Beyond the Apocalypse-Chapter 1029: Antorus’ real power

Antorus’ eyes widened in shock as the overwhelming aura of the Xaos King crashed down upon him.

The first time he had seen Vlad had been less than two decades ago, when the young man came to rescue Freya.

Back then, the Xaos King had been nothing more than an ant in his eyes. A potential nuisance, perhaps, but not one worth crushing. Doing so would have risked angering the former Empress and the White Death, and for what? A nameless upstart with ambition but no real weight.

And now?

That same "ant" was marching toward him after slaughtering every corrupted warrior in the capital, stripping Valhalla of its sacrifices, and—far worse—severely wounding his master. The shadow looming above the capital writhed in pain, its presence destabilized, its grip weakened.

The realization was terrifying.

And infuriating.

Rage swallowed Antorus whole.

With a furious roar, an enormous axe materialized in his grasp, its blade shimmering with prismatic light. Without hesitation, the Viking Emperor vanished in a blur, flashing toward the True Depravita of Wrath with pure killing intent.

Blade met axe.

The collision detonated like a collapsing star.

Waves of sundering force and radiant, rainbow-hued light blasted outward in all directions, ripping through the capital. Massive buildings were sheared apart at their foundations, thrown into the distance as if struck by a god’s fist. The ground fractured, buckled, and caved beneath the sheer pressure of the clash.

Muscles bulged in both combatants’ arms as Vlad and Antorus strained against each other, each trying to force the other back. Neither yielded. In terms of raw physical might, they were evenly matched.

For a brief, violent moment, the world seemed to hold its breath.

Then the pressure between their weapons reached a breaking point.

Both were hurled backward, sent skidding across shattered ground in opposite directions.

Vlad regained control almost instantly. The moment his feet touched solid ground, he channeled energy into his black blade and drove it into the fabric of space itself.

Reality groaned.

In the next instant, portals erupted around Antorus—hundreds of them—each disgorging a blade of compressed spatial law. They flashed toward the Valhalla Emperor from every angle, ready to impale every inch of his body.

From the very beginning, Vlad fought to kill.

Antorus was only a proxy. A shield. A puppet placed in front of the true enemy lurking deep within the capital. Vlad had no illusions—once the divine backlash faded, the Alien Lord would strike with everything it had. The longer this battle dragged on, the worse the situation would become.

Unfortunately, Antorus was no fool.

As the blades closed in, his grip tightened around the axe.

"Bifröst!"

In an instant, his body dissolved into a stream of prismatic light, slipping between the black blades as if he had never been there at all. The rainbow streak curved through space and reformed directly behind Vlad.

Vlad’s eyes widened.

The speed—and the nature of that movement—was extraordinary.

He had no time to analyze it.

The axe came down toward the back of his head, blazing with rainbow light, carrying power meant to split him in two. Even with his overwhelming dominion over space, there was no time to dodge.

But Vlad did not panic.

The Celestial Eyes flared.

"Void Fold."

A portal snapped open directly in the axe’s path, swallowing the attack whole. In the same heartbeat, a second portal bloomed behind Antorus.

The axe reemerged.

Antorus’s eyes widened in disbelief as his own weapon continued its strike toward him. He twisted desperately, but not fast enough. The blade tore into the right side of his body, shattering his armor and carving a deep, bloody wound through the flesh and bone of his arm.

Before he could recover, Vlad was already moving.

The handle of the black blade slammed into Antorus’s abdomen with devastating force. Space buckled around the impact as Antorus was blasted downward, smashing into the ground and carving a massive crater into the capital.

Vlad smiled.

Void Fold was a truly terrifying ability—one that turned an enemy’s power against them with ruthless efficiency. But it was also costly. The glow in his Celestial Eyes had nearly faded completely, a clear sign that he would not be able to use it again anytime soon.

He did not hesitate.

Vlad flashed toward the crater with killing intent, blade humming with destructive force as he prepared to finish the battle.

Then the world screamed.

A gargantuan arc of rainbow light erupted upward from the crater, tearing through the air toward him. The sheer scale of it forced Vlad to halt his advance and pour all his power into defense.

