The colossal pitch-black hands of the Demon King gripped the planetary shield of Zephyria!

They were the size of mountain ranges. The thick jagged claws dug directly into the iridescent pearl-like barrier.

The sheer physical pressure of Malphas, the Desolator, attempting to crush the floating city was incomprehensible.

The sky went entirely black as the giant hands blocked out the bruised-purple light of the Abyssal Rift!

Inside the central keep, Lucifer sat on the throne of dark matter. The holographic interface in front of him flashed with a blinding frantic crimson light.

[System Warning: Catastrophic External Pressure.]

[Planetary Shield Integrity: 72%... 68%... 61%...]

[Warning: Total Barrier Collapse in 40 Seconds.]

The entire black-stone mountain groaned. Debris fell from the vaulted ceiling of the grand hall. The heavy iron doors buckled.

"The grid is failing!" Vexia shrieked over the comms rune. Down in the Aether-Forge, the Sanguine Princess was bleeding her own wrists and desperately pumping her Royal Blood Sorcery into the foundation to keep the stone from tearing apart.

"He is too heavy! The blood wards are snapping!"

"Reroute all secondary power to the upper dome," Lucifer commanded smoothly. His void-swirling eyes did not leave the holographic targeting matrix.

"I am rerouting!" King Thrain roared. The dwarf slammed his hammer into the Void-Core Reactor’s control console. "But the alignment is shifting. The physical pressure is tilting the city!"

Lucifer saw it on the interface.

The red targeting reticle which was perfectly locked onto the Keystone of Chaos inside the massive purple eye was drifting.

The physical weight of Malphas’s hands was tilting Zephyria five degrees off its central axis.

If they fired the planetary railgun now, the shot would miss the Keystone and hit the indestructible outer edge of the dimensional rift.

"I need absolute stability," Lucifer stated coldly.

"I cannot hold the tilt!" Thrain yelled. "The thrusters are maxed!"

"I will hold it!" Lyra declared.

The Dawn Saintess stood in the center of the grand hall. She did not hesitate. Lyra slammed her silver broadsword into the obsidian floor.

She unleashed her Tier 5 Twilight Seraph core! Her six wings of holy fire and dark matter flared to their absolute maximum span.

Lyra projected her magic straight up! It formed a secondary internal pillar of pure kinetic force that pushed back against the collapsing roof of the shield.

She acted as a living physical brace for the floating city.

The tilting stopped. Zephyria leveled out.

"Alignment locked," Lucifer announced.

He did not waste a microsecond. The planetary shield integrity hit thirty percent. Giant jagged cracks of dark matter spiderwebbed across the iridescent dome above them.

Lucifer raised both iron gauntlets and slammed them onto the armrests of his throne.

"System," Lucifer commanded. His voice echoed with the crushing absolute authority of the Void Monarch. "Override individual Pylon targeting protocols. Initiate the Orbital Strike Alignment."

[System: Override Confirmed.]

[Targeting Protocol: Converged Singularity.]

[Action: Syncing 10,000x Cryo-Pylons.]

Outside, the defense grid transformed!

The ten thousand glowing blue spires ringing the five-mile edge of Zephyria stopped firing into the sky. The massive crystal orbs atop each Pylon rotated simultaneously.

They turned their backs on the Abyssal swarm and aimed directly inward.

They all pointed at the golden Spire of Celestial Convergence in the center of the city.

"Sarah," Lucifer called out over the comms rune. "You are the lens."

High above the keep standing on the open observation deck, Sarah looked up at the giant crushing black hands of the Demon King. The barrier was cracking just a few hundred feet above her head.

The Oracle did not flinch.

She raised the Scepter of Cosmic Alignment. The massive violet crystal at the apex of the Spire hummed with terrifying intensity.

"I am ready, Lucifer," Sarah whispered fiercely.

Lucifer engaged his core. He funneled his Archmage-level mana into the Void-Core Reactor and pushed the engine past its theoretical limits.

"Fire the Pylons," Lucifer ordered.

The Cryo-Pylons discharged simultaneously.

They did not fire absolute zero ice. They fired raw hyper-condensed aether-energy pulled directly from the reactor, blinding thick blue beams shot across the city.

They all struck the violet crystal of the Spire of Celestial Convergence at the exact same microsecond.

The Spire absorbed the impact. The golden rings of the Wonder spun with blinding supersonic speed. The architecture screamed as it processed the energy of an entire planetary defense grid.

Sarah channeled the power. She used her cosmic sight to perfectly align the volatile energy and fused the blue aether with her pure silver starlight.

The Spire began to glow with a light so intense it bleached the entire floating city white. The thirteen million mortal soldiers in the courtyards below threw themselves to the ground and covered their eyes to avoid instant blindness.

[System Warning: Energy Accumulation Critical.]

[Weapon: Zephyria Planetary Railgun.]

[Charge: 100%.]

Above them, the iridescent shield finally gave way.

CRASH!

The dome shattered like a pane of glass.

