Chapter 424: The Sentinel
If he had once been burned, his victim would burn, and if he had once been torn apart, his victim would see their body being torn apart.
What Magenta was currently experiencing was one of the most agonizing experience Abaddon had once passed through.
It was an experience from a time, long before this reality had even been formed; the day he had been cast out of Solgard, the city of gods.
Abaddon had been condemned and thrown down from the heavens into a place known as the Nether-realm. A place where the gods discarded anything they no longer wanted.
Thrown into the endless void between realms and cast downward toward the Netherrealm, Abaddon had fallen across unimaginable distances.
And now, every second of that suffering was being forced upon Magenta who screams only grew louder.
Unfortunately, her end was nigh.
Her body was experiencing a descent that a divine being endured painfully. A creature whose body had been powerful enough to survive the journey from Solgard all the way to the Netherrealm.
The hero may have been a Blessed who had been granted extraordinary abilities by her deity, but her body still belonged to a human being.
And there was only so much a human body could endure.
Her flesh began tearing apart, and the cracks of pink light spreading across her form went from being fractures to becoming ruptures as blood burst from her mouth.
The very structure holding her ethereal form together began collapsing, and then her body gave out as the energy around her scattered into particles of pink light.
And with that... Magenta was gone.
For a brief moment, the battle paused as the members of the Blessed and Vampires stared.
They immediately felt this heavy sense of apprehension as none of them had expected one of their strongest allies to die so quickly.
But that only lasted a moment before the fighting resumed, with attacks being sent from every direction once again.
Beatrice, who had witnessed everything, clenched her teeth in frustration. She then realized that this opponent was stronger than anticipated was going to kill all of them if she didn’t act now.
"Answer me, goddess..." she began.
A second later, this pillar of light suddenly descended from the sky and struck the ground with tremendous force, unleashing a shockwave that spread throughout the area.
Everyone immediately stopped for another moment, even the Angel as the overwhelming radiance forced all eyes toward the source.
And as the light gradually disappeared, a figure emerged from within it which made Abaddon’s expression change.
His eyes widened in surprise at the sight of the enormous armored construct before them all.
Its metallic body stood in a powerful stance, with a tall-crested helmet that concealed its face, while multiple glowing orange nodes were embedded across its armored frame.
"A Sentinel..." Abaddon whispered.
And then, without warning, the construct’s left arm began to rearranged itself, morphing into a bladed energy weapon whose edges burned with an orange glow.
This towering, eight-foot construct immediately began walking forward. And as it did, the members of the Blessed instinctively moved aside, creating a path for it.
Abaddon’s eyes narrowed as several dark spears immediately materialized around him before shooting them towards the sentinel.
However, the armor construct swung its left arm through the air, using its glowing energy blade to cut through the incoming projectiles, destroying and scattering them away into fragments of darkness.
Abaddon immediately stretched his hand forward and invoked the usage of his divine ability; The Memory of Ashes.
This time, he forced the construct to experience another memory.
It happened slowly, but the Sentinel’s armor began to crumple inward as its bladed arm twisted unnaturally and folded into itself.
The memory Abaddon had imposed upon it was the same experience he had once suffered when he encountered the black hole of the Mistress of the Endless Dark.
The crushing force of a gravitational pull had been reproduced and forced onto the construct.
However, there was a problem.
Although Memory of Ashes allowed Abaddon to replicate any experience he had personally endured, there was a condition to the strength of the attack being reproduced.
Which is that, he could only recreate those experiences according to his current level of power.
The Memory of Ashes was, in many ways, a double-edged ability.
Under the right circumstances, it was extraordinarily powerful.
If Abaddon had suffered an experience caused by a weaker being, he could reproduce that same effect with an intensity equal to his own level of power, making the attack more devastating than the original.
However, the opposite was equally true.
If the experience had originally been inflicted by a being whose power surpassed his current strength, then the reproduced effect became limited by his own level.
And that was precisely the problem he faced now; The memory he had forced upon the Sentinel came from an encounter with the Mistress herself.
At her original level, the effects of that black hole would have instantly reduced the construct to nothing.
Unfortunately, Abaddon couldn’t reproduce that same level of destructive force. Additionally, he was nowhere near the level of power he once possessed.
Therefore, the conditions to his ability had now become a limitation. Which meant that fighting the Sentinel was going to be a lot more difficult.
As he continued trying to rupture the construct under the pressure of the reproduced black hole effect, attacks suddenly began coming from every direction.
The surviving members of the Blessed and the rest of the vampires launched themselves toward him.
Forced to divide his attention, Abaddon abandoned his attack and turned to meet and fight them with the power of Darkness.
The sentinel broke free in that moment of distraction. Its damaged arm automatically from its body and fell to the ground. And almost immediately, the metallic components along its forearm began shifting to form a new bladed arm.
Then it accelerated forward with frightening speed and thrust the glowing blade directly toward Abaddon.
The angel reacted instantly, using the darkness to form a barrier that collided with the blade. The wall shattered but managed to cushion most of the impact; however, the force behind the attack continued through the broken darkness, sending the angel flying backward.
His wings spread immediately as he fought to stabilize himself.
Beatrice smiled from her position at the back. So long as she kept offering its mana, this construct granted to her by the deity was going to keep repairing and fighting.
It was originally meant to be used against the weakened form of the Mistress, but since her Dark One was this powerful, she had no other choice than to call for it.
"Everyone!" Beatrice screamed. "Make sure he’s dead!"
The Sentinel and everyone else advanced once again.
Abaddon realized that having to fight that sentinel was going to be a problem he couldn’t deal with, not while he had to face off the others whose attacks carried divinity and could harm him.
Without another second of hesitation, he shot into the sky.
The sentinel leapt after him, but he swerved in another direction, avoiding its strike alongside the attacks of the others below.
Thankfully, his flight speed was incredibly fast, and so he kept rising so far above until he became nothing more than a distant silhouette before finally disappearing.
"fuckkk!" Beatrice yelled as she watched his escape.
Unfortunately, Sentinels couldn’t fly.