Beyond the Bloodline

Chapter 444: Scarlet Extinction

Things from that point onward changed in a small way that produced massive effects on the overall state of the war between the Intergalactic Accord and the Neo-Extinction Legion and its dead lifeforms.

First, Olivia and Richard revealed the results of their extensive experiments on the dead lifeforms to the intergalactic powers that had gathered together to form the Accord.

The revelation shocked those powers, who had also captured several dead lifeforms during the chaos of the battles that had taken place while Olivia and Richard were inside Olivia’s pocket universe and had attempted experiments of their own, suffering many failures, losses whenever the dead lifeforms self-destructed, and gaining very little in the way of useful results.

Then Olivia and Richard appeared and presented an extensive collection of findings that completely eclipsed everything the intergalactic powers had managed to uncover about the dead lifeforms.

It was only natural that they were flummoxed.

With the knowledge that the dead lifeforms were heavily dependent on the Dead Zone, the style of battles began changing.

Instead of extended exchanges lasting several days with the aim of achieving victory, the Accord began engaging in drawn-out battles lasting several weeks with the objective of keeping the dead lifeforms outside the Dead Zone for as long as possible.

At first, this seemed to produce no visible effect.

Whenever the dead lifeforms attempted to retreat, and the Intergalactic Accord instead deployed more forces to prevent them from returning to the Dead Zone, the dead lifeforms were still composed and continued fighting with the same intensity they had displayed during the previous days.

However, the Intergalactic Accord was determined to keep them outside the Dead Zone, so they continued deploying more forces to cut off the dead lifeforms’ retreat routes and gradually encircle them.

This also left the Accord forces exposed from behind, since their backs were positioned toward the Dead Zone itself and vulnerable to sudden attacks, so the Accord deployed Quasi-Supreme Realm existences to monitor their rear lines and intercept any potential counterattacks.

Two weeks of prolonged exchanges across vast distances passed, and the dead lifeforms were still fighting normally, though with increasing urgency as they realised the Intergalactic Accord was attempting to trap them.

Then the third week began approaching.

Soon enough, the Neo-Extinction Legion’s ordinary forces had already begun showing visible signs of exhaustion, while the dead lifeforms themselves started becoming visibly panicked.

This became obvious when several units of dead lifeforms suddenly began charging directly into Accord forces in arrowhead formations, desperately trying to break through the encirclements and return to the Dead Zone at all costs.

Some of the stronger units succeeded, while the weaker ones failed and were completely annihilated after pushing too deeply into Accord territory without the strength to withdraw.

Around the third week, the number of dead lifeforms on the battlefield began decreasing so noticeably that even across a battlefield spanning several light-years and containing billions of combatants, the reduction could be observed with a single glance.

The first people to notice this were Richard and Olivia, who were observing the battlefield from afar.

"I see," Richard muttered. "So when dead lifeforms engage in extended combat, the amount of time they can survive outside the Dead Zone before beginning to break down and decompose decreases."

"Since we’ve confirmed this, I suppose we should pull back our forces," Olivia replied.

"We’ve spread our forces far too thin trying to encircle the dead lifeforms. Our formations won’t be able to hold for much longer now that they’re getting desperate."

Richard nodded lightly at her suggestion.

The Accord forces had not focused on directly pushing back the dead lifeforms during the past three weeks, but instead on trapping them within the battlefield and extending the duration of the conflict as much as possible.

Naturally, the dead lifeforms that had attempted to retreat fought back violently, and the Accord had suffered extensive damage to their warships because of it. There were many wounded combatants, along with many casualties.

Olivia raised her left index finger and tapped the side of her head, a pulse of cosmic energy expanding from her body in that instant as she transmitted a telepathic message to every commander of the Accord forces participating in the battle.

"Order your forces to retreat immediately. Full retreat."

The instant Olivia issued the command, she immediately began condensing cosmic energy within her right palm.

An absurd quantity condensed in an instant, so dense that the surrounding space-time began distorting around it.

However, Olivia stopped short of compressing it to the critical point where space-time itself would collapse into a black hole.

The energy simply continued condensing and condensing, and naturally, the cosmic energy sphere in her palm continued increasing in size.

More and more existences began sensing the terrifying power gathering there, especially the Quasi-Supreme Realm existences deployed by the Accord.

They instantly realised the retreat orders had only been issued because Olivia herself was about to personally take action.

|The space occupied, the time experienced, and the reality painted atop the void canvas.|

The moment Olivia muttered those words, Richard immediately turned toward her with a raised eyebrow, thinking to himself, ’That’s new.’

Olivia ignored his gaze and continued her quiet chant.

|If thine existence be bound to this corrupted imitation of the void that dares bleed itself into reality, then toward thee shall my sword and staff be pointed.|

The ships of the Intergalactic Accord’s forces that had, over the past 3 weeks, gradually pushed closer and closer to the Dead Zone while trying to stop the frantic dead lifeforms from returning to their home before their existences began crumbling and expiring, began turning around and retreating from the unstable battlefield region.

The battlefield had become heavily saturated with the powers of universal laws and deconstructed laws alike, making the surrounding space far too unstable for warp drives to function properly.

Richard silently flicked his fingers several times, 13-ringed magic circles appearing and vanishing over the span of seconds, and the retreating Accord ships immediately accelerated, their average speed increasing by a substantial margin as the withdrawal process sped up.

And throughout all of this, Olivia continued condensing cosmic energy into the orb within her palm, which had already expanded to the size of an average dwarf star.

Suddenly, the accumulation stopped, and in the next instant, all of that cosmic energy compressed rapidly into Olivia’s palm, breaking down space-time in the process. As she closed her fingers around the condensed energy, her eyes glowing faintly, she muttered in her True Voice,

|Aspect of the Rune Archon.|

The space-time that should have collapsed into a singularity under the pressure of so much condensed mass and energy warped together with the surrounding reality itself, and all of that immense energy compressed into a single rune inscribed onto the back of Olivia’s palm.

Then she calmly raised her hand, thrust her palm forward, and muttered,

|Rune of Scarlet Extinction.|

From the glowing rune on her palm, energy spiralled outward before transforming into gigantic branches of blood-red light that rapidly expanded like crackling lightning branching into endless trees.

Within seconds, millions of branches stretched across the intergalactic battlefield.

The branches warped space as they spread, appearing above the heads of dead lifeforms before piercing through their bodies and flooding them with lethal quantities of cosmic energy imbued with the power of the Law of Death.

The blood-red branches continued expanding without pause, tearing across space itself as they curved and warped through immense distances to pierce the bodies of hundreds of thousands, then millions of dead lifeforms regardless of whether they possessed power equivalent to High-Tier Deities or Monarchs.

The moment one of the blood-red branches pierced a dead lifeform, its body froze in place. Agonised expressions appeared across their faces as cracks spread throughout their grey skin before their bodies crumbled apart into dust and pseudo-nonexistence’s signature grey fog.

Millions of those dead lifeforms died within seconds, so many that a massive gap opened across the battlefield. Of course, the normal existences of the Neo-Extinction Legion that had been retreating weren’t spared either.

Having lived within the Dead Zone for extended periods and become corrupted by it, they too fell under the category of targets for Olivia’s rune. The blood-red branches pierced through them as well, flooding their bodies with cosmic energy and the power of the Law of Death.

Unlike the dead lifeforms that crumbled apart in silent agony, the corrupted members of the Neo-Extinction Legion had explosive deaths, their bodies bursting apart into chunks of flesh and blood.

Pieces of torn flesh and shattered armour scattered across the battlefield as grey fog erupted from their ruptured bodies before fading into the surrounding vacuum.