Chapter 213: Ten Seconds is More Than Enough
Crack—!
Makos’s knuckles slammed into Perion’s body, and the force of the blow sent shards of stone clattering to the ground. He pulled back and punched again with all his might, cracking more of the stone surface.
"What is this thing?" Damas asked breathlessly.
He was on one knee beside Makos, still covering his broken nose and face.
"It’s a summoned creature. I’ve seen him summon it earlier." Makos answered without even looking. His focus remained on punching Perion—trying to get to Kai and Panas inside. "I’m certain he’s not a Supernal of Moros. In fact, I’ve never seen any Supernal with this kind of imprint."
"He has many Imprints, too. He’s not normal." Makos added.
Plotting against Grines and his brother should be easy.
Only new Angels from the First Sky are around them, so there shouldn’t be a problem.
Not only would they be weak, but they also didn’t know anything about the Second Sky.
It was the perfect chance to plot.
But Kai single-handedly made things harder. Not only had he seen through their plot, but his strength was also freakishly strong. Makos and Damas went from underestimating him to pure indifference, worrying, and then panicking.
Damas, in particular, got the worst of it.
He was almost killed, and then got knocked out for a few seconds earlier.
Crack—!
Another punch slammed into Perion’s body, and Makos’ eyes flared open when Perion began to dissolve. As if the sunlight were melting its body. Concerned about what was happening on the other side, he grabbed Damas by his shirt and then leaped away.
Kai has many imprints.
It would be bad if he had been channelling another imprint while being protected by Perion.
But as the darkness faded away, his eyes narrowed, as there were only Kai and Panas.
Kai was panting heavily, exhausted; even his eyes were half-opened—as if his eyelids weighed a ton. His body was still seething with dark tendrils, and one of his arms was still an unnerving tentacle, but they were swaying weakly.
He was nearing pure exhaustion in body and mana.
"What are you waiting for? Finish him!" Damas roared, reasoning already left his mind.
"Something is wrong," Makos whispered.
Damas was at a loss for words.
Just across from them—Kai was there for the taking. He would fall with another punch to the face, and yet Makos hesitated. But Makos remained steadfast without blindly rushing to attack because his instincts were warning him about something.
Being near-death multiple times across his years as an Angel, he developed a sixth sense.
One that could detect danger, even if that danger is invisible.
Now, that sixth sense was warning him not to get close.
Damas also had the same sixth sense, but his was clouded with the fury—and embarrassment of being knocked out by a mere Lesser Angel. Even though Kai was an anomaly—he was still a new Angel, and Damas’ sense of seniority was bruised.
"Enough of this!" Damas ignored his wounds and charged.
But the moment he took a step forward, his body involuntarily seized.
A black sphere emerged before Kai.
And in the next second, a heavy pressure spread across the entire area—pressing from above as if someone had cranked up gravity. Damas dropped to his knees, while Makos resisted the pressure barely.
’What is this...?’ Makos thought. ’The air is trembling.’
He gritted his teeth and raised his gaze, staring ahead at the black sphere.
It was the source of this pressure.
Then, before his very eyes, the black sphere seethed with a smoky shadow that grew intense in a second. The swaying shadow lashed out and then merged together, sculpting a figure that towered over Kai.
A warrior built of muscles and power.
Scars raked across its body like a map of ancient wars. Swords and arrows jutted from its back, remnants of battles it had refused to die in—each one a testament to a warrior who had crawled back from the brink.
A wolf hide draped over its shoulders, the beast’s fangs framing the crimson eyes now locked onto Damas.
And the aura it emanated seethed with primal danger, especially when an axe materialized.
One that Makos registered almost instantly, "Damas, come back! Get away from it!"
Damas tried to stand up, but the enormous pressure coming solely from this creature was too much for his battered body. No matter how hard he tried to stand up, his knees buckled under the weight.
"Makos!" Damas looked over his shoulder. "Help me!"
On the other side, Kai looked up at Kaelmorath.
"Get rid of them. I can’t sustain you for long; ten seconds is my limit, so make it quick."
"Ten seconds is more than enough."
Kaelmorath tilted his body slightly and lobbed the axe—with no more power than skipping a small stone. It spun through the air at a lazy pace, and Damas tracked its arc easily and leaned aside, enough to let it pass by.
But the axe didn’t spin past him.
It stopped right beside him, and his eyes widened.
Not because he couldn’t hear the sound of the axe slamming onto the ground behind him, but because the towering Kaelmorath was already right before him. Kaelmorath had easily closed the distance between them in a blur of motion and caught the spinning axe.
Before Damas could react, Kaelmorath already swung the axe.
Splash—!
Damas’ world shifted suddenly.
He only realized what had happened when he saw his own headless body.
Kaelmorath had decapitated him before he could react, and soon, darkness took over.
