The shining blue water of the Great Dam illuminated the dark canyon, casting eerie shadows across the pale stone of the dam. The Void Herald did not laugh. It simply lowered its dark halberd and pointed the jagged tip at Kairos.
"Kill the others," the Herald commanded smoothly. "The silver splinter is mine."
The circle of Mana Aberrations shrieked. The mutated beasts broke their respectful formation, lunging wildly at the group of teenagers. The stone dam trembled under their thundering paws. Thick black mist poured from their jaws as they lunged forward.
"Formation!" Terravarous roared, his voice carrying easily over the chaos.
The Vanguard Generals didn’t need to discuss a plan. Three months of brutal, silent training in the dark basent had forged an unbreakable synergy between the Solaris boys, and Velanor, Catherine, and Soltheia fell right into step beside them.
Velanor Banner slamd both of his hands onto the pale stone. "Earth Shift: Staggered Trenches!"
The smooth top of the Great Dam rippled. Three jagged trenches opened up right in the path of the charging Aberrations. The front line of beasts fell into the pits, their bodies crashing into the stone with sickening thuds.
"Ignis, now!" Velanor shouted.
Ignis sprinted forward, a highly gathered line of blue fire humming intensely along the dull edge of his iron sword. He leaped over the first trench, bringing the blue hot blade down in a flawless, diagonal arc.
The compressed heat sliced through the thick necks of two trapped Aberrations in a single motion. The beasts disintegrated into harmless gray ash before they even realized they were dead.
A third Aberration scrambled out of the second trench, swiping a corrupted claw at Ignis’ exposed back.
CRACK!!
Terravarous stepped in smoothly, his fra shielding his cousin. He didn’t armor his whole body. A tiny patch of glittering diamond ford on his left shoulder just a second before the claw struck. The claw bounced off the unbreakable diamond. Terravarous grabbed the beast by its throat, lifted it up, and slamd it down onto a jagged rock spike Velanor had just raised from the floor.
"Watch the flanks!" Catherine Sylphyros called out calmly from the back line.
She stood near her younger sister, her bare hands shimring with freezing chill. She didn’t freeze the air randomly to create a wasteful blizzard. She tracked the movents of the flanking Aberrations and fired tiny, razor sharp needles of ice. The needles shot across the battlefield, piercing the kneecaps of the sprinting monsters, crippling their legs and sending them sliding helplessly across the stone.
"I’ve got the wounded!" Soltheia yelled, pulling a severely injured Zephyros guard behind the safety of Velanor’s thick rock walls. Her hands shone with warm, golden green water magic, actively pulling the toxic black mist out of the man’s torn armor and healing his flesh back together.
The terrifying swarm of Void beasts was being strategically slaughtered by a group of trained teenagers.
But Kairos wasn’t watching the swarm.
His glowing, silver white eyes were locked firmly on the Void Herald.
The dark commander didn’t care that its foot soldiers were dying. It stepped forward, its sleek, pitch black obsidian armor absorbing the light. It moved with a terrifying grace that defied its heavy armor.
The Herald simply vanished. It didn’t turn into a ssy cloud of black smoke like the lower tier Knights. It smoothly folded itself into the space between the shadows, bypassing physical distance.
Kairos didn’t wait to see where it would land. His Agility stat was sitting firmly at 95. He relied on his earned combat instincts built in the basent.
He spun on his heel, swinging Asteria in a tight, horizontal block behind his own back.
CLANG!
The impact echoed like a ringing church bell across the canyon. The Herald was ford behind Kairos, swinging its dark halberd in a lethal downward chop. The holy silver blade t the corrupted obsidian polearm.
The sheer physical weight behind the Herald’s strike was monstrous. It was designed to crush a mortal spine into powder.
But Kairos didn’t collapse. His knees bent slightly to absorb the shock, but he held his ground. The shimring white veins pulsing under his skin humd with divine energy. His Strength stat of 88, combined with his precise footwork, allowed him to push back against the ancient commander without breaking.
