Chapter 168: The Collapse of Laws - Part 2
While Samael's mind, operating at the speed of light thanks to the Crown of the Sovereign, analyzed the irritating and terrifying efficiency with which the tanks had saved their assassins, a microscopic opening was exposed in his stance. And the geniuses still waiting in the shadows were not going to waste it.
The air ceased to exist. Space itself seemed to sink.
Nylas and Elian, the twins of passive annihilation, overlapped their domains with a disturbing synchrony. Nylas anchored his heavy boots into the obsidian and unleashed his Gravity Well Authority. Within a two-hundred-meter radius, the density of the world became obscene. Oxygen, dust, and Qi itself became fifty percent heavier. Samael felt, for the first time in centuries, how his own internal organs pulled toward the ground, his shoulders bearing the weight of invisible mountains that hindered his breathing.
Taking advantage of that suffocating pressure keeping his father immobile, Nylas executed the Great Event Collapse. He extended his hand, and from the shadows erupted the Event Shackles, thick chains forged in dead star iron that did not fly through the air; they flickered between the spatial cracks and appeared directly entangled in the Patriarch's mythical armor. With a resonant, metallic crash, the chains did not seek to squeeze physically; they injected a hungry "void" that began to drain the Space God's cultivation base. Threads of crimson and violet light began to flow through the links toward the Black Hole Fragment embedded in Nylas's chest.
Samael struggled, his divine muscles tensing. But he instantly felt the trap: the more Qi he released to break free, the more the chains devoured it, multiplying Nylas's mass and gravity to cosmic levels, creating a perfect concave crater beneath the young man's feet.
That gravitational immobilization was merely the anvil. Elian brought the hammer.
Unleashing the Mantle of the Dead Sea, the air in the coliseum turned a deep navy blue, transmuting into an ocean of heavy mercury vapor. The barometric pressure skyrocketed as if they were ten thousand meters underwater. Elian raised his Heart of Mercury, a purplish-black orb that beat in unison with his chest. His blood, enriched by the Neutron Star Tear, flowed into the orb.
With a sharp strike to the void, Elian launched the Stellar Column Collapse. The orb stretched out, transforming into a black liquid spear that shot at supersonic speed toward Samael. There was no expansive blast as it moved; only an absolute silence as space liquefied in front of the spear, striking Samael's breastplate with the inertia of a lead tsunami, a hydrostatic pressure designed to cave in the armor and pulverize everything within a kilometer radius.
Anchored by the gravity of the dead star, suffocated by the black mercury, and struck by cosmic inertia, Samael barely had time to stabilize his stance when the coliseum's false sky roared with imperial fury.
Xylia did not descend to fight; she dictated her sentence from above. She opened her mouth and released the Voice of the Heavenly Thunder. The vibration did not attack the god's ears, but directly struck his biology, sending a shockwave of authority that attempted to overwrite the paralyzing commands in his nervous system. Simultaneously, she cracked the electrical obsidian handle of her whip, Indra. In a burst of blinding light that filled the air with ozone, the weapon split into a hydra of silver and violet lightning. Xylia unleashed the Judgment of the Thousand Nerves: "Collapse!" she shouted. Dozens of plasma tips lashed Samael's armor, injecting extremely high-frequency Qi directly into his nerve nodes, seeking to hijack his motor system to force him to his knees out of pure synaptic overload.
Beneath the thunder tearing the sky, temperature simply ceased to exist. Eira claimed the domain of thermal death.
With her Thermal Void Authority, the White Witch sucked all the heat from the battle, turning the area around Samael into a stasis domain where the air liquefied and then turned solid. Her Absolute Zero Sovereign Scepter mutated in her hands; the wood retracted and the central diamond elongated to form a thin, lethal blade of translucent black ice.
Eira exhaled a white mist and pointed at the monarch, unleashing the Whisper of Fragility. A thin line of cyan light cut through space, suppressing the molecular cohesion of everything it touched, seeking to turn Samael's impenetrable dark armor into fragile, brittle glass. At that exact moment, twelve glacial diamond petals detached from her hilt with crystalline clicks. The Waltz of the Thousand Ice Splinters began to orbit Samael at breakneck speed, riddling his flanks like a swarm of sharp mirrors leaving indigo frost burns on the dark metal, creating mini-vortices that froze time itself.
The obsidian earth beneath the immobilized Patriarch then erupted in a burst of geological and biological violence.
Aylin, who had submerged into the solid rock via her Tectonic Navigation like a predator in the ocean, emerged right beneath the god's feet in an immense column of debris and frictional fire. She broke the sound barrier spinning on herself in the Pyroclastic Drill Ascension. Her colossal opaque crystal spear, the World Thorn, hummed with a terrifying ultrasonic frequency. Aylin executed the Devouring Ecosystem Thrust, striking the ground with the weight of a mountain.
