novelraw Chapter 261 261: Ending This Once And For All
Chapter 261 261: Ending This Once And For All
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As Louis agonized and convulsed in pain, ashen frost and holy light surged from his wounds, stitching them back together. Louis did not possess an Immortal Body, but he had the next best thing: Tier 2 Death-Sense.
"Huh?! Y-You're immortal too?!" Lisette gasped.
"Nah, I am actually weaker," Louis smiled. "But that is exactly why I will beat you."
"IN YOUR DREAMS!"
Lisette hissed and quickly tore Louis's entire body to shreds. Yet he vanished and reappeared a kilometer away, completely reformed from ashes. His health restored instantly as he moved his eight arms, summoning dozens of weapons forged from his own Intent and Cosmic Forge fused together.
Lisette caught up to him in an instant. Gungnir greeted her, accompanied by all of Louis's Spirits. A ferocious clash of spears erupted.
Space shattered. Cracks spread everywhere. Lisette thrust forward with terrifying force. Her Aura of Madness and Aberrations surged, resembling thousands of divine dragon souls screaming in unison.
Louis did not avoid her attacks. He took them all while thrusting his own spear. She did not try to dodge either. It was a fight between two near-immortal beings, after all.
Who could harm the other more?
Lisette had heard him admit he was weaker, so she decided to buy time until she could kill him. That was her strategy.
But Louis thought outside the box.
In the Mirror World, a giant Cosmic Formation took shape.
At the same time, Inverse Pandora activated.
"Inverse Pandora: Death-Sense."
"Huh?!"
Lisette's eyes widened as Louis unleashed the reversed form of Death-Sense.
"Life-Sense."
FLAAASH!
His hands gleamed brightly. Gungnir thrust forward and exploded through Lisette's left arm.
She laughed at him, but...
"...!!!"
Her arm did not regenerate.
"What did you do?!"
In that moment, the Cosmic Formation transferred to the real world. Lisette and Louis were suddenly confined inside it.
"Cosmic Mirror World Formation – Ten Thousand Vengeful Spirit Purgatory."
Louis had created the formation using the remains of Lisette's Living Reflection as the main material, fused with various abilities and skills that targeted souls, manipulated curses, and more. As another key ingredient, he used the Soul Fragments and Shadows he had extracted and sealed from her. The formation reacted instantly to her presence, ignoring Louis completely.
"What now?!" Lisette asked angrily. "Another one of your stupid tricks?!"
She slashed her shoulder and regrew her arm anew, but something had been left behind in the wound Louis had inflicted earlier.
When he used Life-Sense, it was almost as if he had cut "the life" out of her, permanently.
It was something that went beyond the concept of immortality.
Indeed, at Tier 2, Death-Sense was already powerful on its own, but its Inverse Pandora form was something else entirely.
The power of Life-Sense manifested within Louis's spear, though it also meant he could not enjoy the benefits of Death-Sense at the same time. He had to choose: strike with damage that could permanently hurt her, or become temporarily immortal.
In the end, he chose full offense.
Thus, he created this formation to compensate.
As the power of the Cursed Box and various other curses poured out and merged with Lisette's reflection and her soul and shadow fragments, a powerful new effect was unleashed.
"What is wrong, Lisette? You seem worried," Louis smiled viciously, his true face showing more and more. "Don't tell me you don't like your welcoming party?"
He glanced at her face. She suddenly began convulsing as specters were extracted from her body and her spear, making her squirm in agony.
"UUUUAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
She fell to her knees inside the formation, which resembled an endless inferno of demonic and phantasmal flames merged with a graveyard.
This was an incredible formation at the level of Authority Dominions. It could only last for ten minutes, but it held a nasty ability.
"T-This is impossible...! How did you?!"
The souls Lisette had been tormenting this entire time were extracted from her body, emerging as Abyssal Void Shadow Specters overflowing with Draconic Energy and Madness.
Their numbers kept rising. One after another, they constantly emerged from her body and her spear, roaring and attacking her.
