Extraordinary Pedigree.

Chapter 1116 Yoggros, the Demon King's Dream of Becoming a Famous General (6K).

Lionel did not stay at the camp for long.

When the campfire burned out its last embers and the sky over the gray wilderness once again fell into that perpetual gloom between dawn and dusk, he had completed all his preparations and also corrected himself—not in terms of strength, but in terms of mindset.

He no longer hesitated, nor did he try to weigh more possibilities. Instead, like a sword that had been sheathed for too long, he finally found the direction to be drawn.

The deepest alarm bell of the Order of Order was rung, its deep, ancient toll echoing across the camp, announcing the reawakening of something long forgotten.

The Hero Squad, including Lionel, consists of six people, which is the limit the Knights can muster.

Current squad roster

Lionel, the captain, the leader of the warriors, a symbol of swordsmanship and willpower, whose origins and strength need no further explanation.

Luther; he was not the strongest warrior, but he was the absolute core of the Order of Order, the guide who brought Lionel back to the human world from the jungle, and the one who taught him language, swordsmanship, oaths, and order.

Lionel's first weapon was a short sword forged and gifted to him by Luther himself. The old-fashioned short sword was not ornate, but it accompanied him through his earliest and most difficult years. In countless battles fought side by side, clearing out monsters and restoring order, Luther always stood by his left hand, both as his second-in-command and his earliest and most steadfast follower.

Within the Knights, Luther's prestige was second only to Lionel's.

Zahariel; he is one of the very few in the Order of Order who has awakened his spirituality and is the one who can truly see the traces of chaos.

His eyes could sense disturbances in the ether, providing early warnings of corrupted areas; he was the eyes of this team. In past cleanup operations, it was Zaharel who repeatedly used his spiritual perception to spot ambushes, preventing the Knights from being completely annihilated.

His loyalty to Lionel hardly needed an oath; it was an instinctive trust. The direction Lionel was heading was the direction his spirit guided him to.

Asmodai; a warrior who never hides his ruthlessness.

He was one of the first to question Lionel, wondering if this "wild boy from the jungle" deserved the title of knight. Until that siege, when Lionel killed a giant demon wolf corrupted by chaos with his bare hands, blood soaking the snow, Asmody stood by, watching in silence.

From that day on, his doubts turned into unwavering loyalty.

Berthold; he did not often stand on the front lines of battle, his battlefield was between the furnace and the anvil.

As one of the most outstanding master craftsmen in the Order of Order, Lionel's first standard knight's longsword, the sword he used when unifying the order, and even the equipment carried by the Hero Squad today, were all made by his own hands.

He was calm and taciturn, yet he had an almost obsessive trust in Lionel's ideals, and the knight's longsword in Lionel's hand was also forged by him; it was the most suitable sword for the other.

Seraphino; he is the scout captain of the Order of Order, and the one most familiar with the terrain and monster distribution of Oynos. Before Lionel emerged from the jungle and fully understood human warfare, it was Seraphino who guided him, little by little, to familiarize himself with this cursed land.

He taught Lionel how to set up formations in the dense forest, how to use the terrain to cut off enemies, and how to spot danger ahead of time in the chaotic shadows.

His presence ensured that the Knights were no longer an army that marched blindly forward.

These six people make up the entirety of the Hero Squad.

They made no grand pronouncements, nor did they harbor any illusions of living for glory.

They knew perfectly well that if even they couldn't ascend the steps of the Desolate Bone Demon Tower, then the Order of Knights, the human strongholds, and even the last spark of civilization would be devoured by plague and despair.

They had no oath-taking ceremony, nor did they shout loudly.

They silently organized their equipment, exchanged glances, and marched towards the enormous spiral silhouette piercing the sky in the desolate and lifeless gray wilderness.

Not far behind them, in a corner beyond the reach of all perception and sight, a figure that "does not exist" silently watches all of this.

In his mimicry form, Xia Xiu stood in the shadows of the wilderness. [Fantasy particles] flowed across his body like imperceptible dust particles, suppressing his presence to the point of near conceptual vacuum.

At this moment, even the most astute demon scouts would only see an empty space here.

He didn't approach; he just watched from a distance.

Xia Xiu watched Lionel walk at the head of the group, his steps steady, his back straight, without the slightest hesitation; he watched as the other man occasionally looked back to check on the group's status, he was neither a reckless man nor a simple commander, but more like a lone lion that had learned to think.

He had a very good first impression of the third perfect embryo.

Lionel possesses an extremely rare sense of balance—a coexistence of wildness and rationality, a calmness that retains a sharp instinct, an instinctive aversion to chaos, yet he is not led astray by hatred.

That's excellent; he hasn't disgraced himself as a future legion leader!
Lionel is a good boy; he has the same leadership qualities as Lupercal, the son of the First Prince.

