Chapter 583: Chapter 583- Eight Heavenly King: Astaroth

As for the slaves, they were no longer able to dismiss the stories of the boy. The lurking things in the darkness. The whispers, the shadows, everything that the boy said was true.

There was something really here, and it was after all of them.

Alarms erupted throughout Level Two. The piercing sirens and red flares could be seen and heard all around.

Squads and squads of armored guards and even knights descended down from Level One and headed to stop the anomaly.

However, once they dived inside the darkness, they never returned.

People kept vanishing without any trace.

Humans always feared the unknown, and in a place like Level Two where darkness was everywhere, it was all the more profound.

Terror took hold, and panic started spreading everywhere.

.

Somewhere within Level Two, inside the communal space, only a handful of slaves remained. A few adults, some trembling children, and the boy.

One of the remaining adults, a large man with hollow eyes, clenched his fists.

"We can’t stay here. If we do, we’ll become those things."

By now, everyone had seen them.

Crimson eyes, pale bodies, and covered in a cloak of dark haze. They walked endlessly through the darkness like living corpses, devoid of any sanity.

Every single guard or slave who walked into the darkness had become one of those things without exception.

"Keep running. Don’t look at those corpses and especially don’t listen to the whispering darkness."

The boy who was running with the survivors stopped.

"They’re not corpses, they are called walkers," he pressed.

The adult looked at him with unpleasant eyes. To them, the boy was simply too unnerving to be around.

All of these unexplainable occurrences started from the moment he spread those stories.

For better or for worse, while everyone around started becoming one of those walkers, the boy still remained human.

"What?"

"Their souls are still being hollowed out. Which is why they are still incomplete vessels."

The boy explained, looking at the distant walkers in excitement.

This unnerved the others.

"Listen to me, boy. If you want to survive, if you don’t want to become one of those things, you need to tell us what you know."

By now, it was no longer a matter of believing the boy’s story or not. He was the only exception among everyone, the only one to come out alive after taking and seeing the creatures that lurked in the darkness.

The boy tilted his head and studied the faces of everyone, the faces that were filled with fear.

"Don’t worry, I know a way out of Level Two."

The boy smiled. It was a truly unnerving smile.

Although they all felt a chill run down their spine, no one complained.

They followed him.

The boy led them through the factories of Level Two, the empty guard posts, the garrisons; they were all empty now.

As for the guards who had once occupied them, they had long been turned into those walkers.

Thankfully, they had met none on their way here.

Fate worked in mysterious ways, really. The slaves who had fallen to Level Two never thought that they would ever get out of this place alive.

Yet the chaos that ensued gave them an opportunity to escape from this hell.

Before long, they reached a vast elevator located deep inside the garrison.

All the slaves here had never seen such a structure before.

However, having worked a large part of their life in those factories, they understood without knowing that this was the mechanism using which the guards entered and exited the place.

Under normal circumstances, a slave would never be allowed to come anywhere near the garrison.

However, the situation inside Level Two was far from normal.

The exit!

They finally found the exit.

Tears spilled from the eyes of the adults. Some even laughed hysterically.

They were alive, they were saved.

Once they got out of this goddamn Hollow Earth, they would be free again.

With that hope, they stepped towards the platform.

At this moment, the boy walking with them abruptly stopped and smiled eerily.

"It’s time." His voice was loud, yet it rang clearly in everyone’s ears.

"What do you mean, it’s time?"

All the survivors turned to face him. They had always known that the boy’s smile was creepy. However, there was something different, something additional.

Something that unsettled them deeply.

"It’s time for the Walkers to finish becoming what they’re meant to be."

As he spoke those words, the atmosphere changed.

The wind stopped blowing, the mechanical noise of the gears turning, the sirens flaring, all the sound disappeared, leaving only a suffocating quietness.

"Ahhhh."

Then all of a sudden, one of the children cried out.

Her outburst attracted the attention of the other survivors, who also turned to look in the direction she was pointing at.

There from the darkness, a vague silhouette emerged.

Pale skin, crimson eyes, and wearing dark haze like a cloak. The being that emerged was no doubt a walker.

The scene shouldn’t have been that shocking. However, once another walker emerged from behind the first, then another and more and more, it turned into a different story.

They emerged from the tunnels, from the empty barracks, through the shadows of the pillars.

Ten... hundred... thousand... ten thousand... and increasing...

The walkers began to crowd the garrison.

The sight of them emerging from everywhere and filling the vision was terrifying, mind-boggling, and bone-chilling.

For better or for worse, the garrison was placed strategically to overlook the cavern floor of Level Two.

Thus, the sight of seeing tens of thousands of walkers emerging from the darkness could be imagined.

All the dead, all the disappeared. Every slave who had collapsed, even bodies that had been incinerated.

They were all here.

The survivors stumbled backward, a kind of primal fear gripping their hearts. And then, along with fear came the sweet whispers of the demon.

"Now, time for them to awaken and complete their form."

As the boy said those words, the ocean of bobbing heads below stirred into activity. They began to change; no, it would be more appropriate to say the walkers were transforming.

In front of the terror-stricken eyes of the survivors, the walkers’ skin cracked, bones protruded out of their bodies, their muscles ballooned, becoming disfigured mutants.

Some grew new limbs, with wet, tearing sounds. Others stopped looking humanoid entirely with raw sinew that hardened into chitin, scales, or armored plates.

A few collapsed inward, only to erupt outward into towering, distorted shapes stitched together by black tendrils of haze.

"W-What is happening?"

The survivors didn’t know what was happening. It was like watching a nightmare take shape with their own eyes.

Had any knight been here, they would instantly be able to recognize what was going on.

After all, the things that the walkers were turning into were something that they used to fighting in the frontlines.

In other words, they were turning into... demons.

Seeing the transformation, the boy laughed jovially.

Though soon, his voice turned deep and heavy, something that mismatched with his appearance.

"I guess this appearance has run out of its use."

As those words sounded out, another disturbing scene occurred.

In front of the eyes of the survivors, the boy’s body started breaking. His skin cracked, causing blood to spray out.

Then, like a moth breaking out of its cocoon, something emerged after ripping the human cocoon that was the boy.

With skin as dark as ink, the being that emerged had black sclera with crimson irises glowing like twin eclipses. Two curved horns pierced through his scalp with a sickening crack, spiraling backward elegantly.

A tail unfurled behind him, its tip splitting into a jagged barb.

With the emergence of the being, the already dim light in the underground world dimmed even further.

As for the ever-present mana, it was pushed back as if afraid of the black haze covering the being.

That was not all, a pressure descended, vast and tyrannical, forcing even the newly born demons to lower their heads.

Instinctively, they all recognized the being as the one who stood above all of them.

A ruling class!

Even the surviving humans dropped to their knees, eyes looking down, unable to handle the sheer fear that rose within them just by looking at the figure.

New Valdonian Calendar, Year 126.

The Eighth Heavenly King, Astaroth, made his appearance.

The boy was gone.

In his place stood Astaroth, his expression serene, almost gentle, save for the faint curl of amusement on his lips.

He gazed upwards, his eyes piercing Level One and looking at the kingdom above.

"So this is the kingdom that fed me."

Astaroth smiled and inhaled a deep, refreshing breath.

"For over a hundred years, I had been sealed in these lands. Without a body, my aether had no hope of recovering and could only dissipate with the years. That is before this kingdom decided to establish itself here and use this space for its benefit... Kukuku"