"Damn it! How is this possible?! What did you do?! Ugh!"
She did not just feel shocked. She was also growing weaker. Every soul extracted and turned against her weakened her in some way.
"I am merely bringing justice to you, Lisette," Louis smiled. "Your just desserts. These are the family you betrayed, the people you killed. They may not be perfect, but family is family. If you abandon even that, what remains of you but a hollow shell? You are not even a person anymore, just a disgusting wild beast. And I will ensure they get their revenge."
"ROOOAARRR!"
"LISETTE!"
"HOW COULD YOU KILL USSSSS!"
"YOU WERE THE DRAGON KING'S GRANDDAUGHTER!!!"
"YOU BETRAYED US ALL!!!"
"HOW COULD YOU KILL US, YOU LITTLE SHIT?!"
"WE WILL TEAR YOU APART!"
"WE WILL DEVOUR YOU!!!"
The souls of the divine dragons were unfortunately not in a good state. Having been confined within her and festering with madness and darkness for hundreds of thousands of years, they had all become Vengeful Specters of the worst kind, completely fueled by hatred and living only to kill her.
No longer were they as kind as before. No longer would they be deceived.
She had grown close to them, only to betray them and eat them alive one by one, like the deranged psychopath she was.
A monstrous cannibal worse than Louis himself.
Because, at the very least, Louis stopped at scales, horns, and blood.
He had never dared to ask for flesh, let alone considered murdering his own dragon kind.
But this woman? She was completely insane.
And that was precisely why this was so cathartic.
"You bastards...! You are nothing but souls and specters!" Lisette roared. She crushed their souls into countless pieces and began devouring them back, only for the pieces to explode inside her, causing even more damage. "NNNGGHH!"
She fueled her spear solely with her own power and began decimating dozens of specters. Meanwhile, Louis attacked with magic, frost, light, ashes, fire, winds, and more, tormenting her with constant damage while she screamed and grew steadily weaker.
He had realized most curses did not work on her, so he had given up on using them. Instead, he inversed any curse or debuffing skill to buff himself, overflowing with more and more power. His stats skyrocketed as he stacked several skills together.
Then, he put on a mask.
"Lisette... how could you?"
"Ah?!"
Lisette's eyes widened. She coughed blood as she saw no one else but her mother, Benladra.
"M-Mother?"
Benladra cried tears of blood. Darkness surged from her body as she overflowed with immense power.
"You... you ate me...? How... how could you do such a thing to me? I... I loved you."
"..."
Lisette suddenly fell silent. The guilt she thought she had left behind returned for a brief moment. Tears streamed from her eyes as she gained a glimpse of lucidity in her endless madness.
"I-I...! I did not have... any other option, mom. You were practically... practically dead and... and I... I wanted... power... Without power, I... everyone would die and... and... wait, everyone? I..."
"YOU NEVER PROTECTED US!"
"YOU ATE US ALL, MONSTER!"
"MONSTER!"
"YOU'RE A BEAST!"
"Ah!"
When Lisette's lucidity vanished and she returned to reality, a wave of frost and light descended upon her, accompanied by Celestial Judgments and Celestial Heaven Ash Rains that constantly tore through her body.
"You betrayed us all."
Benladra approached. From her body, liquid gold surged. But it was not just liquid gold. It was a powerful alien lifeform that existed within her called "Mold," or rather, an evolved and reshaped form of it.
Her mother had died with a powerful alien that reincarnated alongside her. This alien, which had ruined her first life, became a power tied to her as a Unique Skill.
Indeed, this was the power she had inherited from her mother: the power of this shapeshifting, parasitic, self-replicating, and endlessly mutating alien.
But Benladra had inherited a different version. It was called "White Mold," and it did the complete opposite, possessing the power of healing, strengthening, protecting, and even...
Making Benladra the strongest divine dragon only below her father after thousands of years since her birth.
"Y-YOU'RE NOT MY MOTHER!!!"