The Void Herald tilted its sleek, faceless helt. It was genuinely surprised. A fragile mortal had just parried a lethal blow without using any magic.
"You have thickened your bones, little human," the Herald said, pressing the halberd down hard. "But raw muscle cannot fight gravity."
The Herald raised its free hand, pointing a single armored finger at Kairos’s chest. Kairos suddenly felt his stomach drop. The natural gravity anchoring his boots to the stone dam simply ceased to exist. He beca weightless. The Herald flicked its finger upward, and Kairos was launched twenty feet into the cold night air, out of control.
"Kairos!" Seyana yelled from the backline, her hands gripping the stone barricade.
Hovering helplessly in the air, Kairos saw the Herald bend its knees, preparing to leap up and impale him on the halberd while he couldn’t dodge.
"Not today," a lazy, echoing voice commanded over the noise of the battle.
Luna Zephyros stepped forward. The Night Emperor’s pale eyes were wide open, his face fixed in intense concentration. He pointed his hand at Kairos flying in the sky.
"Down!" Luna whispered.
The gravity slamd into Kairos from above. It instantly canceled out the Herald’s corrupted anti-gravity field. Kairos dropped out of the sky like a stone, landing vehently but safely on his feet just as the Herald leaped into the empty air where he had just been.
The dark commander moved harmlessly over Kairos’ head, landing smoothly on the pale stone a few yards away.
"Keep your boots on the ground, village boy," Luna called out, a faint smirk returning to his pale face. "I can’t catch you every ti you decide to go flying."
The Void Herald slowly turned around. It looked at Luna, the shining purple slit on its visor narrowing dangerously.
"A mortal who flirts with the cosmic weight," the Herald murmured, its smooth voice laced with disdain. "You play with forces that will eventually lt your fragile mind, boy."
"I’ll take my chances," Luna replied coldly.
The Herald raised its dark halberd, spinning it in a fast circle. "Then you will all die together. The dam falls tonight."
The dark commander stomped its obsidian boot against the top of the Great Dam. This was not a simple trick aid at a person. The Herald was using its corrupted power to target the stone structure itself. A deep rumbling echoed from inside the pale stone wall. The glowing blue water of the reservoir behind them began to churn and boil frantically.
A pitch black circle of corrupted gravity ford beneath the Herald’s feet. It was expanding, tearing the solid stone of the dam apart. The jagged cracks burst out across the top of the wall, heading straight for the group of teenagers.
If that circle fully expanded, the entire center of the Great Dam would collapse into the canyon, draining the magical rivers and destroying the continent’s supply forever.
"Kairos!" Velanor yelled, trying to use his earth magic to hold the cracking stone together, but the corrupted gravity was simply too strong to nd. "I can’t hold the wall! It is too heavy!"
Kairos didn’t hesitate. He had the divine buffer flowing through his veins, and he had an ancient sword in his hand. He had trained his body for this mont.
He focused his mind on the golden letters burning in his digital interface.
Activate!! Kairos commanded.
[CONQUEROR OF TI: LEVEL 1. INITIATED.]
The world lost its vibrant color. The chaotic, deafening noise of the battlefield was muted. The shouting guards, the roaring beasts, and the cracking stone all fell silent. The expanding ring of black gravity froze in place, looking like a jagged, solid black stain painted on the gray stone.
Ti stopped. Kairos braced himself, waiting for the agonizing, rusty knife to twist into his heart. He waited for the taste of blood in his mouth. He waited for his life force to drain away into the void.
But, it didn’t happen. Instead of pain, Kairos felt a sudden, shocking rush of freezing cold. The shimring white veins thumping under his skin flared up. The system wasn’t pulling raw life force from his fragile mortal heart. It was burning the holy light he had pulled from Asteria, using the divine energy as safe fuel to keep the gears of the universe frozen.
