Chapter 197: Ben Vs Aphopis
Apophis didn’t respond, instead, her power surged.
From every crack across the space, black liquid erupted like a geyser. The dark water writhed and twisted through the air, then rushed toward her from all directions. It swirled around her body, rising like a tide, wrapping her form in a dark cocoon.
Ben floated back, eyes narrowing. The cocoon pulsed once, then it imploded.
A shockwave rippled out as the dark water vanished into vapor, revealing Apophis. She no longer the seductive woman, but sothing else.
Two pairs of enormous wings stretched wide from her back, each one ford from solidified dark water. Her once smooth, pale skin had darkened into a glossy dark shade, covered in hardened scales that shimred with violet reflections.
Her face remained a beauty, but more inhuman. Her eyes burned like molten gold, her mouth curled into a sharp grin.
Her once delicate fingers had transford into long, razor-like claws, dripping with residual dark liquid. Her presence hit like a wave, bending the space around her without effort.
Ben’s gaze sharpened. ‘So this is part of her true power…’
“You want to talk about power?” Her voice was deeper now, layered with echoes.”Then let show you what my true power looks like.”
She raised a clawed hand, and the entire space began to shake. Shadows peeled up from the ground, forming sharp blades and twisted shapes. Above her, the sky began to churn, swirling into a a storm of crushing gravity and suspended dark water.
Ben’s grin didn’t fade. “Good,” he said, lowering his stance, gravity spiraling beneath his feet. “Show .”
Chunks of earth lifted from the ground and hovered sideways, trees twisted into coils, and the air shimred with sheer pressure.
She flared her wings once, and the entire battlefield tilted.
Ben staggered, caught in the sudden spatial shift, but righted himself mid-air. appendage from his back shot out, stabilizing him, anchoring him to a point of warped gravity he made with sheer will.
Apophis pointed forward, and the dark water scread. It launched at him like spears. They struck from all angles.
Ben spun through the chaos, his body flickering through gravity fields. He caught two with his appendage and absorbed them mid motion.
Consu!
[Dark liquid consud. Acquired 2 Aether.]
The rest struck him. So broke on his armor. Others carved into his side, leaving gashes that stead with cursed power.
He didn’t cry out. Instead, he roared, his voice shaking the floating terrain. With a powerful swing of his arm, he redirected gravity upward and launched himself through the storm.
He slamd into Apophis mid-air. The impact cracked the space.
Her claws lashed out, scraping across his chest. Blood sprayed. His fist crashed into her side, sending her spinning through the air, wings flaring wide to regain balance.
She skidded across floating stone, then rebounded with a flap of her wings, sending a ripple of anti-gravity that flipped the entire battlefield again.
Ben flipped with it, his feet walking on sideways stone like it was the ground.
Apophis raised both hands. The dark water exploded behind her and ford a giant serpent-shaped construct, its mouth open wide. It dove toward Ben like a god’s executioner.
Ben’s eyes glowed. He dropped his stance and spread his arms. The appendages behind him grew, twisting, warping into wing-like claws of condensed gravitational force.
He t the serpent with a punch. It collided.
A flash of white-violet light lit up the world. The serpent shattered. The space cracked again. The pressure hit like a teor strike.
Both figures shot backward. Ben hit the ground, skidding across broken stone.
Apophis hovered above, wings wide, blood dripping from her claws. Her expression twisted into sothing between fury and hunger. “You’re still evolving… ” she said, voice seething.
Ben stood again, slow but steady, his eyes burning. “I told you… I’ll keep taking until everything bows to .”
He raised his hand again. The space trembled. “Overeating? Hah, try .”
More appendage rose.
Apophis roared, her voice warping the air as storm clouds of dark liquid and gravity spiraled above. Her wings beat once, twice, and the entire terrain collapsed inward, as if space itself were folding under her will.
Ben didn’t flinch. The ground cracked beneath him as his gravitational field expanded like a living thing. appendage lashed out in every direction, anchoring to floating debris, crushed terrain, and even stray fragnts of Apophis’s dark water.
He pulled. Reality cracked.
The entire battlefield shattered into chunks of floating stone and black sky. Gravity twisted in layers, so pieces pulled sideways, others down, others up.
A maelstrom of forces collided midair, a battlefield turned dinsional rift, and in the center of it all, they charged.