The clash shook the capital to its core.

With a ferocious roar, Vlad shattered the arc apart, sending fragments of prismatic energy crashing into the distance, each explosion flattening what little remained standing.

His gaze snapped to the crater.

Antorus rose.

He was no longer the same.

The totems etched across the Valhalla Emperor’s body throbbed violently, flooding him with a strange, malignant energy. Power poured into his form from an unseen source, twisting and amplifying him. His right arm—the one nearly severed moments earlier—had swollen unnaturally, its flesh darkened to an obsidian hue as alien blood coursed through it.

Just like Vlad, Antorus was going all out.

He was channeling the Alien Power granted by his master.

Vlad tightened his grip on the black blade and exhaled slowly, drawing deeper upon the Seal of Sin. Wrath surged through him, violent and absolute, his aura erupting with renewed ferocity.

"This will be harder than I expected," Vlad admitted quietly.

Across from him, Antorus’s expression twisted into something wild—almost ecstatic. Madness and exultation burned in his eyes as the alien power surged through his veins.

He roared.

The ground around him exploded as he launched himself forward, charging the Xaos King with everything he had.

---

Vlad was not the only one locked in an extremely intense and deadly battle. Elsewhere on the home world of the Viking Race, Overlord and the True Depravitas fought their own war against horrors that should never have existed.

Freya stood at the center of chaos.

Golden and crimson lightning tore through the air around her as her eyes sharpened with lethal focus. Blood arrows screamed toward her in endless waves, tearing apart the ground wherever they struck. She weaved between them with inhuman precision, each step measured, each movement razor-sharp. Still, the sheer volume of the attack was overwhelming—there was no pause, no mercy.

The one firing them was a walking abomination.

The enemy’s body was grotesquely swollen, his flesh distended and ruptured by bulging tumors that pulsed as if alive. His bones jutted unnaturally beneath torn skin, warped by violent mutation. His right arm had ceased to be an arm at all—it had twisted into a massive bow of jagged bone and sinew, veins pumping violently as he drew arrows formed from his own blood. Each shot tore wet, ripping sounds from his body, yet he showed no sign of pain.

"Saro, kill."

The words were barked again and again, a broken command looping endlessly in his shattered mind.

"Kill. Kill. Kill."

Freya deflected one arrow with her shield, the impact shaking her entire arm. Another grazed her shoulder, tearing flesh and spraying blood. She hissed but did not slow. Her gaze met Saro’s—and she felt it immediately.

There was nothing there.

No thought. No reason. Only instinct, hunger, and obedience drowned in madness.

Then recognition struck her like a blade.

Saro.

One of Antorus’s sons.

For the briefest fraction of a second, her grip faltered. "So this is what became of you..."

Saro screamed—not in pain, but in rage—and loosed a massive volley that turned the sky red.

Freya’s pity died instantly.

Light erupted around her sword and shield, roaring louder with each arrow she blocked or evaded. Her wounds sealed under crackling energy as her eyes ignited with power.

"So be it," she whispered coldly.

She raised her sword and unleashed her Seal of Sin.

Blood answered blood.

Hundreds of blood arrows formed behind her, forged from stolen power and divine imitation. With a violent swing of her blade, she launched them forward. The two storms collided midair, detonating in deafening explosions of gore and light. The shockwaves tore chunks from Saro’s body, ripping tumors apart and exposing raw bone beneath.

Still, he did not fall.

Saro staggered, howling as his bow-arm cracked and splintered, then fired again—this time at point-blank range.

Freya charged straight through it.

Arrows tore into her armor, shattered against her shield, and pierced her flesh, but she did not stop. Golden and crimson lightning flared violently as she burst upward, soaring above him in a single explosive leap.

Saro looked up, shrieking.

"Kill—!"

Freya did not let him finish.

She brought her sword down.

A massive arc of blinding light cleaved through the air, swallowing Saro whole. The strike slammed him into the ground with catastrophic force, the earth collapsing beneath him as the impact carved a crater into the battlefield. Bone snapped. Flesh burst. Blood sprayed like rain.