Chapter 428 ’Vile’ Ascenders
Dilan couldn't even exert enough strength to drag himself out of the hole. He had to use his mana to create a small earthen platform below his feet to push him upward.
Yet, even before he reached the surface, he felt a bunch of hands reaching out to him. Dilan was grasped tightly, hauled upward, and almost instantly covered with a blanket.
"Dilan…is that you?" Kathrine's voice rang in his ears all of a sudden. A moment later, a thumping sound of someone getting hit was followed by a pained scream.
"Did you suddenly turn blind? Of course, that's Dilan!" Victoria declared, without taking her eyes off Dilan even for a second.
He looked extremely weak and pale, weaker than ever before but that didn't matter because he was still alive. As long as Dilan was breathing, everything would be alright!
"You!!" Kathrine shouted at Victoria while glaring at her. She would have jumped at her if not for her sister who held her back.
"Fight somewhere else if you want to, not around Dilan. He could die if an astray attack hits him right now…" Yvonne cautioned the others when she realized just how weak Dilan was right now. It was weird to see their leader being so feeble.
She had no idea what happened in the last weeks and it made no sense for him to still be alive because the [Soul Radar] ability of the young woman who had been with them had been faulty. Victoria and the others had worked tirelessly to find Dilan but he was not at the location where the Soul Radar had led them.
Only when he broke through the surface did the Soul Radar ability accurately signal them to his position, meaning that it was only at this moment that Dilan found a way to the surface.
The Soul Radar's biggest problem was that it could only determine the position of beings above the surface or with a connection to the surface. That being said, Dilan couldn't even have gotten any oxygen from above the surface.
And upon looking at Dilan's current appearance, it was unlikely that he had been strong enough to get his hands on anything by himself either. It was already a wonder that he reached the surface all on his own, but given that he was breathing heavily and that it looked like he was on the verge of collapsing due to the overuse of his mana, he must have had a rough time.
"How much time has passed?" Dilan asked weakly while looking at the others for an answer. He knew that the others had many questions about how he had ended up here and the struggle of his survival. But, he was also pretty sure that it was more important for him to figure out what he had missed while dying over and over again.
"Around two weeks," The middle-aged skinny woman answered. She was the only one, who was not deep in thought or mindlessly staring at Dilan. She had answered him without hesitation and Dilan nodded his head at that.
"How is the situation with the Scorpio Temple, the Werewolves, and the Hordes of Chaos and Destruction?" He asked another question while looking at the middle-aged woman, who could only shrug her shoulders.
She didn't know much about the Werewolves, let alone the Temple of Scorpio or the Hordes of Chaos and Destruction. Thus, Dilan had to avert his attention and look at the three women, who seemed to have been engaged in a verbal spar with each other.
"Can't you just tell us what happened to you and everyone else in Shiron? Were you attacked, and if you got attacked, why? Was it a different race, some vile Ascenders, or what, or who?!" Kathrine bombarded him with questions and she started to point fingers at him.
Dilan looked at her weakly while trying to recall what exactly had happened.
"Human Ascenders attacked by using some sort of Mantras to paralyze everyone in Shiron before a meteorite shower destroyed everything. I have no idea how they were able to use these Mantras but they did…and here is the result…everyone's dead," He gave them a brief summary and the five women began to look at him weirdly.
"You mean vile Ascenders, right?" Yvonne asked, trying to make sure she understood everything properly but Dilan could only shake his head before he halted in his tracks.
"Vile Ascenders…can you really call this group vile? I don't know… I just know that the Undying Group in Shiron had been overthrown by a small group of five powerful Ascenders, who went around raping women left and right. They did not even spare the wife and daughter of the person who initiated the attack on Shiron. He probably turned insane after what happened to his family, but I don't know…" Dilan tried to be impartial and fair, but he couldn't really get himself to call themselves Vile Ascenders.
There was a distinct difference between someone seeking revenge and someone killing their own kind just for the sake of it.
Dilan would actually call himself a Vile Ascender because he had killed more humans than most Vile Ascenders would ever be capable of, and it didn't really bother him either.
If others regarded him as Evil he could actually accept this rather easily. It didn't matter because he would always do what he wanted to do.
Thus, he would have to accept what others did to him if they were stronger than him, even if that meant he was to die.
Dilan accepted this but that didn't mean he wouldn't take revenge on them for nearly killing him. They were the reason for him being so weak right now and all the pain he had endured during the last two weeks. How could he just leave them like that?
He couldn't care less if they came for revenge, if all of the ten thousand human Ascenders were at fault for what happened, or if they just followed their leader's commands. Neither reason for their actions would matter to Dilan. He wouldn't hesitate to shed their blood if they came for his people.
It was obvious that his hesitation to kill their leader before was a very important scenario in what happened afterward. If the leader had been killed, the follow-up attack might not have happened.
"What does it matter, what you call the people who attacked Dilan? I will tear them apart, whether they're humans, Vampires, Gods or Devils!!" Victoria shouted at Yvonne while her eyes turned crimson and her claws grew without her even realizing.
She was ready to fight the whole group of ten thousand Ascenders if necessary, but Yvonne could only sigh.
"That's obvious, but I still wanted to know what we're facing. If they killed thousands of innocent and weak humans without remorse, they shall suffer pain that is hundreds of times worse than what we went through," She stated in a calm voice, just for Dilan to intervene.
"I will take care of them. We don't know if they can use more of those Mantras. I'm not even sure how I survived and I really don't want anyone else to die," Dilan said with a heavy sigh. The memories of everything that had happened were slowly resurfacing and he didn't want anyone else to face the ghastly situation he had been in.
In fact, he only survived due to his Origin ability, which was why he would have to take care of everything. The others didn't have a survival ability like him. Thus, it was on him to fix the mess he had been pulled into.
"But whatever…I will need a few more days to heal properly and I have to search for them afterward. So, for now, let's talk about something more important," Dilan spoke before he took a deep breaths as he continued to speak,
"How bad is our situation?"