The Heretic's Mana-Bound Sanctuary
Chapter 56: Killing Sun-Wyrm of Dominion
The Second Sphere of Heaven was completely unrecognizable. The pristine white marble and woven light had been violently digested by the expanding Obsidian Labyrinth, replaced by shifting, hyper-dense black glass and rivers of boiling, corrupted slag.
Kaelen walked at the vanguard of his army, his heavy boots crushing the golden halos of the slaughtered Cherubim into fine powder.
He was running dangerously hot.
Absorbing the raw experience of fourteen thousand Level 110 angels in a single, cataclysmic strike had pushed his Level 105 Abyssal Demigod core to the absolute brink of its physical containment. Deep violet veins pulsed visibly along his heavily muscled arms and neck, radiating a localized heat that instantly vaporized the golden blood dripping onto his shoulders.
"Master," Seraphina’s voice broke through the deafening march of the Abyssal Brutes behind them.
The fallen High Paladin matched his pace perfectly. Her Void-iron armor was completely painted in the divine blood of the Second Choir, and her Mythic-Tier Eclipse Breaker was actively humming, practically vibrating out of her gauntlet. She could feel the violent friction inside his core through the Abyssal Trinity link.
"The holy matrix is resisting your digestion," Seraphina noted, her corrupted golden eyes looking up at him with desperate devotion. "Let me carry the burden."
He stopped. The ten thousand Brutes behind him halted in flawless unison, their heavy iron boots slamming into the glass floor like a thunderclap.
He looked down at his Vanguard. She had spent her entire life praying to these angels, only to become the absolute instrument of their slaughter. She deserved a reward.
"Draw your blade, Seraphina," he commanded, his multi-tonal voice heavy with intoxicating gravity.
Seraphina didn’t hesitate. She unclasped the massive pitch-black greatsword and held it vertically before her, kneeling gracefully onto the glass.
He stepped perfectly into her space. He reached out, his large, burning hands wrapping directly over her steel-clad gauntlets on the hilt of the Eclipse Breaker. He didn’t just touch her; he forcefully synchronized their spiritual pathways, bypassing her physical defenses entirely.
"Take their light," he growled, looking directly into her dilated eyes. "And crush it."
Kaelen aggressively vented the excess, volatile holy energy he had absorbed from the Cherubim directly into Seraphina’s core. The transfer was violently explosive. Seraphina threw her head back, her back arching rigidly as the massive surge of pure experience points and raw mana flooded her veins.
The Eclipse Breaker greedily devoured the energy, its dark runes flaring with blinding violet intensity. The blade physically lengthened, its jagged edge crystallizing into pure, hyper-dense void-diamond.
Seraphina let out a sharp, euphoric gasp, her Level 88 core violently expanding under the pressure.
[System Notification: Harem Intimacy Maintained. Forced Mana-Transfer Successful.]
[Level Up! Floor Boss ’Seraphina’ is now Level 95.]
[Weapon Evolution: ’Eclipse Breaker’ has ascended to Exalted Tier.]
He pulled back, the dangerous heat in his own veins completely stabilized.
Seraphina was trembling, completely flushed and panting heavily. She leaned forward, pressing her forehead reverently against Kaelen’s heavy boot. "I will cleave the Goddess in half for you, my Demigod."
"I expect nothing less," he smirked, feeling the cooling, infinite ocean of dark power re-stabilize in his chest.
From the shifting shadows cast by the ruined battlements, Lyriel and Ariel materialized simultaneously.
"Emperor," Ariel spoke, her six massive shadow-wings folded tightly behind her. Her corrupted blue eyes were locked onto the towering, golden staircase leading to the Third Sphere. "The Goddess has stopped sending her Choirs. She is terrified."
"Good," he noted. "Is she barricading the next gate?"
"There is no gate on the Third Sphere," Ariel replied, a rare flicker of caution crossing her pale features. "It is the Sphere of Dominion. It is a vast, open expanse where the Goddess anchors the raw faith of the mortal realm. She is currently aggressively draining the remaining human empires on the western continents."
"She is burning her own batteries?" Lyriel mused, spinning a Wyrm-Blight dagger effortlessly in her fingers. "A desperate play."
"She is funneling millions of souls into a single vessel," Ariel warned, looking back at Kaelen. "She has awakened the Sun-Wyrm. It is a Level 118 Astral Leviathan. It does not possess a physical body—it is woven entirely from concentrated solar plasma and pure faith."
Elara, who had just finished hauling a massive sack of celestial cores into her spatial rings, stepped up beside Kaelen, her emerald eyes glowing with manic ambition.
"A beast of pure solar plasma, Master?" Elara practically drooled. "If we can harvest its core, I can synthesize a permanent, localized sun for the Dungeon. The subterranean floors would never need void-coal again."
He laughed, a deep, resonant sound that physically shook the ruined marble of the Second Sphere. His Harem didn’t hear the name of a terrifying, apocalyptic monster and feel fear. They simply saw it as crafting materials and experience points.