……

……

The Desolate Bone Demon Tower.

The brave team quickly arrived at their destination, where a structure that defied description stood before them.

From a distance, it resembles a giant spiral cylinder piercing the heavens and the earth, its gray-white, dark yellow, and decaying black colors intertwined, its surface covered with structures resembling joints.

That was not decoration, but the true form of the spine—stretching upwards segment by segment until it pierced the low, lifeless sky of the gray wilderness.

The legend is not unfounded.

The essence of this tower is indeed the spine of an ancient deity.

Hollowed out and reshaped by the Yoggros, it is a fortress, an altar, and a gigantic corpse that is still slowly surviving.

A thick, dark liquid seeped continuously from between the bones. It was a substance called the Despair Fluid, which would make a slight hissing sound when it fell to the ground, and would even corrode the soul little by little.

The structure of the Desolate Bone Demon Tower does not have a clear division of floors.

Above the ground, about twenty miles high, lies what is known as the Sky Layer, the territory of the Demon King and the lair of his legions.

Twenty miles below the surface lies the earth's strata, said to lead directly to the original hatching pit of Yogg-Ross.

The passageways within the tower are not fixed; the bone walls undulate slightly according to the Demon King's will. A once straight corridor may bend in an instant, and sealed cavities may open on their own during the most intense battles, spewing out plague and demons. The entire tower is like a gigantic skeletal creature that has not yet completely died.

Lionel stood at the foot of the tower, looking up at it.

The oppressive feeling was so intense that it almost made you forget to breathe.

He gripped his sword tightly, took a deep breath, and did not retreat.

"Walk."

A single, concise word.

The brave team followed him into the shadows cast by the Desolate Bone Demon Tower.

From a higher dimensional perspective, a pitch-black sun silently watches over the path leading to the Demon King's throne.

Lionel walked at the front, making no grand pronouncements. He simply gripped his sword more firmly, and his emerald eyes swept over the constantly writhing bone crevices of the tower as if he were looking at an enemy city, or a living monster.

Luther followed slightly behind him, his hair tousled yet still straight in the wind, and whispered a reminder:
“This thing…is breathing; everything in the tower is an organ.”

The psionicist Zahariel, his eyes closed and beads of sweat glistening on his forehead, felt his spiritual tendrils, which had just reached out, encounter a viscous, rotting membrane. Instead of information, they returned with a string of nauseating whispers. He forced himself to speak, saying:

“Yogros’s workshop is inside. I can feel those disgusting viruses and monsters.”

Scout Serafino had already circled around to the entrance of the bone passage ahead. He crouched behind a protruding rib and observed for a moment. When he turned back, his voice was low but quick:

"The main entrance appears empty, but in reality, something is crawling in every crevice of the bone—leeches, as numerous as ants."

The next moment, swarms of leeches surged out from the gaps in the bones.

Those things were humanoid yet not humanoid, with slender bodies, joints bent backwards, and skin like rotten paper. Yet, a pulsating ball of marrow light was embedded in their chests. They didn't cry out or make a sound, only scraping their sharp claws against the bone walls, creating a harsh, grating sound, like a group of hungry craftsmen rushing up to dismantle the intruders into pieces.

Lionel did not retreat. With a swift turn of his sword, he sliced ​​open the neck of the first servant. The marrow spurted out but did not fall to the ground. Instead, it was absorbed back by the bone wall, as if the tower was drinking blood.

Luther raised his shield to brace against the flank and shouted in a deep voice:
"Don't let them touch your wound, they'll shove a piece of you into the bone!"

His words were not a threat, because the next second, a knight's leg guards were slashed open, and the leech servants pounced on him like insects that had smelled flesh. The moment their sharp claws pierced the wound, the knight's eyes suddenly went vacant, as if half of his soul had been ripped out.

"Back off!"

Lionel roared, activating his inner power—'A knight does not die unarmed!'

Anything he touches will be forcibly converted into "Knight's Armament," and equipment that is already a Knight's Weapon will be enhanced and covered with a layer of golden holy light.

Holy light possesses a special attack attribute against all evil spirits; he used holy light to purify and kill countless monsters.

At that moment, Lionel swept his sword across, slaying seven servants in succession. Then, he stomped on the expanding marrow light on the bone surface, as if extinguishing a lamp, and the tower body convulsed briefly.

Taking advantage of the situation, the master craftsman Berto flung out a bottle of fire salt engraved with purifying patterns. The bottle shattered, and white flames spread along the bone seams, forcing the servants to take a half-step back. Berto, panting, cursed:
"This thing is more and more disgusting to look at!"

