"Defeated?"
"He is Usher, the supre archer, Earth’s number two."
"Now you see it. This is the true power of the gods."
"A young and foolish world dares challenge the Pantheon Sanctum. You have chosen death."
The two strongest gods of Pantheon Sanctum moved as one, shaking the united divine realms to their core.
"I do not like Usher... but this ti I swear I want him to win," Iron Cavalry of Shenzhou cursed, a chill rising in his heart.
The fragile hope that had just ignited in the Godslayer ranks guttered.
Few of them liked Dragon’s Kiss Guild, but as Earth’s trialists they were all grasshoppers tied to the sa rope. If one falls, all fall.
"The decisive battle has not begun, and I... I am losing already?"
Usher scread, a sound of pure heartbreak.
He seed set ablaze from head to toe. Veins bulged. Teeth ground. His life force drained at a terrifying pace.
"So this... is a god’s power?"
He stared at the reaper’s phantom, cold and empty of feeling, the scythe slicing the void again and again, devouring his life without rcy.
Despair spread through his bones.
Born with a golden spoon but with few rotten habits, in every field he entered he aid only for the peak.
By nature he could ignore life and death.
But when familiar friends and brothers fell one after another, the suffocating chill that dragged him to the lake’s bottom drove him mad.
"Old Usher."
Queenie’s tears burst free. She forced the Demonic God Palace to wheel about, pushing through the insane mana and HP burn to race for Usher.
"Master."
Oliver cried out. Angelic wings spread wide as he tried to rush to save him.
Clang.
"Oliver, this is not our fight. Godslayer needs you."
An aurora flashed. Breeze blocked his path, expression like ice.
"Get out of my way. I have never been one of you."
Oliver roared and charged Breeze.
"But you are Godslayer’s son."
Breeze’s gaze stayed cold. Bradley’s death left no room for softness. Against Breeze’s masterful clinch work, Oliver could not even draw a bow, much less fly off to die.
"Quiet. This ti you listen to ," Ethan said, voice low. Frost crawled up Oliver’s body, freezing him in place.
Guild channel:
Madman: "Do not go. We still do not understand that reaper’s domain."
Old Yin: "Bradley is gone. You cannot be the next."
"I do not care what stands between you two. I am begging you. Save him."
Oliver turned to Orson, eyes torn with a storm of feelings.
He did not want to admit it, but only this man could save his master now.
A chaos god who had swept aside divine avatars like weeds.
He was also Oliver’s father and sworn enemy both.
Even so, Oliver let go of his obsession.
"If you save him, I will pay any price. My life is yours to take back."
Oliver was sparing with words, but iron inside. He knelt and knocked his head to Earth’s great legend. Blood ran down his brow.
"Usher may be your master, but you would stake your father’s life to gamble for him," Madman snapped.
Orson stood on Aeloria’s back, face like frost, watching Usher’s one-sided execution in the sky.
That cold look stabbed Oliver anew.
The reaper of Pantheon Sanctum was a Mid God, sa as Orson, and like any trialist, he did not know her domain’s exact chanics.
From what had struck Dragon’s Kiss Guild, anyone who entered her field had their mana burned away, their HP fell in equal ratio, and their movents were heavily restricted.
For a caster with a god-seed like Orson, mana loss was fatal.
He knew the truth that most forgot. Gods were only trialists made mighty. They bleed. They die. None stands above the highest laws of the divine realm.
"Say sothing. Answer ."
Oliver’s face went white. He shouted until his voice broke, begging a god for a reply.
Orson did not answer. He scanned the battlefield. On the far side of Forever City, thunder rolled.
Xenon, Saint Roland, and Cain were pumled back step by step. Under the brute crush of the God-Elephant Clan’s deity, they could not even score aningful damage.
The gap in panels and experience was too vast.
"No matter the cost, save him. I only want him alive. Take my life instead."
At the sa ti, resolve flashed in Queenie’s eyes.
