The air over the shattered Rhogart plains was so dense with power that it felt as if the atmosphere itself had beco liquid. Every heartbeat in every living being strained under that suffocating pressure, their chests heaving for air that refused to fill their lungs.
And in the midst of it all, Derek stood utterly petrified.
His eye was wide, pupil dilated in horror as he beheld the towering figure that looked down upon him like so insignificant thing.
"You..." Derek rasped, voice raw with disbelief, especially upon seeing this thing’s face. The hand clutching the Void Reaver’s hilt trembled so violently the crimson steel clattered. "Who...are you?"
The Immortal Sovereign’s eyes—one a blinding blue, the other white as dying starlight—shifted at last to regard him directly. That single gaze made Derek feel as if every secret he’d ever harbored had been laid bare.
A slow, disdainful smile spread across the giant’s black-bearded face. His voice rolled out like an avalanche, echoing across miles of blasted land.
"How pathetic my past self is," the Immortal Sovereign intoned, his lips curling in scorn. "You cannot even recognize your true potential? Look closer. You are gazing upon it."
Derek’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, legs instinctively taking a step back—though he felt like an ant trying to retreat from a boot already descending.
"You...are ?" he whispered, his voice cracking. "How...?"
The Sovereign’s steps bood across the plains, each one sending violent quakes rippling outward in every direction. The colossal spear in his hand glowed with a pulse of dreadful rhythm—like the heartbeat of the planet itself.
"You don’t need to know the whole of it," the Sovereign rumbled, drawing inexorably closer. The werewolves scattered in terror, dozens falling to their knees as their senses were smothered by the giant’s mana. "You have fulfilled your part, like a dutiful son."
His massive head inclined slightly, the colossal eye glinting cold amusent.
"You ever wonder how you reached this mont?" he continued, voice tinged with mockery. "How you survived to get here? How you were prepared to get rid of your enemies before they could get rid of you?"
Derek’s breath ca faster, realization dawning in a flood of icy dread.
"It was...you..." he croaked.
Beside him, Albert was pale as snow. His lips parted, dry as ash.
"The voice," he whispered hoarsely, his gaze flicking to Derek. "It was him...wasn’t it?"
Derek didn’t answer. His mind felt splintered, reeling between horror and a feverish, manic hope.
"So..." he began, his voice cracking on the words, "I truly am capable of becoming an immortal? I actually did it? You—you are the living proof!"
A wild, desperate laugh burst from his lips. His blue eye glead with a rare fanatic elation.
"Tsk, tsk," the Immortal Sovereign clicked his tongue softly. He tilted his vast head, dark beard brushing his armored chest. "Don’t get so excited, mortal."
The faint amusent in his voice evaporated, replaced by glacial disdain.
"You see...even if you are a shadow of what I was...you cannot exist under the sa sky as ."
The colossal spear slowly lowered until its point hovered above Derek like a declaration of death.
"I didn’t wait tens of thousands of years," the Sovereign said coldly, "just to breathe the sa air as my miserable past self. Consider yourself lucky that you at least got to witness your best version."
Derek’s eye widened. The hilt in his fist jerked up, and his hand darted to the wrist device glowing at his forearm. His finger hovered above the button—just a breath away from annihilating everything.
"Don’t you dare!" he scread, spittle flying from his lips. "You are , whether you like it or not! Without , you’d never have gotten ressurected! You can’t get rid of !"
His voice cracked, ragged and shrill.
"If you even try—I will blow this planet to dust. And if you survive, you’ll rule over nothing but ash!" Derek bellowed, his finger trembling above the trigger. "I will destroy all three planets if I have to!"
Albert stared at him in disbelief. Never before had he seen Derek display so much rage, fear and determination at the sa ti. But another matter shocked him much more,
"Derek, wait—you set the Nexus Tower to destroy Mars as well?!"
Derek’s face twisted, veins standing out on his throat.
"It’s only when the worst happens!" he snarled, voice brittle with desperation. "If I go down, I won’t let anyone have anything, immortal or not! None of it!"
"You—you!" Albert stamred, eyes wet with rage and fear. "Have you gone mad, Derek?! Are you even hearing yourself?! Do you seriously plan to eradicate the entirety of humanity?!!"
Asher slowly pushed himself up from the cracked earth, his breath ragged. He stared at Derek’s shaking figure, a churning dread in his chest.
If Derek pressed that button, there would be nothing left—no ti to save Arthur, no ti to save anyone. He yet again underestimated how far Derek would stoop low to satisfy his vain ego.
