points with pinpoint, algorithmic precision. Each blade carried the conceptual property of ’Purification,’ designed to dissolve chaotic entities on contact.
"Chaos Barrier," Adonis commanded softly.
The golden blades struck the barrier and instantly dissolved, their divine attributes completely neutralized by the higher-tier chaotic variables.
Before the Warden could adjust its calculations, Adonis vanished from his position.
[Skill Activated: Blink Step]
He reappeared directly above the Warden’s massive, marble shoulder. His great sword was already descending, cloaked in a dense, crackling shroud of violet ether that distorted the very air around the blade.
"Let us see how much your god cares about his bricks," Adonis growled.
The Warden raised a massive arm made of reinforced divine marble to block the strike, relying on its Level 95 defensive parameters. But against a Level 99 anomaly utilizing raw Chaos energy, standard level calculations were completely meaningless.
CRAAAAACK!
The imperial sword cut through the divine marble like a steel blade through wet clay.
Slash!
The Warden’s entire right arm was cleanly severed, falling into the infinite chasm below before dissolving into a shower of sparks.
"Sheeeeh!" The entity let out a synthetic shriek of agony, its mirror-face fracturing into a dozen jagged lines.
"Error! Structural integrity compromised! Recalibrating defensive values! Deploying Holy Sanction!"
Form the warden’s hollowed chest, a massive wave of golden fire erupted intending to consume Adonis at point-blank range.
"Too slow," Adonis whispered.
He did not dodge. He thrust his left hand directly through the golden flames, completely ignoring the heat as his chaotic aura protected his flesh. His fingers sank deep into the Warden’s open chest cavity, wrapping around the central processing core that managed the soul-siphoning array.
"Chaos Ultimate!"
Instantly, a violent surge of violet lightning traveled from Adonis’s arm directly into the core of the machine. The golden lines binding the Gateway of Life and Death began to turn black, then violet, as the chaotic energy completely overrode the divine programming left behind by Ascalon.
The stolen soul essence inside the Warden’s chest began to reject its containment, spinning wildly out of control.
"Warning! Critical system intrusion!" the Warden screamed, its light fading rapidly. "The Sword God... will... erase... you..."
"He is welcome to try," Adonis smirked ruthlessly.
With a final, brutal twist of his wrist, Adonis ripped the central core out of the construct’s chest. The massive marble seraph froze instantly, its remaining wings snapping off and crumbling into ash. The mirror-face shattered completely, and the giant body of the Warden collapsed inward, dissolving into a harmless cloud of grey dust that scattered across the platform.
Adonis landed back on the stone platform, holding the pulsing, gold-and-violet core in his hand. He walked directly toward the main control pedestal of the warped Gateway.
[System Notification: Warden Eliminated. Local Control Terminal Unlocked.]
[Would you like to dismantle the infrastructure or claim it?]
"Claim and reset," Adonis ordered aloud.
He slammed the corrupted core into the center of the ancient pedestal. The violent violet energy of his Chaos System flooded the terminal, tracking down every single golden parasite vine that Ascalon had wrapped around the gate. One by one, the divine seals snapped, exploding in small puffs of white light.
The transformation was instantaneous. The pale, sickly turquoise light of the portal stabilized, expanding into a magnificent, smooth vortex of deep cosmic indigo.
The black miasma that had been weeping from the edges dried up, replaced by the clean, rhythmic hum of a fully functional spiritual conduit.
The billions of trapped souls around the chasm suddenly stopped screaming. The agonizing static that had tortured them for months vanished, replaced by a gentle, soothing pulling force that emanated from the newly calibrated gate.
"My Emperor, the gate is becoming normal!" Sirius said.
"I can see that. They have suffered enough under a false god’s management," Adonis
"Listen to me, souls of the 7th Firmament!" Adonis then declared, "The Golden Light has lied to you. It sought to consume your identities and turn you into fuel for a tyrant’s castle. But the Chaos Order does not hide behind illusions of false salvation."
The sea of souls turned toward him, their translucent faces filled with a mixture of awe and profound relief.
"I have broken your chains.The path is open. Ascend now to the 6th Firmament. Go before the true scales of the system. Let your sins be judged fairly, let your virtues be weighed without bias, and let your souls find the destiny they have actually earned. Go!"