"Then we will not keep the Forge-Master waiting," he declared, his pitch-black eyes locking onto the golden stairs. "March."
The ascent to the Third Sphere was brief but violently oppressive.
The moment Kaelen’s vanguard breached the threshold of the Sphere of Dominion, the temperature spiked to catastrophic levels. The sky here was not a calm expanse of clouds; it was a swirling, roaring ocean of liquid gold and blinding white fire. The ground was composed of superheated sun-stone, radiating a heat that would instantly vaporize a normal human.
But the Abyssal Trinity link shielded Kaelen’s forces, aggressively converting the lethal heat into harmless ambient static.
Hovering directly in the center of the blinding realm was the Goddess’s ultimate deterrent.
The Sun-Wyrm was colossal. It stretched over three miles long, an undulating, serpentine leviathan made entirely of violently churning solar plasma. It had no eyes, only a massive, jagged maw that continuously leaked pure, white-hot celestial fire.
[Hostile Entity Detected: Ignis, The Sun-Wyrm of Dominion (Level 118).]
[Warning: Target possesses absolute immunity to physical kinetic damage. Target’s core temperature exceeds 10,000 degrees.]
"A physical weapon will just pass through it, Emperor," Lyriel noted, narrowing her silver eyes as the massive beast slowly turned its eyeless head toward the encroaching darkness of Kaelen’s aura.
"And my toxins will simply burn away before they breach its surface," Elara added, her brow furrowing in frustration.
High above them, the Sun-Wyrm unhinged its massive jaw. It didn’t roar; it emitted a deafening, high-frequency divine chime that threatened to shatter their eardrums. A cataclysmic sphere of condensed solar fire began to rapidly gather in the back of its throat, aiming directly at the ten thousand Abyssal Brutes standing behind Kaelen.
"Master," Ariel stepped forward, her shadow-wings violently expanding. "Allow me to eclipse its breath."
"No," he commanded, raising his hand to stop his Valkyrie.
HE stepped forward, the heavy gravity of his Demigod core passively crushing the superheated sun-stone beneath his boots into black glass. He looked up at the three-mile-long beast of pure, concentrated divine plasma.
The System warned that it was immune to physical damage. It warned that it was too hot to touch.
But Kaelen was an Abyssal Demigod. He didn’t abide by the laws of thermodynamics. He dictated them.
"You are nothing but a bloated balloon of stolen faith," Kaelen’s voice rolled across the burning sphere, carrying the absolute, unquestionable authority of the Abyss.
He didn’t draw void mana to attack. He utilized the terrifying passive trait of his newly acquired Exalted Class: God-Eater.
He raised his right hand toward the massive Leviathan and violently clenched his fist.
Instead of generating a black hole, Kaelen completely inverted the ambient gravity of the Third Sphere. The cataclysmic sphere of solar fire in the beast’s mouth didn’t fire forward; it was violently sucked backward, directly into the creature’s own core.
The Sun-Wyrm violently thrashed, a harrowing, metallic shriek escaping its maw as its internal matrix aggressively destabilized.
"Seraphina," he commanded smoothly, not taking his eyes off the thrashing beast. "The core is in its chest. I am going to condense the plasma. When it solidifies, shatter it."
"By your will!" Seraphina launched herself into the superheated air, the Exalted-Tier Eclipse Breaker actively vibrating with absolute hunger.
He poured his Level 105 hyper-dense void mana directly into the space surrounding the Leviathan. The suffocating pressure was absolute. The three-mile-long beast of pure, gaseous plasma was violently, forcefully compressed.
The beast shrieked as the physical laws of the universe were aggressively rewritten around it. The gaseous solar fire was forced into a solid state. Its massive, winding body instantly crystallized, turning from fluid light into a brittle, frozen statue of dull, glowing ruby.
Suspended perfectly in the center of its crystallized chest was a massive, blindingly bright celestial core.
Seraphina reached the apex of her jump, directly over the beast’s frozen heart. She brought the massive, hyper-dense greatsword down in a devastating, vertical spike.
"Abyssal Execution!"
The Eclipse Breaker cleanly pierced the crystallized plasma, driving flawlessly into the Sun-Wyrm’s core.
The three-mile-long beast violently shattered like a fragile glass ornament. Billions of shards of solidified solar plasma rained down across the Third Sphere, permanently extinguishing the blinding light of the Goddess’s ultimate deterrent.
[Kill: Ignis, The Sun-Wyrm (Level 118). +3,500,000 EXP.]
As the massive, pristine core fell from the sky, Kaelen effortlessly caught it in his palm. He casually tossed the blinding sphere of pure energy backward, where Elara caught it with wide, manic eyes.
"Put it in a lantern, Elara," he smirked, the suffocating darkness of his aura rapidly expanding to consume the Third Sphere. "We have a throne room to light."