[DOMINION ESTABLISHED. DIVINE BUFFER ACTIVE. YOU HAVE EXACTLY FIFTEEN SECONDS.]
[NO FATAL TISSUE DAMAGE DETECTED.]
Kairos exhaled a breath of bright white mist into the gray air. He didn’t feel heavy. For the first ti, he was experiencing the god-like power of a Dominion without paying the cost.
"Fourteen," Kairos whispered. His voice echoed with absolute authority.
He didn’t need to teleport this ti. His body was healthy and unburdened. He sprinted across the frozen gray stone, his boots moving faster than a normal human eye could ever track.
He crossed the distance to the Void Herald in less than three seconds. The dark commander was frozen in the middle of its gravity spell. Its armored hands were pressed toward the ground, and its sleek obsidian helt was tilted slightly forward.
Kairos gripped Asteria tightly with both hands. The silver blade, now slightly dull because its holy light was fueling the ti stop inside Kairos’ blood, still possessed a dangerously sharp edge.
"Eight," Kairos counted.
He swung the sword with every single ounce of his 88 Strength. He aid a brutal, horizontal slash at the Herald’s exposed neck joint, right between the helt and the chest plate.
CLACKK!!
The blade struck the obsidian armor. It didn’t cut cleanly through like it did with the mindless beasts. The Herald’s armor was dense, forged from pure, ancient Void matter. Asteria stuck deeply into the black tal. Kairos gritted his teeth, pouring all his raw physical power into his arms, forcing the blade deeper.
CRACK!!
The obsidian collar shattered. The silver blade cut into the Herald’s dark, corrupted flesh, carving a jagged wound across its neck. A thick spray of dark, toxic blood hung suspended in the frozen gray air.
"Three," Kairos whispered, pulling the sword back.
He used his remaining two seconds to jump quickly backward, clearing the blast radius.
"Zero."
[DOMINION COLLAPSING.]
Color rushed back into the world. The deafening noise of the battlefield returned like a slap to the face. The suspended energy from Kairos’ massive strike triggered instantly.
BOOM!
The Void Herald was thrown backward, crashing onto the stone floor and skidding for twenty feet. The black blood sprayed wildly from the gash in its neck, burning the pale stone wherever it landed.
The expanding ring of corrupted gravity collapsed, vanishing into thin air without its caster to maintain the spell. The Great Dam groaned loudly, but the cracks stopped spreading.
"He hit it!" Ignis cheered, swinging his blue fire sword to decapitate another Aberration. "The boss is bleeding!"
Kairos landed safely near Velanor, breathing but uninjured. The glowing white veins under his skin began to fade slightly as the divine buffer was depleted, but his heart was beating normally. He had done it. He had used the ti stop safely. But the celebration was premature. The Void Herald did not vanish into ash.
The dark commander slowly pushed itself up from the stone floor, reaching its armored hand up to its ruined neck. It wiped the black blood away, staring silently at the dark liquid on its gloves.
The shiny purple slit on its visor flared with fury.
It looked at Kairos. It didn’t speak in a calm, arrogant tone anymore. Its voice was a demonic, echoing screech that rattled the bones of every single person standing on the dam.
"YOU DARE BLEED THE VOID?!" the Herald roared.
The mana in the air didn’t just feel heavy anymore. It vanished. The Void Herald stopped trying to break the stone wall. It raised its dark halberd high into the air, summoning a massive sphere of black gravity right above its own head.
The sphere was ten tis larger than anything Luna had ever created. It was pulling the very light out of the night sky, creating a swirling vortex of dark.
"It is not trying to break the dam anymore!" Luna shouted, his pale eyes widening in terror. He recognized the density of the spell. "It is going to vaporize the entire surface of the wall! Everything on top of this dam is going to be crushed into atoms!"
The Vanguard Generals had hurt the commander. But in doing so, they had triggered the monster’s ultimate attack.
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