Lisette screamed. Her Aura and Latent Power surged and exploded, warping reality and shattering the formation in a second.
BOOOMMM!!!
"HAAA... HAAAA... HAAA..."
She gasped for air, steam rising from her entire body as she glared at Benladra above her and...
"?!"
All the specters that had left her, around seventy percent of them, had dramatically reduced her power. Her Spiral depended on the torment of these souls.
"I suppose you are indeed Tier 0. Amazing. Truly incredible," Benladra clapped, smiling with a slight sense of indifference.
Then Lisette realized who it was.
"Louis...! What sort of strange power is that?! You turned into her?!"
"I have nothing to explain to you... Now, let us finish this!"
Louis absorbed all the specters Lisette had been tormenting through the Inverse Pandora form of Soul Wyrm Division and Soul Wyrm Fusion. This allowed him to combine with external souls, ghosts, specters, and spirits under his control.
FLAAASH!
RUMBLE!
His form transformed, becoming a fusion of his own mother and his titan and dragon form, overflowing with immense power, albeit only temporarily.
"...!"
In that moment, Lisette knew.
Louis had finally reached her level.
By weakening her, stealing her power, and using all his skills to empower himself while setting her up over and over again, he had attained enough strength to put them on equal footing.
Or... were they?
RUMBLE!
Another specter emerged behind him. Because the formation had shattered before she could be fully spent, the Abyssal Void Shadow Specter of Lisette's Mirror Reflection appeared.
"You too."
She merged with Louis, increasing his power even further!
"Ah... Hahaha... Useless. Even if you get as strong as possible, it is useless!!!"
"We will see."
RUMBLE!
Both charged against one another without hesitation. The tips of their spears met once more, piercing the void and space, shattering reality around them.
BOOOMMM!!!
Both of them were swallowed by the ever-shifting void as countless rivers of divine energy and cosmic essence were revealed. The space between dimensions emerged as they crashed against one another.
CLASH!
CLASH!
CLASH!
CRAAASH!
Their spears met constantly. Lisette's black and red madness collided with Louis's radiant light and ashen frost. Thrusting attacks pierced each other, erupting into explosions and supernovas across space and the void.
Both kept their momentum as much as they could, using spells, skills, and Spiral abilities to overcome each other's weaknesses and strike at their foe's vulnerabilities.
Lisette, however, constantly over-relied on her Immortal Body. As Louis had suspected, it felt as if she lacked ideas on how to fight properly without it.
She used her own flesh, blood, and bones as power. Without her immortality, none of these things would be possible, as no regeneration or healing could keep up.
"Aberrant Immortal Dragon Divine Flesh Arts – Spiral Bone Forest Dominion!"
RUMBLE!
At the moment she found most precise, she trapped Louis in a dominion of bones. Spiraling bone trees surged everywhere from her expanding flesh.
Louis was quickly overwhelmed, pierced by thousands of spiraling bone trees attempting to tear him apart.
However, Louis used Death-Sense to survive. He pierced through with brute force and grasped her neck, smashing her into the ground.
CRAAASH!
Lisette responded with more techniques, one after another. If she was using her actual techniques, this meant she was being pushed into a corner.
"Aberrant Immortal Dragon Divine Flesh Arts – Intestine Garden!"
"Aberrant Immortal Dragon Divine Flesh Arts – Pumping Heart Blood Sea!"
"Aberrant Immortal Dragon Divine Flesh Arts – Ribcage Sword Rain!"
"Aberrant Immortal Dragon Divine Flesh Arts – Soul-Piercing Eyes!"
A garden of aberrant intestines emerged and coiled around Louis, tearing his body apart. A sea of blood pumped from several floating hearts, drowning him and trying to weaken him while absorbing his lifeforce. Ribcage swords surged from his own body, piercing him from the inside out. Eyes opened through his wounds, exploding and damaging his soul.
It was incredible what she could do even at her lowest point. She was truly a Tier 0 monster. Especially as everything unfolded, the two of them constantly crashed, destroyed, and blew up planets and stars.
