Beyond the Apocalypse-Chapter 982: Eligos

A massive ship drifted away from Valhalla. Its hull, forged from dark starsteel, groaned beneath the impossible weight it carried — ore, crystal, and veins of living metal, all glowing faintly with volatile power. The energy waves these materials emitted warped the air itself, making them impossible to contain within space rings or storage arrays.

They were treasures of Valhalla — sacred minerals drawn from sites the Vikings once considered holy, places tied to their gods and ancestors. For centuries, those sanctums had remained untouched. But now, their protections had been stripped away, and the earth itself had been gutted.

Antorus did not care for heritage or sanctity. He cared only for power.

And so, he handed over the riches of an entire world to the Vorometallicae, his newest allies.

The ship needed no escort. Its cargo was cloaked by layers of spatial distortion, invisible to any scanner or scrying eye. Even if discovered, few would dare to intercept it — for aboard that colossal vessel was a single guardian, and that one being was enough to annihilate entire fleets.

His name was Eligos, a Lord of the Vorometallicae Race.

He stood motionless upon the ship’s command deck, a living weapon forged for destruction. His form towered like a mountain of engineered perfection — segmented armor plating that gleamed like polished blades, layered over muscle cords that pulsed with molten energy. Every motion radiated lethal precision. His eyes burned crimson, and the ridges of his shoulders shimmered with molten sigils that pulsed in rhythm with his breathing.

A long, serrated tail swayed behind him, and his limbs ended in claws that could shear through neutronium. Hooked spines jutted from his arms and back, each humming faintly with magnetic resonance. He was half-machine, half-dragon.

Eligos gazed through the forward viewport as Valhalla shrank to a pale, distant sphere behind them. A cold, mirthless smile crossed his metallic face.

"I wonder," he muttered, voice rumbling like thunder through steel, "if they’ve caught the ones responsible yet."

He referred, of course, to the mysterious disappearances that had swept across Valhalla in the past few years. Tens of thousands of corrupted Viking battalions — gone. Entire cities emptied overnight. Hundreds of millions of civilians vanished without a trace.

No wreckage. No trails of magic. Only silence.

Whoever was responsible had moved with impossible precision. The leading theory was that remnants of the old rebellion — those who had survived the Purge — were striking back from the shadows.

Antorus had not taken the affront lightly. The new Emperor himself was now marching across the world, dragging his entire army in a relentless search for the culprits.

Eligos didn’t particularly care. Whether the Vikings lived or died meant nothing to him. But instability made his work harder. He needed order to strip the world clean, to harvest its resources without interference.

He turned his gaze back toward the endless dark ahead — the Void Between Worlds, an expanse where sound died and light was swallowed whole.

And then — instinct screamed.

Every cell in his body ignited with alarm. Without thinking, he twisted his torso, claws snapping up defensively just as something materialized behind him.

A ripple of distortion passed through the metallic floor as a figure phased up through solid steel, emerging as if the very matter had yielded to him. There was no breach, no sound — the ship’s superalloy hull, capable of enduring a Lord’s strike, had simply been ignored.

Eligos’s red eyes widened in shock. He knew that aura.

"Xaos King..." he hissed.

The intruder said nothing. His presence alone filled the chamber with suffocating power. His eyes burned like dying suns, and every step he took distorted gravity itself

The air shattered as he swung. The stroke was so fast it seemed reality had been cut apart.

Eligos barely managed to raise his arm, the impact ringing through the ship like a cosmic bell. The blow hurled him backward, tearing through bulkheads and flinging his body into open space.

The Vorometallicae Lord tumbled through the void, his armor sparking as gravitational fields distorted around him. Blood — molten silver — leaked from the corner of his mouth. Yet his durability was legendary. His forearm, though scored and burning, had absorbed the strike.

A small cut, no more.

But before satisfaction could form, agony tore through his soul.

Eligos froze as a searing wave of deathly energy crawled through dimensions and pierced his essence directly. The blade hadn’t merely struck his flesh — it had branded his spirit. His soul screamed.

Then, before he could recover, Vlad was upon him again — a comet of wrath and divine fury. His heart beat like a drum of war, his veins blazing with killing light.

The sword he wielded was Soul Blade, a Lord-tier weapon forged for him by Jormungandr. Its edge sang with the resonance of oblivion itself.

"—ARGHHHH!"

Eligos roared, his voice a mix of hatred and disbelief. He forced his life force to burn brighter, igniting the core reactors within his body to counter the paralysis gripping him. His armor plates split apart, forming jagged spikes of metal that curved over his fists.

He struck back.

The two collided.

A shockwave ripped through the void — a blinding flash of light and energy that could have vaporized a moon. Vlad’s Soul Blade met Eligos’s metallic fist, and both refused to yield. The clash of their auras tore the fabric of space like paper.

For an eternal heartbeat, they were locked together — wrath against steel, spirit against machinery. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Then, the pressure broke.

The explosion hurled both combatants apart, sending them spinning across the starless expanse.

Vlad steadied himself midair, his eyes narrowing. His arms trembled faintly from the force. He could tell now — Eligos was strong. Not as monstrous as Barbatos, but his endurance was terrifying. Each strike against him felt like hitting a mountain made of living blades.

Vlad knew he couldn’t remain in Valhalla as Antorus’s forces were already searching the world for the cause of the disappearances. The rescue operations had to end, and now he needed answers.

If he could pierce the soul of this Vorometallicae Lord — read his memories, taste his essence — he might uncover what the Voroe alliance was planning, and how deeply they were tied to Antorus’s schemes.

There was no room for hesitation.

Vlad’s aura erupted — crimson, molten, divine. His eyes glowed like miniature suns as he surged forward once more, his sword blazing with condensed wrath.

Eligos mirrored him, his mechanical muscles coiling, his claws glowing with destructive power.