ONLINE: Blades of Eternity - Chapter 304

Chapter 304: CREATURES OF THE ABYSS
Crackle!

Crackle!!

Boom!!!

The chilling night air was now filled with the thunder of destruction as Kaelen and Kelvin sprinted through the thick undergrowth, racing back toward the town. The distant crimson flashes of mana-based explosions tore through the sky like angry stars, and every second they delayed meant more blood spilled—more lives lost.

They didn’t speak as they moved—there was no need. The map and supplies they had just organized were stuffed haphazardly into their packs, slung over their backs. Their cloaks billowed behind them, and every stride echoed their desperation to reach the town in time.

The moment they crested a ridge overlooking the town, they halted in disbelief.

“…What the hell is that?” Kaelen muttered, breath caught in his throat.

The town was being overwhelmed by… something. A swirling, pulsating mass of darkness—like ink bleeding through the air, twisting reality with every movement. An entity cloaked in the abyss, its limbs both fluid and jagged, marched at the center of the assault. Around it, hundreds of distorted creatures spilled from tears in space like leaking nightmares, howling in disharmony.

The Beastkins weren’t giving in without a fight. On the town walls, mages and archers—wolfkin, bearkin, felinekin and others—unleashed advanced spells that bent the very laws of nature. Glacial Crescents, Inferno Chains, and Wind Binders erupted with shocking force, tearing through the attackers in cascades of elemental brilliance.

Kaelen gulped, his fingers tightening around the hilt of the Blade of Eternity, now gleaming with a sharper hue of sapphire. “They’re… holding back that thing with magic I’ve only read about in forbidden grimoires.”

Kelvin stood beside him, eyes narrowed beneath his cloak. His dark scythe pulsed with blood-red energy, reacting to the thickened aura of death. “This isn’t just an attack… something let the abyss in.”

The two moved fast now, darting through the trees toward the outer edge of the battle.

And that’s when they saw her.

The foxkin girl from the shop—her amber eyes filled with determination, her fur scorched and clothes torn—was trying to protect a wounded soldier near the northern gate. But three abyssal creatures with pulsating limbs and tendrils of shrieking black mist encircled her like carrion hounds.

She thrust out her hand, casting a sharp incantation—”Ignirellus Severus!”—and a line of fire shot from her fingers, cutting through the chest of one creature. It stumbled, but the others closed in fast.

Too fast.

Before she could summon another spell, one of them raised its malformed claw and lunged at her—

SHING!

Thousand fold Slash!!

A radiant arc of royal blue light swept through the air, cleaving the attacking creature clean in half. It exploded in a hiss of black fog.

Abyssal Cleave!!

Kelvin followed up immediately, leaping from behind with a vicious spin of his scythe. The blade sang with a low screech as he decapitated the second creature in one fell swoop.

The third creature reeled back in surprise—then lunged again, but Kaelen was faster. A well-placed mana burst from his palm slammed the creature into a nearby wall before his blade pierced through its core, silencing it.

The foxkin girl gasped as she scrambled back, shield raised instinctively.

“W-Who—?”

Kelvin cut her off, voice low and disguised. “Focus on the battle in front of you. There’s no time for questions.”

She blinked, stunned by their sudden appearance—but she read the urgency in their tone and nodded, retrieving her wand with a trembling hand.

Kaelen took a step closer and offered her a potion from his pouch without breaking eye contact with the battlefield. “You’ll need your strength. Help whoever you can.”

The foxkin hesitated only briefly before accepting it.

Then a massive tremor shook the ground.

The thing—the abyssal entity—had reached the heart of the town.

From it burst a cacophony of alien voices, enough to make even hardened warriors hesitate. The Beastkin defenses were beginning to crumble beneath its sheer presence.

Kaelen looked at Kelvin, the intensity in his eyes flaring like a dying star reigniting. “We have to help push it back.”

Kelvin gave a faint nod, lifting his scythe again. “Just make sure we don’t die doing it.”

Together, they rushed into the chaos once more—toward the eye of corruption—determined to fulfill the mission fate had carved into their very souls.

And so, the fires of destruction raged around them, but Kaelen and Kelvin didn’t slow down.

With every step deeper into the heart of the besieged Beastkin town, they fought like demons reborn—Kaelen’s Blade of Eternity tore through grotesque flesh, flashing arcs of celestial mana, while Kelvin’s sinister scythe sang a dark tune, slicing through the shrieking abyssal monstrosities that clawed and twisted toward them. Blood—both black and red—stained their cloaks, but they didn’t stop. Not while the chaos still loomed.