Thousands of emerald Qi and ironwood micro-roots violently sprouted from the fractured obsidian. The roots coiled like hungry snakes around Samael's legs and arms, seeking to impale the armor's joints to suck out his immense vitality and feed the aura of the girl laughing amidst the apocalypse.
And if Aylin was the inescapable terror of the depths, Rowan was the unreachable nightmare of the skies.
Completely nullifying molecular friction with his Zero Friction Glide, Rowan slid across the battlefield transformed into a trail of neon green light. His twin chakrams, the Cyclone Wings, orbited around him emitting the high-pitched shriek of a supersonic turbine. He executed the Phase Slash. Rowan didn't try to crash against Samael's hard shell; he launched himself in a suicidal orbital trajectory, accelerating until he phased out of reality, aiming directly through the Patriarch's body. The void edge of his toothed rings cut the opponent's molecular structure while he passed like a ghost, a sadistic execution where the victim would only burst to pieces once Rowan sheathed his intent behind his back.
While cosmic gravity, liquid lead, imperial lightning, absolute zero, devouring roots, and cutting intangible void converged upon Samael, the plague's rearguard closed the trap, saturating the last breath of oxygen in the coliseum.
Jareth moved with his Wasp Shadow Stride, his body blurring into a cloud of afterimages while a disorienting, deep, nauseating hum filled the air. Approaching silently through the lightning hydra's blind spot, he launched his Internal Void Stinger. His fingers, black and sharp as obsidian itself, injected a concentrated drop of emerald green and jet-black mist directly onto Samael's breastplate. It was not an impact of brute force; it was a Toxic Symbiogenesis. The Qi acted like millions of invisible insects, micro-stingers that infiltrated seeking to devour the god's spiritual energy to multiply and suffocate his internal channels.
Tamsin completed the putrefaction of reality. She opened her iridescent feather fan, The Toxic Sigh, with a crackle similar to thousands of insects, and unleashed the Reality Infection. Micro-crystals and green spores flooded the heavy air. Tamsin exhaled the Ancestral Poison Dragon Breath, a thick emerald green smoke so heavy it crawled along the floor like a carpet of death. The instant that entropic gas touched Samael's residual void defenses, a violent chemical reaction occurred: the poison fed on the Patriarch's energy, emitting black sparks and mutating into an acidic wax that sought to rot and dissolve even the laws of space protecting the monarch.
And to seal this coffin of chaos, Vania raised her staff, the Sovereign's Tuning Fork, whose three indigo pearls spun frantically, humming with the song of leviathans. She opened her mouth and sang her Requiem.
Vania released the Song of the End of the World. A beam of ultra-compressed sound, so ridiculously dense it distorted light in its path, shot toward Samael's chest. The sonic ray was completely inaudible to the ears, but lethal to matter. It carried the Atomic Resonance Authority; the technique sought the exact frequency of Samael's divine bones and armor to match their vibration, aiming to silently disintegrate him into atomic dust through pure destructive sympathy.
Crushing gravity, suffocating mercury, plasma paralysis, absolute zero stasis, vitality-devouring roots, intangible void cuts, parasitic rot, and atomic disintegration resonance.
Eight supreme laws of nature. Eight perfectly executed calamities.
Everything struck the exact same anchor point. Everything struck the Demon King at the same time.
The entire coliseum lit up with an explosion of lethal, neon colors and shadows. A dull, deep roar tore the dimension's firmament, raising a cloud of static, ice, acid, and dust so immense and dense that it completely hid the Patriarch's figure, plunging the center of the arena into an unrecognizable abyss.
Elara, Mira, Ren, and Lirael did not wait for the atomic disintegration smoke to clear. In perfect synchrony, the clan's four phantoms attacked.
Lirael imposed the terrifying Lethal Reflection Authority. Her amber eyes transmuted into perfect silver mirrors, tracking not Samael's flesh, but his soul reflected in the pools of blood scattered on the floor. Wielding the Moon Fang, a sword forged of shadow steel that absorbed light until it became invisible, she executed the Thousand Twilight Slashes. Particles of her lunar mercury blood floated in the darkness like diamond dust, acting as billions of micro-mirrors. As she slashed the air, her killing intent multiplied in each particle. Samael began to feel thousands of immaterial cuts trying to tear his armor directly from the spiritual plane, shattering his reflection in every silver speck.
