Trash of the Count’s Family - Chapter 552

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Kale Heniatus gazed quietly at the fear glistening in Cotton’s eyes.

‘Why is she so terrified of Gersei pursuing us?’

While Kale Heniatus kept his silence, Erhafen spoke up.

“Should we capture Gersei ourselves?”

But Cotton shook her head.

“That wouldn’t be wise.”

She spoke respectfully to the Ancient Dragon.

“Given Gersei’s nature, he would have subdued my subordinates and immediately contacted the White Star. Only then would he enter this underground passage. He doesn’t act hastily—he’s meticulous.”

Erhafen grasped the meaning behind her words.

“So it’s better to collapse this place before the White Star arrives, rather than subdue Gersei?”
“Yes, exactly.”

She withdrew a map from her possession.

“To collapse the cave, we must start from the innermost depths.”

Consulting the map, she quickened her pace toward the deeper recesses of the cave.
No—she broke into a run.

“The Third Chamber is the most critical location, so destroying it will be most efficient!”

The dead mana storage was regrettable, but not a facility that absolutely had to be preserved.
That was when it happened.

Boom! Thud! Thud!

Sounds echoed down from the staircase above.

“…Gersei’s loyal subordinates! Hurry!”
Her heart raced, and her pace quickened.

“Whoa!”

In that instant, she felt her body lift effortlessly into the air.
Her feet truly left the ground beneath her.

“What?”

Her gaze shifted to Kale Heniatus, who had appeared beside her.

“If you want to hurry, you need to move faster. Running alone will make us late.”

Whirlwinds spiraled around the tips of Kale Heniatus’s feet and hers.
Bud and Erhafen were already prepared to surge forward at tremendous speed.
Cotton glanced down at her feet, then nodded.

“Alright! I’ll lead the way!”

She surged forward with even greater speed.
Kale Heniatus moved alongside her.

Dozens of dead mana vials were reflected in his eyes.
The countless lives contained within them drew ever closer.

‘I must destroy this entire facility.’

Kale Heniatus resolved this and opened his mouth.

“Why the such urgency? You seem quite frightened.”

Cotton released her bitten lip.

“…I told you the Third Chamber was important, didn’t I? There’s a reason for that.”
“Right.”

Thump. Thump. Thump.
The urgent sounds continued to echo from behind them.
Who were Gersei’s subordinates to make such a tremendous racket descending into the underground?
Kale Heniatus spotted the wall and door positioned at the end of the glass tube.
Cotton also opened her mouth upon seeing that door.

“We received dead mana from various places.”
“The Mogur Empire?”
“Yes. Mogur was one of them.”

Bud’s eyes widened in shock.

“There were other sources?”

Cotton turned to face Bud sharply, her brow furrowed.

“We don’t have time to go through all that!”

She continued speaking while constantly consulting the map.

“When the White Castle was constructed here, the underground facilities were built simultaneously. I participated in that process, but I could obtain no information whatsoever about the innermost section—the Third Chamber.”

Kale Heniatus’s expression grew peculiar.
He had heard that the Endable Kingdom took quite a long time from construction to completion.

A Vice High Priest who appeared to be in her twenties had participated in the entire process and remained alive until now?

‘I shouldn’t take appearances at face value.’

Only then could Kale Heniatus truly comprehend that she was an Illusionist.

“I had a vague sense it was an important place, but I didn’t harbor any particular suspicions after that.”

Kale Heniatus turned his attention back to Cotton’s words.

“However, after the power connected to us through the Mogur Empire was severed, Gersei began entering the Third Chamber periodically.”
“That’s more recent than I expected.”

*Snicker.*
Kale could see Cotton stifling a laugh at his words.
She regarded him with a subtle gaze before speaking.

“A time when twenty-four lives had to disappear every single day?”
“…What?”

Kale’s expression hardened, and Cotton’s voice quickened.

“Once every eight hours. Gersei would bring his Loyal Subordinates to this Third Chamber and send ‘food’ here.”
“Was this food human?”
“…Sometimes they were human, sometimes other creatures. Whatever it was, eight lives each time, three times a day.”

Cotton, who had reacted more sensitively than anyone to Gersei’s movements and observed his daily routines, had eventually noticed this pattern.

“You said you couldn’t get close, so how did you find out?”
“The Loyal Subordinates gathered the food from outside. Gersei wasn’t there during those times.”

