The Fall of Usher (5)

Usher Poe Madeline.

She gathered the remnants of the Killing God Squad and set out in pursuit of Tudor and Bianca.

Leading her horse across a bridge over a swamp, she soon found herself at the foot of a steeply sloping mountain.

[Abandon your horses and climb the mountain; you may kill Tudor, but Bianca must be captured].

Madeline had lost her reason in her rage and no longer thought to hide her voice.

From her mouth, which has been torn open from ear to ear, comes a sound like the howl of a trapped animal.

Her eyes, arrowed in the brow and turned in strange directions, were set vertically in a reptilian pupil.

The leader of the Demon Army, who had once led the Age of Destruction from the forefront and had done so much to spearhead the destruction of mankind, was slowly revealing her true colors.

pudeudeug-

Every time Madeline moved the hem of her loose dress, it made a sound like a bird's feathers rubbing together.

[The smell of young, fresh meat...]

Madeline was climbing the mountain faster than anyone else.

The smell dotted over rocks, piles of leaves, and the tips of sharp branches.

Madeline was following the trail of blood that Bianca had spilled as she fled.

[Hohohoho- she must have been in a hurry, if she couldn't even get the scent off herself].

The prey's increasingly sluggish pace was evident in the growing trail.

Sweat, saliva, and snot on the ground.

But the most unmistakable odor of all is blood.

Not only was the blood spilled not covered with leaves or soil, but there were unmistakable traces of footprints and hair everywhere.

Broken branches and disheveled grasses also gave a clear indication of the direction in which the prey had fled.

[Finally goodbye to this rotting bitch, hohoho – as soon as I change bodies, the first thing I'm going to do is whip her little squeaky body to smithereens, it's been so frustrating and tiresome].

Madeline reached the ridge with a big smile on her face.

She could see the lake on the other side of the mountain.

Lakedog Lake.

It's the largest lake in the area, along with the swampy land surrounding Usher's mansion.

Madeline and Usher's pursuers made their way out of the forest and toward Lakedog Lake.

What they saw was a rather unexpected sight.

[...?]

It was a pile of stones and mud piled high on the shore of a lake that had been turned into a barren field.

Where there should have been a lake, there was no water.

The water had been wiped out by the ongoing wildfires and drought.

[But was the drought really this bad?]

The bottom of the lake was strangely dry.

She could understand if the water level was dropping, but it's not normal for the lake to be so dry.

There were some pools of stagnant water in various places, and there were large fish clustered in them.

…Puddle, puddle, puddle!

Madeline stuck her hand down into the pool and pulled out a large catfish, which she chewed up and swallowed whole.

[Strange. Even in the most severe droughts, the waters of Lakedog never dried up... hohohoho- could it be that the coming Age of Destruction is that harsh?]

Madeline tossed the catfish she was chewing on to the ground and turned her head to look at the blazing red flames on the horizon.

The wildfire burning in the distance was obviously no ordinary natural disaster.

Droughts, wildfires, monster outbreaks, and all other natural disasters are merely precursors.

It was a flow of magic power condensed to open a huge portal in the sky and a natural phenomenon that followed.

[...gate. The gates of destruction are about to open!]

The demons, impatient with the continued loss of their allies, have decided to open the gates to the Demon Realm a little earlier than they would have otherwise, after decades of delay.

It was for this reason that the Empire's civil war broke out earlier than planned.

[For that, I must change my body into something young and fresh].

Madeline felt her body heat up as she thought of the many plans she had for Bianca's body.

[Alas, first I must make many children, how delicious they will be made from my blood and flesh, my mouth is watering already].

She quickly descended to the bottom of the lake and made her way toward the center.

She made her way through the towering stones and mounds of dirt, and the desolate landscape inside came into view.

Whiiiiing-

Suddenly, a humid breeze blew in from nowhere.

[...!]

Madeline's expression changed as she turned her head to look for something.

She has an ominous feeling in the back of her mind.

Looking back at the rubble she had just passed, she realized that the path had changed slightly.

Madeline's eyes narrowed.

[Oh my. You're going to use a 'formation' against me?

Yes.

These stones piled up on the bottom of the lake are the walls of a maze.

And the paths between them form strange shapes throughout.

As visitors walk along these paths, they are plagued by hallucinations and visions, and eventually become completely disoriented and trapped within them.

