"GO!" she scread.
The students didn’t need to be told twice. They scrambled up the stairway like ants on a branch, ascending toward the blinding crimson circle above.
As soon as they touched it, their bodies shimred and vanished one by one.
The fortress shook again.
Down below, nearly one thousand feet away from the fotress, Victor was thrown backward by the shockwave of Aiz’s next attack.
He crashed through a molten wall, rolled, and barely managed to push himself back to his feet. His body trembled from exhaustion.
Commander Aiz stalked toward him, leaving cracks of molten lava on the ground with each step. "aningless. Putting your life on the line is futile."
Victor wiped a trail of blood from his lip and chuckled weakly. "You’re becoming too chatty for my liking. Do all magma heads talk this much?"
Aiz snarled and slamd his halberd into the ground.
A violent tremor spread through the terrain as massive volcanic arms made of molten rock and fire burst from beneath Victor’s feet.
They moved way too fast.
Victor dashed left while activating Wind Dash again as he narrowly avoided three blazing arms in one breath.
But more and more erupted, clawing at him from every direction.
He parried one with Frost Bloom Palm, but his frost lted instantly. These volcanic arms were extrely high in temperature that it made his frost evaporate within monts.
His breath grew heavy as he tried again, coating both arms in icy qi; "Frost Bloom II!"
He mashed one molten hand apart before another slamd into his side.
"Gah—!" Victor coughed out blood as parts of his bronze coating lted.
He was forced to one knee as two volcanic arms wrapped around his waist and shoulders, pinning him.
As he tried to free himself, more Volcanic arms descended upon him, trapping him under extre heat.
His Iron Vein Flow was slowly coming apart.
anwhile, Commander Aiz raised his halberd once more.
Despite being buried underneath multiple volcanic hands, Victor could see that the halberd was aid at him this ti.
With much struggle, he slightly turned to the side and spotted Elyra at the top of the fotress in the distance, still holding up the stairs as hundreds of students climbed toward safety.
Aiz halberd was turned toward them.
’No...’
Victor’s pupils contracted. He could see what the commander was about to do.
Whatever attack he sent flying in that direction would undoubtedly obliterate everything in its path.
Even from here, he could feel the pressure gathering in the weapon’s head.
"Stop—" Victor strained against the molten arms as heat seared through his skin.
He gathered his qi, trying to fight against the volcanic arms, pinning him to the ground.
The halberd’s tip flared brighter than a miniature sun, culminating an incredibly powerful attack.
Commander Aiz’s arm tensed as he prepared to throw it.
Victor suddenly roared. "VOID EMPEROR DOMAIN!"
A dark ripple of soundless energy swept out from his being, turning the surroundings monochromatic.
And then... everything froze.
The storm of molten arms halted mid-lash. Lava hung suspended in the air like droplets of glass. Even Commander Aiz’s raised arm was locked in place with the molten glow of his weapon frozen in a still fra of destruction.
Victor laid there, panting as his entire body glowed faintly with arrow like marks of silver that stretched like constellations across his skin.
His eyes emitted a ghostly violet chill as his hair grew visibly longer and the ratio of white to black further increased. Now his hair was only about 10% black and 90% white.
The world within a hundred-foot radius had beco utterly silent.
Even ti itself seed afraid to move.
But everything outside the radius of his Emperor domain was perfectly okay so Elyra and the others were still in the process of escape.
Victor vanished and reappeared a few feet away from the volcanic arms that initially pressed him down.
He looked around in awe and slowly staggered forward in exhaustion as blood trailed from the corner of his mouth.
It dripped down in slow motion and completely stilled in mid air when it dropped from his chin.
He walked up to one of the volcanic arms, pressed his hand to it and it shattered like glass. The fragnts hovered in place, frozen mid-shatter.
"Damn..." he muttered under his breath. "The last ti I tried to use my Void Emperor Domain in reality, it didn’t work... wasn’t expecting to actually pull it off... and it seems... more powerful than I recall."
This was the first ti Victor was successfully activating his Void Emperor Domain in reality and he could already feel his qi getting sapped at an insane rate.
He knew keeping this up for long was impossible so he had to do sothing and he had to do it now!
His vision blurred, but he forced himself onward.
