Chapter 156: Diverting the Contamination

Gilbert was experiencing the same agony as the first knight whose mind had been invaded—rather, the chaos and torment he was enduring at this moment might be several times worse.

It was as if a dagger had been plunged into his brain, twisting and grinding through soft tissue, reducing it to a pulpy mess and shredding everything it could without outright killing him. The pain was so excruciating that, despite being a hardened knight, Gilbert clenched his teeth together with such force that his jawbone was on the verge of shattering.

"Damn it..." The Nightblades possessed an iron will that normal people could hardly fathom. The more experienced they were, the stronger their resistance to mental attacks. Gilbert, a battle-hardened knight who had crawled his way through countless life-and-death situations, was a perfect example.

But even steel could be melted by extreme heat, or bent and broken under immense force. And the mental corruption Gilbert was facing now was exactly that—overwhelming, devastating force.

Under this ceaseless assault of madness and chaos, any mortal will seemed pathetically fragile in comparison. No one knew how this Destroyer-class automaton managed to transmit such an unfathomable amount of mental corruption to them.

Mental corruption frequently occurred around void entities, but the sheer amount of corruption leaking from this automaton was so extreme that it even surpassed the natural emissions of a lesser void god.

The automaton's mental corruption was affecting not only Gilbert, but everyone within close proximity--every single member of the Nightblades squad. The corruption invaded their minds without discrimination, seeking to occupy every host it deemed suitable. It shattered their wills, twisted their minds, and warped the very flesh that housed them.

One of the squad's battlemages who was particularly sensitive to the void collapsed to his knees, screaming in anguish.

The sudden flood of foreign memories in his mind left him with an overwhelming sense of dissonance. Who was he, and why was he in such pain?

With his mental defenses completely overwhelmed, the corruption surged through his psyche, burrowing into his mind and forcibly subjecting him to a torrent of crazed, twisted visions. These chaotic and malevolent memories would soon erase everything that made up his personality, leaving nothing but a shell of insanity behind.

The other squad members fared no better. The mental corruption spilling from the alchemical core of the Destroyer-class automaton had transformed the surrounding area into a toxic swamp—a mental quagmire that gradually dragged down all others who remained nearby.

The crystals that the squad had been wearing functioned on the same principle as the lanterns Wang Yu had used to contain the three corrupted beacons in the capital's shadow. These crystals used fragmented souls of the dead as a barrier; the corruption would target them first. However, against this monstrous force, these crystals were all but useless.

The protective souls within these crystals were instantly obliterated—so utterly consumed that they failed to grant their wielders even a moment's respite. The crystals themselves shattered as well, leaving the Nightblades completely exposed to the relentless mental assault.

The battlemage, who had relatively poor physical endurance, was the first to show visible signs of corruption. His body began to spasm uncontrollably as it mutated, his skin splitting open and blood oozing from the wounds. Jagged cracks spread across his flesh, revealing clusters of writhing, unblinking eyes—unnatural, invasive growths that shifted and darted about erratically.

Mental corruption didn't just affect the mind. It drew the attention of the Void, twisting flesh in impossible, unnatural ways that no one understood.

This was why many magicians who perished to void corruption didn't leave corpses behind—what remained of their bodies were often grotesque, eldritch abominations. Even if their bodies appeared superficially intact, their insides had likely already turned into something that could no longer be described as human.

Gilbert's vision blurred. He felt an agonizing itch deep within his throat—something seemed to be trying to crawl out. His ears were filled with incoherent, maddening whispers, an overwhelming cacophony that made it impossible to think.

But deep within, a few precious fragments of clarity remained. He realized that the muffled thuds he was hearing were the sounds of his teammates collapsing, one by one.

"I refuse... to become... one of them..." With trembling hands, he clawed at his own throat, desperately fighting for control over his body before it was lost entirely. His fingers clenched tighter, choking himself—the pain of asphyxiation and the lack of oxygen momentarily blanked his mind. In that fleeting moment, he freed himself from the corruption's grip.

"Ugh—!" He suddenly vomited, expelling several severed human fingers from his throat—fingers that he had never eaten. His body was already mutating.

But as he glanced at his fallen comrades, he noticed that their transformations had stopped—the corruption's invasion seemed to have halted. He understood why: their failsafe anchors had activated.

Every Nightblade operative underwent the process of anchorage at the royal facility known as Heaven's Gloom. This process ensured that, in the event of a mental breakdown, these Nightblades wouldn't transform into eldritch horrors and endanger their allies.

Gilbert couldn't help but think back to an old comrade whose failsafe anchor had activated after he came face to face with a void god.

Gilbert recalled visiting him years later in an asylum by the border of the capital's shadow. The once-brilliant knight had sat drooling, giggling as he played with a spoonful of porridge.

The anchor had saved his life—but at a terrible cost. Gilbert would rather transform into a monstrosity than become a mindless husk, a living corpse without thoughts or will.

These anchors from Heaven's Gloom prevented mental corruption at its root by implanting a contingency in the soul that would be triggered if the soul were to succumb to corruption.

