Universe's End

Chapter 223: Downfall of Stars

“C’mon,” Rory muttered, tightly holding his emotions in check. “C’mon.”

“Can you break through?” Apostolos asked, worried.

“He can,” Zoey instantly answered, rolling her shoulders.

The scene was somewhat of an odd one. The return of the Lord Founder was, of course, a moment that most would have been excited about, much less with another Founder in tow.

Given the severity of the situation, no one was jumping at the prospect of ingratiating themselves with Rory or Zoey, except Apostolos, who stood nearby, and the rest of the onlookers hung back and out of the way.

Which was probably for the best, Rory needed to concentrate, and it took everything he had not fixate on what he’d just learned.

Roxy. Roxy is there.

Eyes closed and hands holding onto the solid portions of the Null Window, Rory probed at the ‘barrier’ in the way.

Sealed shut, but from the opposite direction.

Sealing off an area from the outside world was not something that could have been easy, even for his Bane. Meaning this wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment event.

Premediated. The thought sent chills down his spine.

C’mon.

For as firm as the barrier blocking travel was into the Golden Fields, it must have also been incredibly prone to complete collapse if he was able to find a single point to break through. The usual answer was simply brute force, but this was a Null Window he was talking about; Rory didn’t want to accidentally cause some sort of dimensional collapse.

Was that possible? Fuck if he knew at this point, but caution was advisable.

There!

Finally grasping a point of conceptual weakness, Rory pushed hard, drawing a tiny speck of oblivion energy from his ring as he did. Aided by the potent pneuma, the barrier at last collapsed.

“It’s down,” Rory said before glancing at Apostolos. “I need you to remain behind.”

“What, why?” Apostolos asked.

“This isn’t out of the blue. I don’t trust that something might not happen, or that it could be a trap. Either way, with Zoey and me leaving, you will be the next strongest person.”

“Fine,” Apostolos nodded. “But you’re not going in alone.”

As if on cue, three figures rolled up, decked out as if ready for war.

“Violet, Marcie, Edward,” Rory nodded. “I don’t know what it’s going to be like when we go through, but I can’t be protecting you three.”

“Aye aye,” Marcie saluted. While it was said with cheer, Rory could see the woman was forcing it, on edge as anyone else.

“Good, now let’s move people!”

Given Zoey didn’t know the exact ‘coordinates’ of the Golden Fields, Rory grabbed her arm as the two stepped through the Null Window, Rory preparing for the worst.

And dear god, did he get it.

Fuck.

The Golden Fields were a warzone, tens of thousands of monsters surging about, clashing against the measly hundreds of Blue Lightning serpents that remained.

More than that was the fact that as he stepped through, he felt it, three tier eight auras. One had faded to near non-existence, while the third was culled entirely a moment later.

An aura Rory recognized well, it could be none other than the heavenly serpent, the Khan of Blue Lightning.

It wasn’t just aura; Rory saw it happen with his own eyes, stepping through just in time to witness the massive serpent’s head separated from the rest of its body, landing with a titanic crash.

“You!” Rory shouted the moment he saw the culprit, his infamous bane. Its appearance had changed for the first time in years, but there was no mistaking it.

It was him. Or rather, a version of ‘him’ if all his recognizable features had been erased, waxy black chitin in place of skin, and savagely cruel-looking hooked claws in place of hands.

Yet even with those differences, Rory didn’t miss for an instant the intentional appearance of his Bane.

The moment Rory had appeared, the soaring aura of the Bane, bordering tier nine, plummeted, capped to what was allowable for their low-tier-eight confrontation.

And yet the Bane didn’t just seem unbothered; it was positively delighted, cackling and screeching with maniacal fervor.

“What the fuck is wrong with your bane?” Zoey asked, her low tone indicating she’d spoken out loud.

“Obsession,” Rory answered, his blood feeling as if it were coursing with frozen heat.

“You!

” His bane screeched back at Rory, vanishing before reappearing in front of Rory, tackling him as the two were knocked through a rift that was suddenly torn open.“Go!” Rory shouted at Zoey, the message clear.

And then the two vanished.

“That thing is broken,” Zoey muttered to herself as soon as Rory and his bane had vanished.

And she wasn’t referring to its abilities. It was about as psychotic as anything Zoey had encountered to date.

“But not important right now,” Zoey said. While her senses weren’t quite as attuned in the way Rory’s were, she was still no slouch, as she cast her perception outward.

People. Shit.

More than the living, it was the dead that she could feel, the lingering warmth that clung to them that stuck out to Zoey.

It was the dead children that really shocked her.

Right. Not fucking around.

Putting everything into a single skill, Zoey let her aura radiate outward as she blasted her taunt skill.

Every.

Single.

Monster.

Turned their attention in her direction.

Good.

One leap was enough to clear the moat surrounding the temple where she had appeared.

Skin turning metal, Zoey prepared herself for the assault. Given that most were lower-tier than she, Zoey didn’t feel all that concerned.

That was until the giant monstrosity, still barely alive, began to stir, a tier eight infected by… something nasty, judging by the feel of its aura.

