Mushroom Lord in the Underground City

Chapter 800: Chapter 786: Coffin

"Vera..."

"Vera!"

Fei Yin’s repeated calls finally made Vera look at her.

Fei Yin’s face was streaked with tears, and in her trembling hand she held a small emerald-green vial—the healing elixir Sirean had given them before departure, potent enough to drag a dying person back from the brink.

Now, that little vial was already empty.

The wound at Fei Ling’s brow had closed, her skin as smooth as before; only the lingering bloodstains still spoke of that arrow just now.

But she lay there, motionless, not like usual, getting up with a smile to say, "You’re making a fuss over nothing again."

"Vera, it’s useless... Sister... Sister, she’s already..."

Clarity returned to Vera’s eyes. He glanced back at the Demon Race slaughtering outside the city, then bent down and gently kissed Fei Ling’s still-warm lips.

Afterwards, he placed Fei Ling’s body into Fei Yin’s arms: "Fei Yin, take Fei Ling and leave first. Don’t go to any nearby cities—run straight east."

Fei Yin’s voice came out in broken fragments, choked with sobs: "Vera... I can’t... can’t leave you alone..."

"You don’t even have a Magic Staff anymore—you planning to stay and be dead weight?"

Vera’s sudden roar made Fei Yin feel as if her throat had been clamped shut; she choked, unable to speak, only tears spilling down in an unstoppable stream.

"Sorry, Fei Yin." Vera drew the startled, small-animal-like Fei Yin into his arms and kissed her; Fei Yin’s eyes, blurred by tears, flickered slightly.

When the kiss ended, Vera looked calmly at the girl and spoke again: "Be good. Take Fei Ling and leave at once, all right?"

"Mm..." Fei Yin nodded in pain, and under Vera’s urging, turned and ran toward the rear city gate with her sister in her arms.

In the sky, a member of the Blood Race who had transformed into a bat, emboldened by the failure of all the Magic Towers, was already flying recklessly over the fortress.

At a glance, amidst the chaos, he locked onto the fleeing Fei Yin.

Although before departure the Duke had ordered that no living captives be left in this raid, tormenting the prey a bit before killing them surely wouldn’t delay matters much.

And a fragile little girl like this would undoubtedly yield the most exquisite screams.

Having chosen his prey, he wasted no more time and dove.

Closer.

Even closer.

He could see her trembling shoulders, could hear the disordered rhythm of her footsteps!

A blinding white light cleaved in from the side; it was so fast that he had no time to react before it swept past his body.

The bat’s form split down the middle, his Transformation Magic shattering; the Blood Race, severed at the waist, howled as he plunged.

Vera, who’d passed the bat in that instant, landed on the roof of a low house. Pure radiance flowed along his Curved Saber; the fresh blood that had just stained the blade turned into wisps of blood mist, steamed away by the light and dissipating into the air.

Vera lifted his head to the sky; after confirming that no other demons were pursuing Fei Yin, he sheathed his saber, lowered his body, and headed toward the city gate where the Empire was attacking.

...

Every proper fortress is constructed from countless composite Defense Magic Arrays, layered one within another.

Without Magic to reinforce it, no matter how high the walls rise, they’re nothing more than earthen barriers that cost a bit more effort to scale, with hardly any defensive value to speak of.

And at this moment, Lar Fortress, whose runes had been half-eroded by the mist, was precisely such an empty shell—all façade, no substance.

Less than ten minutes after Levi gave the order to attack, the battle line had already pushed from the walls into the interior of the fortress.

Listening to the sounds of combat within, Levi did not enter the city at once. Instead, he turned back toward the center of the army.

There stood a massive dark-gray rectangular monolith, about twenty meters long, its surface covered in obscure, unreadable runes, strange phantom digits swirling all around it.

Sixteen heavy iron chains extended from its base, drawn forward by eight powerful War Beasts.

As the slaughter within the city continued, the phantom runes on the monolith flickered ceaselessly.

Levi summoned his adjutant: "I’ll leave half the army under your command. No matter what happens, you must protect the Coffin. If the Coffin is damaged, before Lord Demon King can deal with me, I’ll butcher you myself! Understood?"

The adjutant straightened his spine: "Yes, my lord! I shall guard the Coffin with my life!"

Levi spared the adjutant no further glance, drove the War Beasts, and headed for the fortress gate.

The gate now yawned open, and Levi rode his beasts straight in. The din of battle had been driven deeper into the fortress; on either side of the streets lay collapsed buildings and freshly dead corpses, the air thick with the stench of blood.

However, just after Levi had entered the city, a figure suddenly burst out from the corner—the commander of Lar Fortress.

"Blood‑eating rat, leave your head behind!"

He was drenched in blood, armor shattered, but his eyes burned with an almost insane light.