While it appeared that Gersei was always present when entering the Underground Facility and delivering food to the Third Chamber, it became clear that only the Loyal Subordinates primarily handled the task of procuring the food.

“So I cast an illusion and secretly followed them.”

Cotton exhaled softly.

“That’s when I heard one of the Loyal Subordinates speak. He’s the only one among Gersei’s Loyal Subordinates who can talk. He said something.”

*Tap.*
Cotton’s feet touched the ground.
She immediately grasped the lock mechanism of the door leading to the Second Chamber and continued speaking.
The words that the Loyal Subordinate had spoken then flowed from her lips.

“‘We need to quickly gather food to feed the monsters!'”
“…Monsters?”
“Yes. And he added something.”

Kale met Cotton’s gaze.

“When that dreadful thing finally breaks its seal, we shall fulfill both our lord’s and His Majesty’s dreams. We must pour everything into completing our lord’s command!”
“…And?”
“We’ve been discovered.”

Uuuuung—
A strange vibration emanated from the ring on her finger, and the lock mechanism trembled in resonance.
Click, click. Her hands manipulated the locking mechanism.

“I had to flee immediately when Gersei’s subordinates caught wind of it. I barely made it back alive.”

Bud’s mouth opened as he listened intently to her words in silence.

“All dreams shall be realized when the seal breaks… No matter how I look at it, the Third Chamber seems to be the crucial location, just as the Vice High Priest said.”

Kale Heniatus nodded and spoke.

“I have a feeling that seal will break on the final day of the festival, during the ceremony?”

Cotton’s face twisted.

“I was thinking the same thing. That’s why we need to destroy it as soon as possible.”

Bud hesitated for a moment before speaking.

“A monster, something dreadful like that—can we even destroy it? Isn’t it dangerous for us too?”
“Do I look weak to you?”

Bud faltered at Erhafen’s words and waved both hands frantically.

“Ah, Erhafen. That’s not what I meant.”

Erhafen chuckled softly at that reaction and continued.

“In any case, it remains sealed, and if Gersei and his subordinate can freely come and go to feed it, it shouldn’t be in such a dangerous state.”
“I share that assessment.”

Kale Heniatus spoke up.

“Which is why we need to hurry.”

Their gazes collided.
Kale Heniatus continued speaking.

“If Gersei breaks the seal first, that would be a problem. We need to move before he arrives. Isn’t that right?”
“That’s certainly the biggest reason we need to hurry.”

Cotton said this, but her furrowed brow remained creased with tension.

“Damn it, why won’t this open!”

Cotton spewed curses as she manipulated the lock mechanism.

“Move aside.”
“What?”

Kale Heniatus grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back.
Cotton’s hands slipped helplessly away from the lock.

“We’re running out of time, what are you—!”
“Erhafen.”

In that moment, Cotton could see Erhafen stepping forward.

“Stand back.”

With those words, Cotton found herself pulled backward, held by one hand each from Kale Heniatus and Bud.
Simultaneously, she watched golden dust blanket the wall.
It happened in an instant.
But her eyes widened sharply.

BOOM!
“…Insane!”

The entire wall was crumbling.
Tap. Tap.
Kale Heniatus tapped her shoulder and whispered to her.

“Since we’re already exposed, I’d say it’s time to make our escape?”
“…You madman.”

You’re just going to blow up the wall? What if the cave collapses?
Cotton had plenty to say, but she soon pressed forward regardless.

Kale Heniatus followed in her wake, and in that moment, he could see countless machines and various formations filling the expansive chamber.
As Kale’s gaze swept across the space, Cotton spoke.

“The White Star had to undergo several ‘purification’ processes here through Gersei.”
“Purification?”
“A process to purify the human body and transform it into one suited for the demon race.”

Kale pointed toward the northern end of the vast chamber.
A small door stood there.

“Is that it?”
“Yes. That’s the Third Chamber.”

Kale Heniatus nodded and turned his gaze toward Erhafen and Bud.

“We’ll destroy everything as we go.”

Whoooosh—
A brilliant blue aura surged forth from the tip of Bud’s blade.
His sword pointed toward the machinery.
It was at that moment.

“They’ve arrived.”

Erhafen’s gaze turned toward the staircase at the entrance of the First Underground Chamber beyond the collapsed wall.