Not infected… Reanimated?

Low on energy as it was, it shouldn’t have been that much more of a concern than anything else, but as the tide of monsters reached her, a column split off. As soon as they got within a hundred meters of the stirring monstrosity, the weaker monsters disintegrated, their bodies turning into motes of sickly green and black energy that struck the fallen tier eight, seeping in.

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The horde of monsters that crashed down upon her capped out at tier seven, and in theory, Zoey could have easily dealt with them. Yet, without any large range attacks, they were able to slow her advance enough, even as she attempted to reach the stirring monstrosity.

Even a single second was precious, time that allowed the fallen tier eight to regather strength.

Fuck!

Finally pushing through the horde that had begun to throw their bodies at her in a desperate attempt to slow her, she was too slow, the tier eight rising once more, its almost completely depleted reserves refilled.

The good news was that even before reanimation, the tier eight monster she now faced would have been weaker than the King of the Molten Peaks.

The bad news was that it was just her versus it and a horde of lower-tier monsters.

Or that was until three figures finally appeared atop the temple, instantly locking onto her location and rushing over with haste.

Took them long enough.

Whatever had slowed them had finally been overcome, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Because they were in for a hell of a fight.

Roxy was exhausted.

Hellishly exhausted. She’d done everything she could, dripping blood and monster guts, her folded aura blade shattered, her reserves utterly exhausted.

Too many.

There were simply so many monsters. The serpents of the Golden Fields had done the best they could to resist, but the numbers were too lopsided.

As if to prove the point was the fact that Roxy felt her handle tremble as the monster in front of her stepped closer and closer.

Bane-Warped Fallen Blight CommanderDragging behind it was the still ‘alive’ form of the once regal First Prince, the Khan of Blue Lightning’s right hand.

Alive, sure, but not for long, the serpent babbled incoherently, lobotomized as its brain spilled out of its broken skull.

I’m going to die.

Roxy was a tier six, a powerful tier six by crafter standards, but a tier six all the same.

The monster before her was an abomination, a powerful tier seven, the warped version of a monster that had once been able to give Uncle ‘Los trouble.

She was going to die.

But not without trying.

Raising her shattered, folded aura blade, Roxy prepared herself as much as she mentally could, knowing her time was short.

But then it never came.

An aura exploded, basking the area in an undeniable strength; just being present in it seemed to patch up the crumbling holes in her resolve. For the same token, the advancing tier seven monster instantly swiveled around, locking onto the aura before sprinting away, so fast that her eyes couldn’t keep track.

Threat of death vanishing, Roxy couldn’t help it; her knees buckled underneath her as she dropped to the ground, head drifting backward as she stared up at the ceiling.

“You came.”

The aura wasn’t her father’s, no doubt about that, as they weren’t even remotely similar, but even so, Roxy knew her father had come.

As Rory was tackled through the rift, his bane continued its psychotic cackling, claws slashing at his crimson-scaled hauberk.

The blow was blocked, but it was as if an echo of the attack passed through, phantom pain exploding from his chest.

“Fuck you!” Rory roared as he slammed his armored fist into the side of his warped doppelgänger, at the same time grabbing hold of the rift magic and yanking, wresting control of the spatial magic as the two appeared in a cavern filled with red lilies.

His bane seemed surprised as its teleportation was disrupted, the two having appeared somewhere other than where it intended to drag them.

Raising his hand, Rory channeled Earth Soul in an attempt to skewer the monster, but it was as if a field of dampening energy snuffed out the connection, a scowl on his face.

There it is—an adaptation to Earth Soul.

His bane craned its neck as the two continued to grapple, as they teleported once more, now on a beach, the ‘sand ' beneath their feet in actuality billions of tiny red ants. Opening its jaw impossibly wide, the bane attempted to bite through his neck with a maw filled with hundreds of teeth that looked like hyper-sharp needles.

Rather than flesh, it bit down onto a small black orb that had appeared, exploding and jerking its head back as the two tumbled through yet another rift, this time landing in a frozen wasteland.

Detangling their limbs for a moment, Rory finally found room to draw his arm back before launching a massive punch center mass, launching his bane doppelgänger a hundred meters in one strike.

“Tasty!” His bane screeched, an overly long tongue licking its lips.

Palms outward, Rory began unleashing a salvo of energy blasts as the bane cackled.

“When has this ever worked!” It taunted.

“I’m not trying to hit you, dumb ass.”

Realizing its mistake, the bane attempted to flicker away out of the mine field Rory had created around it. Before it could, Rory reached out and slammed shut the metaphorical door, its infamous spatial flicker ability failing for the first time ever.

Taken so off guard by its signature ability failing, the bane was too slow to react as the mine field converged, a single large explosion with the bane as the epicenter.

“Sneaky, sneaky!” Its shrill voice shrieked as it tore through the explosion, the only damage being scuffed chitin.

“Dragon’s Fall!” Rory yelled, driving his fist downward like a hammer on an anvil.

