MMORPG : Ancient WORLD-Chapter 571: Going Against a Ruler (IV)

The singular point of darkness, so faint amidst the ocean of shadows that one could almost miss it, was a black hole, a gateway directly connected to the Void, not the void that was a reflection of real space, but the true Void Realm that only the strong had the luxury of seeing.

The black hole was siphoning the surrounding darkness at an extreme speed, visibly twisting the surrounding gravity into a giant vortex, its mass growing ever denser without its size growing by even an inch.

Cthux felt true terror creeping into his bones, the realization of his fate hitting him like a heavy hammer, making the ratling twist and turn violently as he fought to free himself from Alex's grip.

"You filthy wretch let go of me," Cthux spat, his thin body thrashing as his legs kicked wildly at Alex's abdomen, desperate to break free.

"You hateful bastard, I will erase you," Cthux roared, yet his voice, once dripping with arrogance, now bled panic and fear.

After failing to pull away, Cthux, in a frenzy, tried to sink his sharp, rat-like teeth into Alex's neck, like a cornered beast, and in turn, had his face bashed in with a heavy headbutt.

The sickening crunch of bones echoed as Cthux's snout shattered, blood spraying from his now-crumpled face, and before he could come to his senses, Alex let go of his left arm, caught him by the neck, and slammed the little bastard into the ground, pinning him down.

Cthux screeched as blood poured from his nose and mouth, and seeing his strength fail, he tried summoning a wave of clones, more than sixty, all rushing into existence around them.

The clones barely had time to materialize before being swallowed by the encroaching darkness, getting erased in an instant. No matter how many different attacks Cthux unleashed, each one met the same fate, vanishing without a trace.

The black hole, a bottomless pit of ravenous hunger, grew stronger by the second. Its gravitational pull intensified, as it got fed by the very essence around it.

It began to form a rotating ring of darkness with traces of violet miasma swirling through it at blistering speeds, making it as beautiful as it was deadly.

Alex and Cthux, who stood mere meters away from the growing monstrosity, had their armor and skin slowly crack, chunks of it getting erased or peeled away.

Cthux screamed in anger and agony, the sound getting drowned by the relentless roar of the singularity, his agonizing cries swallowed by the dark void, leaving only his wide, terror-filled eyes as a testament to his suffering.

Alex healed the damage he suffered, the pain not even registering at this point, only traces of blood and his damaged armor showing he was suffering a similar fate.

As seconds ticked by, the gravitational vortex only grew, siphoning in every last speck of energy in its path. Whether dark or Blight, everything was consumed by the growing black hole to feed itself.

At the ten-second mark, the domain itself was being stripped bare, as even the ground beneath them began to give way, leaving violet patches, as nearly the entirety of the dark domain had been devoured by the black hole's relentless hunger.

The abyssal chains that once anchored Alex to the immovable floor of the domain were also shattered and disintegrated, and both he and Cthux were now at the mercy of the gravitational pull, their bodies hurled into the swirling black vortex.

Their bodies were subjected to the relentless decay of the darkness and the intense pull of crushing gravity. Muscles tore and snapped under the strain, while their skin peeled away in ragged layers, disintegrating as the oppressive forces consumed them piece by piece.

For the first fifteen seconds, Cthux fought back, his body though battered and bloodied, still holding on. The same was true for Alex, though in immense pain, he was holding his own.

But as ten more seconds ticked by, and the disk, which had grown to nearly six hundred meters, now no longer grew larger but shrank by the moment, the chaotic maelstrom grew beyond what even Alex thought it was capable of.

Alex knew that the skill was much different, much more powerful than he was familiar with because he had seen the effects of the black hole from afar and experienced it firsthand even when he went all out, knowing that it would burn itself out or collapse after twenty or so seconds.

In both scenarios, while strong enough to seriously injure an Elemental Ruler, it was not capable of crushing him, not when he used Reverie to counter the damage.

This time it was clearly different, and seeing that he used it inside a domain, a place filled to the brim with mass ready to be used as fuel was most likely the cause.

Alex realized that at this point, the black hole could very well tear open the domain and go on for as long as it did not collapse, doing great damage to the city outside, but knowing the fate of the city, he considered it to be a blessing.

At this point, Alex was also consumed by the darkness, his body torn to shreds, healed, and then torn again. His sight was no longer available, the black hole had grown too powerful, the energy around it too chaotic.

His eyes, once capable of seeing through the chaos, were now pitch-dark, unable to perceive anything, and while his void sense was present, the chaotic storm drowning him muddled it at best.

Alex endured the torture only because he wanted to see the limits of his creation since it wasn't every day he got to test it inside an elemental domain.

After ten or so seconds that felt much longer, Alex felt the invisible wall of the domain shatter, and with his work done, he stopped using the mask, embracing his death with a heavy heart.

While Alex waited to be erased, the world outside his domain was far from what he imagined.

The city he expected to be overrun by the Skaven horde or reduced to dust under the might of their king, just like every other citizen, still stood, albeit in a completely transformed state from the one he had left behind.

The massive city with its towering walls now shone like a diamond nestled among the surrounding mountain chains, not because of the brilliance of its architecture or the devastation unleashed upon it, but because the majority of it was encased in a gleaming layer of crystal-clear ice that sparkled under the sun.

The entire outer perimeter, and even some sections of the inner city, were filled with frozen statues, each and every one belonging to the Skaven.

The sight outside the city was one of absolute impossibility, as millions of frozen Skaven stood locked in place, their grotesque forms encased in ice. freewebnøvel.com

Faces contorted in malice, triumphant sneers, and terrified roars, each Skaven's fate sealed before they even had the chance to comprehend what hit them.

The sheer magnitude of frozen bodies stretched for kilometers, a surreal sea of ice that told the story of their sudden demise.

An eerie roar ripped through the frozen city as a frozen sphere hanging high above shattered, unleashing a seething mass of darkness that rapidly expanded, devouring everything in its path.

The surroundings were stripped of color as the darkness tore through both the land and the fabric of space itself, swelling to nearly a hundred meters in an instant before coming to a halt.

A man in his fifties appeared before the spinning disk of gravity infused with darkness. His figure was calm yet commanding, his gaze penetrating the storm of darkness.

A look of surprise appeared in his eyes before he snapped his fingers, crackling with golden lightning, effortlessly neutralizing the source of the disturbance.

The seething darkness was erased by flickering tongues of golden lightning, its presence wiped away as though it had never been.

What remained was a figure barely clinging to life, floating in the void, with one of his arms, a chunk of his ribs, and both his feet missing, with all his skin nearly eroded away.

Yet Alex was still alive, his consciousness flickering like a candle in the wind, as his muddled eyes scanned his surroundings with what could only be described as boiling anger.