The priests of Dragon’s Kiss fell silent. Their leader looked back at his brothers. "Earth cannot lose Orson. But Dragon’s Kiss cannot lose its totem either."
"Dragon’s Kiss Guild, forever."
"Dragon’s Kiss Guild, forever."
The thunder of their warcry rang again, snapping Usher’s mind into a razor’s edge of clarity.
"Primordial Archdemon rule, skill one: Demonization."
The priest captain intoned, solemn. "Roar, my demons. Abandon reason and feeling. Let the dragon’s claw strike a killing blow."
Their bodies twisted.
They grew seven or eight ters tall. Skin cracked and sprouted gray keratin. A dozen pupil-less eyes bulged upon each brow. Staffs lted into arms of chitin and bone.
"What... what is happening to them?" Madman whispered, shaken to the core.
Half of Dragon’s Kiss warped at once, becoming hybrids of abyssal fiends and demons, exuding a chill and bloodthirsty frenzy that turned spines to ice.
"We... will win."
Queenie’s once-clear voice went hoarse and deep, her body sheathed in black crystal. Beneath the plates, twisted viscera writhed. Only her perfect face remained, now beautiful and terrifying all at once.
The price bought numbers.
Her HP under five hundred million exploded eightfold. Her ID title matched a god-realm monster boss.
Her combat tier rose to god-tier.
"Primordial Archdemon rule, skill two: Creation of the Demon Emperor," Queenie murmured, clutching the last threads of humanity.
"No."
Usher scread, raw panic ripping through him. His heart felt pierced by a divine weapon. His soul shook loose.
The warped Dragon’s Kiss warriors lifted their heads to him, their eyes burning with absolute fervor.
They stood quiet.
Their keratin husks crumbled away.
Queenie returned to her true form, pupils collapsing as she fell.
Their life force left in an instant, converging into a singularity like a black hole that shattered the void.
It compressed to the size of a thumb and shot into Usher.
The black core bored into his abdon. His entire body convulsed. His HP still fell, but his max HP multiplied.
It crashed past one hundred million and climbed, pressing toward a Mid God’s scale.
"A god-seed? No. Sothing worse."
Sigrel snapped his head around, a rare flicker of unease in his eyes.
"At the dawn of the divine realm, a created thing slew four High Gods. They called it the Archdemon Emperor," Taran said quietly from within the Rainbow Corridor, eyes wary at last.
So the US scene had more than Orson. Usher’s potential was not a whit less monstrous.
Taran’s face darkened. He sensed nis and Sigrel might not be able to stop the two. He redoubled his purge of the demons clogging the corridor.
"Impossible. Even Mid Gods cannot endure my domain’s burn," nis snarled.
Usher scread like a ghost from hell. His body collapsed with space, then swelled again, over and over.
Even as his mana burned under the reaper’s will, he clung to a sliver of life at the very bottom of the bar.
"He cannot be allowed to live."
Sigrel’s heart pounded.
This was extinction made visible. The Archdemon Emperor existed to butcher trialists. He was not like the chaos god who weighed costs and gains.
Worst case, he and Orson would join hands. Pantheon Sanctum would fall. None could stop it.
He leapt, ripping free of Xenon and the others, soared, and brought a mountain-splitting fist down.
"It is over."
Horror rippled through the crowd. Two Mid God domains stacked. Usher, still in tamorphosis, could not survive.
"Save him. Only you can do it... Father. I was wrong. Please save him."
Oliver’s shriek tore the sky.
The single word father made Orson’s face shift. Absolute reason cracked. He sighed. "Answer one thing."
"Say it."
Oliver stared at that figure with desperate eyes.
"If our places were reversed, if you were dood, would he stake his life to save you. Understand, his guarding you is part of a bargain between us."
Orson looked back at his son. The question went straight to the heart.
Oliver trembled. He shouted without a second thought. "Yes. I swear it. He would."
"Good."
Orson smiled and shook his head. Between reason and caution, he chose a third path. He chose to trust his child.
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