Margaret appeared at the corner of the corridor, moisture beginning to rise from her body.
Hilde's silver needles flew out from behind her, forming an arc in midair.
The Guardian had been twitching on the floor one second, then all ten of his fingers suddenly stopped the next. His torso and limbs stiffened sharply. Then his fingers calmed, slowly spreading open, palms up against the cracked stone slab.
Lu Yuan saw the Guardian's lips moving, but his voice was too soft, drowned out by the hum of the aura.
The Guardian was saying, "Enough."
The old man lay on his back, his clouded eyes open and fixed on the ceiling. Pitch-black aura and dense eyeballs wrapped him into a cocoon.
Inside that cocoon, he told the thing that had churned within him for five or six hundred years, "Enough."
With his palms spread open, he chose to let go. He stopped suppressing the Eerification and no longer blocked the Resentment. The Guardian opened himself completely and let the two forces decide the outcome on their own.
The nearly berserk aura surged wildly. The Archbishop and the others waiting outside looked grim. Clearly, the Guardian's Eerie Path had reached its critical point. If anything went wrong, it would be a devastating blow to Bronze City.
Just as Klaus had no idea what to do,
without any warning, the outermost eyeballs on the Guardian's body sank into his skin first, spreading from his cheeks to his limbs as they vanished one after another.
The concentration of the pitch-black aura dropped by half within five seconds, and the black traces on the stone slab faded as well.
Klaus's Short Blade hung in midair, a flash of astonishment passing through his eyes.
The Guardian's spine slowly straightened. He rolled over onto his back, his