Inside the quiet chamber, the horrifying effects of the Suka Position were relentless. Rudra's physical form was slowly but steadily decomposing, gray patches of decay creeping further across his skin. Isha sat right by his side, her trembling hands tightly holding his cooling palm.
"Don't worry, Rudra..." Isha whispered, her voice cracking with deep emotion as she looked at his pale face. "They will find the cures. The others will reach back here in the right time. Just hold on for me."
Suddenly, the ambient spiritual pressure violently dropped. The wooden doors shattered inward as a massive, hideously deformed rogue demon from the forest burst into the room. Its eyes locked onto the helpless King.
"Hahaha! The great Sovereign is rotting alive!" the demon bellowed, its sharp fangs dripping with acidic saliva. "Rudra, I am going to slaughter you right here and now while you can't even lift a finger!"
Isha instantly stood up, stepping directly between the giant monster and Rudra's bed. Her eyes turned ice-cold. "Stay back. Step away from my husband, or I will ensure you never see tomorrow."
The demon burst into a mocking laughter. "A mere woman thinks she can protect a dying corpse? Get out of my way! I can end your pathetic life in a single second!"
Isha didn't flinch. A dangerous, golden aura began to hum around her body. "Oh really? Then try your absolute best."
With a guttural roar, the demon lunged forward, snapping its massive, venomous fangs directly at her head. Isha tried to dodge, but the kinetic shockwave of the monster's raw physical strength caught her off guard. BANG! Isha was violently crashed across her face, sending her stumbling back against the wall.
The demon sneered, towering over her. "See? Who are you to think a simple woman can stand in front of a warrior like me? Go to hell!"
That insult snapped Isha's restraint. Infused with pure, unadulterated rage, she tapped into her core divinity and activated her ultimate ability: The Time Scale Skill.
SHING!
"In my world..." Isha spoke, her voice echoing from three different directions at once. "...time moves differently."
The demon blinked in absolute horror. Suddenly, there weren't just one, but three separate Ishas standing perfectly in front of him! Thanks to her Time Scale shifting into hyper-drive, her relative velocity was moving so incredibly fast that the regular passage of time had practically stopped for the demon.
SLASH!
Before the monster could even process the movement, Isha blurred through the frozen space. With a clean, lightning-fast strike, the demon's massive fangs were cleanly cut out of its mouth!
"What is this?!" the demon shrieked, swinging wildly through the air, but his claws couldn't touch a single thread of her clothes. "Where are you?!"
"I am everywhere," Isha's voice rang out. "My time is scaled so fast compared to your sluggish timeline that I can exist in any place I desire."
Moving like an untouchable goddess of time, Isha relentlessly sliced through the demon's thick hide. But maintaining a high-tier cosmic time-distortion takes a brutal toll on a mortal vessel. Suddenly, Isha's face turned pale. Her core energy drastically drained out all at once, forcing her out of her Time Scale form. She collapsed to her knees, gasping heavily for breath.
Seeing her drop, the bleeding demon grinned psychotically. "Your energy is spent, little girl! Now, I am going to rip Rudra's head off right in front of your eyes!"
The demon took one heavy step toward the bed.
THOOM!!!
Out of absolutely nowhere, a massive, legendary sword plummeted straight from the ceiling, embedding itself deep into the stone floor right in front of the demon's feet. The sheer impact shockwave paralyzed the monster in its tracks.
A cold, devastatingly calm voice echoed from the shattered doorway.
"Who gave you permission to die by my hands, trash? Move another inch, and you won't even leave a corpse."
The demon stiffened, a primal fear freezing its soul. It didn't want to turn around, but an invisible kinetic gravity forced its body to shift.
SILENT FLASH!
Before the demon could even lay eyes on the speaker, an invisible web of hyper-dense sword slashes passed through the room. In a single microsecond, the demon's entire massive body was instantly divided into millions of microscopic pieces, dissolving into absolute dust before it could even bleed.
The dust cleared to reveal the ultimate sword prodigy standing tall—Vikram.
Vikram casually sheared his blade back into its scabbard, his sharp eyes glancing over at the exhausted girl and the decomposing King.
"Isha," Vikram spoke calmly, his cape flowing as he turned toward the window. "Keep holding the fort. I am going out to secure the perimeter. No other insect will cross this threshold."
In a flash of light, Vikram vanished back into the forest, leaving Isha breathing a sigh of relief