Chapter 497: Entertain me!
The Constellation smiled more and more, he was truly interested... This was no longer the simple amusement of a child torturing an ant, but the curiosity of a predator facing prey that refuses to die.
"You had a bit of trouble with just one..." began Leo, his voice resonating against the Corinthian columns with the force of a seismic event. "How are you going to handle ten?"
With a nonchalant gesture, Leo brought his right index finger to his lips, revealing his sharp canines. He made a small cut in his index finger... A drop of divine blood, a liquid gold so pure that it seemed to contain the essence of a star, beaded at the tip of his finger. When he withdrew his hand, he let the drop fall toward the marble floor.
The precise instant the small drop fell and touched the polished surface, there was a powerful explosion... It was not an ordinary fire detonation, but a release of gravitational and thermal pressure that pulverized the slabs over a radius of hundreds of kilometers, sending shards of stone heated white-hot in all directions. From this smoke of gold and sulfur emerged ten gigantic creatures.
They were ten lion-dragons, each twice as massive as the first. Their bodies were made of basalt blackened by solar fire, their manes were roaring white flames, and their eyes burned with hatred. Their crystal claws sank into the marble, creating craters with every step as they encircled Konstantine in a symphony of telluric growls.
Konstantine narrowed his eyes at the power...
The density of mana released by these ten entities was such that the space-time around them seemed to bend, creating visual distortions.
’Shit... How is this possible?’ thought Konstantine, his fingers tightening on his gray spear. ’His mana reserve seems to have no bottom. He hasn’t even used a tenth of his power to create these monstrosities.’
Leo let out a laugh that shook the very foundations of the celestial domain.
"Wrong, I didn’t even use one percent in reality..." declared Leo with sovereign disdain.
"You can read my thoughts!?"
"So entertain me a little more. As a Constellation, we get a bit bored after all this time in our domain. You are the first toy in millennia that doesn’t break on first contact."
The ten beasts charged simultaneously. It was an avalanche of fire and rock. The first lion-dragon brought down its massive paw, but Konstantine used a vertical Dash, propelling himself into the air with an aura impulse under his boots. In mid-flight, he performed a series of complex mudras, his fingers tracing runes of frost in the burning air.
"< Mystic Art: Eternal Ice >!"
Konstantine summoned ice... but it was not ordinary frozen water. It was esoteric ice, capable of freezing mana itself.
A storm of bluish frost lances burst from his palms, raining down on the creatures. The ice projectiles struck the fire manes, creating explosions of pressurized steam that tore the mana tissues of the monsters. One of the lion-dragons had its flank literally opened, revealing its magma intestines that spilled onto the ground in a fetid hiss of calcined sulfur.
However, Leo’s solar fire was relentless. The creatures did not slow down. Konstantine landed at the center of the circle and struck the ground with his gray spear.
"< Mystic Art: Genesis Lightning >!"
Arcs of ebony-black electricity streaked across the sanctuary. Konstantine became a conductor for the Antichrist’s energy. He moved like lightning, his silhouette now nothing more than a heterochromatic blur. He passed under the belly of a lion-dragon, his gray spear piercing the beast’s throat to emerge through the skull in a spray of golden blood and arcane sparks.
"Faster!" roared Leo from his throne, his eyes shining with wild excitement. "Adapt or die!"
The fight was of total brutality. Konstantine was struck, bitten, burned. A tail swipe from one of the monsters broke three of his ribs and sent him crashing against a column, but his < Mystic Art: Adaptation > was running at full capacity. With each impact, his body strengthened. His skin became denser, his nerves more reactive. He absorbed the solar heat to fuel his own lightning spells.
Konstantine stood up, spitting a mixture of blood and gold. He smoothed his blond hair back with a mechanical gesture, a mocking, almost insane smile stretching his lips.
"You want entertainment, Lion Constellation?" provoked Konstantine. "Then watch closely... because I am going to turn your pets into stardust."
’If I can feed his ego to force him to send more and more underlings, then I could strengthen myself. But if he decides to get serious, I would die with a snap of his fingers.’
He joined his hands in the < Mudra of Elemental Convergence >. Ice and lightning began to swirl around him, forming a bicolored vortex of destruction. The temperature around Konstantine dropped sharply while the electrical potential rose to unsustainable heights.
’I don’t know how many levels separate us... But I’m going to give it everything! To slay these sons of bitches of Constellations!’
"You know I can hear you?"
The remaining lion-dragons all leaped at the same time, forming a dome of flesh and fire above the sorcerer. Konstantine did not move. He waited until the last thousandth of a second.
"Shit!"
< Mystic Art: Cryo-Electric Cataclysm >!
A shockwave of black ice and silver lightning spread from Konstantine, pulverizing the ten creatures instantly. Their stone bodies flew into pieces, their limbs were torn off by the pressure and their mana cores extinguished in an agonizing cry that tore through the silence of the celestial domain.
The sanctuary was plunged into a fog of frost and residual lightning. Konstantine stood at the center, his gray spear planted in the broken marble, his body steaming from the effort expended. His starry runes shone with a blinding intensity, a sign that his Genesis core had just crossed a new threshold.
Leo rose slowly, applauding with ironic slowness. The gleam of interest in his eyes had transformed into something far more dangerous: recognition.
"Magnificent..." murmured Leo. "You survived... You defied the laws of this domain."
The Lion Constellation began to walk toward Konstantine, each step melting the marble beneath his feet. The real fight, the one that would decide the fate of Diavolo and his pact with the Antichrist, was only just beginning.