Chapter 206: Ti Is Running Out
Five golden eyes pulsed at once.
Ben’s senses flared. “Incoming!”
The beams fired. Five streaks of conceptual annihilation carved the sky apart erasing anything they touched.
But the trio had already moved. Ben hurled himself through a collapsing gravity fold, blinking between two beams as they sliced past his afterimage.
Apophis dipped through a spiral of her own water, folding space just enough to slide underneath the barrage.
The knight twisted mid-leap, planting his sword into the ground and using the impact to vault over a beam that tore through where he had just stood.
For a mont… they were alive.Ben slamd into the ground hard, barely cushioning the fall with his appendages.
The dark aether around him flickered. His shoulders heaved. His limbs ached.
Apophis landed beside him with a stumble, coughing up black mist. Her wings, once sharp and fluid, were now cracked. The knight appeared last, staggering slightly, gripping his sword tight. Sparks crackle along his damaged armor.
Ben looked up at the sky. Eight eyes remained. Yes, they’d made progress. They had destroyed four already, sothing no one could’ve imagined possible.
But can they destroy the rest?
Each breath burned more than the last. His dark aether reserves were burning faster than they regenerated. The battlefield around them had beco a wasteland, no cover, no place to escape.
And worst of all…
He narrowed his eyes, focusing on the Devourer’s massive form.
The system control on Its body was better now. The gap between attack were becoming faster, iits movents sharper.
Ben’s heart sank. “…What ti limit” he muttered. “Don’t you see this thing is becoming stronger now?”
The knight limped closer. “It should be weakening. The system was losing stability when it latched onto her body. It needed a host to survive.”
Ben shook his head. “You already say that but see with your own eyes, ”
“It probaly sothing to do with power of law in my body,” Apophis finished grimly. Her voice was hoarse, hollow. “That’s why it’s getting stronger. It’s rging with the power of concept.”
Ben clenched his fists, dark aether swirling weakly around his fingers. “So the ti limit is now on us not it…”
His mind start churning thinking for other possiblity to win. Or at the very least looking for other source of energy.
Consuming biomass he stockpiled? He already done that and it’s running out.
But even if he have more doesn’t an he can replenish Apophis and the knight.
They stood there, battered, panting, barely holding formation. And overhead, the Devourer move again, not giving Ben ti to think.
Six eyes flared. Ben stared into the light. Every instinct in his body scread to run. But there was nowhere left to run.
“Any ideas?” he muttered.
“How about we break this space and escape?” Apophis offered, her voice dry but serious.
The knight lifted his sword again, shaking, but still steady. “Not a choice,” he said. “Doing that will jeopardize everything.”
Ben looked up again at the eight remaining eyes. The knight was right. If he let this daemon loose… it wouldn’t stop here.
With how strong this thing had beco, the Ashking would almost certainly intervene. And once that happened, his entire city-state would be blad for unleashing it. Forget revolution, he and Elvira would be lucky just to survive the fallout.
Then a thought struck him. ‘Wait a minute… how is this true body even out here like this? Wasn’t it still sealed?’
He was certain the formation core was still intact. Maybe cracked, but still operational.
If so, then this ant one thing: This Devourer had only manifested because of the system.
Ben’s breath caught, ‘It wasn’t her body awakening on its own. It was the system using it as a vessel. And if that was the case… then maybe, just maybe, there was a way to sever the connection.’
An idea began forming in his mind.
‘What if I re-enter its soul… and try to pull the system out from the inside?’
His heart pounded. But then ca the hesitation. What if the reverse happen and he’s the one defeated instead?
And than there’s another problem, how he could enter it’s soul? ‘Maybe I can do that with apophis help…’
He grit his teeth, torn between two impossible choices. Stay and fight a losing battle. Or risk everything… for a single, impossible chance to win.
“Hey, stop daydreaming and dodge!” Apophis snapped.
Ben’s eyes widened, SIX beams scread downward at once, golden lines of absolute law ripping toward them like the judgnt of a god.
Ben and Apophis leapt in opposite directions, the air splitting behind them.
BOOOOM!!!
The blast struck where they had just stood. A wall of pressure crashed outward, obliterating stone, vaporizing air, disintegrating anything within reach.
Ben hit the ground in a shoulder roll, skidding across the scorched terrain. His ears rang. His ribs ached. He pushed up to his knees just in ti to see the knight, still standing, cut through a serpent-like fragnt of the Devourer’s beam with a single, lightning-wrapped slash.
The strike rebounded, carving a clean line of burning gold across the air.
Apophis twisted in midair, dragging a wall of warped gravity behind her, using it to curve two beams off-course. One barely grazed her leg, and she hissed in pain, but still surged forward.
Ben blinked into position behind her, dark aether whirling around him in a vortex. And yet, even as his body moved, even as his instincts fired on pure montum, His mind was still sowhere else.
‘I could end it. Maybe. If I tear the system out from the inside… we might survive this. But if I fail,..’
Another golden beam cut across the sky, forcing him to throw up a hasty barrier. The shield cracked instantly, but held long enough to deflect.
He countered by sending two appendages flying upward, spear-like and glowing with gravitational force. They pierced toward the second eye, forcing it to blink defensively.
“Focus!” Apophis yelled from above, sweeping her claws to the side and dragging three water spheres into an orbiting spiral. “If you want to die, do it after we break another eye!”
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