They could feel it.

A pulse. A rhythm. A deep, bone-chilling beat—like a heart, but unnatural. Twisted.

It guided them through the town’s central street, where the ruins of ancient shrines and forgotten statues stood as broken reminders of a time long past. The deeper they went, the more corrupted everything became. Buildings bled darkness. The ground split with every step of the abyssal creatures, and the mana in the air felt suffocating.

Then they saw it—a courtyard shaped like a crescent, surrounded by large monolithic stones etched with sacred inscriptions. In the center, three towering figures stood their ground—fierce, majestic, and battered.

The Crescent Paw Elders.

A silver-furred Wolfkin Elder, wielding a greatstaff wrapped in ancient prayer cloths, his breathing ragged but his eyes feral with defiance.

A muscular Tigerkin Elder, his claws encased in golden gauntlets, standing like an immovable mountain despite the open wounds on his chest.

And above them floated the Eaglekin Elder, whose glowing wings of mana beat slowly through the corrupted wind, a spear of light clutched tight in her talons.

They were standing face-to-face with the source of the chaos.

A tall, slender Pumakin, whose once-orange fur was now veiled in shadows, eyes bleeding purple abyssal energy. He stood with an eerie calm in front of a swirling vortex of darkness that twisted the very fabric of the air—a fractured Mana Vein, corrupted and pulsating. He emerged from the abyssal entity itself, his body now fused with the corruption, with strange tendrils growing from his back like mockeries of wings.

“Turan…” the Wolfkin Elder growled, voice thick with grief and betrayal. “We buried you with our dead after the Celestials took your essence… How are you here?”

The Pumakin’s voice echoed like laughter dragged across broken glass. “You buried a husk. I returned, reborn. The Celestials abandoned us, old fool. Their promises, their ‘laws’—all of it was a farce.”

The Tigerkin Elder stepped forward, mana crackling around his fists. “So, you turn to Endless? You desecrate the sacred Mana Vein, offer it to a voidspawn in hopes of being its dog?”

“Dog?” Turan scoffed. “No. I will become more than any Celestial could ever grant. Endless showed me the truth. This Vein… will be my tribute. A small price for eternal ascension.”

“We will never let you take it,” the Eaglekin Elder snarled. “Even if it means our deaths.”

Turan raised a hand, twisted with abyssal runes. “Then so be it.”

The battle that followed shook the very foundations of the town.

Massive glyphs etched themselves in the air as the elders unleashed magic that distorted space itself—flaming glyphs the size of buildings, wind spears that pierced through reality, and shockwaves that shattered cobblestone streets. The air boomed with every impact.

Boom!!

Bang!!!

Rumble! Rumble!

Kaelen and Kelvin watched from a shattered rooftop, awestruck. “This is… nothing like before,” Kaelen whispered.

“They’re fighting like gods,” Kelvin muttered.

Despite their power, the elders were old. Wounded. Holding back the corruption for too long.

Turan, now more abyss than Beastkin, outmaneuvered them. Every spell he absorbed fed the corruption, every injury he took healed faster than they could deal.

“Argh!!”

And finally, with a roar of fury, he drove his claws—now black blades—through the Eaglekin Elder’s wing, slamming her into the ground. The Wolfkin Elder tried to retaliate but was knocked back by a vicious tendril that exploded from Turan’s back. The Tigerkin’s fists sparked with defiance, but he too fell with a thunderous crash, his body smoldering.

The three elders lay beaten, barely able to move.

Turan hovered above them, gathering a ball of abyssal mana in his palm, the size of a boulder. “This is mercy. Join the Vein in oblivion.”

FWOOOSH!

But apparently, the blast never came.

In a flash of light and shadow, Kaelen and Kelvin landed between Turan and the elders, blades raised.

Kaelen’s Blade of Eternity gleamed with starlit vengeance. Kelvin’s dark scythe pulsated like a living entity, thirsting for abyssal blood.

Turan’s expression twisted in surprise. “Who—?”

“Don’t bother,” Kaelen said coldly.

“We’re not here to talk,” Kelvin added.

In a synchronized blur of motion, they lunged at Turan, blades screaming with purpose, as the battlefield shook anew with the chaos of a final reckoning.