Ren, operating outside the limits of linear time, attacked a second before Samael even thought to move. Expanding his Atmospheric Nerve Network, he felt the world within a kilometer radius as if it were his own skin. Ren erased his physical presence, flowing with the breeze without displacing oxygen. Using his dagger Ethereal Gale Fang, he executed the Instinct Slash. Thanks to the constant void edge that nullified air resistance, Ren intercepted the monarch's intent to move, his blade seeking Samael's jugular in the exact micro-fraction of a second the Patriarch prepared to counterattack.
Beneath that inaudible cut, Mira contorted her body with the flexibility of a serpent, slipping her Amethyst Basilisk Fangs toward the tiny fissures in the chest plate. Her pores exhaled a toxic mist that lethargized the ambient Qi. As her daggers clashed against the remnants of Samael's Veil of the Void, she unleashed the Law Rot. The amethyst's conceptual poison did not crash against the dark shield; it infected it. The Sovereign's magical defenses began to rot, becoming a chaotic black biomass that threatened to burst upon its own creator.
And taking advantage of Mira's infection, Elara executed the internal assassination. Dissolving her molecular cohesion through her Atmospheric Infiltration, she became a fine, icy mist that slipped through the collar of the crown and the armor. Seeking to penetrate the Patriarch's lungs through his own breath, Elara prepared the Kiss of the Internal Winter, ready to anchor her Phantom Fangs daggers directly into Samael's heart to inject the Poison of Oblivion and erase his meridians from within.
Samael, observing this inescapable dance of death, smiled. A genuine, dark smile at such lethal mercy.
But before he could release his power to erase them, the space above him darkened.
Orion orchestrated the supreme sacrifice. With his Soul Spider Thimbles, he wove the Symphony of Dismemberment. Dozens of corpses of destroyed beasts and golems were sewn together alive through indestructible threads of void, forming gigantic Amalgam Puppets that threw themselves as shields of raw meat to absorb any defensive slash the Sovereign might try to launch.
Hidden behind that rain of dead flesh, Vorian, blindfolded, executed his Shadow Chimerization. He forced all the beasts bound to his soul to fuse into a monstrous Void Chimera. The biological aberration broke the barriers of the Saint Realm and crashed its colossal claws against the Patriarch's very chest, pinning him beneath mountains of muscle and darkness.
Samael was trapped in the eye of a tailor-made apocalypse. He cut, disintegrated, and erased attacks at breakneck speed, but for every spell he destroyed, three physical dragon claws tried to tear his head off. And amidst the chaos, the melodious, maniacal laugh of Kurohime echoed throughout the coliseum, merging with her master's laughter.
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
At the absolute climax of the storm, the clan's coordination clashed against divine strength. Samael spun Kurohime and unleashed the Crimson Moon Slash. A 360-degree slash, as fine as a spatial law, but with the weight of an ocean, swept the coliseum. The black, pressurized shockwave, loaded with slaughter poison, flew toward the rearguard to annihilate the supports.
But Aion, the void twin, planted himself in its path. Anchoring his Void Anvil into the ground, he activated the Black Hole Shield. The gravitational suction collided against the Patriarch's attack. Aion's arms creaked agonizingly, his veins burst spraying blood, but his Void Inertia did not yield. He compressed the monstrous energy of Samael's slash into a pure sphere, and through Eclipse Resonance, he instantly passed it to his sister.
Aia caught the singularity. Connecting the sphere to her Vector Needle, she channeled Samael's stolen energy, multiplied it by three thanks to her brother's density, and fired the Mirror Execution. An undodgeable stellar chrome laser traveled through ten dimensional mirrors simultaneously, converging directly toward Samael's head from all blind angles.
The Patriarch, besieged by daggers, poison, gravity, and the Chimera, barely had time to tilt his neck. The massive laser grazed his armor. The indestructible obsidian shrieked, melting in a shower of stellar sparks, leaving an imperceptible crack.
But the laser wasn't the real attack. Riding the blind reflection of that light traveled the Supreme Executioner.
Dante appeared millimeters from Samael's face. Fueled by the Void Frenzy, his hair had turned blood red, and his body operated at 100% critical probability. His gray interface pupils tracked Reality, detecting the single molecular "seam" the laser had forced in the Patriarch's armor.
Executing Code Zero, Dante did not use brute force. He slid his dagger along that line of inevitable death, ignoring the laws of the world. The edge passed through the micro-fissure. It found skin.
Sssshk.
Dante was violently expelled backward by the automatic pressure of the primordial Sovereign's Crown, rolling across the floor with multiple fractures. Silence returned to the coliseum, heavier than before. The swarm of beasts stopped, panting, retreating by instinct. All eyes locked onto the Patriarch's face.
On the left cheek of Samael Morningstar, there was a fine horizontal cut. A single, minuscule, glowing drop of violet-crimson primordial blood welled from the wound, slid down his pale skin, fell into the void, and struck the obsidian floor with a sound that rang like a funeral bell.
