Chapter 150: Chapter 150: The Apex Showdown

Chapter 150: The Apex Showdown

I charged through the crater, the mud splashing heavily against my black S-Grade Chitin armor.

Archlich Malacor realized his supreme death magic was completely useless against the biological shell of the Hive Empress. He did not retreat. He possessed the absolute arrogance of an ancient ruler.

He raised his skeletal hands, pulling raw, pitch-black starmetal directly from the corrupted earth.

SHNK.

The metal violently fused together in his palms, forming a colossal, jagged scythe. The blade was ten feet long, dripping with condensed shadows.

"Flesh always yields to the reaper!" Malacor roared, his telepathic voice shaking the battlefield.

He swung the massive starmetal scythe in a devastating horizontal arc, aiming to cleave me perfectly in half.

I did not dodge. I met his absolute apex weapon head-on.

I raised my heavy brass gauntlet and blocked the scythe with my forearm.

CLANG!

The kinetic shockwave was apocalyptic. The earth beneath our feet completely shattered, blowing away tons of mud and rock in a massive crater.

The impenetrable starmetal blade dug into the outer layer of my S-Grade Chitin, but it could not break through. My 4,100 Aegis Rating and the progenitor armor held perfectly.

But Malacor was not just relying on physical force.

As our weapons locked, the endless voids of his eye sockets flared with a terrifying, concentrated darkness.

"If I cannot rot your shell," Malacor hissed, his voice piercing directly into my brain, "I will hollow out your mind and wear your flesh myself!"

FWOOSH.

A massive, invisible spike of psychic energy slammed into my consciousness. It was an absolute soul-invasion. The Archlich was trying to forcefully evict my soul and possess my body.

My vision violently flickered. I saw the Grand Catacombs. I felt the agonizing wails of millions of trapped souls trying to tear my mind apart.

But I was not a fragile Academy student anymore.

"Get out of my head," I rumbled.

I unleashed my 6,500 points of Domination Aura completely inward. I combined it with the pure telepathic weight of the Royal Core I had just consumed.

Inside my mind, my will manifested as a towering, conceptual fortress of dark iron and crimson fire. Malacor’s invading soul slammed into the walls of my mind and completely shattered.

Malacor physically violently flinched in the real world.

Dark, necrotic blood leaked from his empty eye sockets. I had just crushed his mind-control attempt with sheer, overwhelming Kingly authority.

"My mind is a throne room," I growled, grabbing the handle of his starmetal scythe with my left hand. "And you are trespassing."

I ignited my core. I pushed the Fire of Rage to its absolute, maximum capacity.

The crimson flames erupted from my Ironclad armor. They flowed down my left arm and violently engulfed the colossal starmetal scythe.

The heat was not normal. It was a conceptual incineration.

HISSSS.

The indestructible starmetal began to glow bright orange. Then, it turned blindingly white.

"What are you doing?!" Malacor shrieked in sudden, genuine panic.

"Melting your toys," I replied.

The massive starmetal scythe sagged, lost its shape, and liquefied. It dripped into the mud like hot wax.

Above us, the sky was tearing apart.

Three colossal Undead Bone-Dragons dove toward the crater, opening their rotting jaws to unleash torrents of dark magic to save their master.

Anise stood on the high wall. She gripped her holy staff tightly, her knuckles white. She could unseal her Level 100 power and vaporize them in an instant, but she remembered my command. She did not break her seal.

Instead, a blur of maroon wings shot into the sky.

Lysandra hovered directly in the path of the diving Bone-Dragons.

"They are mindless corpses tethered by magic!" the Succubus Queen shouted through the telepathic link. "That makes them susceptible to a new Queen!"

Lysandra raised her hands. Her Charming Queen aura exploded outward, not as a wave of lust, but as a wave of absolute, dominating command.

The concentrated pink mana slammed into the Bone-Dragons. It forcefully hijacked the necrotic tethers controlling their skeletal brains.

The three dragons shrieked in utter confusion. Their green soul-fire violently flickered and turned bright pink.

"Tear yourselves apart!" Lysandra commanded ruthlessly. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

The Bone-Dragons instantly turned on each other. They crashed together in mid-air, tearing at their own skeletal wings and crushing each other’s skulls before plummeting heavily into the Zenith Academy’s ground forces.

Down in the crater, Malacor watched his ultimate air support destroy itself.

He looked back at me. I stepped forward, my heavy boots crushing the liquefied remains of his weapon.

"Stay back!" Malacor roared, thrusting his hands forward to cast another necrotic spell.

I completely ignored the magic. It splashed harmlessly against my S-Grade Chitin.

I lunged forward with terrifying mechanical speed.

BAM.

I drove my superheated, flaming right fist directly into Malacor’s starmetal ribcage.

CRUNCH. SSSSSS.

The Fire of Rage instantly superheated his indestructible bones. His ribs buckled, glowing white-hot, before melting completely under the conceptual heat.

Malacor screamed. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated agony. The ancient ruler of death was feeling physical pain for the first time in millennia.

"You are melting!" Malacor shrieked, stumbling backward as his chest cavity dripped molten starmetal onto the ground.

"I told you I was going to burn you," I growled.

I did not let him retreat. I grabbed him by his skeletal throat.

The crimson fire violently rushed from my gauntlet directly into his starmetal skull. It washed over his ancient, corrupted core.

Malacor tried to turn into a shadow to escape, but my Domination Aura locked him in physical reality.

"No! My phylactery!" the Archlich begged, his telepathic voice cracking with absolute terror. "I am a god! You cannot end me!"

"You are just fuel," I stated coldly.

I pushed the Fire of Rage directly into his soul.

My Law did not just burn his physical body. It bit deeply into his ancient, hoarded soul. The fire began to actively consume the centuries of death magic he had accumulated.

DING!

The System interface violently flashed before my eyes in blinding red and black text.

[System Alert: Absolute Conceptual Consumption Detected.]

[The Law of Rage is devouring an Ancient Soul.]

[Mutation Triggered.]

The crimson fire engulfing my hand suddenly violently shifted. The red flames darkened, mixing with a terrifying, pitch-black aura. It was no longer just the fire of anger. It had consumed the very essence of the Archlich.

[Evolution Complete: The Law of Rage has awakened into the Flame of Death.]

[Property: Absolute Eradication of Life and Soul.]

The new, pitch-black and crimson Flame of Death flared violently.

Archlich Malacor did not even have time to scream a final curse.

The black flames instantly devoured his soul, erasing his consciousness from the universe entirely. His starmetal body lost its magical binding and completely melted into a puddle of glowing slag in the mud.

The Master of Death was dead.

I stood in the center of the crater. The new Flame of Death burned quietly in my palm, completely submissive to my will.

THUD. CLATTER.

All across the Ashfall Marches, the Zenith Academy’s undead legion collapsed.

Without Malacor’s soul-web to sustain them, the massive Skeletal Behemoths crumbled into piles of dust. The Starmetal Death Knights dropped their weapons, their green soul-fire extinguishing instantly as they fell lifelessly into the mud.

The silence that followed was absolute.

I looked up at the high walls of the Velkrath Imperium. My Pack stood victorious, looking down at me in pure awe. The Vanguard roared, their cheers shaking the heavens.

The Zenith Academy had sent their absolute best. They had sent their Vanguard. They had sent their ancient legends.

And I had melted them all into the dirt.