Yet there was no surprise in Levi’s eyes; a long spear of congealed blood thrust out, steadily catching the slashing war blade.

"Your stealth is decent, hiding in a battlefield reeking of blood really is a good idea," Levi’s voice was calm, "but it only fools those youngsters. That surging blood power in your body—I sensed it from far away!"

"I can still butcher you!" Veins bulged on the commander’s face, as if he had taken some kind of potion that burned his potential.

The potion’s power churned inside him, swelling his muscles by a ring, and his blade carried more weight than before.

Unfortunately, this couldn’t make up for the gap in strength between the two.

Blood light flared at Levi’s spear tip, blasting that war blade along with the commander away.

The figure smashed through half a stone wall, crashed into the ruins by the roadside; rubble clattered down, burying him tight.

Levi waved at the trusted aides behind him. "Go, drag him—"

Before he could finish, a streak of white light flared behind him, dazzling like someone had plucked the noonday sun from the sky and jammed it into this narrow alley.

"What?!"

Vera’s curved saber swept in horizontally, and Levi hadn’t sensed even a trace of him beforehand.

Fortunately, even under a sneak attack, Levi was still faster.

In a lightning flash, Levi sheathed his right arm in blood and threw it in front of the blade’s edge, while his left hand drove the blood spear back in from a treacherous angle—slower to move, but first to land!

The spear tip pierced through Vera’s chest and burst out his back; blood exploded from behind him, yet Vera’s curved saber didn’t even tremble.

White light swept past; the arm guard of congealed blood tore open like thin paper, and the blade kept driving toward Levi’s neck.

Impossible!

His blood crystal arm guard might not shatter even under the full‑force strike of a Palace Level warrior. This human, whose blood power was slightly inferior to that commander just now, how could he possibly do this?

Levi had no time to figure it out, because the blade’s edge had already kissed the skin at the side of his neck.

Life and death in a heartbeat, the pendant on his chest burst into a mass of thick, pale‑blue slime.

The Slime squeezed out from the pendant, shoving Levi aside and checking the blade, buying Levi a heartbeat more.

Levi didn’t dare hesitate. His body detonated from within, dissolving into countless streams of blood that shot toward the direction of the army behind him.

Vera’s curved saber only had time to cleave one blood strand; the rest had already flown far away and recombined into Levi’s swaying figure.

Only then did the trusted aides’ attacks finally arrive, belatedly pouring down onto Vera, blasting him into the heap of collapsed ruins.

Levi panted in great heaving breaths, lowering his head to look at his right arm severed at the elbow, then lifted his gaze toward that patch of rubble, and with a tremor in his heart shouted his order: "Advance! Kill them!"

Only, the trusted aides failed to find Vera in the ruins. Even that commander of Lar Fortress from before had vanished without a trace; all around was nothing but endless stench of blood.

Levi did vaguely sense a faint trail, but grievously wounded as he was, he lacked the resolve to fight to the death. In the end, he could only watch as that trace faded away into nothing.

...

Lar Fortress fell, unsurprisingly.

Levi didn’t halt the army to rest and heal, but pushed on without pause, leaping past Lar Fortress from the inner side of the new defensive line, driving toward the next key node city.

The retreating mist surged in again on its cycle; this time, with no obstacle, the mist smoothly swallowed Lar Fortress, swallowed Levi’s army, and then rolled on toward the next node city.

Inside the mist, runes flowed across the Coffin, forcing open a safe zone for the Empire Army; the surging mist parted to both sides, skirting around Levi and his forces.

Once the mist receded, the defenses of the next node city would collapse, and Levi would once more crush it with no effort at all!

Meanwhile, directly east of Lar Fortress, the commander dragged a gravely wounded, unconscious Vera, cursing under his breath as the pursuing mist closed over them.

No one knew how long had passed before the half‑dead pair were picked up by a Fat Otaku Puki transport team that had originally been heading to Lar Fortress with supplies...

By the time the two woke inside Fat Otaku Puki’s belly and pried open the crack beneath the mushroom cap, they could already see the walls of Mushroom City far in the distance.

The commander of Lar Fortress gave a bitter laugh and slapped Vera’s shoulder. "Good lad, we actually survived that. You don’t know—when you were passed out, the mist caught up to us, and I thought we were dead for sure! Lucky thing it replayed the scene from my old bandit‑suppression days! Damn it, losing the fortress... I’m going to have my hands full with trouble after this..."

"Tss—!" Vera flinched from the pain of the slap, looked outside in some confusion, then looked back at him. "Sorry, but... may I ask, you are...?"

"Huh? You brat..." The commander looked at the dazed youth with some sympathy. "Your brain actually got knocked loose. No idea if there’s any way to fix that..."

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