Chapter 530: Malphas |
Their pain was cut short as Sol stepped over them, his blade descending in quick, heavy vertical strokes that split their chests open.
"Kill him!!" a Layer 3 captain roared from the center of the block. He managed to force his body to move against the pressure, his veins bulging as he raised a massive stone axe. He couldn’t rush forward so he threw the axe with all his might, aiming straight for Sol’s head.
Sol didn’t even bother to parry. He opened his palm and caught the heavy stone axe mid-air, the raw physical force of his Layer 3 body absorbing the impact without his arm even shaking.
Before the captain could register the sight, Sol hurled the axe back with twice the speed.
SMASH.
The heavy stone weapon hit the captain square in the chest, shattering his ribs and throwing his body backward into a group of Layer 2 fighters, knocking them all into the dirt.
Sol blurred forward, appearing right over the fallen group.
The Dreadwing Blade flashed again and again in short, efficient strokes. Every time the blue light flared, another Layer 3 soul was violently ripped from its flesh, rushing straight back into Sol’s chest pool.
The molten Golden Silver liquid beneath his ribs boiled with a deep, dark hunger, turning the stolen souls into fuel that sustained the massive expenditure of the Golden Dominion.
Sol was targeted on one thing: total extermination of the traitors.
The Coalition forces could wait, but these Zharun rats who had worn a young girl’s face as a trophy had to be wiped off the world first.
Chief Vane stood twenty paces away, his face completely pale and panicked.
His own Layer 4 essence was flaring aggressively, trying to push back against Sol’s control, but the sheer density of the Dominion field was too much.
His feet felt glued to the ground. His arms were heavy, and every time he tried to take a step forward to save his captains, the invisible gravity slammed against his chest, forcing him to stay put.
So, he could only watch.
The proud leader who had mocked Veylara just minutes ago was now completely helpless, forced to stand in the dust and watch a single black-armored man butcher his elite force block by block.
Thirty-three captains were rapidly dropping to twenty, then fifteen, their energy signatures cutting off one by one like campfire sparks in a sudden rain.
Sol didn’t show a single drop of mercy.
He hacked through another row of Layer 2 spear-men, his blade slicing through their leather hide shields and their ribs in one clean movement.
The right flank of the Zharun army was rapidly turning into a flat pile of red meat, and the smell of opened bodies grew so thick it filled the entire clearing.
...
Sol’s boots tore through the red mud as he cleared another block of Zharun forces.
The path behind him was a flat lane of severed limbs and shattered spears. But through the red mist and the falling bodies his eyes remained locked on a single target at the center of the clearing.
The second Layer 4 powerhouse of the Zharun.
Seeing Sol’s intention, Zharun Chief Vane roared, "Malphas, get away from here."
But the eight-foot Zharun warrior stood frozen under the crushing weight of the Golden Dominion, his bare chest glistening with greasy sweat.
But what drew every ounce of Sol’s focus was the pale, delicate flap of tanned human skin draped over the monster’s head, held in place by crude bone pins.
The stretched features of Lumi’s face seemed to stare blankly into the sky, her grotesque, permanent smile a mockery of the life they had stolen.
Seeing him up close, the molten pool of Golden Silver inside Sol’s chest roared like a furnace.
An intense, maddening rage erupted from his body. He felt a literal burning sensation behind his eyes, an intense, suffocating anger so intense and heavy it felt like his own skin was going to burn away from the sheer heat of his fury.
Seeing him, every single calculating thought in his head evaporated, he didn’t care about other Zharun forces or coalition, there was only the monster wearing Lumi’s skin, and it needed to be ground into dust.
So, he didn’t speak or curse. He just gripped the sapphire hilt with both hands and kicked off the gravel.
He blurred across the ten paces separating them, the Dreadwing Blade whistling a high-pitched, deadly song through the dust.
Malphas was a true Layer 4 powerhouse, an entirely different breed from the captains Sol had just turned into pulp.
Unlike the lower-tier warriors whose hearts had simply shut down under Sol’s Golden Dominion, Malphas possessed a massive, dense core foundation.
With the black-armored reaper descending on him like an angry god, the primitive survival instinct in his marrow violently fired.
With the shadow of death dropping right over his head, the giant felt the crushing gravity of the Golden Dominion trying to pin him to the ground.
His internal core roared, violently thrashing against his veins as he forced his latent potential to ignite to its absolute maximum.
BOOM.
The green-tinged energy flared around his body, violently cracking the limestone gravel beneath his feet.
It wasn’t enough to completely break free from the Golden Dominion, but it gave him just enough leverage to unlock his frozen joints.
As Sol’s sapphire blade cut through the air in a blinding, horizontal arc aimed straight for his neck, Malphas threw his torso backward with everything he had.
SHUCK.
The high-frequency edge of the Dreadwing Blade missed his throat by a hair, instead slicing cleanly through the thick, scarred muscle of his left shoulder.
A wide spray of dark, heavy blood erupted into the dust as Malphas stumbled back three paces, his teeth bared in agony.
Any other warrior in the clearing would have been instantly decapitated, unable to even twitch under Sol’s pressure.
But Malphas’s Layer 4 density allowed him to barely dodge the fatal hit, his heavy hand reaching for the giant bone cleaver at his waist as he scrambled to stay alive.