The theater was no longer a recognizable structure. It had become a localized center of universal collapse, a hollowed-out shell of existence where the laws of physics were being rewritten by every pulse of the First Hero's blade. The "Body Enhanced State" was the only thing keeping my senses from shattering under the sheer volume of information. Every time a spark flew from the obsidian floor, my mind processed its trajectory, its heat, and its eventual dissipation. My heart continued its heavy, rhythmic thump, thump, thump, a drumbeat of survival against the backdrop of a dying world. Beside me, the emerald light of my creation magic flickered, reacting to the massive fluctuations in the surrounding mana.
Eufrien stood at the center of this chaos, his dual-colored eyes—the emerald left and the sapphire right—locked onto the monstrosity that was Zaltraf. The blonde man's posture was no longer casual. There was a tautness in his shoulders, a sharpness in his breathing that hadn't been there before. He raised his white-gold sword, the metal humming a frequency that made the very atmosphere of the theater vibrate with a crystalline intensity.
Eufrien said, "Divine magic: Exploding Light, 100 mana folds."
The command was a trigger for a catastrophic release. The air around Zaltraf didn't just brighten; it achieved a level of luminosity that defied the concept of sight. The white-gold light that had been swirling around Eufrien's blade suddenly vanished, only to reappear as a hyper-compressed sphere of absolute radiance directly in front of the Demonking's chest. The sphere was no larger than a marble, but it contained the folded weight of a sun.
And suddenly, a bright light expanded near Zaltraf and he exploded.
The detonation was a silent, terrifying expansion of white-gold energy. It didn't produce a shockwave of air; it produced a shockwave of pure, cleansing power. Zaltraf's pitch-black barrier was vaporized instantly. His armored chest was hollowed out, his ribs turned to ash, and his massive frame was sent hurtling backward through the reddish-black mist. The explosion left a perfect, spherical void in the center of the theater, a pocket of space where even the dust had been deleted.
But the Demonking was an entity of unyielding adaptation.
Zaltraf regenerated.
The dark, viscous blood surged from the edges of the crater in his chest, knitting bone and flesh together with a sickening, wet sound. He snarled, his violet eyes burning with an even deeper malice, but Eufrien was already moving. The First Hero didn't give him a second to breathe. He reset his stance, the white-gold light once again coiling around his blade with a high-pitched, metallic whine.
He used that same attack eight times.
Each time, the command was the same: "Divine magic: Exploding Light, 100 mana folds." Each time, the marble-sized singularity appeared, and each time, Zaltraf was caught in the center of a world-shattering detonation. The theater was illuminated in a strobe-light effect of absolute destruction. Boom. Boom. Boom. The obsidian floor was pulverized into a fine, glowing sand. The reality-tears in the sky widened with every explosion, weeping static and spatial distortion into the arena.
By the eighth explosion, the strain of the mana manipulation was becoming visible. Eufrien's long blonde hair was matted with dust, and his breathing was no longer a calm, measured rhythm. He started to sweat. The droplets ran down his forehead, evaporating the moment they touched the white-gold aura surrounding his skin. His dual-colored eyes remained fixed on the target, but the emerald and sapphire lights within them were flickering with the effort of holding the 100-fold compression.
Zaltraf emerged from the eighth explosion, his body a patchwork of freshly knitted flesh and scorched, blackened armor. He was no longer laughing. He was hunched over, his dark aura pulsing with a frantic, desperate rhythm. He was also sweating—heavy, dark beads of ichor that dripped onto the shattered floor. But even as the sweat poured off him, his skin began to change. The texture of his newly regenerated flesh was turning into a dull, light-absorbent grey, a physical adaptation specifically designed to resist the searing heat of Eufrien's light.
We couldn't let him recover.
Celdrich, Tokine, Euphyne, and I attacked Zaltraf.
We moved as a singular, desperate wave. I led the charge, the "Body Enhanced State" pushing my legs to a speed that blurred the world into a series of jagged lines. I swung my white-gold sword in a flurry of emerald-tinted slashes, targeting the gaps in Zaltraf's shifting armor. To my left, Euphyne was a golden comet, his war axe trailing ribbons of ego-driven fire that sought to melt the Demonking's new, grey hide. Celdrich and Tokine were a pair of lethal phantoms on the right. Celdrich's black katana and dagger were a blur of shadow-steel, while Tokine's scythe carved through the temporal friction around Zaltraf, creating openings that hadn't existed seconds ago.