It was indeed a fight of catastrophic and cosmic proportions!
Louis was constantly pushed back. The more damage he took and the weaker he felt, the more he understood her nature and how she fought.
He wove skills and techniques together, activating them in quick succession as he unleashed attacks with Gungnir, piercing stars and planets alongside Lisette.
"HAHAHAHA!"
Lisette laughed as she was covered in holes she could not restore. Her brain exploded and her heart was destroyed, but her soul emerged and began regrowing a new body.
"THIS IS FUN! IT IS SO MUCH FUN TO FIGHT YOU, LOUIS! BUT..."
Her old body exploded, covering Louis with Cursed Blood that further drained his Qi and other energies, making him far weaker and smaller.
"IT IS ABOUT TIME I FINISH YOU FOR GOOD."
"..."
Louis did not speak. He simply greeted Lisette as she charged toward him, mutating her aberrant body into a spinning Spear of Aberrations and Primordial Flesh and Bones. She crashed against him, fueled by the twisted, agonizing soul of Tiamat herself.
"I POSSESS THE POWER OF A BEYONDER! YOU... ARE NOT EVEN TIER 1 YET?! HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
As she laughed out loud and pierced Louis's chest, disintegrating his body...
BOOOMMM!!!
Louis disappeared, twisting fate, time, space, and causality in his favor and redirecting the attack that would have destroyed him toward another foe.
Minato, who was fighting Mirai right now.
"You are useless, all of you!" roared Minato. "So what if you grew stronger?! You cannot even damage me properly! I am the King of Chaos and Nightmares! I am better, far better than you!"
"Shut up, you are just insane!" Mirai roared. Her katana moved swiftly, dancing around Minato. The monstrous demon king roared back, smashing her across dozens of planets before pushing her into a giant star and digging her deep into the plasma, burning her. "AAAAGGGHHH!!!"
"HAHAHAHAHA! WHAT A PATHETIC FAKER! YOU ARE SUCH A PATHETIC LITTLE SHIT!" Minato, often calm and composed, revealed his true nature as euphoria and adrenaline took over the more he fought.
"STOP!"
"SHE IS NOT ALONE!"
"HEY, YOU!"
"BASTARD!"
Timothy, Anastasia, Selene, Melisa, and Agustina roared behind him, attacking as one. Timothy's axe cut through his arms. Anastasia slashed his body and soul. Selene tore through his open flesh and worsened wounds. Melisa used reverse healing techniques to drain his life and heal Mirai. Agustina smashed his heads into pieces with her hammer.
However, Minato, like Lisette, was a monstrous being. Although he had no Immortal Body, he had an aberrant body that absorbed and regenerated as he fused with Demons and Chaos Spirits from his own Inner Macrocosms, growing more and more chimeric.
Tentacles surged from his torn body, coiling around his foes and smashing them into the nearby planet, covering them with burning swords made of demonic bodies and souls.
"STAY OUT OF THIS, WORMS!"
As Minato roared and was distracted by them, he lost valuable time. Mirai did not waste it. She refined the entire star into a Soul Treasure and manipulated it with her Authority, smashing it right into Minato's face and sending him flying away as his entire body burned and disintegrated.
"Why don't you take this star with you and FUCK OFF?!"
BOOOMMM!!!
"UUUGGHHH?!"
Minato flew across the twisted outer space of the tenth layer of the dungeon, quickly attempting to recover, only to be greeted by Lisette crashing into his body and piercing him with her strongest attack.
"W-WHA...! LISETTE?!"
"NNNGGH?! M-MINATO?!"
BOOOMMM!!!
Yet another explosion erupted as Minato groaned in agony, torn to shreds as his soul shattered painfully, taking serious damage that would not easily recover.
Similarly, Lisette was struck by Minato flying at the speed of light through space. Her entire body exploded into bloody paste.
Then...
Another figure emerged: a giant Undead that manifested from the Mirror Dimension.