However, this contingency wasn't meant to fortify the Nightblades' mental defenses. Rather, it rendered their souls impervious to corruption entirely—at a terrible cost.

The anchored soul would be subjected to an internal shock, one so severe that it could—and likely would—reduce the individual to a mindless husk. After all, just like how mental corruption wouldn't affect a rock, neither could it affect a soul that had already lost all semblance of order, one devoid of rational thought.

Gilbert clung to consciousness, battling the mental corruption that continuously spilled from the breach in the Destroyer-class automaton. His sheer willpower kept him moving despite the suffocating pressure and oxygen deprivation. His muscles, driven to their limits, strained as he planted both hands on the automaton's heavy metal body, his feet sinking into the ground as he pushed.

A piercing screech filled the air as metal scraped against stone, sending shivers down his spine. The automaton's weight pressed harshly against the rocky ground, grating from friction.

The automaton's massive metal body inched forward under Gilbert's relentless effort, leaving deep gouges in the ground.

"There—there!" His mind clung to this singular goal. His mouth repeated it over and over to keep the thought from being erased by the mental corruption that was driving him insane.

Gilbert's bloodshot eyes locked onto the cliff's edge, with a bottomless abyss just beyond. The Destroyer-class automaton was already close to the precipice. All he had to do was push it over, to cast this horrific source of corruption away from him and his squad.

One, two, five meters—the automaton was fewer than ten meters from the edge of the cliff, but every step felt insurmountable. The automaton's immense weight resisted his every effort, and the fleeting control he had wrested from the corruption was slipping away. The body he commanded through his suffocation-induced clarity and sheer will was being reclaimed by the overwhelming corruption.

"Just... a little... more...!" With just three meters to go, Gilbert marshaled all his strength for a final push. The once-excruciating sense of mental corruption now felt dull and numbed, like the aftermath of an electric shock.

This wasn't a good sign at all. It meant that his consciousness was on the verge of total collapse. Even the warning signals of his mind being consumed had ceased.

The contingency buried in his soul was about to trigger. His body, no longer sustained by his fading awareness, collapsed. The heavy Destroyer-class automaton came to a halt at the very edge of the cliff, rendering all his efforts futile.

Gilbert felt his lower body go numb as his loss of control crept upward. Something else was taking hold of him. His once-indomitable will could no longer resist the mental corruption, and his remaining strength was insufficient to move even his barely responsive upper body to push the automaton over the cliff.

His eyes wide, he frantically tried to think of a solution to this crisis. In his final moments of clarity, only one thought sprang to mind. "Oh great... Lady of the Night... I... pray to you... grant me the power of darkness...!"

He was neither a magician nor a wizard, but as a follower of the Lady of the Night, he could wield her divine magic.

However, none of the divine spells at his disposal could exert physical force on the automaton. His prayer wasn't meant to invoke a spell but rather to seek direct intervention from the Lady, in hopes that she would answer and grant him the strength to move the construct.

Despite his best efforts, his prayer remained unfinished. The onslaught of mental corruption shattered his fragile concentration, preventing his plea from reaching its intended recipient. But just before his consciousness faded completely, his mind briefly connected to the Tree of the Night.

In that instant, the mental corruption found an outlet—just as a believer's faith could redirect a portion of mental corruption toward the corresponding deity, Gilbert's link to the Tree of the Night created a channel through which mental corruption could flow.

The corruption, powerful enough to crush dozens of minds, blitzed down this channel, rushing toward the great tree that symbolized the Lady of the Night's power and her connection to her followers.

It didn't understand precisely what this channel was, only that there were more minds and vessels to inhabit at its far end.

The channel to the Tree of the Night would be its avenue to freedom.

However, almost immediately, it found itself divided, its essence forcibly split apart, fragmented by that strange cube that Wang Yu had placed near the tree.

The once-overwhelming mental corruption was now being evenly distributed among all who shared a connection with the Lady of the Night, diluted further and further...

The Lady of the Night's followers had steadily increased with time. Most of the believers were in the capital's shadow, but there were a growing number of converts aboveground, largely prompted by the Nightblades. All in all, they numbered between eight and ten thousand. When the mental corruption capable of crushing dozens of minds was divided to such an extent, it became an insignificant threat.

Its fragmented will became incoherent. It let out a silent, enraged howl. It craved freedom, bodies to inhabit—it refused to be trapped once more in the endless void!

But its voiceless screams went unheard. The majority of the Lady of the Night's followers didn't notice a thing; only those exceptionally sensitive to the void might have noticed some discrepancy.

The dispersed mental corruption was swiftly neutralized by the natural mental defenses of the Lady of the Night's followers. In mere moments, each parcel of will was eradicated.

"...Huh? What was that? Felt kinda familiar." In a secluded corner of Redmaple Street, Charles frowned. He had been keeping an eye on Edward and the catgirl Sue, who were having tea together.

For a brief moment, he felt the faintest ripple in his consciousness. It came with an odd sensation of familiarity, as if it were something he had encountered before. It reminded him of that strange night two weeks ago, the one that left him reeling. He only found out the next day that it had been the result of one of Wang Yu's experiments. Just what was Wang Yu doing now...?