TheSmartOne

Chapter 268: Ocean of Blood [15]

Chapter 268: Chapter 268: Ocean of Blood [15]


Chapter 268 – Ocean of Blood [15]


It was horrifying. But in another sense, it was truly a sight to behold. The space was wide, with tall black pillars rising on each side of a squared chamber, making the ceiling impossibly high.


The air was somber, filled with little to no light, as if whoever created this place wished to plunge it into perpetual darkness. Circling the room in a ringing pattern were cells strung with countless chains — small ones, delicate even — looking as though they were made to restrain children, not grown men.


And they were.


This was another Nest of the Cerveau. But it was no longer theirs. It remained a nest, yes...but one belonging to a far different creature. Spiderwebs covered every inch of the space, interlocking and overlapping until they formed a breathtaking tapestry of shimmering threads.


High above the ceiling, multiple cocoons, human-sized, hung like stars in a dark sky.


Just beside them, an enormous spider with limbs as hard and sharp as drawn spears levitated slowly, suspended by its own threads. Upon its crimson-painted back sat about a dozen children, staring wide-eyed at the world around them.


You would think they’d be afraid, trembling and shaking at the sight of the monstrous spider, but it was far from that. The children, around eight or nine years old, looked on in awe at the web’s glittering tapestry.


"Big Spider! Big Spider! How do you do that?" one brave girl called out, her grey hair and matching eyes shining under the dim light. She wore a wide, twisted smile. Her lips stretched unnaturally, her eyes dead and dry, like the throat of a dehydrated man lost in the desert.


Spider didn’t respond. Not because it didn’t want to, but because it couldn’t yet speak. Something the girl either didn’t understand or simply didn’t care about, as she refused to close her mouth. In truth, she seemed to hate silence itself, speaking only to keep it away.


Her companions felt the same, babbling endlessly to the Spider, not even caring whether it answered. Their broken voices filled the air until the Spider, visibly irritated, began to raise its threads to seal their mouths. But just then, something flared bright red at its neck — a necklace shaped like a bleeding eye.


It froze.


Then its monstrous face twisted into something resembling a smile as it withdrew towards the teleportation portal and vanished from the Nest, leaving behind only those still trapped in its unbreakable webs with their life, power, and mana being slowly, agonizingly siphoned to feed the Spider.


They were alive. Still aware.


Aware enough to know that the Cerveau had lost.


...


If the other Nest had truly been a nest for a spider, then this one was a Nest for the damned.


At the center of the room, on a throne made of shredded bones, mangled intestines, twitching hearts, and splintered organs, sat a bulky man wrapped in a crimson robe and a bloody mask. One leg bent, the other stretched across his grotesque throne, a massive greatsword resting by his side with its blade dripping crimson.


He sat within a shallow puddle of blood where dozens of young children stood, their little feet slick and muddy with a red.


They looked around, eyes wide, not in horror, but in pure delight. Their lips curled upward as they stared at the broken corpses of those who had once tortured them.


"Big Mister! Big Mister! Teach us!" a small boy said with his skin, hair, eyebrows, and eyes all ghostly white.


His face was small and cute, the kind of beauty that would one day grow into something striking. But his pale eyes were cold and sharp like icicles.


He stood in front of the others, clearly their leader. Ruined gazed down at him with hard blue eyes, studying every inch of the boy.


"You have a family?" he asked, his voice rough and gravelly, like a man long ill. The question wasn’t directed at the boy alone but at all of them.


The children tilted their heads, confusion flickering across their faces. "Family...?" they whispered, their voices trembling with uncertainty. Their brows furrowed as if trying to recall something they knew they once had but could no longer reach, something buried too deep.


The pale boy smiled. If he were in the Church of Sorrow, he might have been chosen as a Saint. For a boy of seven, even Ruined’s blackened heart wavered in pity.


He already knew then the answer. But still, the boy replied...


"We have no family, Mister!" he said brightly. Too brightly.


His voice was cheerful, but Ruined heard only emptiness. His lips tightened into a thin, hard line before parting to speak again only for the necklace around his neck to flare red. He stopped, closed his mouth, then muttered quietly,


"Time to go back."


In an instant, he gathered the children with his power and vanished from the ruined nest.


He left behind a river of blood and a mountain of mangled corpses. It was a feast for the crows. But there were no crows.


So it would be a feast for the bloody worms.


...


Vaela looked at the frail corpse of her father, slumped on the floor, leaning weakly against the wall, still breathing shallowly. He was not yet dead. He was only a cripple as it was the fate she had given him.


Not because she didn’t want to kill him, but because she wanted him to suffer, to taste the same agony she had felt when he killed her mother in front of her, leaving her body — a hollow chest devoid of heart — for the world to witness.


That incident had made her who she was today. That moment of horror was what had driven her to create an artifact that bound her life to the one she would come to love. Because if she ever lost that person again, she would rather die and accompany him into the afterlife.


For Vaela, life was only worth living when her loved ones were beside her. She had no ambition to be strong for herself. She only desired strength to protect her only friend...Kaden.


