Chapter 410 - Smash Through

Cecil hastily combed through the second floor of the ruins with his Mana Sense spread out as far as he could.

The ruins suppressed his mana and he could only exert a fourth of his usual strength, but it wasn't like he entirely relied on mana for his strength. His body which was tempered by his Ki was enough to crush all of the low-ranked monsters that he encountered.

He was rather impatient so when he came upon the last section of the second floor, he didn't go looking for the staircase to the third floor. Cecil instead sent multiple Flash Cannons into the ceiling above him and created his own entrance to the third floor.

When Cecil jumped onto the third floor, he found himself amidst a large horde of monsters. The monsters even looked rather surprised by the fact that a human had suddenly appeared on their floor.

"Tsk, make way you insects!"

Cecil immediately started blasting all of the monsters around him with all of his long-ranged attacks. In a matter of moments, the horde of B-ranked monsters was thoroughly wiped out and only he remained.

"...These stupid corridors can go to hell as well," Cecil mumbled before he began blasting holes into the walls and walking through them.

This was the more efficient way of traveling through these harrowing ruins whose corridors were needlessly winding. He was on a rescue mission and every second counted towards the failure or success of the mission.

He didn't know the exact conditions his family members were in, but the faster he found them, the better.

Cecil continued to plow through every floor in this manner. He destroyed everything in his path in an overbearing manner and obliterated any monster that came into sight. Even the weakest C-ranked monsters, which were already fleeing from his presence, weren't spared.

From the reports that Cecil read, it was mentioned that Angelia and Kira both reported that the monsters inside the ruins had a mana connection with each other. It was understandable that some of the monsters that he encountered would flee from him since their brethren were killed by him.

However, since there was such a connection, Angelia reported that these monsters should have someone or something behind them that's the origin of this connection. Since this was the case, Cecil deduced that the reason why Angelia, Gabriel, and Kira were trapped inside the ruins was most likely due to this 'origin'.

Whether it was a person or a monster, since it was the reason behind his family's current plight, there was no reason why he should spare any of the monsters that had a connection with it.

After combing through the fifth floor and clearing it of monsters, Cecil was just about to blast a hole to the sixth floor but a monstrous roar stopped him from doing so.

When he looked over, Cecil noticed that a large kobold was glaring murderously at him. He raised a brow and chuckled humorously.

"Hah, so you're the boss?"

Cecil had long since noticed that the monsters from the second to the fifth floor were comprised mostly of kobolds and other similar monsters. He guessed that this was supposed to be the boss of all of those monsters and it finally came out since he had thoroughly wiped out its underlings.

"GROOOO—"

"Shut up, you annoying mutt."

Cecil already had all of his swords deployed around him and a slight wave of his hand immediately sent his sword flying straight towards the monster's neck. There was no resistance, Cecil just used his aura to pressure the monster, making it unable to do anything but have its head lopped off.

"...If you're going to try and stop me, at least send something stronger..." He scoffed before blowing a hole into the ceiling and jumping through it to get to the sixth floor.

*****

A few days later, outside of the ruins, the NWR's forces were once again confronting the Silvaria Special Forces and demanding an answer for the disappearance of their previous team.

Naturally, the Silvaria forces didn't have to answer so they remained silent about the fact that they eliminated them and only continued to warn them that they'd be attacked if they dared take a step towards the ruins.

After some confrontation between the two groups, Alek was able to get an audience with Anise and Medel.

"So, we're not allowed to go in?" Alek asked.

"Our Lord has already ordered that anyone trying to get into the ruins will be killed without mercy. We are just carrying his orders and I advise not to make things difficult for us or yourselves."

"...The agreement—"

"The agreement was between our Lord's kingdom and your country. One of the clauses stated that the NWR or the Silvaria Kingdom shall not do anything that would compromise the safety and continuity of the mission. Your side breached this condition already and caused us to lose 3 of our finest soldiers while you lost 10 of your own."

"..."

"It doesn't matter what you say now since my Master is already here. As long as he wills it, no one, not even your president, may go into the ruins," Medel stated coldly.

"Such big words... Does your 'master' dictate everything—"

"He doesn't need to. He can just kill all of you and everything would be finished with. I'm just letting you know, but if anything happens to my master's sister and brother, your country will be wiped away from this world."

