Hi everyone! Today I'm only bringing you 2 chapters. đ I apologize, but I got a little carried away: what was supposed to be a one-chapter fight ended up stretching into two parts because, well, when I start reading my drafts, my imagination just takes flight and I can't stop writing. âď¸â¨
I promise it won't disappoint you. And I have good news! Tomorrow I'll bring you 4 chapters: the one that was left over from today plus the three scheduled for tomorrow. It's likely that the remaining fights against the Alliance will end up being two parts each... I'll see what happens as the story progresses. Thanks for your patience and enjoy the read!
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CHAPTER 195: The Dance of the Nine and the Tamer's Despair (Part 1)
Rurik, the feared Assault Commander of the Iron Blood Alliance, gritted his teeth so hard that his own blood filled his mouth. In front of him, the nine female silhouettes had ceased to be human; they were now heralds of extinction, enveloped in primordial scales, crystalline horns, and auras that distorted the very laws of physics.
Primal terror had paralyzed his immense three-headed Magma Hound, but Rurik was a mercenary who had survived a century of massacres. If he was going to die in this crater, he would take at least one of these damned dragon bitches to hell with him.
"Kill the ones in front! Cover me!" roared Rurik.
He yanked violently on the heavy chains and, through their soul link, transmitted a wave of pure killing intent to override his beast's paralyzing panic. The hound reacted with a spasm. The plates of molten rock on its back ignited with a blinding white glow, and it lunged forward, raising its colossal earthen bronze claws to crush the girls, while Rurik began to channel his Fire Law from the rear.
But the space on that battlefield no longer belonged to the Alliance. It belonged to Violeta.
Violeta's unfathomable, icy eyes shone. Instead of running or dodging, she manipulated the very coordinates of the courtyard. With a crystalline chime, she executed her [Dimensional Frost Step]. Eris and Lirael disappeared from their original position, fragmenting into thousands of black crystals, and were "spat out" by a spatial fissure directly in front of the charging beast's nose. Between the starting point and the destination, only a trail of frost remained suspended in the air, as if a beam of ice had crossed through reality.
The ambush was instantaneous.
Eris, enveloped in her imposing Semi-Transformation and with her obsidian horns channeling the pressure of a supernova, swung her immense halberd, the Sun Devourer. The heavy black shaft, forged in the core of collapsed stars, cut through the air as the sphere of black fire at the tip of the blade aimed straight for the beast's right front leg.
On the left flank, Lirael slid like a ghost in a nightmare. Her [Veil of Eternal Night] expanded like a cloud of living ink, devouring the light of the lava and plunging her combat radius into absolute darkness. Within that unnatural blackness, her Moon Fang sword absorbed all photons, becoming completely invisible. With the lethality of her [Lunar Shadow Slash] technique, she delivered a strike that produced no reflections or sonic vibrations.
The clash of weapons was brutal. Eris's halberd shattered the molten rock scales on the right leg with a dull burst, while Lirael's invisible blade cleanly severed the muscles of the left leg, leaving an icy burn that glowed with silver light from inside the flesh.
The immense Magma Hound was stopped dead, forced to stumble backward with heavy, clumsy steps as boiling blood gushed forth. The sharp pain achieved what Rurik's whippings could not: it plunged the beast into a Berserker fury. The heat from its wounds acted like a bellows, raising its body temperature to critical levels.
The hound's three heads rose toward the sealed sky, executing the [Trinity of Sulfuric Breath]. The left head fired colossal condensed fireballs that traveled like meteors; the right vomited a continuous torrent of thick white magma; and the center unleashed a spinning tornado of molten rock that threatened to incinerate half the courtyard.
The massive flames swept the area, but Eris and Lirael didn't even blink.
Lirael saw the magma approaching her pale face. Her Shattered Moon Skin shone intensely. When the lava "hit" her, it didn't burn flesh, but shattered a mirage of light. The damage refraction tricked the material world; the attack destroyed an afterimage while the true Lirael had already shifted five meters away, leaving a trail of floating ice micro-mirrors in the smoking air.
For her part, Eris faced the combined fire with crushing arrogance.
"Your fire is trash. Mine is the end of times," she declared.
The black and white [Flame of Ruin] sprouted from her dark scales. She didn't conjure a physical wall; she simply let her entropy clash against the attack. A nauseating hiss was heard. Her fire "insulted" the matter of the magma, devouring its molecular bonds. She launched a tiny vibrating sphere: the [Decaying Core Explosion]. Upon detonating, a gray and crimson shockwave infected the air, making the beast's torrent of fire turn brittle and crumble into inert ash before it even grazed her.