So she took a step, then another, and another. Each one echoed like the ticking of a clock counting down to doom. Nur Cerveau looked at her, his once-bright blue eyes losing their luster, his face shriveled like a rag left to rot in the rain.


His core had been shattered, his rank stripped away, leaving him unable to move.


Vaela stopped an inch from him and crouched down, locking her blue eyes into his fading ones. Nur’s lips twisted into a crooked smile.


"K–Killing your father, little lass?" he rasped, his breath weak and broken.


"I will kill you the same way you killed my mother," Vaela said, her voice cold. She reached out her right hand and pressed it against his chest, just above where his heart lay.


She began to press in. The sounds of bones cracking and muscles tearing apart echoed eerily through the room. Vaela moved slowly, painfully slowly, making it all the more unbearable as Nur’s eyes bulged wide. He tried to speak, but only bubbles of blood escaped his trembling lips.


"I no longer have a father," Vaela whispered, her hand still sinking deeper.


"I am no longer a Cerveau."


Nur started to spasm. He tried to crawl away, but his strength had already abandoned him, and he was trapped, pinned between the wall and Vaela.


"From now on, I am not Vaela Cerveau." Her voice was soft yet terrifying as her hand reached deep into her father’s chest and took hold of his fragile heart.


She leaned forward, her lips curling into a delighted smile as she watched his agony...his eyes dilating, his body convulsing as if lightning was tearing through his veins.


He could barely open his eyes, but he did. Through the blur of tears and blood, the image before him was of a smiling devil sent by a god to deliver punishment.


Vaela leaned closer still, her lips near his ear, as if afraid he might not heard him.


"From henceforth, I am Vaela Crimson, the Eyes of the Crimson Veil, the Oracle of Death." Her hand tightened around his heart as her final words echoed through his fading consciousness. "And I will make sure to find my nephew Nuke... to give him as a sacrifice to Kaden Warborn, my family."


Nur’s eyes widened in horror and Vaela’s smile widened even more, before...


CRUNCH—!


The sound of shattering flesh boomed as Vaela crushed his heart into a spray of blood and organs.


She remained there for a moment, frozen in the aftermath, before slowly withdrawing her crimson-drenched hand from his chest.


Then she stood. Calm. Silent. Her right hand gleaming slick with blood till her elbow.


She lifted her bloody mask and set it back on, then began walking out of the room to save the children, as her dear friend wished.


The sound of her footsteps echoed softly across the carpeted floor, leaving behind her a faint trail of blood dripping from her hand. The blood of her own father. It was deliberate, as it was a declaration marking the sealing of his death, and the birth of her new name.


Vaela Crimson.


The Oracle of Death.


The Eyes of the Harvester.


And...


"A devil! A crimson devil!" a child suddenly screamed, a girl with bright crimson hair and eyes, her voice breaking the silence as all the others turned toward her.


Vaela smiled behind her mask. "Hey, children," she said, her sweet tone jarring against the horror of her appearance. "I am the Oracle of Death of the Crimson Veil. The Harvester, my master, sent me to save you."


She extended her blood-soaked hand toward them.


"Take this hand, and let’s go."



The children hesitated for a heartbeat, only a heartbeat, before reaching out eagerly toward the crimson hand of the masked devil before them, their lips curving into wide, twisted smiles.


They would rather take a devil’s hand for freedom than rot here and become mindless like the friends they had lost.


Vaela’s smile widened. Her neon-blue eyes glowed with blinding intensity.


"You will be perfect."


Suddenly, the necklace around her neck glowed a deep red hue, and in the next instant, she vanished with the children.


...


High above the sky of Waverith, precisely above the Thornspire estate, all members of the Crimson Veil appeared together, the children among them.


Vaela’s gaze swept over the group, catching sight of the wounded Eliot in Abomination’s arms. Her expression darkened instantly.


"He’s still alive," Abomination said. "But not for long. I gave him a legendary health potion, but it only delayed his death. We need to find a way."


Ruined tilted his head. "Who is he?"


"A close one... of Master."


Ruined’s eyes turned cold. "Who did it?"


Abomination opened her mouth to answer but froze as an unreal sight unfolded below them.


All of them, even the children, turned their eyes downward as they saw the ocean of blood beneath Waverith churning violently, moving... flowing toward...


"...the center of Waverith?" Vaela muttered.


But it wasn’t only at Thornspire. From the Elamin estate as well, the ocean of blood —born of Mayari’s wrath — was crawling toward the city’s center, as if something was calling it.


As if... their Lord was calling it.


The members of the Crimson Veil understood immediately. Their hidden smiles grew beneath their masks as they bowed their heads toward the center in reverence.


Then, one by one, they gathered the children and vanished from the ruined battlefield, their unified voices echoing behind them in solemn chant...


"He claims all blood. He claims all souls. The Harvester steps through the Veil, and with him..."


BOOOOOOMM!!


The center of Waverith exploded.


"...and with him, an ocean of blood."


And the ocean of blood lunged down into the pit, meeting the wide-spreading arms of Kaden, his mouth curved into a wide smile of pure ecstasy.


—End of Chapter 268—