Eufrien stood there, charging his sword while we're attacking Zaltraf.
He had lowered his blade to his side, his eyes closed as he drew every remaining scrap of mana from the dimension. The white-gold light around him didn't expand this time; it contracted. It drew inward toward the metal of the sword, turning the blade from a glowing weapon into a terrifying, solid pillar of absolute density. The air around Eufrien began to groan, the gravitational pull of the charged blade creating a vacuum that sucked the reddish mist toward him. The sweat on his brow was a testament to the sheer weight of the power he was containing—a power that felt as if it were trying to tear his own body apart from the inside.
We kept the pressure on Zaltraf. I used my creation magic to summon jagged emerald spears, launching them at the Demonking's eyes to force him into a defensive posture. Euphyne's axe-strikes were concussive, each hit sending shockwaves through Zaltraf's frame that hindered his ability to counter-attack. Celdrich and Tokine were relentless, their blades weaving a cage of steel around the monster, keeping his attention locked on the immediate threat.
Zaltraf roared, his dark aura flaring as he swiped at us with his massive claws, but we were too fast, too coordinated. We were the distraction, the shield for the First Hero's final move.
Eufrien's eyes snapped open. The left emerald and the right sapphire were now glowing with such intensity that they looked like twin stars. He let out a sharp, guttural breath and stepped forward, the obsidian sand beneath his boots vaporizing instantly.
After charging his sword, he swung it.
The movement was too fast for even the "Body Enhanced State" to track in real-time. It was a singular, vertical arc of white-gold light that didn't just cut the air—it cut the concept of distance.
The swing is so strong that it cuts reality to outside far universes.
The path of the blade didn't leave a trail of fire; it left a massive, jagged rift in the fabric of the theater. The tear was hundreds of feet tall, a window into a void that was not our own. Through the rift, I could see things that defied explanation—swirling nebulae of alien colors, stars that burned with a cold, violet light, and the vast, silent stretches of galaxies that existed far beyond the boundaries of our dimension. The gravity from these "outside universes" began to pull at the theater, creating a screaming wind that sought to drag everything into the rift.
The strike caught Zaltraf directly down the center of his form. The white-gold edge didn't stop at his skin or his bones; it passed through him with the same ease as it had passed through reality itself. The Demonking was nearly bisected, his frame shuddering as the alien energies from the rift began to erode his dark essence.
But Zaltraf regenerated and adapted.
Even as his body was being pulled apart by the gravitational shear of the far universes, the dark blood surged with a monstrous, frantic energy. The wound didn't just close; it fused. His body expanded again, his skin thickening into a dense, crystalline obsidian that reflected the light of the alien stars. His dark aura changed frequency, hardening into a shell that was no longer just a barrier, but a physical extension of his will. He stood amidst the screaming winds of the rift, his feet anchored to the remnants of the theater, his breathing a wet, heavy rasp.
He's sweating a lot.
The dark ichor was pouring off him now, a sign that the adaptation was costing him everything he had. His muscles were twitching, and his violet eyes were bloodshot, reflecting the toll of surviving a strike that had cut through reality itself. But he was still standing. He was still fighting.
Eufrien stumbled slightly, his sword hand trembling as he lowered the white-gold blade. The mana folds were gone, and the glow of his weapon had dimmed to a dull, flickering pulse. He looked at Zaltraf, then at us, a sharp, determined smile cutting through the sweat and grime on his face. He didn't say a word, but the message was clear. We weren't done yet.
Celdrich, Euphyne, Tokine, and I attacked Zaltraf.
We didn't give him a moment to process the adaptation. I lunged forward, my emerald light flaring as I channeled every bit of my remaining mana into the "Body Enhanced State." Euphyne roared, his golden ego flames erupting in a final, desperate burst of power. Celdrich and Tokine were already in motion, their blades a blur of shadow and silver as they closed the distance. We slammed into the Demonking's new obsidian hide, the ring of our weapons echoing through the shattered theater.
The battle raged on, a frantic cycle of light and dark. Every time Zaltraf seemed to lose, he adapted. Every time we pushed him to the brink, he found a new way to endure. We were five warriors against a monster that refused to die, fighting in a dimension that was slowly being swallowed by the very rifts we had created. The sky was a web of white cracks, the floor was a river of melting rock, and the only constant was the sound of our breathing and the unrelenting rhythm of the struggle. We pushed forward, our strikes becoming faster, our movements more desperate, as we sought the one opening that would finally end the ancient Demonking's reign.