Ben’s foot crushed against stone, Apophis dove from the sky like a teor.
They t in a thunderclap. Claws slashed. Fists struck. Energy rippled like cracks across glass. Every hit sent shockwaves that tore through the debris, turning floating rocks to dust.
Apophis twisted in midair, claws covered with dark liquid. She slashed low, aiming for Ben’s side.
Ben ducked, then spun with a gravity-assisted kick that rippled space around her. She blocked it with a wing, but the force knocked her back, only for her to twist and hurl a compressed orb of collapsing gravity at his chest.
Ben raised both arms, took the hit, and consud it. Power surged into him. Bones cracked, then reford stronger. His body was adapting in real ti.
Apophis’s eyes widened in fury.
“You thieving parasite!”
Ben smirked, blood running down his face.
“Keep feeding , then.”
Apophis scread, and the sky broke.
Dark water poured from the heavens like rain, but this ti it didn’t fall. It froze midair, ford sharp blades, and launched all at once in every direction, piercing the battlefield, stabbing into twisted gravity zones, forming a forest of spears between them.
Ben weaved between them, ripping through the blades, every step cracking the air.
He shot forward.
So did she.
They clashed again in the center of the storm, claw against claw, fist against dark liquid, appendage against wing
Than suddenly, Lightning split the sky. A golden flash tore through the maelstrom, slicing the darkness like a blade of heaven.
Ben and Apophis both snapped their heads toward the light, just in ti to see it descend like a falling star.
BOOM!
The impact cracked the battlefield. Stone exploded outward. Gravity warped. The air trembled. And from the smoking crater, he rose.
Cloaked in ruined silver armor scorched black from battle, lightning crawling across his body like living chains, the knight had returned.
His cape was tattered. His helm was gone. But his eyes, those burning, defiant eyes, glead with divine fury.
Ben grinned. “Took you awhile.”
The knight stepped forward, dragging his sword behind him, its edge crackling with arcs of pure judgnt.
“I told you,” he said, voice low, voice steady. “I don’t fall so easily.”
Apophis’s wings flared wide. “Tch. Another insect crawling back from the ashes.”
She raised her hand, summoning a dozen spears of black water to impale him.
But before they could move, CLANG!
The knight vanished.
The next mont, he was in front of Apophis. His blade t her spears mid-flight and shattered them like glass.
“Your fight is with now.”
He swung again, faster than before.
Apophis blocked with a wing, but the force threw her backward, straight into a spiraling anomaly she herself had created. She tumbled through warping space, only barely stabilizing mid-air.
Ben stared, stunned.
The knight turned, eting his gaze.
“I don’t like what you planned.”
Ben raised an eyebrow. “That so?”
“You still don’t understand. If she breaks free completely, you cannot contain her.”
Ben’s grip tightened. He looked at Apophis, still swirling with dark power, and then back at the knight.
“You think I care about that?”
The knight frown.
Apophis scread, her wings spreading wide as dark flas ignited from her back, forming a corona of destruction.
“You worms dare challenge ?!”
The two of them stood side by side, one wrapped in divine lightning, the other in gravity and dark aether. And together, they clashed.
The knight’s sword cleaved through Apophis’s Dark liquid. Ben’s appendage slamd her from behind, pinning her mid-motion. She roared, blasting them back with a tidal wave of dark water, but both of them surged through it, unstoppable.
The knight struck her shoulder. Ben struck her gut. She coughed blood, staggered, but spun with a scream and unleashed a gravitational collapse that swallowed half the battlefield.
Ben pulled the knight out with a flicker of twisted space.
They landed together, bruised, breathing hard, but still standing.
The knight raised his blade, lightning crackling around it.
“I’ll kill her before you get the chance to do whatever it is you’re planning.”
White fla ignited, engulfing the blade atop the storm of divine lightning.
Ben raised his hand, his lips curling into a grin as he turned to face the knight.
“Then I’ll fight you first.”
He took a step forward, gravity rippling around his feet.
“You’re my guideline, not my master. I’m your host, not your servant.”
His grin widened, voice cold.
“You’re the parasite. You follow my will.”
And Apophis, panting, scorched, her wings cracked and dripping dark liquid, still managed a slow, wicked smile.
“This… is getting fun.”
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