Luna gripped her grandfather’s hand so tightly her nails broke the skin. Her voice was thin and trembling.
"Grandfather..." she whispered, "is this truly what you wanted? For all of us to die like this?"
But Lupus only stared at the Immortal Sovereign, his gaze unfathomable.
The giant let out a long, disappointed sigh. The sound vibrated in their bones.
"How predictable," he murmured. "How utterly foolish."
The air seed to shiver as the Sovereign’s colossal pupil fixed on Derek.
"To treat your own life with such little worth... Now I am convinced you deserve nothing."
Derek’s jaw locked, teeth clenching as he roared:
"Good luck with that!"
His thumb slamd down—
—but it never reached the button.
A soundless force pinned him where he stood, crushing him under a pressure so absolute he felt his bones strain. His eye bulged in horror as his arm froze, suspended mid-motion.
His voice shriveled in his throat as the Sovereign’s gaze beca a lethal promise.
"You dare threaten a god?" the Immortal Sovereign whispered, his voice now quiet—too quiet. "You dare presu you could even lift your hand before ?"
His vast hand rose, and every living being felt the air vanish from their lungs.
"With a wave," he continued softly, "I could end any creature even on the other side of this planet. But for you...a worthless echo...this is enough."
He flicked his wrist.
The world seed to hold its breath.
Then, with a noise like a collapsing mountain, Derek, Albert, and every guard standing near them detonated into crimson mist—obliterated so thoroughly that even their atoms seed to vaporize into the empty sky.
The blast of annihilation faded, leaving only drifting motes of red dust.
For a heartbeat, there was no sound.
Then, one by one, the werewolves began to wail in horror.
Even Asher staggered back a step, his skin cold. All his power—all his vengeance—had never once made another being vanish so utterly.
The Immortal Sovereign lowered his hand, the disdain in his radiant eyes as heavy as the silence.
At his feet, nothing remained of Derek Sterling but the mory of his terror.
The deathly silence hung like a shroud over the land where the ashes of Derek and his guards still drifted on the wind. Not even the wolves dared to move. Every heartbeat felt like it echoed in a void.
It was Lupus who finally broke it.
The old Moon Guardian’s voice rose with solemn thunder as he sank to one knee, his head bowed.
"My people," he commanded, his voice carrying across the entire plain, "kneel before our sovereign!"
At once, the werewolves dropped to their knees in a ripple of submission. None dared to even look up. They knew if they hesitated, they would never rise again.
Luna stood there for a mont, her breath coming fast. Her fingers dug furrows in her palms as her gaze trembled up at the colossus. Every instinct in her body scread to resist—her blood, her pride, her very soul.
But she rembered how her grandfather told her to trust him. She hated him but still...she couldn’t bring herself to not listen to him.
Slowly, with a cold dread pooling in her stomach, she clenched her jaw and knelt beside her grandfather, her head bowing in silent anger and worry.
The Immortal Sovereign turned to regard them, the white and blue glow of his eyes washing over thousands of kneeling figures. His heavy gaze settled on Lupus first, then swept the trembling sea of werewolves.
His deep voice carried an eerie calm, the authority of sothing that knew it could never be defied.
"Good," he said simply. "At least you know your place."
He lifted the massive spear a fraction, the radiant blue tip humming with restrained annihilation.
"There are no angels," the Sovereign continued, his voice echoing like a prophecy, "no devils lurking in your skies. At least none that will co down to save any of you."
He tilted his chin slightly, the disdain in his stare palpable.
"There is only ," he said, the words sharp as iron. "My past mishaps—my blind crusade to purge all demons—taught that was never the answer. A god such as I was never ant to rule just one half of creation."
He spread one titanic hand wide over the plain, as though claiming it all.
"No... I shall rule everything. Human or demon. All will bend the knee to ."
The Immortal Sovereign smiled thinly, the gleam in his eyes a fevered conviction.
"And thanks to Derek’s pathetic ambitions, I no longer need to lift a finger to seize it all. This planet was already once mine and now it shall—"
A voice cut across the air like a blade drawn from its sheath:
"—be your tomb once more, Derek!"
The Sovereign’s brow twitched for a very brief mont. Slowly, he pivoted to face the voice that he had been waiting to hear.
From the shattered plain, Asher erged, dark green flas writhing in his aura, each step cracking the earth beneath his boots. His eyes were pits of wrath, his expression carved from the coldest hatred.
The wind howled around him as if the world itself was rising to witness.
"Oh, Asher Drake..." The Immortal Sovereign’s smile widened, sothing unhinged glinting behind his gaze. "I have been waiting for this mont for an eternity."
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