However, the brutal residual heat wave and the suffocating pressure of the combined attack still threatened the zone. That was when Eira intervened.
The girl with frigid porcelain skin crossed her arms, her amber eyes flashing with a white Fractal Seal. She invoked the absolute wall: the [Snow Lotus Sanctuary]. Twelve colossal petals of translucent imperial ice erupted from the vitrified floor, enclosing her and her sisters. The immense heat and kinetic force of the hound crashed against the petals, but the crystal did not melt. Instead, it devoured the thermal energy, trapping the fire in two dimensions within the ice. An instant later (CHING!), the crystal returned the absorbed force as a shockwave that swept the courtyard, freezing the spilled lava and turning the hellscape into an arctic wasteland.
While the three contained the frontal assault, Violeta fixed her gaze on the real problem: the tamer.
Space sucked toward her chest, and Violeta disappeared. Using her [Bridge Between Worlds], she reappeared instantly in Rurik's blind spot. The Grand Saint, focused on empowering his hound, did not anticipate the spatial breach.
Violeta released her [Zero Entropy Pulse]. An invisible aura of conceptual cold struck Rurik. The mercenary felt his blood turn to molasses and his muscles weigh tons; the very vibration of his atoms was being slowed down. In that fraction of a second of lethargy, Violeta's rapier, the Absolute Zero Needle, moved at chilling speed, tracing five surgical cuts on Rurik's back.
"Damned...!" roared the Commander, spitting frozen blood as he felt the cold pierce his meridians.
Desperate, he detonated his Fire Law in a point-blank omnidirectional blast. Flames covered everything, but Violeta reacted instinctively. Her [Dimensional Phaseshift] activated; her body became intangible, partially existing in a parallel dimension. The fire passed through her like a hologram. "Swimming" through that void space, the blade of her rapier ignored physical distance and reappeared directly inside Rurik's thigh, stabbing him from within before she safely materialized ten meters away.
Rurik fell onto one knee, howling in pain and humiliation. But the Morningstar siege was just beginning.
Deafening thunder split the air above his head. Xylia, transformed into the avatar of Imperial Thunder, appeared floating in front of him, her white eyes overflowing with static.
"KNEEL, SCUM!" ordered Xylia with the voice of the end of the world.
It wasn't a simple shout. It was the [Authority Shockwave]. Her bloodline traveled through the Qi and directly struck the mercenary's nervous system. The electrical impulses in Rurik's brain were overridden. Despite his immense will as a Grand Saint, his biology failed him. Both of his knees violently crashed against the volcanic floor, paralyzed by an invisible force.
In that second of submission, Xylia unleashed her [Celestial Thunder Mandate]. The heavy static plasma whip, Indra, descended like the punishment of an enraged god. It lashed Rurik's chest, shoulders, and face. The metal of his armor melted, injecting high-frequency electric Qi directly into his meridians and causing a lethal overload.
Rurik was thrown backward, his clothes on fire and his face half-disfigured. The physical pain paled in comparison to the crushing humiliation. A veteran feared across the continent, the assault leader of Iron Blood, was being forced to kneel and tortured by a group of brats!
"You're going to pay for this! I'm going to burn you until not even the memory of your souls remains!" bellowed Rurik, bloodshot eyes losing what little sanity he had left.
The Grand Saint unleashed one hundred percent of his power, expanding [The Sulfur Furnace Hatchery]. His domain forced reality to behave like a volcanic pit. The ground turned an ashen black and cracked, spitting a yellowish sulfur mist. His power healed his hound's superficial wounds and boosted its ferocity.
Under its master's orders, the beast's three heads attacked again, combining fire, lava, and toxic gas in a desperate attempt to suffocate the oxygen within a hundred-meter radius.
But from the rear, Vania acted with cold mathematics.
Her sapphire scales shone, and she struck the crystal base of her staff against the floor. She invoked the [Empress's Silence: Acoustic Void]. A mute, expansive rumble was felt in the marrow of everyone's bones. Sound was completely extinguished. A zone of silence and vitreous density expanded. When the monstrous artillery of fire and lava penetrated this barrier, it instantly lost its kinetic and thermal energy. The lethal flares and magma projectiles fell to the ground like heavy, harmless globs of gray mud.
While Vania nullified the ranged offensive, Mira had slithered through the shadows of the rubble with her ophidian bone contortion, positioning herself in the Magma Hound's blind spot.