They did not linger in the battle, for every second they delayed, another batch of leeches would crawl out from between their bones. Lionel quickly made a judgment and ordered the troops to advance in a wedge formation. Scout Serafino was in charge of guiding the way, warrior Asmo served as the vanguard, psionic Zaharel was on alert for any spiritual anomalies, and Luther guarded the heart of the formation—this was the oldest knightly formation, simple, yet capable of keeping people alive.

After passing through the bone meridian passage, the Heavenly Layer's Blood Battle Training Ground unfolds before you.

It was a vast bone plain, the ground compacted into a hard, grayish-white soil by the remains of countless fallen warriors. Broken horns, shattered teeth, and tattered armor plates were scattered everywhere like gravel, yet a strange, exciting smell floated in the air, like blood, or like wine.

Worse still, there exists an invisible curse that amplifies murderous intent and weakens judgment. Anyone who is immersed in it for too long will start to want to end everything in front of them as quickly as possible—even if that includes their own companions.

Asmody saw numerous chains nailed to the bone walls on both sides of the training ground. The chains did not bind prisoners, but rather batches of combat slaves transformed by Yogoros. The moment they were released, they pounced on any target they could see, like mindless rabid dogs.

"Don't get dragged into their rhythm!"

While blocking an oncoming osteomyelitis slave, Luther shouted to Lionel, "I'll hold them off here, the rest of you, keep going!"

And so, Luther stayed behind to cover the retreat.

Lionel looked at his teacher, his pupils narrowed as he suppressed the inexplicable surge of emotion within him, while simultaneously giving a very short command to pull the team away from the edge of the training ground.

He quickly made up his mind that he couldn't let his teacher down; he had to keep...

Forward, forward, forward!!!

He reversed the chain with a single sword strike, severing a whole row of osteomyelitis slaves and sending them charging toward the center of the training ground, crashing into another group of slaves—the cursed tide caused them to instantly turn into infighting, turning the training ground into a vortex of mutual slaughter, while the hero's team took advantage of the chaos to quickly pass through.

"keep going!!!"

The group of five continued on their way.

……

……

The bone marrow laboratory on the middle level was their first real hurdle. This was originally the core bone marrow experimental area on the middle level of the Desolate Bone Demon Tower, but at this moment, the lights in all the culture tanks had been dimmed, as if the entire space was being prepared as a stage for a slaughter.

The bone walls undulated slightly, as if breathing. The ground was covered with a thin film of not-yet-completely-solidified marrow fluid, and each step would pull out viscous threads. The air was filled with a rotten, sweet smell that made one instinctively want to hold their breath.

The Bone Gangrene Lord stood in the very center of the experimental area.

Its body is forcibly pieced together from the skeletons of several different creatures, resulting in bizarre and distorted proportions.

The ribs curled outwards like layers of overlapping bone armor; the spine was straight and sharp, like a knife forcibly inserted into the flesh. Most unsettling was its chest cavity—there was no heart there, only a swirling, diseased flame, rising and falling and pulsating behind the translucent periosteum, causing the number of spores in the space to surge dramatically.

When it breathes, what spills out between its teeth is not air, but a green, sick mist.

When the mist fell to the ground, the bone surface immediately swelled and ulcerated, like a malignant tumor that had been forcibly ripened.

The Bone Gangrene Lord slowly raised its head. When it spoke, its voice was like an entire ward coughing simultaneously—broken, hoarse, yet carrying an almost pleasant gentleness:

"Another batch of fuel that has walked right into our trap... Your courage is delicious."

Its jaws gently closed, as if savoring a flavor.

"I will marinate them in the marrow fluid and preserve them slowly."

The warrior Asmodie didn't even wait for it to finish speaking.

"You rotten bone, you dare to talk about delicious food?"

The moment the curses ended, he had already moved.

With the bone beneath his feet shattering, Asmodie charged forward like a bolt from a crossbow, his longsword slashing diagonally upwards, the blade drawing a sharp arc in the air before precisely cleaving into a rib on the side of the Bone Gangrene Lord.

The sound of bones breaking was so crisp it seemed unreal.

But it was all for naught.

What gushed out from the fractured bone was not liquid, but clumps of wriggling putrefactive spores.

They seemed to possess consciousness, hovering briefly in the air before suddenly lunging towards the gap in Asmodé's mask.

"Don't inhale—!"

The psionicist Zaharie's warning was almost a scream.

His spirituality was forcibly squeezed out in an instant, forming a semi-transparent membrane that tightly covered Asmodie's mouth and nose. Spores hit the membrane, making a fine crackling sound, like raindrops hitting rotting leather.

Zaharel let out a muffled groan, his face instantly turning pale.

Because he knew better than anyone else that those things weren't poison.

That's a kind of rot at the conceptual level.

"Hold the formation!" Lionel's voice rang out amidst the chaos, not loud, but exceptionally clear.

He activated his unique ability once again—'The Self-Eating Cycle of Ideas!'