Kael Morningstar swallowed hard.
They had achieved the impossible. They had made the god bleed. The Nexus filled with fierce jubilation. Dante smiled with blood-stained teeth. Cedric clenched his fists.
But the illusion of victory lasted exactly one heartbeat.
Samael Morningstar looked down at the microscopic drop of blood on the floor. Slowly, with a terrifying elegance, he ran a gloved finger across his cheek. He looked at the blood staining the obsidian of his gauntlet. His draconic eyes darkened until they became black holes. The smile that crossed his face was not one of pride. It was of pure abyssal tyranny.
"Excellent," whispered Samael, and his voice did not sound in the air, but in the bones of the 45 geniuses. "You have made me bleed. You have claimed your right as predators. Now... face the consequences of wounding your Progenitor."
Samael opened his arms, embracing the coliseum. He did not invoke his immense domain of Space. He did not resort to the annihilation of the Void.
"Law of Blood: Shackles of the Crimson Throne."
Samael's single drop of blood on the floor erupted in a blinding violet flare. It acted as a beacon, summoning the tyranny of his bloodline. All the blood the 45 warriors had spilled during the infernal battle, all the blood still flowing from their own wounds and staining the obsidian, came to life.
The battlefield inverted, becoming an ocean of liquid chains. Hundreds of thick spikes and shackles of living blood erupted from the ground like vipers, tangling at lightspeed around the legs, arms, and necks of Kael, Draven, Borg, Eris, Dante, Violeta, and the rest of the frontline squad.
The shackles didn't just immobilize them physically with the gravitational force of a Great Saint; they began to suck their Qi with a sickening voracity. Kael tried to incinerate the chains with his Atomic Friction, but Samael's blood swallowed the fire of the black sun. Borg tried to break them with his mountain inertia, but the pressure forced him to a knee. And then, Samael clenched his left fist.
"Tyrannical Blood Boil."
The inner hell was unleashed. Having been touched by the shackles and breathing the same air as the Patriarch's spilled blood, the tyranny activated within their own circulatory systems.
The 45 geniuses fell to their knees in unison, their throats tearing in screams of pure agony. Their own blood, that very same blood they were so proud of, began to boil at catastrophic temperatures. Their meridians creaked like dry wood, expanding to the point of rupture. Their internal organs writhed. The immortal physiques they had just boasted of challenging the heavens with were literally cooking from the inside out.
"KEEP THEM ALIVE!" bellowed Cedric. The Emperor of Seals spat bubbling mercury blood while his runic mind was on the verge of collapsing from the pain. "NOW!"
The support rearguard went into a desperate frenzy.
Lys and Cassius fell to their knees, their Dantians burning at the absolute limit. Lys, her eyes glowing white-gold, drove her Beacon of the Aurora into the crystal and expanded her Dome of Absolute Grace to one hundred percent. The Holy Light Prism in the sky projected a pillar of Photonic light over the clan. Lys forced her Dictatorial Purification upon her siblings, working at three hundred percent of her biological capacity to prevent their cells from disintegrating, using the light to combat the boiling sovereignty of Samael's blood.
Cassius, the Arbiter of Existence, roared. He impaled a dozen of Vorian's dying summons with Yggdrasil, the Thorn of Rebirth. His Divine Parasite Authority devoured the flesh and sap of the beasts in seconds, converting that biomass into torrents of emerald-green healing energy that shot like lightning toward Kael, Eris, and Dante, forcing their bodies to regenerate at the same rate Samael's blood destroyed them.
Beside him, Elowen enacted the ultimate sacrifice. Weeping tears of green blood, she raised one of her daggers and cut deeply into both her wrists.
She let her Universal Elixir Blood water the ground beneath her Iron Root cauldron. Instantly, the obsidian erupted into a forbidden eden. A forest of desperate healing, composed of giant orchids, jade roots, and pulsating carnivorous plants, sprouted beneath the feet of the dying. The healing mist of the "Sap of Return" filled her siblings' lungs, forcing death to take a step back.
The clash between Samael's Law of Blood seeking to boil them and the vital sacrifice of the supports seeking to keep them anchored to life turned the arena into an agonizing pulse of green, golden, and crimson red light. And in the midst of that renaissance painting of pain and unbreakable loyalty, the figure of the god moved.
Samael began to walk slowly toward them.
There was no rush in his steps. With his right hand hanging loose at his side, he dragged the immense Kurohime across the crystal floor. The screech of the black metal tearing the obsidian marked the inexorable beat of an imminent execution.
The Sovereign walked through the sea of red chains, surrounded by the screams of his children and the glow of desperate healing, ready to teach them why the title of Progenitor was not just an honorary name.
It was an absolute biological condemnation.