He steadied the cannon, which barely moved, and shouted, "Attack the creature’s legs!"
Beside him, the Dawn Sect soldiers, under Sasha’s command, lowered their guns, aiming and concentrating their fire with the knights fighting alongside them to shoot at the beast’s ankles.
The dense rain of firelight dragged through the air, striking the giant beast’s legs, causing a crimson fountain of blood, as it stumbled forward, crashing into a monument of flesh.
The hall trembled, and suddenly, everyone felt the gravity around them shift, a pull making it hard to keep their footing. Olivia grabbed the great sword manifested by the Condensed Light with one hand, firing at the creature’s giant lantern-like eye while deftly sidestepping to dodge the blood beast’s massive paw, leaping with its momentum, and firing as she landed on the back of the unbalanced beast.
The arc of her sword sliced through, and as she twisted her body, the Sun Holy Sword single-handedly sunk into the blood beast’s nape, cutting it horizontally out in her spinning motion.
The monster’s roar ceased abruptly, and its heavy body crashed to the ground, with a torrent of blood flowing from its half-severed neck.
After killing the Blood Demon creation, Olivia leapt down from the carcass, maintaining her vigilance as she turned to other enemies, only to see countless fleshy tendrils emerging from the monster’s neck, merging with the tendrils on the flesh floor, as its body jerked and propped itself up with a massive claw, appearing ready to stand again.
Olivia, somewhat surprised, raised the muzzle, pulling the trigger. However, round after round of firelight drilled into the headless body with growing tendrils, and even when the ammo chain surprisingly jammed with a click, it couldn’t be stopped from ceaselessly regenerating amidst the writhing flesh.
Brandishing the long sword, the girl furrowed her brow and once more charged at the giant beast.
At the rear, Leon glimpsed over to see the warriors who continued to fire back at the monsters, many Holy War Knights had run out of ammo, throwing aside their useless rifles, summoning spiritual weapons, and engaging in brutal close combat.
But even as they tore through the Blood Demon creations surging from the flesh corridors and walls, the enemy seemed endless, an inexhaustible supply.
Engaging in a prolonged battle was not an option. Although this place was once the prison for the Blood Demon, now it was its heavily infiltrated lair. Continuing the fight here was to their own disadvantage.
Striding to the corner of the wall where Suviel’s projection fell, Leon sprayed bullets with his machine gun, shattering the twisted creations attacking with tentacles from all sides. He frowned and sharply asked the hologram, "This is a dead end! Where’s the path you were pointing at?"
"It’s just behind this wall, the Blood Witch used its spell to cover the original path to the Spirit Palace."
The magic wand of the perceptive projection rested against the wall of flesh.
The vivid blue projection illuminated the wall, revealing a simulated corridor passage beyond it.
Leon immediately stepped back, chanting a spell, and suddenly thrust Garner forward.
A tornado, far more powerful than those in the Material Realm, suddenly smashed forward.
The terrifying cyclone shredded the fleshy wall like the blades of a meat grinder. After a deafening roar, indeed, among the crimson fragments of flesh, a circular breach appeared, revealing the passage beyond.
Seeing the wall torn open by the spell healing at a speed visible to the eye, Leon turned back, urgently calling for the warriors to retreat.
The formation quickly contracted, with the Holy War Knights and Church Soldiers passing through the hole one after another.
"Olivia! Don’t engage in futile battle! Leave here quickly!" Leon shouted towards his wife, who was covering the retreat.
The girl held back the creature, her surroundings stained red with blood, the corpses of the slain by her great sword and blown apart by grenades piled high, yet even though Olivia had slain and dismembered the massive blood beast twice, the enormous horned monster still hadn’t died.
Olivia had no choice but to abandon the skirmish, reluctantly discarding the emptied machine gun, withdrawing alongside Leon with the Holy Sword in hand.
The two of them slashed through the healing walls, entering the passage guided by the magic projection.
The gunfire continued amid the advancing team, and even after breaking through obstacles, the scene remained a blood-filled tunnel, but this made Leon fairly certain that the ancient magic intelligence’s projection wasn’t mistaken.
The Blood Demon Skush had been covering up the crossroads from the start, likely to mislead them into unwittingly reaching the place where it was imprisoned, and if not for this projection recognizing him as... a Pope for some unknown reason, if trapped by such a scale of blood beasts with no way out, he would have no choice but to help Skush lift the seal.
Feeling fortunate, he continued to lead the team along the path as directed by Suviel’s projection. As they delved deeper, at the cost of a dozen knights whose souls returned to the Netti Card, they finally carved out a physical path through the bloodshed.
And continuously stepping over the nearly blood-carcass-covered road to hell beneath their feet, only then did Leon realize how powerless his Kleinian cannon was against the creatures of the Spirit Realm.
The emptied automatic cannon was like scrap iron, already discarded. Besides some remaining handgun ammo, the knights had all reverted to their pre-death weapons, advancing through the blood and severed limbs.
The technological creations meant for ordinary beings couldn’t eradicate the enemy. No matter how many were killed, their corpses would be reabsorbed by the tendrils on the Blood Palace’s floor and walls, transforming back into abominations of flesh.
It wasn’t until Leon wielded the Demon Blade, summoning torrents of flames to sweep through and turn the flesh to ash, that he finally discovered their weakness.
Unfortunately, he was the only mage present capable of summoning such flames, unable to incinerate an enemy of this scale.
Had he known, he should have equipped the entire team with flamethrowers instead of firearms before setting out, Leon begrudged himself for the oversight.
He continued to cut down the monsters trying to force him back along the original route, while looking towards Suviel’s projection, which had suddenly stopped ahead.
At the tunnel’s end ahead, a faint glimmer of light filtered through, prompting Leon to rush forward, only to abruptly halt.