The battle raged on until, at last, a breaking point arrived in the defenses around the Zanís howorld. The number of destroyed satellites and formation cores orbiting the planet reached a critical threshold. The massive shield that had for so long protected the world from invasion—and more importantly, from teleportation—began to flicker and falter.
"No!" Pompeyo’s roar echoed through the void, filled with both panic and dread, as he watched the defenses of his world unravel before his eyes.
The White Death’s gaze sharpened. He did not miss Pompeyo’s reaction. There was more than simple fear in the man’s eyes—more than the terror of battle or the frustration of defeat. No, there was sothing else there, sothing deeper, sothing hidden. But Alexandro had no ti to puzzle it out.
He did not allow such thoughts to dull his awareness. Seizing the opening created by Pompeyo’s lapse in focus, the White Death’s spear shot forward like lightning, knocking aside the Patriarch’s blade before slashing across his body with overwhelming might.
Pompeyo was a heartbeat too slow. tal, skin, muscle, and bone were severed in a single stroke, blood spraying into the void in crimson jets.
The White Death’s eyes burned with grim determination. He had found his chance—a chance to end the war here and now. His energy erupted like a tidal wave, and behind him materialized a sun of pure white fire.
That white sun was the core of his cultivation, the embodint of his mastery over terrifying and dangerous Laws—the very essence that had carried him into the realm of a Lord. Now he channeled all of it into his spear.
"Entropy Sun of Oblivion!" Alexandro roared. His muscles bulged, his aura surged, and the full power of the white sun poured into his weapon. He thrust forward with everything he had, the strike aid to pierce Pompeyo’s heart and end the conflict.
Pompeyo’s eyes widened. In that instant, everything else faded from his mind. Death lood before him, and the sheer pressure of it pushed his mind and soul to their absolute limit. With every shred of strength, he raised his sword. His primordial treasures blazed with golden light, clashing against the oncoming spear.
Pompeyo knew he could not stop the blow outright. But he had another plan.
The mont the two weapons collided, his armor shattered into fragnts, erupting outward as a mantle of radiant gold. A heartbeat later, the sword detonated, and the battlefield was consud in a blinding explosion of white and golden light.
The blast blinded even Vlad and Altharion. Every warrior across the void paused, eyes straining to pierce the glare, for they all knew this clash could decide the war’s outco.
When the light finally began to fade, all that could be seen was a vast moon of seething white and golden plasma, swirling violently and swallowing both combatants. No one could tell what had happened within.
Then a scream split the void.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Pompeyo was hurled out of the blazing sphere, his body mangled. His right arm was gone, a gaping hole yawned where his stomach should have been, and white flas clung to his flesh, devouring him rcilessly.
And yet, even in such a ruined state, the Patriarch of the Zanis Family showed his true battle instinct. Using the montum of his ejection, he hurled himself toward the howorld at full speed, desperate to reach its safety.
Almost simultaneously, the White Death erged from the storm of plasma. His aura still radiated murderous intent, but it had weakened dangerously. His wounds were not fatal, but his last attack had drained everything he had left. His body trembled from exhaustion; there was no fuel remaining to continue.
It was in that mont of weakness that the rest of the Lord-tier battlefield ignited.
The Artificial Life Forms began to glow, their cores blazing brighter and brighter, each burning like a miniature sun on the verge of detonation.
Shock rippled across the faces of Vlad and the White Death as they sensed the power gathering within the automatons. It was unmistakable: self-destruction. And not just a localized blast—this would be devastation on a scale to drown the void in annihilation. The energy would flood across thousands of kiloters, reaching even the Legendary battlefield and consuming countless lives.
The strategy was clear. Pompeyo was not sentintal. The Artificial Life Forms’ sacrifice would delay Graecia’s invasion, buying ti for his battered forces to recover and regroup. The cost—even if it ant slaughtering allies—was irrelevant.
The Devil Lord, on the other hand, did not hesitate for a mont. The instant Pompeyo retreated toward the howorld, the contract that had bound him snapped. No longer obligated to fight, he turned and flashed into the planet. With the automatons about to explode, it was the perfect opportunity to escape.
The detonations ca too quickly for anyone to intervene.
All twelve Half-Step Lords erupted, their bodies bursting into waves of golden energy. The brilliance surged outward, ready to engulf the battlefield and obliterate friend and foe alike.
But just as the cataclysm was about to spill across the void, the energy twisted. Instead of expanding unchecked, it began to coil, collapsing inward, pulled against its natural course.
At the center of it all stood Altharion.
The young man’s energy, which he had been conserving all this ti, burst forth like a volcanic eruption. His glaive whirled in his hands, its edge carving patterns of authority through the void. His eyes bled from the unbearable strain, but he endured, forcing the annihilation to bend, to contract, to condense.
The overwhelming destruction clawed at the void, but Altharion contained it. He would not allow it to spread.
Vlad watched the sight, his own rage burning hotter than ever. He saw the exhaustion written in every line of the White Death’s body after his final strike. He saw the determination carved into Altharion’s face as he bore the impossible weight of the explosion alone.
Resolve ignited in Vlad’s chest, raw and unyielding. A fourth eye socket opened upon his forehead as his killing aura surged to its peak.
He fixed his gaze upon the fleeing Devil Lord and the mangled figure of Pompeyo, who staggered desperately toward the Zanis Howorld.
"Freya—TO !" Vlad roared, his voice thundering across the void like a war drum.
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