Standing atop the air itself, far in the sky, Jeremy looked at the masked figure, Semo, who had just arrived.

"Are the preparations done...?"

He asked calmly as the masked man smiled maniacally before nodding.

"Yes, Master. Alden, Seles, and Cedric are right in place. We also made sure to send many demons toward Nyx to keep her busy and prevent her from reaching Alden before he activates the barrier."

"Good." Jeremy nodded. "What about Alaric? Was he sent away?"

The man raised his head. "Yes, Master. Just as you expected, that man lured the general away, while the other Overlord General was also taken away by the Overlord of the Elves."

"What about the anchor?" Jeremy asked, his voice steady.

"Lucien is near death after Seles severed his arm. Should I finish the job or leave him be? Either way, unless he could somehow get an elixir, his death is fixed."

He reported everything calmly as Jeremy nodded once again.

Jeremy’s body was already close to breaking, but even so, he was excited, excited that he would finally be free from the chains binding his bloodline for generations.

All he needed now was for Alden to press the button he had provided. He knew that, as reckless as the boy seemed outwardly, he was quite cautious inwardly and wouldn’t press the button until he laid eyes on him.

"No need to care about him anymore. All we needed was his blood. Focus on keeping Nyx busy at all costs instead."

With those words, he prepared to descend.

He knew that if she somehow made it inside the barrier, she could activate bloodline suppression and subdue him with a single word. So keeping her away was his first priority.

Semo nodded as Jeremy snapped his fingers, appearing near the visible sky above the arena.

—

Meanwhile, completely oblivious to the plans in motion, Alden fought against Seles with everything he had, but she turned out to be a far greater problem than he had expected. The new form she had taken not only granted her greater speed, but it also reinforced her control over the shadows.

I guess she isn’t the female lead of the novel for nothing.

He thought before lunging at her once again, shadows erupting all around him at once, trying to catch him. But he evaded them all with his Dance of Chaos.

Her expression twisted in real time.

"Stop for one second and just let me kill you, you cockroach." She snapped in annoyance.

"Anything for you, sister."

Alden let out a smirk and stopped for a moment, right above a small crack in the ground, as Seles returned his smile with a devastating attack, countless spears flying at him from different angles.

Alden’s smile widened as he kicked the ground, causing a slab of the arena floor to tear off and fly in front of him before he kicked the debris forward.

The massive stone slab shot toward Seles as she immediately merged with the shadows, reappearing at the same spot and watching the slab pass through where she had been.

Her eyes immediately snapped toward where Alden had been, but all she saw were her spears stabbed into the ground.

Before she could even react, something sharp came from behind. It was Alden, who had launched himself alongside the slab, his sword aimed straight for her neck.

"Sevenfold Ruins — Bitch Slaying Sword."

He joked as he used Ruinous Severance at close proximity. But just as his sword was inches away from her neck, ready to end the one nuisance he always wanted to, something within the air itself shifted.

His sword stopped mere inches from her neck, his body freezing unconsciously as the very air itself gripped him.

His sword in the meanwhile sent a massive shockwave erupting outward as Seles’s body flew backward before rolling to a stop some distance away.

Only then did Alden’s gaze shift toward the sky, where he saw a lone figure descending toward him with an amused yet cold gaze.

So you finally decided to show up, huh?

Alden thought as he looked at Jeremy Voidforge.

By now, almost half of all the spectators had been killed, their blood staining the arena. The demons also had their fair share of casualties.

The crowd within the arena had stopped trying to escape from the demons attacking relentlessly, their gazes instead snapping toward Jeremy in hopes that he would help them.

But Alden knew how fickle that hope was. The man was the one who had orchestrated all of this, after all. Honestly, even Alden himself hadn’t expected Jeremy to stoop this low.

He knew Jeremy was trying to gather sacrifices... but the novel had never specified how many. So his expectations had been far lower.

Still, he didn’t dwell on it much, because that was something he couldn’t have done anything about his limited strength... or maybe he could have, but now was no time to dwell on what had already happened.

Instead, he focused on his own body.

He didn’t know what Jeremy had done, but his limbs felt far too heavy, as if gravity itself sought to bind him down.

Still, he could move it slightly, resisting the weight. So, he sneakily pushed his left hand into his pocket where the small red button was.

He wasn’t sure what was going to happen after he pressed it, but if what Cipher said was true, then it should summon someone capable of dealing with Jeremy.

He would have loved to let Jeremy complete his ritual and maybe get swallowed by his own ability. But that was something he wasn’t sure would even work. And even if it did, it would only cost even more lives.

So, without hesitation, he pressed the small red button, and something changed immediately. Alden’s own mana was sucked into the small button along with... blood.

What’s happening?

He tried to stop it immediately by cutting off the flow of mana, but instead, it intensified even more, and something erupted from his own body.