Boom!
Kale Heniatus could see figures gradually emerging on the staircase descending into the underground facility alongside the thunderous sound.
They were too distant for their features to be discerned clearly.
Yet their general forms were visible.

“They’re all quite imposing in stature.”

Bud could see five robed priests of enormous build descending the stairs.

“Hmm. The distance is too great for me to catch their scent. Still, there doesn’t appear to be a Mage among them, and they don’t seem like particularly difficult opponents—”
“Shut up!”

Cotton cried out, and Bud’s eyes widened.
Bud’s shock was not from Cotton’s words.

“Insane—!”

BOOM!
BOOM! CRASH! BOOM!
Successive explosions thundered through the air.

Bud’s pupils trembled.

“That, that glass container—!”

Four massive Priests, save for one, shattered the enormous glass container.
Dead mana liquid poured forth, drenching their entire bodies.
Then Cotton’s voice reached the group.

“All of them except one are corpses! Dead bodies with dead mana bombs embedded within!”

Cotton had not anticipated that Gersei would cause the glass container to shatter, and her expression twisted with disgust.

The four Priests’ bodies swelled even larger.
Like bombs that had absorbed more dead mana and expanded in size.

Thud. Thud. Thud.
The four Priests advanced toward them.

“…There is no light in their eyes.”

Erhafen could sense from their lifeless approaching faces that these were truly corpses.

“That’s right! They have no will of their own! They exist only to obey Gersei’s commands!”

Cotton seized the hem of Kale Heniatus’s garment.

“Come on! The Second Chamber is not the problem! We need to go to the Third Chamber immediately!”

Kale Heniatus followed the path of her hand as he asked.

“Why do you fear those Gersei subordinates? You’re fine even if a dead mana bomb detonates, aren’t you?”

Cotton’s body flinched momentarily.

“I…”

She hesitated before opening her mouth.

“I can’t absorb dead mana. I’m different.”
“But you’re an Illusionist, aren’t you?”
“…This is a secret no one else knows.”

Kale Heniatus, observing Cotton’s hesitation, had many questions he wanted to ask her. But Bud’s voice pushed those inquiries to the back of his mind.

“Damn it! Why are they so fast!”

Kale Heniatus turned his head.

Boom—! Boom—!
Massive forms, bloated like balloons drenched in dead mana liquid, were approaching at tremendous speed.

“Damn it! Those corpses!”

Cotton’s face contorted.

Whoosh—
In that instant, Cotton’s body shot forward at an explosive velocity.

“Ugh! Hey!”
“Quiet!”

A whirlwind enveloped the two of them. Kale Heniatus gripped Cotton by the nape of her neck and pushed her back with the wind.
In a flash, they rushed toward the passage leading to the Third Chamber.
At that moment, a cry echoed from far behind them.

“Stop them!”

Gersei was pointing his fan at Kale.
His eyes were bloodshot, the whites completely suffused with crimson.

Whoooosh!
The moment the fan unfurled, a grey aura began coalescing rapidly above his head.

“That is—!”

Bud, who had witnessed that power in the Northern Snowfield, surged his aura even more violently.
The aura, towering over three meters high, billowed forward and aimed itself at both the Loyal Subordinates and Gersei.

It was in that instant.

“Bud. You destroy the machines and the jin.”

Erhafen stepped forward.
Simultaneously, he brought his foot crashing down upon the cave floor.

Boom!
Golden dust scattered before Erhafen.

“Block it.”

In an instant, a translucent golden barrier materialized, sealing off the cave passage.
Where the wall that had divided the First Underground Chamber and the Second Chamber once stood, Erhafen’s golden barrier now took its place.

Erhafen spoke to his companions behind him.

“I will hold as long as I can. Make haste.”

Even as he spoke, his gaze fixed upon the grey aura hovering above Gersei.

‘That is not of this world.’

It was highly likely to be the power of the Demon Realm, just as Kale had heard from Saint Jack.

‘…I will endure as long as possible.’

Could a Dragon truly overcome the power of the Demon Realm?
Especially a Dragon with so little life remaining that he couldn’t unleash his full strength?
Erhafen swallowed his own doubts. He could not afford to show weakness.

“Open it. Now.”

Kale positioned Cotton before a small door.
It was nothing but a black door, utterly featureless.
Without so much as a word to Kale, Cotton immediately brought her ring to bear against the door’s locking mechanism.
Suddenly, a pressing question escaped Kale’s lips.