Not too far away, Makos’ eyes bulged—at the sight of blood spurting out of Damas’ headless body like a fountain. His body moved on its own. He channelled mana as he charged forward blindly, making the foolish decision to shoulder-charge Kaelmorath.
Even in his swollen form, he was still smaller than Kaelmorath.
And the size difference alone made it clear that this was a bad idea, but emotions blinded him.
"Bastard!"
Bam—!
Makos used his imprint and slammed his shoulder against Kaelmorath’s torso.
But when the impact happened, his eyes widened.
’I... I can’t move this thing?’
Despite pouring every ounce of strength and mana into the shoulder charge, making full use of his divine bloodline, he couldn’t budge Kaelmorath. Not an inch. It was like slamming into a mountain.
The only thing his effort earned him was pain, as the impact hurled him backward.
Makos dropped to the ground in utter shock.
And before he could even wrap his head around what happened—Kaelmorath already came from above. He swung his shadow axe with such a force that it bent. So fast that it was blurry to the eyes.
Makos crossed his arms, but it did nothing.
Splash—!
The shadow axe cuts through skin, flesh, and bone before slamming into Makos’ chest.
It plunged deep, crushing everything inside the chest.
Blood burst from Makos’ opened chest.
His eyes stretched wide with shock and terror, still aware, still conscious—even with his chest crushed inward. It was the immense vitality of a Supernal with a Divine Beast’s bloodline, the very gift that let such Supernals endure what should have been impossible.
And now it only prolonged his suffering.
But now, that immense vitality only made him suffer more.
Kaelmorath grabbed him by his head and hauled him off the cloudy ground.
And with a squeeze, Kaelmorath crushed his head and killed him on the spot.
Meanwhile, Asher stood in the distance, his hands still idly stirring the boiling pot.
His gaze remained locked on the Sky Gate—frown deepening with each passing moment. The stew was ready, but the essential ingredient had yet to arrive until now. Grines should’ve been dead by now. There was no way he could have survived this long.
He had visited the Sky Gate beforehand. Scouted it. Studied it.
The Noble Star Beast in it was one of the most troublesome Pest-Class Noble Star Beasts in a white Sky Gate. One that was known to have blitzing speed. And it didn’t fight alone. It has the support of its clones that inherited that same speed, and they coordinated like a united pack of wolves with high intelligence.
Even Asher would find it impossible to defeat that Noble Star Beast alone.
Grines was strong, certainly.
But strength meant nothing against an enemy one couldn’t touch.
The plan had been simple. Let Grines die. The pot he was stirring had been prepared to harvest Grines’ blood since Panas was already marked. And that mark extended to Grines. So, as soon as Grines’ heart stopped, his blood would be pulled into the bubbling mixture.
Then Asher would kill Panas. Quick and clean. Adding him to the brew.
The preparations would then be complete.
However, Grines is still alive even now.
Asher’s frown deepened.
His suspicion began to shift, coiling in a new direction.
Bree—the High Angel who was close with Kai.
He had dismissed her since she was a new Angel and was also a support-type.
But if Grines was still fighting, still surviving against a Noble Star Beast that should’ve easily overwhelmed him, then someone was enabling that survival. Just like Kai, Bree had abnormal strength. She had to, or else this didn’t make sense.
And thinking of Kai, Asher’s stirring slowed; the ladle scraped against the pot’s rim.
The distance had fallen silent.
The clash of steel, the roar of battle, the thunder of Makos’ axe and Damas’ sword—all of it had stopped. He was so focused on making the preparations that he hadn’t realized that silence had seized the area.
And it pressed against Asher’s eardrums like a warning.
Asher turned.
His eyes swept the battlefield beyond the camp, searching for the figures of his comrades.
And then he saw them. Corpses. Lying on the ground in the distance.
There are two corpses. Headless, but he could easily recognize them from their attire.
Makos and Damas.
Seeing their corpses struck Asher like a physical blow, and a gasp tore from his throat before he could suppress it. Only Kai and Panas remained. He should not have had the strength or stamina to kill Makos and Damas.
It didn’t make sense.
None of this made sense.
Asher’s mind races, trying to reassemble the broken pieces of his understanding.
Attempting to find the variable he had missed.
Then, a sudden pressure weighed down on him.
The pressure was as strong as the corruption emanating from the Noble Star Beast inside the Sky Gate, had he not had his Halo. He couldn’t identify the source. He could not understand why it was so strong.
Confusion clouded his thoughts as the pressure kept on rising.
Even the air trembled around him.
Just then, he felt a presence behind him.
Asher’s head whipped around, and his eyes stretched wide when a shadow axe already came down at him. There was no time to dodge. The axe struck him with a force that stole his breath away. ’What in the Gods’ name...?!’