Beyond the Apocalypse-Chapter 980: Overlord vs Demon Lord

The True Depravitas moved from city to city, consuming the souls and memories of fallen battalion leaders. Every dying thought gave them more insight into the movements of Valhalla’s armies. With each conquest, they refined their strategy, learning when to strike, when to vanish, and where to find those who still resisted the corruption that had spread like wildfire across the realm.

The innocents they encountered — the untainted Vikings still clinging to some fragment of hope — were not left behind. The Depravitas sealed them inside the cube built to suspend life in timeless stasis. Within its shimmering light, the saved slumbered, untouched by decay or despair.

At the same time, the True Depravitas carve every polluted totem and souls from the corrupted Vikings. The deeper their collection grew, the more they understood about the alien entity that had seized control of Valhalla itself — a godlike being of void and memory, feeding upon faith and despair alike.

They were moving very fast, but they also knew time was a luxury they could not afford. Antorus and his council of Lords were consumed by their grander designs, yet even they would not ignore the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of their subjects. If too many of the corrupted vanished, if too many totems went silent, Antorus himself might intervene.

So the True Depravitas moved swiftly and without rest. Days blurred into weeks, weeks into months, and before long, years. For all their speed, Valhalla was vast with fields stretched beyond the horizon, so they were constantly pushing themselves harder, moving faster and faster, as every bit of speed they gained was one more soul saved, and one prey that they took from Antorus.

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Far from the lands of Valhalla, in the Eighty-Seventh Layer of the Abyss, another kind of storm was raging.

A colossal warlord stood upon a jagged throne of basalt, surrounded by an ocean of flame and ash. His armor, blackened and warped by infernal forges, glowed faintly with veins of molten power. Every plate was etched with runes of conquest, and from his horned helm hung the skulls of angels and demons alike. In his right hand, he carried a sword that burned like a dying sun; in his left, a shield etched with the chaotic sigils.

Around him, legions of demonkin marched through fields of carnage and smoke. Their banners — tattered and bleeding fire — fluttered in the scorching winds. The sky itself burned with a molten hue, dripping embers like tears of the damned. Ash fell in slow rain, drawn by the gravitational pull of so many auras colliding at once. This army was no small force — it was an empire of nightmares, a host capable of razing civilizations. Even the high houses of the Graecian Empire that had persisted for hundreds of thousands of years would tremble before such wrath.

But then the earth trembled beneath a new presence.

From the shattered ridge ahead came their enemy. Their formation struck like lightning through the Abyssal ranks, every step echoing with the rhythm of disciplined death. They did not scream, they did not boast — they advanced as one, as if driven by a single breath of divine fury.

Each blow they struck shattered demons into clouds of burning dust. Each shield raised repelled rivers of molten blood. They were unstoppable, their discipline frightening in its precision, and yet their essence was wrong — unnervingly paradoxical.

The Demons could feel it: the blood of Hell ran through their veins, but the essence of demonic souls pulsed in their hearts. They were both hunters and the hunted — warriors who had turned damnation itself into a weapon.

In the past few years, the Nightmare Knights had carved their legend across the Abyss, descending layer by layer, facing demon army after demon army. They had refined their cultivation, strengthened their will, and bound the souls of fallen tyrants within their hearts.

Now, only eight hundred eighty-nine remained of the original nine hundred ninety-nine. Each death struck them deeply — for the Xaos Kingdom prized brotherhood above conquest — yet every loss only hardened their resolve.

With every death, the danger of the universe became clearer, making the soldiers push themselves harder, as no matter what, they needed to grow strong to protect their home.

High above the battlefield stood the Demon Lord Bako. His towering frame was encased in armor wrought from the essence of fallen gods — jagged and black as obsidian, streaked with veins of gold fire. His helm bore long, cruel horns, and beneath it glowed a visor of searing crimson light.

Black wings of shadow spread from his back, stretching wide enough to eclipse the burning sky. Around him swirled the cries of dying demons, their souls siphoned into the cracks of his armor as sustenance. He despised them — every weak, trembling thing that called itself a soldier. But they were his, forged through countless centuries of blood and pain, and now they were dying like insects beneath the boots of foreign invaders.

His rage was volcanic, and he wanted nothing more than to crush the ants that dared to attack his forces, but he had his own battle to take care of.

When the volley of divine spears tore through the smoke, Bako’s eyes flared. He swung his golden-blazing sword, and an invisible shockwave exploded outward, vaporizing the projectiles in midair. The battlefield froze for an instant under the echo of his power. Yet before the Demon Lord could take satisfaction in his display, a whisper of movement behind him made his instincts tighten.

He turned — fast as thought — his sword cleaving through the air. It met another blade, one that burned with the brightness of a newborn star. The impact split the air like thunder.

Before him hovered a figure with six wings, black feathers smoldering with celestial fire. His eyes, cold as ancient steel, held no emotion — only purpose. The two locked gazes, and the world seemed to narrow to that single, fateful moment.

"Burn," the winged warrior said softly, placing his palm upon the flat of his blade. "Gram."