The [Pantheon Art: Open the Sky] tore through the atmosphere, a vertical line of white devastation aid directly at the Iron Emperor.
Upon sensing this, high in the chaotic sky, Thraka’s eyes widened.
For the first ti since this battle began, the 8th Order Warlord looked surprised.
However, he still didn’t dodge. He simply stretched out his right arm, his Abyss Steel skin glowing with the heat of a forge, and caught the blade of energy with his bare hand.
*BOOM!*
The explosion was blinding. A sphere of white light and red aura detonated in the stratosphere, montarily outshining the Sun of the Abyss.
When the light faded, Thraka was still standing in the air. But he wasn’t unscathed.
A thin, smoking line ran across his palm.
A single drop of molten tal, his blood dripped from his hand, sizzling as it fell toward the earth miles below.
Thraka looked at the wound.
He flexed his hand, watching the liquid tal struggle to knit back together against the lingering Will of Damien.
"Hah..."
Thraka’s shoulders shook.
"HAHAHAHA!"
He threw his head back and laughed, a sound that cracked the surrounding clouds.
"Surprising! Truly surprising!" Thraka roared, clenching his injured fist.
"A re rat bit a dragon! You have actually managed to cut !"
*ZWOOM!*
Damien didn’t give him ti to celebrate.
He tore through the smoke, his figure undergoing a terrifying tamorphosis.
The Hollow King’s Authority erupted from his back, a physical manifestation of his dominance.
Black mist condensed into four extra arms of solid shadow, giving him the silhouette of a six-ard Asura.
A spur of jagged, void-like wings exploded from his shoulder blades, dripping with liquid darkness.
"I didn’t co here to just scratch you, Thraka!" Damien scread, his voice distorted by the sheer density of his mana.
"I ca to take your head!"
All six arms wielded weapons ford of shadow, while his real hands gripped the Pantheon Sword.
"Get ready to face you orc bastard!"
He descended like a teor.
At the sa ti, Duke Varic moved.
The Blood Monarch dissolved into a mist of crimson bats, reforming instantly behind Thraka, a lance of crystallized blood aid at the Emperor’s spine.
"Die!" Varic hissed.
Two 8th and 7th Order calamities attacked the 8th Order Orc Emperor in perfect sync.
*CLANG! CLANG! BOOM.*
The sky shattered.
Thraka blocked Damien’s six-ard assault with his axe and caught Varic’s lance with his off-hand.
The shockwave pulverized the air pressure for ten miles.
"Two against one?" Thraka grinned, his face twisted in manic joy.
"Is that all? Is this the best the ’Resistance’ has to offer?"
*ROAR.*
The red Aura of Azazel surged.
However this ti It wasn’t just a coating anymore rather it was more like a pillar of light that pierced the heavens.
With every second that passed, Thraka’s strength rose.
The Red Aura fed on the conflict, pushing his power closer and closer to the absolute limit of the 8th Order.
"Co on!" Thraka shouted, his voice reaching the ceiling of the layer.
"Show more! Entertain before I crush you!"
***
anwhile, as this battle was going on, the other layers of the abyss where not silent
Above and below, all kinds of forces and demons turned their eyes there, unable to guess what they were thinking
[Location: The Deep Abyss]
In the eternal darkness below Layer 4, things were stirring.
On Layer 5, a Demon Duke resting in a castle of bone opened his eyes.
On Layer 6, a Leviathan swimming in a sea of rcury surfaced.
On Layer 7... sothing ancient shifted in its sleep.
Powerful eyes turned upward. They sensed the tremors.
They tasted the Red Aura of Azazel and the strange, Will of the Human who fought against him.
"A challenger?" a voice whispered in the dark.
"Or a al?"
"It seems the abyss is about to have a big change"
Yes at this whole mont, the whole abyss was watching.
***
[Location: The Surface – The Ridge]
Back on the surface, the hole Damien and the others were fighting in the sky Isabelle huddled in the crevice of the rock, shielding her face from the debris raining down from the sky.
Next to her, Captain Vesper was unconscious, although healed thanks to Damien’s Dp but his spirit was broken, a side effect of the earlier drug.
And Elian, he was curled into a ball, muttering prayers, a futile action especially in the abyss.
In a trance , Isabelle looked up.
She couldn’t see the details, but she could feel the collisions.
Every boom felt like a hamr striking her heart.
’He’s fighting with everything he has’ Isabelle thought, her hands trembling.
’Master is fighting an 8th Order monster. And I’m... I’m here just hiding.’
She looked at her hands.
Damien had healed her. Her physical wounds were gone. But her spirit, just like Vesper, was also shattered.
She rembered the Slaver Fortressball those years ago .
She rembered Damien standing in front of her against the Weeping Sovereign.
She rembered him nearly dying in the Ash Wastes because she wasn’t strong enough to protect him.
"No! I have to get stronger!" Isabelle whispered.
She clenched her fists. Her nails dug into her palms, drawing blood.
"Everyti all I can do is hide," she hissed, her voice trembling with a mixture of sha and rage.
"No! More! I will no longer be a burden!."
She stood up.
The air pressure from the battle above was heavy enough to crush a normal human, but Isabelle didn’t kneel.
’Why am I weak?’ she asked herself.
’Is it because I’m a Half-Blood? No.’
She rembered Damien’s lesson.
"Will overwrites reality."
She closed her eyes. She reached deep into her core, past the mana, past the fear, into the primal hunger of her Baros-Ignian bloodline.
She found the hunger. It was vast, infinite and It wanted to eat the world.
"I don’t want to eat the world," Isabelle whispered, her eyes snapping open.
They weren’t just red anymore, this ti they were burning with a white-hot light.
"I want to use this hunger and protect the young master!."
*THUMP-THUMP.!*
Her heart beat like a war drum.
The mana in the air, the chaotic, violent runoff from Thraka’s and Damien’s battle rushed toward her.
*CRACK.*
The ground beneath her feet spiderwebbed.
Elian stopped praying. He looked up, his eyes widening in horror as he looked at the maid.
"Isabelle?" Elian gasped. "What are you...?"
Isabelle didn’t answer. She threw her head back and scread.
"AAAAAHHHHHHH!"
It wasn’t a scream of pain, no It was the sound of a dam breaking.
*BOOM.*
A pillar of violet and crimson fire exploded from her body.
It tore through the rock overhang. It shot into the sky, rivaling the Red Aura of the Emperor.
Her horns grew, curving back like a crown of obsidian. Her skin turned the color of polished athyst. Wings of pure, condensed Hellfire erupted from her back.
The gap between the 6th and 7th Order shattered under a mysterious force.
But she didn’t stop there.
Fueled by the infinite mana of the Abyss and the desperate, Will she had learned from her Master, she kept climbing.
Pseudo-7th.
7th Order.
Peak 7th Order.
The atmosphere scread. The gravity around her collapsed, creating a singularity that floated rocks and debris into the air.
Isabelle floated up, her clothes replaced by armor woven from gravity and fire.
She looked at the sky, her gaze locking onto the Iron Emperor.
Right, how she wasn’t just a maid anymore.
She was more like a Demon Queen!.
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