This ability can be summarized in a very simple way.

Do you believe in chivalry (yourself)?

The stronger Lionel's sense of chivalry, the greater his abilities, and the stronger his abilities, the stronger his sense of chivalry!

In this cycle, Lionel's survivability becomes stronger, just like an unkillable cockroach.

He relied on the autophagy cycle to shield himself from the darkness and lived in the desolate dark forest for a full ten years.

There was no roaring, no acceleration, and no flashy techniques.

He simply took a step forward and raised the sword to just the right height.

The next moment, the sword thrust straight in.

The sword tip pierced precisely into the center of the diseased flame in the Bone Gangrene Lord's chest cavity.

In that instant, the entire experimental area seemed to have been forcibly paused.

The diseased flames suddenly expanded, but were forcibly pinned to the spot in the next instant. An invisible hand suppressed its possibility of spreading and escaping.

For the first time, the Bone Gland Lord let out a true roar.

It wasn't anger, but astonishment.

The moment it was pinned down, the others moved simultaneously.

Luther was no longer on this level—he stayed on the previous level to cover the rear and block the pursuing leech swarm.

Serafino's figure had already disappeared into the side corridor. He cleared the recycling passage as quickly as possible to prevent the Bone Plague Lord from being reborn through the tower.

Zaharel gritted her teeth to maintain her spiritual barrier, veins bulging on her forehead, blood trickling down her nose.

Berto didn't say another word.

He stuffed the last two bottles of fire salt into the bone marrow well opening and then detonated them.

The roar wasn't loud, but it noticeably slowed down the entire tower's recycling cycle. The marrow fluid flowing back into the Bone Ganger's body was forcibly interrupted, and the diseased flames dimmed abruptly for a moment.

This moment is enough.

Lionel sheathed his sword, spun around, and thrust again.

This time, the sword's edge pierced directly through the core of the lesion.

The Bone Gangrene Lord's body stiffened abruptly, then collapsed from the inside as if its supporting structure had been removed. The spliced ​​bones fell off one by one, and the spores, now unrestrained, withered and disintegrated rapidly under the purifying liquid.

When it fell, there was no explosion, no curse, only a very faint, sigh-like sound.

It was as if they had finally been allowed to stop.

"Leon...keep going!!!"

His teammates roared at Lionel to keep going, but he didn't say anything more.

Lionel did not turn around.

He continued upwards.

layer.

Another layer.

With each step forward, the space became a little more open.

No new teammates joined, no new support appeared, only his own footsteps echoed between the bone walls.

Until he stepped alone into the Throne Room of Vengeance.

……

……

The Throne Room of Vengeance.

The top of the tower resembles a closed-off sky.

There is no dome, yet there is no escape.

Millions of soul fragments floated in mid-air, like stars, or like corpses. Cries, laughter, prayers, and curses intertwined into a mental storm, relentlessly pouring into the depths of consciousness.

Anyone who steps into this place will be forced to hear one sentence—a sentence they most want to escape.

The Throne of Vengeance stood in the center, and upon it, the Demon Lord Yoggros, Medion Clerus, slowly raised his head.

It was a face that could no longer be called a face. The skin and bones had lost their boundaries in the long process of decay, as if they had been repeatedly reshaped by some slow and gentle force, just to make living itself a continuous decay.

When that gaze truly fell upon him, Lionel clearly felt his heartbeat slow down a beat.

It wasn't fear, but an extremely calm, almost cruel judgment.

This is not an enemy I can defeat; just like my teacher said, I am facing an enemy I cannot win against at all.

Madison Clerus watched the lone challenger.

Throughout his long reign, he had seen far too many people like this charging toward him, shouting words of glory, faith, and revenge.

Their fates never changed: either they suffered a mental breakdown the moment they stepped into the throne room; or they became hysterical after realizing the gap between them; or they were slowly dismantled by him and offered to the Desolate Bone Demon Tower, becoming part of the marrow fluid circulation.

For him, challengers were merely entertainment material.

That was his original plan, to slowly and cruelly let the young knight watch his beliefs fester and rot in despair.

However, just as he was about to get up, a gaze that did not belong to the gray wilderness descended upon him.

The benevolent Father cast his gaze upon him. This great and merciful Lord, the God of Healing, was always generous, and at this moment He gave the Demon King an order.

A thought took shape in Madison Clerus's mind.

As long as he sacrifices the challenger before him—right here, right beneath the throne—he can transcend his current level, no longer merely a servant of the Chaos God, but be formally promoted to—[General].

That was the kind of child that the loving father himself remembered.

This unexpected joy caused Yoggros, the Demon King, to be momentarily stunned, a rare occurrence.

"...Such a good thing?!"

Sitting at home, I was suddenly struck by good news; my luck was about to change!

My dream of becoming a famous general is about to come true!!!