“…You said you couldn’t enter. How do you know how to open this door?”
“I don’t.”

What?
Fire flashed across Kale’s eyes in that instant.
He could sense Bud and Erhafen behind him.

Crash! Boom!
“Damn it! Why are there so many of these machines?!”

Bud was smashing through the machines indiscriminately, while Erhafen, sweat beading on his brow, reinforced the golden barrier with ever greater strength.

‘Erhafen!’

I couldn’t push Erhafen any further.

‘…Did I bring the wrong people?’

I had brought Bud and Erhafen here because I judged them most useful when facing the unknown of the Demon Realm—Bud could discern the nature of things through scent, and Erhafen possessed vast wisdom.

Yet now they didn’t know how to unlock this mechanism?
My face contorted rapidly as the situation deteriorated.

“I’m going to tear this door apart.”

Cotton’s voice rang out.

“Tear it?”

A door?
As doubt flickered across Kale Heniatus’s eyes, he caught sight of what Cotton withdrew from her embrace.
A small short sword wrapped tightly in bandages, its blade hidden from view, inscribed with peculiar incantations.

Thump! Thump! Thump!
In that instant, the subspace pouch nestled within Kale Heniatus’s inner jacket pocket vibrated with violent intensity.

What is happening?
As Kale Heniatus began mentally cataloging the contents of his possession, Cotton’s lips parted.

“This door is infused with the power of the Demon Realm, so I cannot open it. But with this object, I can tear it asunder.”
“…What is that object?”
“A divine artifact.”

In that moment, Kale Heniatus drew a sharp breath.
Cotton unwrapped the bandages.
The short sword was revealed, and she gripped it as she approached the door.
Her voice reached his ears.

“The God of War.”

A watering can.
Kale Heniatus recalled that existence.
The divine artifact of the God of War that he had retrieved from a storage shed near the fields when he stormed the Clope Seca Mansion.

“…Why do you have that?”

Cotton possessed another divine artifact of that god?
To Kale Heniatus’s question, Cotton simply smiled and opened her mouth.

“Those who serve the God of War always slip silently into the heart of war, concealed.”

With those words, she swung the short sword.

Riiiiip!
Kale Heniatus watched as the solid door tore apart like tissue paper.

Hmm!

In that instant, Kale Heniatus involuntarily stepped backward.
The torn black door widened gradually, and a chilling aura seeped through the widening gap.

“Gasp!”

Kale Heniatus’s body lurched forward.

“Hey! Are you alright?”

Cotton, startled, tried to steady him.
Smack!
But Kale Heniatus rejected her hand and moved closer to the increasingly widening gap of the black door.

Thump. Thump. Thump.
My heart raced.

That cool yet unsettling air I had felt ever since entering the space where the Demon Temple statue stood.
It grew far more oppressive as I descended underground.
Yet I had dismissed this foreboding.
After all, I could face each approaching danger one by one.

But the moment I sensed what was seeping through the gap of this black door.
I—Kim Rok-soo—finally understood what that foreboding was.

It was an emotion from the past that my ‘record’—which remembers everything through smell, touch, and sight—could not record.
The emotions of helplessness and fear.

Through the gap of the black door, I glimpsed what lay within.

A vast cavern with stones emitting a soft glow embedded in the ceiling like stars.
Within it stood an immense octagonal platform of considerable height.
Upon the octagonal platform were eight strange altars. Each was so large that three humans with arms outstretched could barely encircle it.

Upon them stood black statues.
Each bore a different form.

They were not human.
Nor were they beasts.

Kale brought his body closer to the gap in the black door to see what it was.
Thump. Thump. His heart pounded.

“Ah.”

Kale—Kim Rok-soo—felt his grip tighten on the edge of the black door without even realizing it.

In the past, based on my abilities, I had predicted an hour before the emergence of that monster, which was recorded as possessing the second-greatest destructive force in Earth’s history at that time.

And I had survived alone while Lee Soo-hyuk, my team leader, Choi Jung-soo, and all my team members perished.

‘This is a situation report. I will explain the combat patterns of that ‘Unranked Monster’.’

Kale’s pupils trembled as he stared at one of the black statues.

“…Why?”

Why was that monster I saw in Korea here?
How could this be?

That monster which had slaughtered all my team members now stood as a statue, reflected in Kale’s eyes.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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