He turned his gaze to Commander Aiz whose figure was frozen mid-throw.
"I’m not letting you cause any more chaos." Victor said quietly.
He clenched his fist, and faint arcs of silver qi spiraled out, swirling through the air like ribbons.
"Everything in my domain answers to my will..."
His body trembled, barely able to maintain the domain. The Void Emperor’s power gnawed at his life force like an unrelenting parasite.
His pulse slowed and his skin paled, but his gaze never wavered.
Victor inhaled slowly. "Now then... let’s finish this."
Victor’s vision was blurring around the edges and every breath he took ca with a shudder.
But he held on. He had to.
All around him, within that hundred-foot radius of distorted reality, everything hung in eerie suspension.
He paused after arriving a few feet before the unmoving, Commander Aiz.
Victor’s hand trembled as he extended it toward the man’s weapon. The halberd with edges of condensed fla, lifted from Aiz’s grip without resistance.
It floated toward Victor like a puppet under unseen strings.
With a flick of his fingers, the halberd spun and then shot away, tearing through the frozen air and disappearing past the domain’s edge like a cot. The distant and hollow sound of it breaking the air followed a second later.
Then Victor turned back toward Aiz.
He raised his Legacy Sword and stepped closer.
His movents were sluggish and his muscles trembled with fatigue as his white and black hair floated weightlessly around his head.
"This better work..." he muttered while planting his feet firmly to the ground.
He swung his sword down. The blade struck Aiz’s neck with a sharp clang and sparks flew as the sword rebounded off the commander’s skin.
It was like cutting into reinforced steel.
Victor gritted his teeth and swung again. And again. Each hit sent a vibration crawling up his arm until it numbed.
The commander’s flesh was incredibly dense. From the start of their fight, Victor realised that he hadn’t successfully struck Commander Aiz more than once or twice which was why he didn’t realise just how sturdy his skin was at the ti.
"Damn it!" Victor hissed as sweat stread down his forehead.
His chest heaved as he paused. His qi reserves were dangerously low at this mont and every heartbeat made it harder to maintain the domain’s stability.
He could already feel it faltering so using any of his high-tier martial techniques, at this mont, was not plausible. A single misstep would drain him completely.
"Fine," Victor muttered while tightening his grip. "Wind Blade it is."
He exhaled deeply, condensing what little wind qi he could muster into the edge of his blade.
A thin, razor-like film of spinning air wrapped around it, buzzing faintly. Then he began hacking brutally again at Aiz’s neck.
Each strike landed with a harsh tallic ’clang!’ that could break lesser blades. However, the legacy sword was no ordinary sword.
Still, no matter how many tis he struck, the commander’s neck refused to yield. A strange purple enchantnt flickered each ti his sword connected, like a barrier responding to his attack.
"So kind of... self-protective magic?" Victor growled through gritted teeth.
The enchantnt emitted a brighter glow each ti, repelling his blade entirely with a resonant thrum that sent him stumbling a step back.
"Fine," his eyes narrowed as he muttered darkly. "If I can’t cut your head off, I’ll take your damn arms."
He repositioned himself, angling toward the right arm and began swinging out his sword again.
Each swing seed slower but was imbued with more accuracy. He channeled what qi he could spare into his strikes, making sure he struck at the sa place repeatedly.
In his domain, many minutes passed but in the real world outside of his domain, it had only been a few seconds.
Victor’s arm trembled from fatigue as he repeatedly slashed and at last, he finally saw blood.
A single line of red first appeared on Commander Aiz’s arm and then another.
"Gotcha," Victor muttered as his lips curled into a tired grin.
He focused all his effort, landing a series of rapid strikes. His body blurred from speed as he delivered a barrage of precise cuts.
With a final cry, the commander’s right arm tore free from the socket, spinning in the air like a thrown spear before freezing in place within the domain’s spatial lock.
Victor knees wobbled as he gasped for air and his vision flickered.
"One down..." he panted. "One to—"
He stopped mid-sentence upon sensing sothing.
There was a shift in the air but this shift didn’t co from his domain... it ca from outside of it.
Victor looked up in bafflent and then his eyes widened upon realizing what was happening.
"Oh hell no!"
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