“It’s all in the past,” he rasped, each word scraping out like stone across steel. “I was the head disciple of Heaven Gate. I pledged my life to a junior. For that sin, my master destroyed my core technique and cast me out. I alone shamed the sect…”
“But!” Zevon’s head snapped up, his voice exploded across the night like rolling thunder. “The sect is still my home. Its enemies are mine. Soul Devourer, prepare to forfeit your life!”
That last bellow cracked the sky, the sound like the first divine thunder at the dawn of creation. He moved. In an instant, the man of languid posture became a blade of light, carving a blinding arc toward the sky where the Soul Devourer hovered.
Where Zevon passed, demonic aura shrank away, the very void twisting as though terrified of him.
High above, the Soul Devourer’s voice slithered through the darkness. “So it is you, Zevon Swanson, the disgraced disciple. Perfect. I will erase you along with the Heaven Gate name and turn it into a forgotten myth.”
Boom!
A geyser of obsidian light roared from the fiend’s body. He became a ragged spear of night, hurtling down to meet Zevon’s oncoming brilliance.
Light and darkness, absolute right and absolute sin, collided above the Nethergate Sect.
The concussion tore sound from the air.
The entire level nine seemed to quake, wailing beneath the impact.
At the epicenter, a sphere of seething power, half radiant gold, half bottomless black, ballooned outward and swallowed dozens of miles of sky. Inside that writhing orb, laws shattered, space fractured, and time staggered out of rhythm.
Two blurred figures danced at speeds no divine sense could follow, trading blows fierce enough to remake worlds.
Each clash unleashed a shock wave fierce enough to wipe a whole metropolis from the map.
Above, the sky split apart. Jagged rents a few kilometers long hung there like festering scars that would never knit together.
The earth bucked in rolling swells. Mountain peaks shattered, rivers bent in new directions, and once-lush woods smoldered into lifeless ash.
“Move! Activate every sect defense formation! Everyone, get to the array core, now!” Neville staggered free of the broken wall; someone must have pulled him out during the chaos.
Blood soaked his robes, yet he forced himself upright and barked orders until his voice cracked. He understood all too well that even a stray ripple from combat at this level could obliterate the survivors without a trace.
The few remaining disciples of the Nethergate Sect bolted toward the heart of the formation, that faintly glowing nexus buried deep inside the compound.
Terror distorted every face. Heads tilted back, they watched the doomsday sky and felt as if gods and devils were at war above their heads.
With Sylvia’s weakening spiritual energy supporting him, Jared retreated to a marginally safer ledge. He could not tear his gaze from the blazing orb of destructive power blooming high overhead.
I finally understand what a true battle between titans looks like…
Compared with this, every fight he had ever survived felt like a child’s scuffle in the dust.
Inside that seething sphere, Zevon pressed two fingers together like a sword. Each thrust carried a pure sword intent to scour evil from the world, an executioner’s blade swung in the name of Heaven Gate Sect’s tribunal.
Across from him, the Soul Devourer whipped both claws. Demonic aura burst into thousands of snarling phantoms, mouths gaping to consume and corrode everything, as though he intended to drag the realm itself into bottomless hell.
“Heaven Gate Sword Art, Myriad Swords Return!” Zevon loosed a ringing howl.
Law-forged swords, hundreds, then thousands, whirled around him, merging into a roaring river of light that shredded demon mist and shot straight for the demon’s brow.
