Chapter 578 — The Bottom of Distortion

"The Cecil folk are using powerful magical devices to carve out territory at will; they are even using those devices to bombard the wasteland, pointlessly," Beyira shook her head. "And that unfortunate sentry... he and several others happened to be right nearby. The key question now is that Cecil clearly has not developed the way we anticipated. They have become an uncontrollable factor..."

"Uncontrollable..."

Shidon murmured the word, then gave a contemptuous laugh.

He walked over to the nearest pillar and waved a hand to activate its biomass shell —

"They're nothing but a pack of mortals who can only fight with the help of magical trinkets! How could the power of the 'god-spawn' be matched by a few explosive toys?!"

The dark red biomass writhed violently, instantly contracting back toward the ceiling and the floor like startled demon-vine tendrils, and once that grotesque "shell" had withdrawn, the sight within the pillar was laid bare before Beyira —

A mutated humanoid floated quietly within a translucent tubular vessel, nearly twice the height of a man. It had dark skin and thick, swollen joints, and countless crystal-cluster-like growths covered the surface of its limbs. Tiny sparks of energy darted ceaselessly among those crystal clusters, showing that this giant possessed not only a formidable body but extraordinary magical power as well.

Shidon raised his head and gazed up at the hideous mutated giant, a smile spreading across his face: "Nothing is mightier than great evolution, Hierarch Beyira. Wouldn't you agree?"

Beyira looked calmly at the "god-spawn" in the tubular vessel, her face utterly placid: "Rein in your fanaticism. No one understands great evolution better than I — you had best close the biomass sac before this mutant wakes and loses control. You know full well that activating this first batch of god-spawn cost no small number of good corpses."

Having said that, the female hierarch paid Shidon no further attention and strode toward the far end of the hall.

She came to the massive fissure at the hall's end and gazed out at the vast space beyond.

A broad subterranean rift stretched across the view, with enormous cableways, bridges, and natural stone spans connecting the cliffs on either side. On those dizzying bridges, countless figures like walking corpses shuffled along under the watchful eyes of church overseers in heavy protective gear.

At the bottom of the rift ran a "river of blood" wreathed in crimson light. Countless massive chains crisscrossed above the blood river, anchoring an indescribable mass of flesh that, amid the rising heat of the river, pulsed like a heart — and with every beat it grew stronger and more forceful than the last.

This was the Abyss of Flesh and Blood.

The entire underground palace was built atop the chasm known as the Abyss of Flesh and Blood.

Those figures shambling along like the walking dead were slaves, sacrifices seized from every corner of the land—the vast majority poor commoners, a small portion itinerant warriors and mercenaries of meager strength.

In this age, quietly abducting a few commoners from the various noble domains to serve as slaves was no difficult matter; especially in times of famine or war, the disappearance of a handful of the poor would draw no one's notice at all.

But the situation had shifted somewhat of late: the Duchy of Cecil had risen with astonishing speed, having actually forged an intricate and rigorous surveillance system, such that even the vanishing of a single commoner would bring the peace officers running, while the growing number of magical monitoring devices throughout Cecil's territory made unsanctioned spellcasting perilously dangerous; of late, seizing people from the Southern Marches had become all but impossible.

Yet slaves taken from beyond the Southern Marches still sufficed to meet the needs of the Abyss of Flesh and Blood—this civil war in Ans had brought not only abundant flesh and blood, but ample slaves as well.

Beiyila watched the slaves shuffling forward along the passage, then her gaze passed beyond those sacrifices doomed to die and settled upon the mass of flesh-and-blood tissue, bound fast with chains, at the bottom of the chasm.

Nourished by vast quantities of human biomass and assembled from immense amounts of the "god-bane" factor, that mass of flesh-and-blood tissue had grown ever more mature with each passing day.

The hour when the "Body of the False God" would awaken was near at hand.