The girl exhaled her [Amethyst Mist]. The odorless, glowing gas enveloped the beast. When the hound breathed it in, its frantic movements became lethargic; the toxin eroded its reaction speed. Taking advantage of the lethargy, Mira unleashed the [Amethyst Fang Dance]. Her daggers, imbued with neurotoxin, traced spectral cuts in the air. She didn't seek to cut the dog's tough flesh; she cut the runic fire shield protecting it.
The [Law Rot] took immediate effect. The majestic fire shield turned a putrid black, collapsed on itself, and violently exploded. A cloud of acid and miasma enveloped the beast, turning its own defense into an acid that devoured its back.
Extreme pain, however, made the monster react. Activating [Boiling Blood Frenzy], the hound ignored the pain. Its three heads whipped around, and an immense pillar of volcanic force erupted beneath Eris, Lirael, and Vania, launching them through the air until they smashed against the basalt walls. Immediately after, the beast's dark plasma jaws snapped shut on Mira.
But the sharp teeth only crushed a [Shadow Skin]. The empty shell, made of solid amethyst Qi, burst into a thousand poisonous splinters inside the dog's mouth. Mira had already shifted away unharmed, watching as necrosis devoured the creature's gums.
At the rear of the shattered fortress, something happened that completely broke Rurik's spirit. The Forge Slaves, those who had remained hidden trembling with fear throughout the mutiny, peeked their heads out. Seeing the elite massacred and instinctively recognizing who the new, absolute apex predators were, they made a pragmatic decision.
A group of slave healers ran quickly to where Eris, Lirael, and Vania had fallen. With their heads bowed in submission, they didn't dare touch them, but they desperately channeled their purest healing techniques toward them, repairing the superficial impact damage in seconds. They preferred to kneel before the victorious monsters than die crushed alongside their former masters.
Rurik watched the scene. His dead mercenaries, his slaves healing the enemies, and his invincible hound on the verge of dying from poison.
"Damn you all! I'll take you to the fucking grave with me!" howled Rurik, tears of blood welling in his eyes.
The Grand Saint crossed his hands and unleashed his forbidden trump card: [Fire Symbiosis].
A torrent of white light connected Rurik's heart with that of the Magma Hound. The mercenary's body dissolved into pure fire and crashed into the wounded beast's back. The fusion was as grotesque as it was majestic. Dog and human merged, and Rurik emerged from the creature's back like a gigantic demonic centaur made of molten steel, magma, and flesh.
The atmospheric pressure in the courtyard multiplied exponentially, cracking the entire canyon. The combined aura of both broke through the bottlenecks of cultivation, reaching the terrifying power of a Peak Stage 2 Grand Saint. The axe in Centaur Rurik's hand enveloped itself in a white flame of solar intensity, turning the surrounding air into pure plasma.
Oxygen disappeared entirely, and the furthest stone slabs began to melt into puddles of black glass.
The nine girls regrouped in a semicircle, panting slightly. They knew that if the fight dragged on, they would die suffocated or incinerated by the absurd ambient temperature of the domain.
But Rurik's desperation had not yet reached its peak. The magma centaur smiled maniacally. He raised his massive blackened hands toward the reddish sky, and the space in front of him tore open into four dimensional summoning portals.
The field fell into a sepulchral silence as the ground trembled. Four colossi emerged from the smoke, each exhaling the power of the peak of the Semi-Saint Realm.
First, the earth split to give way to the Tectonic Avalanche Beetle (Stage 9 Semi-Saint). A four-meter titan armored in porous obsidian, with a massive three-pronged horn dripping black magma. Its earthen bronze claws anchored to the ground, ready to be an impregnable shield.
Above them, the air tore with the flapping of the Mute Void Vulture (Stage 6 Semi-Saint). A humanoid nightmare of ash-gray plumage and translucent wings that cut the wind like void blades. Its perfect chrome eyes looked at the girls without a trace of a soul.
To Rurik's right, the Bloody Root Bear (Stage 5 Semi-Saint) roared, rearing up on its hind legs. Its brown fur was covered in organic jade plates where beautiful but lethal frost lotuses bloomed, its veins pulsing with emerald light.
And finally, crawling from the shadows of the wall, the Twilight Widow (Stage 7 Semi-Saint) appeared. A horrifying, hunched bipedal spider. Its immense abdomen was a starry night sky of withered energy, and its eight red eyes glowed while its chelicerae exhaled a sweet, purple miasma.
The Magma Centaur, breathing white fire and surrounded by his lethal elite guard, pointed his molten axe at the nine Morningstar queens. The combat had reached its absolute climax.
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