The bane looked up as the giant meteor came crashing down toward it. Rory had prepared to halt its movement, but was surprised when, rather than attempt to flee, the bane raised its arms, intending to catch the meteor.

More than happy to give it what it wanted, and unable to stop the projection magic now that it had manifested, the meteor fell, crashing upon the bane.

Who, with a flex of its muscles, braced itself as the meteor crashed upon it. Feet ripping through the ground, Rory couldn’t believe his eyes when, rather than being crushed, the Bane actually did it, the momentum of the meteor halted as his doppelgänger bared its savage teeth at him, having won this ‘round.’

“What about the other one?” Rory asked, as he mockingly shot the same grin back.

Dragon’s Fall, as Rory had progressed through tier seven and even into tier eight, had slowly lost effectiveness. It had been his first ‘big’ signature attack, but in the end, it was just dropping a fuck-off sized rock on something. How could one improve such a basic attack?

By dropping two.

The bane’s victory was short-lived as the second Dragon’s Fall hammered down upon the first, the bane properly crushed beneath before everything exploded in a shower of dust and stone and kinetic energy.

When the dust finally settled, a crater over a mile across remained. Within the rubble, his bane still stood, cloaked in orange acid and panting heavily.

“Tricky, tricky!” It screeched, sounding far less amused this time.

‘Reaching’ into his inventory, Rory armed himself, as the bane’s eyes narrowed.

Wrapped around his arms were chains, a type of weapon Rory hadn’t used in a long time. Each chain ended in a hook-like sickle as Rory advanced.

“You don’t understand, do you?” Rory shouted.

“Your. Suffering. My. Pleasure.” The Bane responded, deliberately clipping its words as if Rory were incapable of understanding.

And then it withdrew weapons of its own, two scythes dripping with orange acid. Joining them together, the bane held the double-scythe with both clawed hands.

Staring each other down for a moment, the two shot forward an instant later, scythe versus chains. In the past, when Rory had used a set of chain weapons, it had been nothing more than a barely managed chaos, a whirling dervish of impossible attacks that Rory could only effectively use due to his cognition.

Times had changed.

Every single collision of scythe against chain erupted with the kinetic force of a small bomb exploding, a battleground that no tier seven could survive.

Between the two, Rory could tell that his bane was slowly winning out, the corrosive acid it used capable of burning through even the toughest materials.

So, Rory flipped the script.

Leaping back and putting space between himself and his doppelgänger, Rory slashed his palms as red rivers of blood shot out, racing up the chains and coating the metal.

When the two collided once more, this time the orange acid was stalled out as the corrosive element clashed with corruptive, the two competing forces struggling for dominance just as their wielders did.

After several minutes of the stalemate, Rory once more chose to flip the script. Whipping his chains out, his bane attempted to block with its scythes, only to realize at the last moment that the scythes were the target to begin with. Chains wrapping the weapons, Rory pulsed his power, sacrificing the weapons as they detonated, trading their corporeal forms for pure power.

Having known his own plan, Rory let the detonation carry him away, landing on his feet with grace as he took in the sight of his foe.

The bane looked less pleased, black chitin properly damaged and torn up in spots.

And more importantly, its scythes were utterly ruined.

A bow appeared in his hands a moment later, unleashing from range as the bane flickered out of existence, appearing inches from Rory.

Only for Rory to also flicker away, several arrows stabbing into its shoulder as it grunted.

Having grown annoyed, the bane slashed out with its claws, which seemed to elongate through time and space, the same attack that had been responsible for ending the Khan of Blue Lightning.

The ‘easy’ option would be to try to break the space the attack occupied. Now, given the attack was made from spatial concepts, there was absolutely no chance Rory would be able to successfully pull it off like he had when dueling Apostolos nearly a decade back.

The next easiest option was to simply get out of the way.

But Rory wasn’t looking for the easy option. His mental state was somewhere between an inferno of wrath and a frigid storm of frozen contempt.

So instead of dodging, Rory reached out, magic circles blossoming beneath him as a second hand appeared, as large as his entire body, and composed entirely of blood red crystals dotted with black specks at equidistant points throughout.

Bracing himself, Rory caught the claws severing space-time with his projected palm. His hand, his real hand, instantly began spewing blood as elongated slashes appeared across his palm, but still Rory held firm.

It was about sending a message.

Claws of spatial corrosion collided against the projection palm of blood, lattice, and coordinate; the opposing forces attempting to win out. His bane grunted, pushing more strength into the attack as it sought to lop straight through the projection, and by extension, Rory’s hand, which anchored the projection.

“No,” Rory all but growled. “Not today.”

Slowly, Rory’s fingers began to painfully, extremely painfully, wrap around, his open hand closing as if he were grabbing something tight.

In-synch, the projection of his hand copied the motion, grabbing the space-severing claws in its grip.

With a final roar, Rory clenched his fist as tightly as possible, even more blood spewing from the linked anchor damage.

But it wasn’t without reason. With that final burst of strength, the projected hand crushed the claws in its grip, shattering the attack in its entirety as Rory flashed a predatory grin toward his bane, no goodwill in the expression, the meaning clear as day.

You’re next.