"You talk about taking away the lives of countless human beings as if they were just wheat ready to be reaped! What kind of—"

"Commander Alek, a word of advice, if I may. This isn't Earth anymore. Whatever morals and codes of conduct you speak of have all been left behind in our previous world. Here, if you have power, you can dictate whatever you want."

"..."

"You fools did something that endangered my Master's family and let me tell you, my Master loves his family dearly. You all currently have a foot in the grave right now. I'd suggest you cooperate with us and not worsen your already dire situation."

"Cooperate? Hmph, we shall do as we wish!"

"If that's your answer then don't think you'll be going back alive!" Medel said coldly before he quickly stepped forward and sent a fist at the NWR's commander.

Alek scoffed at him and diverted his punch before sending his own strike back at Medel. Medel was rather surprised that someone was able to stop his attack and he was about to block Alek's attack but when he tried to, Medel felt the weight behind Alek's attack to be overwhelming and he was forced back a few steps.

"For all your big talk, you sure don't bite as hard," Alek mocked.

"...It was foolish of me to think that all of you bastards were incompetent, but do you really think you can force your way out of this camp?"

"Hahaha, you Silvarians always overestimate yourselves! Do you honestly think that your kingdom is the only one with superhumans?! Just because you got a head start doesn't mean that you'll leave everyone behind in the dust!"

"Vice-Commander! Outside, the NWR's forces are forcing their way to the ruins!" A soldier rushed in and reported. He looked around and noticed the tense situation inside the tent. He was about to pull out his weapon but Alek quickly made his move and rushed towards the soldier.

It only took a punch for him to end the poor soldier's life.

"No! You bastard, you won't get away with that!" Anise yelled.

"Hmph, I'll just quote what your 'master' said, 'In Alterna, justice is enacted by those with power, true power.' We have every justification to go into the ruins and you people can't prevent us from doing so."

"...you're just asking for a bloodbath. You may have some power, but that doesn't mean it's the same for your soldiers!" Medel yelled back in response.

"What my soldiers are capable of isn't something an insignificant and small little man like you can judge. We'll be going into the ruins whether you like it or not! Just know that you'll be throwing your people into the—"

Before Alek could continue his words, a large explosion occurred outside and it sent everyone in the base into disarray.

Everyone quickly rushed out of the tent and when they looked around, the explosion wasn't something that happened within the base camp. Instead, it was caused by a large golden beam of mana that pierced through one side of the ruins.

It originated not from the second floor of the ruins but higher up. The explosions were caused by the debris falling from the skies and smashing into the grounds of the base camp.

"W-what's this?!"

The fighting going on between the Silvaria and NWR's soldiers immediately stopped and everyone looked up towards the sky and began dodging the falling debris. Just when everyone thought that it was over, a large black silhouette emerged from the side of the ruins and plummeted down to the ground.

Medel quickly ran to look for Ian and Tyra. When he found them, they appeared to have just finished killing off a few NWR soldiers and were getting ready to do something.

"Ian heads up! Can you divert that thing to the side?! At this rate, it'll smash into the base!"

Ian, who was prepared to smash a few more soldiers quickly looked up and took notice of the large object plummeting down towards them. Tyra also saw it and quickly tried to cast a large barrier around the base.

"Tyra, keep it up, I'll go up and smash that thing away!" Ian yelled.

"Alright!"

Ian empowered his body with mana and kicked off the ground. He jumped towards the side of the ruins and began scaling it as fast as he could. When he got high enough, he waited for the large object to fall, and right as it was just about to pass him, Ian kicked off the side of the ruins and slammed his fist onto the object.

When he took a closer look at it, he noticed that the object was actually the large corpse of a monster.

Because of his attack, the trajectory of the corpse was diverted and it fell just outside of their army's base camp.

"That was close..."

Ian began falling from the sky but when he looked upwards, he noticed that the monster corpse had come down from what he thought was the highest floor of the ruins.

"Is Master already up there? It's only been a few days since he's gone inside..."

Before Ian could contemplate anything further, a large beam of light shot into the sky from the top of the ruins and a large figure emerged from the pillar of light.

"The Heritage has been opened. The Chosen may now enter!"