“AAAAAAAAAARGH!” The Blood King’s shrill howl thundered in the room. According to the intel he’d received from Ashera, by now Kilian should just be reaching the Archon rank. Yet, his speed had already caught up to him, to where a moment of inattention cost him his face.
Shackled by the Blood King’s internal chaos, the Mark of Pride failed to provide maximum regeneration speed. Blood, torn flesh and broken bones fell from the mangled face, staining the ground as the Blood King rolled out of Kilian’s range to regain his foothold.
Seeing that Kilian’s movement speed could threaten their new superior, the fehl audience showed mismatched emotions. Amusement, stupor and disappointment filled the thousands of bystanding gazes. Above others, Zog’doroth was perplexed. The Blood King existed to pressure Kilian back into Ashera’s arms, either through the oppression of those he held dear, or by restoring the buried scars of his past. The scenario where Kilian devoured the Blood King and his Mark of Pride was merely a backup plan.
Ashera herself didn’t expect Kilian to grow so fast that now an Exarch-level foe couldn’t afford carelessness before him. Outpacing even an Overlord’s expectations was indeed praiseworthy.
“What a pity that you aren’t obedient. What is so wrong with being Her Dominion’s pawn? Is the Eye of Fehl something you can fully exploit? Perhaps you could have truly become the father of Her Dominion’s child,” Zog’doroth whispered, shaking his head in disapproval.
“Not everyone lives for servitude,” a melodious voice pulled Zog’doroth out of his false sorrow. Detached by a blade strike, Zog’doroth’s head dropped and rolled on the ground—leaving a trail of acidic black blood behind. The lower end of his reptilian body shook, and as Zog’doroth “faced” the riveting figure about to end his existence, his elongated tongue swayed erratically.
“Why...why is my body not healing?” Always one to quickly spot the critical matter, Zog’doroth realized that his fehl body couldn’t heal from Eleonora’s blow. Something utterly incomprehensible unless she was…his eyes widened in fright, and pushing his fehl dra to the limit, Zog’doroth attempted to hurl his head out of Eleonora’s grasp. Alerted by the disturbance, several fehl daemons’ attention shifted toward Zog’doroth’s floating head.
What they saw displeased them, and filled with a sense of self-preservation, they put as much distance between them and Eleonora as the Blood King’s orders allowed them to—meaning that they all dropped on the ground, still surrounding the castle, but from below.
“Traitorous scum, quickly come help me!” Zog’doroth squealed, but preferring to ensure their survival, the battle-tested legionaries chose to omit half the message, stopping their brains at “scum.” Not realizing that he was done for, Zog’doroth kept pushing with his dra, but though his head flew at impressive speed, he never seemed to get closer to the escape road.
Only when Eleonora’s graceful figure towered above him did he realize that from beginning to end, his head remained at the same spot. If his brain wasn’t separated from his body, he’d probably soil the ground.
“For eons our camps have been at peace, never interfering with one another. Aren’t you afraid of triggering another Cosmic War?” With no other recourse, Zog’doroth tried the intimidation card.
“Our camps?” Eleonora arched an eyebrow and aimed her sword at Zog’doroth’s head. Her long purple hair became a plethora of purple snakes that dove toward Zog’doroth’s head and still trembling body. Sinking their fangs in Zog’doroth’s crawling head and body, the snakes started devouring his very existence, the only end for a fehl vs. fehl battle.
“I’m...how? Aren’t you a...throne?” Though his death approached, confusion still sacked Zog’doroth’s mind. Wounds inflicted by thrones couldn’t heal. As if divine punishment existed in all their blows, thrones could kill anyone or thing. Astral Masters and above could mitigate the force and evade destruction. But those below had no such chance.
When his body refused to heal, Zog’doroth concluded that Eleonora was a throne in disguise. Why then could she end his life with a variation of the fehls’ All-Devouring ability? Zog’doroth would never have the answer because Eleonora siphoned all his fehl essence—reducing him to ashes.
She then turned to witness the confrontation between Kilian and the Blood King.
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Holding nothing back, the Blood King wrapped himself in his blood-red heavy armor. Dra cannons sprouted from his shoulders, all aimed at Kilian. At the same time, the Blood King summoned his full arsenal of Philosopher’s Stones, nine red oval stones he planned to use to push his strength far beyond what Kilian could handle.
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The explosive sound of an artillery discharge followed a barrage of dra beams fired by the Blood King to tackle Kilian, as at the back he channeled the power of the nine stones.
“Grasp of Avarice: Grand Larceny,” Ignoring the dra beams, Kilian aimed his free hand at the clone, dark-green light flashed, and the nine Philosopher’s Stones vanished from the Blood King’s side to appear beside Kilian.
Three obsidian crystal mirrors formed before the beam barrage, stopping it all with a succession of loud ringing sounds. Snapping his fingers, Kilian summoned the Coffer of Greed and stashed his loot. Since the Blood Kin no longer had a face to show his rage on, he just shook in his armor.
Wanting to curb his sense of superiority, Ashera didn’t tell him about Kilian’s Mark of Greed. But even if he didn’t know of the mark beforehand, the sin magic he felt surge from Kilian’s palm told him more than enough. Those Philosopher’s Stones now felt like a distance kiss between Kilian and Ashera, with him serving as the intermediary. Regretting his rash trust in the deceitful Overlord, the Blood King was starting to wonder if he ever had anyone on his side.
For some reason, the Blood King glanced at Eleonora. Discovering that her eyes were on Kilian only, he heaved a bitter sigh, and straightened his posture. The pressure of over 100,000 dra erupted from his greatsword, and at a speed akin to teleportation, the Blood King whirled his sword at Kilian’s neck.
With his Eye of Revelation activated, Kilian predicted the blow, but rather than avoiding it, he modified the atomic structure of his neck to turn the impact zone into a nigh-unbreakable alloy with enough tensile strength to resist a mountain’s weight.
The Blood King’s sword bounced against Kilian’s neck. Thrown off balance, he activated his propulsors, soaring toward the ceiling before shifting to his aircraft form. Missile doors and four, three meters long cannons sprouted from various corners of the aircraft as it crushed the ceiling and floor with its sheer size.
Even if Kilian was a master of Transmutation Magic, such hardness and tensile strength wasn’t possible without a tremendous quantity of dra and focus. If he remained on the offensive, a flaw was destined to show itself. Or so the Blood King initially thought. But regardless of how many missiles or dra beams he fired, Kilian evaded them all, leading the Blood King further down the crumbling castle, while making sure that even dust didn’t graze the Sura Queen on his shoulder.
It was almost as if Kilian was telling him, “I block if I want to, and dodge if I want to.”
“Is avoiding all you can do? Fight me if you dare!” The Blood King bellowed.
“If you insist,” Kilian replied, and raised his free hand.
Activating his Eye of Distortion, Kilian isolated the space around the crystals and the Blood King.
All debris, falling rocks and pillars turned into a myriad of shard-shaped green crystals. The crystals expanded into a rain of green spears that skewered the aircraft-state Blood King from all sides.
Blue lightning flashed from the multitude of holes, and the aircraft burst into pieces, leaving behind a charred, dropping mess of a wannabe king.
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Note: Starting this week I'm changing my update style to All I Can Write by Sunday. My schedule is a bit hectic, and I'm also working on a side novel which I'm going to start uploading next week too, so I need to change the update style to give myself more room for maneuver. I don't want to give an exact chapter count, but some weeks you will have more, some weeks less. Let's say 5 on average to be safe.