It was similar to the formation inside the Usher mansion where Bianca's brainwashing was triggered, but in a much more complex way.

[Hohohoho- I'm an Usher myself, so I'm in the formation. It's cute.]

Madeline was quite relaxed despite being caught in a trap.

As she looked around, she saw monstrous rocks rising up like swords and a wall of dirt and rocks that completely surrounded her.

Madeline's eyes glittered with an evil light.

[Hehe... That's good. This is the work of Belial and Dantalian, right? Did they betray us and join the human side?]

But that's not possible.

Weren't Belial and Dantalian long gone in the first place?

But the formation in front of her was clearly a trap that Belial and Dantalian used to wage war on a large scale.

How a mere mortal has managed to recreate it is beyond comprehension.

[Who is it? Is it Bianca? No, there's no way a human could imitate a demonic formation so well. Hmmm...]

Madeline was a little troubled, but then she laughed softly.

[Well, whatever. This body isn't affected by the formation method, and I've already told Belial and Dantalian about the structure of this formation in the first place. Then why don't we try to break it in an instant?]

The other side must have set this trap to buy time.

However, Madeline thought to herself, having absorbed all of Usher's knowledge of the formation, as well as having mastered the formation of the demons, there was no way she could fall for such a lowly trap.

[I'll make it all for naught].

Madeline shook her head in triumph.

[Rest(休), Life(生), Injury(傷), Stop(杜), Enlightenment(景), Death(死), Surprise(驚), Open(開). Of the Eightfold Diagram Formation, If you go into life(生), Enlightenment(景), and Open(開), you will live. If you go through injury(傷), Surprise(驚), and rest(休), you will get hurt, and if you go to Stop (杜) and Death (死), you will die, right?]

Madeline knew well which was the live path and which was the dead path.

It was a well-known truth among demons.

[Hohoho- A truth is like a scribble on the pavement, of great effect to the unknowing, but nothing to those who know it well. Your efforts are imaginary, but useless!]

Madeline strode forward, breaking through the path of the Formation Method.

... But at that moment.

[Huh?]

Madeline spotted the remains of head lying on the ground.

It was a catfish from the puddle that Madeline had caught near the beginning of the dungeon.

Somehow, she had found herself back in the area where the maze had started.

With the exit still out of sight, of course.

[Well, how could it be?]

Madeline moved immediately.

She tried the Life Gate(生門), the Enlightenment Gate(景門), and the Open Gate(開門), which she knew to be the live path, but the scene was still the same.

She even went out through the Injury Gate(傷門), the Surprise Gate(驚門), and the Rest Gate(休門), just in case she got hurt, but the result was the same.

Instead, confusion, as if the heavens and earth were turning upside down, filled her head.

Still, she didn't have the courage to enter the Stop Gate(杜門) and the Death Gate(死門), where the path to death was certain.

[What? This isn't even Eightfold Diagram Formation? If it is, this is the right way to leave? Huh?]

The black blood on the floor was distracting Madeline.

All around her, she could see nothing but more dense walls, with no way out.

[...At this rate, I have no choice but to advance toward the center of the lake? Hmmm. Someone knows the demon's tricks. Who could this be, the demon hunter who's been killing my friends, but I thought he was imprisoned in Nouvelle Vague?]

But the more she ponders, the more she ponders, the more she moves forward, the darker her vision grows.

Madeline was dragged into the deepest part of the formation, half willingly and half unwillingly.

There stood a tall tree with a small torch hanging from it, and at its base she could see words written in black blood.

Madeline fought back her rising anger and impatience and walked toward the tree.

Suddenly, the words on the ground in the center of the formation caught her eye.

-Demons die under this tree.

The moment she saw it, Madeline gritted her teeth.

[How dare these bastards use cheap provocation...!]

But. it wasn't just a provocation to spoil the mood.

Madeline was quick to realize that.

…cheolsseog!

The sound of something heavy crashing in and hitting a huge boulder.

deudeudeudeudeudeu-

The dry, cracked ground trembled violently, sending up shards of stone and dried muddy dust.

[...!?]

Madeline's face crumpled into a grimace.

Now she understood why the bottom of Lakedog was so dry.

Chaaaaaah!

Water Attack.

An enormous wave of water was rushing in from the distance.