A fusion of two titans—no, three.
Overflowing with Chaos and Demonic Energies, an Undead at the level of cosmic beings beyond Tier 1.
"Fufufu! Fuahahahah! Do you like it?! My most beautiful child! He is no longer Hecatoncheires... He is Tartarus himself, the abyss!"
Minato and Lisette's faces distorted in disbelief as the titanic Undead, larger than planets, swung its massive claws and arms, dozens of them, against them.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH! CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
It completely diced them apart in agonizing and horrifying despair!
"AAAAGGGHH!"
"UUURRGHHH?!"
"Now, Tartarus! Chaotic Breath!"
The giant skeleton opened its massive skeletal jaws, charging Chaos Spirit Energy by using the third ingredient of its creation: the Undead Specter form of Minato's Mirrored Reflection.
TRUUUMMM!!!
An all-destructive beam of abyssal death and chaos struck both Minato and Lisette's remains, disintegrating the majority of their bodies and souls in the process. Their remains flew through space, crashing into a burning nova.
BOOOMMM!!!
The nova was struck with so much force that it trembled and split apart. The flesh and soul remains burned in agony within the sea of plasma.
"Zorba! Keep them from escaping!" Mirai said.
"On it!" Zorba smiled maliciously. His eyes gleamed bright red as he controlled his giant as an extension of his body and soul. Tartarus reached the star and spread countless black chains around it.
"Y-YOU BASTARDS...!"
"M-MINATO... UGH...! W-WHAT ARE YOU...?!"
"THERE IS NO OTHER OPTION. BECOME MY FLESH AND BLOOD, LISETTE! CHAOS DEMONIC SPIRIT POSSESSION!"
"EH?! AAAARRGGGHHH!"
Lisette screamed. Her remains rapidly regenerated through her Immortal Body, but Minato possessed her as he was about to die, placing his soul inside her and mixing them both.
Lisette's appearance mutated, beginning to grow larger and larger. She resembled an aberrant fusion between Minato's Demon King form—with many arms, butterfly wings, horns, tails, and heads—and Lisette's white-scaled, red-eyed dragon form.
Several crowns of demonic and draconic power rose around their monstrous body, overflowing with immense power!
"WRAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!"
"W-What is this?!"
Zorba gasped, shocked by this sudden development. The monstrous fusion, lacking any rationality as the mad souls of Minato and Lisette constantly tried to devour one another, attacked Tartarus. It tore the titan into two and then punched both halves into pieces.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
"Ugh! No...! Tartarus!"
Zorba held on with the power of his scythe, Thanatos. He wielded it with all his strength and fused with Tartarus, becoming a gigantic cosmic death god. He unleashed a sea of specters against them, barely holding the fusion.
"WRAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
The monster roared, swinging its dozens of fists toward Zorba, destroying his specters and punching his cosmic body, covering him with holes.
"G-Gaaaaha?!"
Zorba vomited blood and was hurled through a star and then into a planet.
BOOOMMM!!!
The fusion descended toward them like a wild beast, raising its twelve arms into the cosmos and manifesting a titanic trident before sending it toward Zorba.
However...
"Nine Celestial Heavens Holy Piercing Dragon Spear Art."
"First Form."
"Devastating Soul Dragon Nova!"
Louis emerged through Mirror Dimension Traveling, appearing in front of Zorba and thrusting Gungnir upward, unleashing dozens of supernova dragons against the attack.
BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM!
But it was not enough.
Thus!
"Second Form."
"Planet-Destroying Dragon Star Ascent!"
Louis unleashed all his power, tearing through the trident with his spear. A rising cosmic dragon made of his qi surged, piercing the fused aberration's chest.
BOOOMMM!!!
The beast regenerated slowly and attacked again as it descended, creating such heavy pressure that the entire planet cracked and began to shatter.
But Louis had not given up yet.
Zorba slowly stood up, turning himself into a Ghostly Spirit and fusing with Louis through Soul Wyrm Fusion.