Malphas’s colossal rotting black claws punched through the barrier and reached down to crush the Spire and the central keep.

The Demon King roared with a sound of absolute victorious malice.

Lucifer stared at the holographic interface. He did not look at the giant claws descending toward his roof.

"Execute," Lucifer commanded quietly.

He triggered the firing sequence.

Sarah slammed her scepter onto the deck.

The Spire of Celestial Convergence fired.

It was not a beam. It was a solid pillar of pure undeniable cosmic annihilation. The blast was fifty feet wide and a perfectly smooth blinding cylinder of blue, silver, and violet light.

The recoil was apocalyptic.

Zephyria was violently pushed downward by a thousand feet. The black stone of the central keep cracked perfectly down the middle.

The railgun blast shot straight up.

It hit the descending colossal black hand of Malphas.

The Demon King’s hand did not resist. It evaporated.

The pure condensed energy of ten thousand Pylons and a Mythic Wonder instantly vaporized the rotting dark matter.

Malphas shrieked. It was a planetary sound of pure unadulterated agony that shook the oceans of the world below.

The beam did not stop. It punched straight through the vaporized hand and raced up into the stratosphere.

It struck the massive burning purple eye of the Abyssal Sovereign exactly in the center of the pupil!

[System: Critical Strike Confirmed!]

[Target: Keystone of Chaos (Abyssal Anchor).]

The beam hit the hidden Keystone holding the dimensional rift open.

A massive silent explosion of white light bloomed inside the purple rift. The jagged edges of the tear shuddered violently. The Abyssal fire rimming the eye sputtered and died.

The beam exhausted its energy and faded.

Lucifer stood up from his throne. The holographic interface dissolved.

He walked out onto the balcony of the grand hall. Elara dropped down from the roof with her Twilight wings shedding ash. Lyra stepped out behind him and panted heavily from supporting the city’s structure.

They looked up at the sky.

The colossal purple eye was heavily damaged. The iris was bleeding thick black Abyssal sludge into the atmosphere. The spatial tear was violently convulsing and attempting to close as the Keystone of Chaos fractured.

"You hit it," Elara breathed with her golden eyes wide. "The anchor is shattered. The rift is collapsing."

"It’s closing," Lyra added with a fierce smile touching her lips. "The invasion is cut off."

Lucifer did not smile. His void-swirling eyes remained locked on the bleeding convulsing tear in the sky.

He did not sheathe his sword.

The jagged edges of the portal were shrinking and pulling inward. But then, two massive black-armored hands slammed onto the edges of the closing rift from the inside.

The hands gripped the tearing spatial fabric.

The portal stopped closing.

[System Warning: Extreme Entity Manifestation!]

[Entity: Malphas, The Desolator (True Form)]

[Level: 85 - Demon King]

A deafening guttural roar echoed from the other side of the rift. The hands physically pulled.

The fabric of reality screamed.

Malphas was not letting the door shut.

The Demon King was enraged by the loss of his hand and the destruction of his vanguard. He was using his true colossal physical body to force the portal open.

A massive horned head wreathed in green necrotic fire pushed its way through the tear.

"He is forcing his way through" Sarah cried out over the comms and stared down from the smoking observation deck.

"He is ripping the sky open with his bare hands, The railgun is completely drained! We cannot fire again!"

"We don’t need to fire again," Lucifer stated coldly.

He looked at the colossal Demon King trying to squeeze its true mountain-sized body through the dimensional doorway.

The sheer mass of the entity was causing the atmosphere to ignite. If Malphas fully entered the mortal plane, his passive aura alone would melt Zephyria.

"He is stuck in the doorway," Lucifer observed. A cold predatory smirk crossed his face.

He turned to Elara.

"Valkyrie," Lucifer commanded. "We are going up."

Elara did not hesitate. She gripped her violet-flaming spear. "To the rift?"

"To the throat," Lucifer corrected.

He tapped his comms rune.

"Isolde!" Lucifer roared.

The Winter Sovereign had been hovering near the lower tiers of the city protecting the flanks.

A colossal roar echoed from below. The massive Crystalline White Dragon shot up from the underside of Zephyria.

Her diamond-hard scales caught the light of the burning sky. Isolde flew directly level with Lucifer’s balcony and her massive wings held her steady in the freezing wind.

Lucifer leaped off the balcony.

He landed flawlessly on the dragon’s neck. His iron boots locked into place between her jagged crystal spikes.

Elara launched herself into the air and her Twilight wings beat with explosive force. She flew right beside Lucifer with her spear aimed at the sky.

"Fly, Sovereign," Lucifer commanded and drew his ruby-red Blade of Ruin. The Carnage Core pulsed with absolute starving hunger. "Take me to the Demon King." 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Isolde roared a sound of pure draconic supremacy. She angled her massive body upward and fired her wings.

The Royal Dragon shot straight up toward the bleeding burning Abyssal Rift. She carried the Warlord of Obsidian into a head-on collision with a god.