Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Across the darkened sky, streams of crimson and black Ether clashed and collided, unleashing a deafening roar that continued without pause for three days and two nights.
Within a hundred-mile radius, any insects, birds, or beasts with even a hint of awareness fled their burrows and nests in panic.
Those slower to react were caught in the aftermath of the divine battle. At close range, they burst instantly into blood mist, leaving nothing behind. Farther away, they went mad, crashing and scrambling wildly, only to have their organs rupture and their brains reduced to pulp, dying from the sheer shock.
Under this clash of gods, the two unleashed monsters turned the land into a catastrophic disaster zone, rendering a hundred-mile radius completely uninhabitable.
The atmosphere itself was in chaos. Violent winds and sandstorms spiraled upward, forming towering columns that stretched between heaven and earth, sweeping up broken trees, dead branches, and animal remains into the sky.
The soil, eroded by the Black Tide, had dried, cracked, and hardened. Some areas were charred black, while others still burned.
The desolate land resembled the surface of the moon, riddled with massive craters ranging from tens of meters to several kilometers across.
The entire expanse radiated an overwhelming malice, rejecting the presence of any fragile life.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The Black Tide pooling in the ravines surged and churned like a feral beast, repeatedly crashing against the surrounding walls of light. Each impact was shattered by the Rune patterns filling the sky, forcing it back into the confines of the cage.
At the same time, wedge-shaped divine runes streaked through the air like guided missiles, locking onto their target and detonating around it.
Angra Mainyu's body was torn apart again and again by the raging Ether currents, flesh and bone scattering in every direction.
"Useless! Useless!"
The God of Utmost Evil waved an arm reduced to bare white bone, laughing madly. Yet the scattered flesh and fragments, once no more than ten meters away, turned into red-black sludge and flowed back to his body, reforming once more.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Two ominous short blades shot out from either side.
Samael flicked his wrist, using the Spear of Nation Building to knock both aside. In the same motion, his spear thrust forward like lightning, shattering Angra Mainyu's blocking left arm and piercing straight through his shoulder, unleashing a violent surge of power.
In the next instant, the two figures, wrapped in crimson and black Mana, collided and locked together, plunging toward the ground like falling stars. The thunder of sonic booms and the upheaval of earth echoed across a hundred miles.
Before the dust could settle, it was shredded by erupting streams of Mana. From within the conical pits formed by extreme heat, a fist coated in black sludge smashed into Samael's abdomen.
Boom!
The Ancient Serpent was sent flying like a fired shell, trailing a series of sonic booms as he slammed deep into the earth. The ground bulged and split along his path, and in the next instant, scorching red-black flames erupted from the fissures, burning fiercely like ignited oil fields.
Bang!
Amid the surging waves of earth, Samael forced himself out of the fissure and leapt back onto the surface. He clutched his chest and coughed violently, blood spilling from his lips.
Even so, the blow he had forced through at the cost of injury had not been wasted.
Just as Angra Mainyu steadied himself and prepared to press the attack, Samael curled his right hand into a claw and grasped from afar.
Buzz!
In an instant, the cross-shaped spear that had pierced through Angra Mainyu's shoulder and pinned him to the ground erupted in blazing red-black flames. Countless bands of light descended from the sky like crashing mountains, generating a crushing gravitational force that forced the ground to sink, locking the God of Utmost Evil firmly within a ring of light.
"Heh, so you enjoy protecting these crawling worms on the earth? Then watch closely, and enjoy the way they struggle!"
Unable to break free despite repeated attempts, Angra Mainyu let out a low, sinister laugh and curled his fingers.
From the rising black sludge, the gleaming curved blade inscribed with sacred prayers, the very one once held by Darius III, lifted gently and settled into Angra Mainyu's hand.
As the black-haired, brown-eyed youth gently wiped the blade and murmured in a low chant, the sacred golden prayers engraved along its sides began to twist and distort, reshaping into crimson-black patterns marked with madness.
Buzz!
In an instant, Ether trembled and resonated. One after another, humanoid figures corrupted by those crimson-black patterns staggered forward, their limbs warped and deformed. Incoherent murmurs gurgled from their throats as they crossed dunes and wind pillars, gathering in this wasteland of death like starving beasts, charging madly toward Samael, trying to claw out the "delicacy" hidden within the flames.
Boom!
With a surge of Mana, a torrent of Ether exploded outward from around Samael. The monsters that were blasted apart had their torn bodies instantly swell and writhe. Muscles knotted and regrew, forming new limbs.
But they no longer retained any human shape. They became bloated, twisted, grotesque.
Some of the worst-damaged figures reformed into something even more horrifying, like a single head crudely attached to a mass of writhing, rotten flesh.
"Water… give me water…"
"So hungry… so hungry…"
"Eat… eat…"
Broken, slurred murmurs echoed from their chests, their eyes clouded with delirium, yet still burning with a trace of obsessive madness.
Listening to the noise, Samael frowned deeply and slowly lifted his gaze toward Angra Mainyu, who was approaching from the opposite side.
"They… are still alive?"
"Of course!"
Angra Mainyu clapped happily, grinning wide as he proudly displayed his handiwork.
"If I can judge them to die, then naturally I can grant them the right to live. As for how they survive on this scorched land, that is none of my concern.
Look at these adorable toys. See how loyal they are to their desires. For something as simple as thirst or hunger, they can cast aside their human form and abandon everything without limit, turning into ugly things that will do anything just to keep living."
As he spoke, the dark god swung his arm. The Sword of the Dead pierced through a water skin buried in the sand, spilling half its contents onto the charred ground around Samael.
In an instant, the twisted masses of flesh surged toward the small puddle, collapsing onto the ground and lapping at it frantically.
When the water was gone, they began gnawing at the damp soil, fighting over the last traces of moisture like hyenas. They tore strips of rotten flesh from each other's bodies, stuffing them into their mouths to fill their stomachs.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
Falling Rune symbols pierced through the skulls of those struggling to survive. As a god who slaughtered without hesitation, his expression remained still as stagnant water, his gaze cold and unmoving, devoid of any pity or hesitation.
Under the corruption of the Black Tide, even if they still lived, they had already become nothing more than pets to amuse Angra Mainyu.
For them, death might be darkness, but it was also a merciful release.
...
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