"Lord Louis, take all my power! Thanatos is yours!"
Louis nodded, taking Thanatos and unleashing an attack that carried the combined prowess of both Gungnir and Thanatos.
"Third Form."
"Star-Devouring Dragon Ascension!"
"ROOOAAARRRR!"
A gigantic dragon surged from Louis's upward thrust, piercing the body of the fusion not once, but dozens of times as he combined it with the fourth form.
"Fourth Form."
"Endless Dragon Cosmic Coil!"
The attack became a coiling strike, tightly sealing the titanic aberration in place. At the same time, Louis charged the dragon with Life-Sense as Mirai and everyone else arrived.
"Everyone, give Mirai your power!"
"OKAY!"
As they had practiced before, Mirai used Chaos Demonic Spirit Possession on everyone, forcing them to fuse with her similarly to Minato.
But they were willing. This allowed her to gain all of their stacked power together while holding each of their weapons in her many hands.
Her body grew gigantic as Mirai unlocked the True Form of her Soul.
"LOUIS!"
"MIRAI, NOW!"
"WRAAAAHHHHHHH!"
The fusion roared, opening dozens of draconic and demonic jaws across its body and firing dozens of Chaos Lasers, beginning to destroy and break through Louis's technique.
However...
Louis and Mirai's auras merged through the Aura Fusion Technique, an old technique Louis had taught his loyal knights, Fernand and Elises, which he still held in his heart.
Their auras and powers merged into a giant fusion of them both: a beautiful, astral, and spiritual demonic chaos dragon, combining the essence of all weapons, their spirits, and Gungnir into a single attack.
Fate's Requiem.
Life-Sense.
Heart of Spacetime.
And countless other skills, abilities, and spirits converged into a single point.
"Fusion Art!"
"Immortal Slaying Star Soul Blade!"
"Yamata-no-Orochi!"
Their avatar, born from the fusion of their powers, manifested a long sword.
And that sword divided into eight different cosmic serpents.
Each serpent targeted a part of their foe, striking and erasing them completely.
One.
By.
One.
"AAAAAHHHHHHH!"
Minato and Lisette's souls were exposed as their entire physical body was completely erased and struck by all eight serpents, which fused back into a long spear: Gungnir once again.
"I-Impossible... I..."
"Losing? T-to them? No... NOOOOO!!!"
BOOOOOOOOMMM!!!
The aberration exploded. The fused soul disintegrated amidst space, time, and dimensions. Its tiny glass-like fragments drifted into eternity.
Their last words were not farewells, but their very egos shattering as they were utterly and completely defeated.
The entire dungeon, after that, shattered and exploded.
"Nnnggh!"
Using all the power he could muster, Louis refined the entire Dungeon just in time. He grasped the dungeon core with his hand and placed it inside his Inner Macrocosm.
All of that made it seem as if he had eaten the entire dungeon and absorbed it like a black hole, even though he had not.
"I-It's... it's done..."
Louis returned to his human form and collapsed onto the glass-like floor outside the dungeon. It was a divine realm where the dungeon had been placed, completely empty aside from a sky, clouds, and a sun, with a "bottom" made of glass-like divine energy.
Surrounding it was a cage that had already begun to decompose into stardust, likely what had been sealing them there.
Mirai's fusion with everyone else undid itself. They were left on the floor, gasping for air, completely exhausted as well.
"L-Louis!"
Mirai ran toward Louis, hugging him as he smiled and hugged her back. Zorba lay behind Louis, completely unconscious... but alive, at least.
"We did it... somehow, thanks to everyone... and you," Louis smiled, caressing her face.
"It was... the hardest battle I have ever had..." Mirai cried, hugging him tightly. "I really thought... I..."
"But we made it," Louis said, hugging her back and kissing her lips. "We made it through... finally..."
"Yeah!" Mirai nodded happily. "We did!"
While staring at the blue sky above, which slowly moved as clouds passed by, both held hands and rested on the floor, slowly passing out, unable to move anymore.
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