Published at 5th of April 2023 6:56 pm

Chapter 400 Go Further Beyond

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“Tch,” Excelsior clicked her tongue, “…Looks like the worst case scenario came true: the rumors are true, it seems. Darkness is immortal within the shadows.”

“Immortal? How the hell is that fair?” He asked, readying himself.

“Nothing is. We just have to struggle until we win–somehow or another,” Excelsior tiredly said.

“Don’t need to tell me that,” he responded.

In the face of the primordial aspect, surrounded by humming darkness and only having the assurance of one another, it was a daunting obstacle before them.

Through the veil of the abyss that swarmed the domain, the entity repeatedly appeared out of nowhere around them, unleashing unseen attacks as they fought back and countered to the best of their abilities. It wasn’t just slashes; forces of gravity and pressure were invoked by the pointing of Darkness’ finger.

“Gyuh–!”

As Excelsior was on the receiving end of the entity’s point, blood was spat from her throat, leaking down from her nose before Emilio aided her with a wave of flames that repelled the entity.

“Hhgh!”

Though at the same time he swept an azure blaze in the form of draconic jaws against it–[“Wyvern Snap”]–Darkness pointed at him as well, unleashing a crushing force that momentarily contracted his stomach, squeezing his organs. He could feel the skin on his abdomen being forcibly twisted along with the vital pieces of his body within, crushing his robes and churning his stomach.

Fortunately, the flaming jaws managed to force the entity back before his internal organs were completely twisted into a brutal spiral within him.

Blood spilled from his mouth, though the mastery of healing magecraft he had allowed him to quickly mend himself in unison with his Undying Blood, though still affected by the pain in his intestines.

For a split-second, he saw something above the tall, skeletal figure; attached to its bones and the cloak it wore appeared to be thin, almost invisible threads.

“Hey, have you noticed it?” He asked.

“What is it?” Excelsior responded, wiping the blood from her nose.

He watched Darkness carefully before the mist of shadows obscured the entity again, standing on guard and ready, “I think its body is puppeteered by the darkness around it…Almost like it itself is just a vessel for the true ‘Darkness’ around it.”

Excelsior looked at him for a moment with her lips agape before seeming to get it, “I see what you’re getting at…Yeah, that makes sense. You’re saying all of this dark shit around us–that’s the true form of this asshole?”

“Bingo…still, I don’t know how that helps us,” he said.

“We’ll figure it out as we go! Improvisation!” Excelsior called out.

“Right–well if it’s unkillable within the shadows, we need to blow them away!” Emilio said, “I’m going to focus on large-scale attacks, so be careful! It doesn’t seem to like my fire very much, so we’ll use that!”

“Do your thing, Dragonheart! I trust ya to make the right choice,” Excelsior said, rushing in.

While he stayed back, Excelsior held the entity at bay while he began riling up the fire within him, spurring a pillar of bright-blue fire around himself that swept away the nearby shadows.

‘As long as it’s enveloped in the shadows, we won’t be able to kill it. But if I blow all of the darkness away in one attack…It should work,’ he planned.

If it was a massive reach of destructive flames needed, he was the one for it, able to quickly muster up a storm of fire around himself that spiraled violently like a tornado, acting almost like a beacon amidst the abyss.

What he gathered at the palms of his hands was a coalescence of fire that surpassed the limitations of his own magecraft; bolstered by his mastery of wind as the temperature skyrocketed and the quantity of the blaze multiplied. Though wild and without shape or form, the roaring riptides of inferno were dragged down into one point, brought together before his hands.

The result was a force he condensed into a sphere between his hands, having to plant his feet against the ground and strain himself to control it.

[Draconic Might]

Calling upon his complete strength was needed as he crushed the colossal fireball into a sizable ball of destruction; he needed to produce tens of thousands of tons of strength to push it down, all while containing it from exploding directly in front of him.

The chaotic sphere of swirling, azure fire rotated wildly between his hands, constantly emitting heat waves that lashed through the air with blazing slashes. Embers constantly spiraled around him like a violent rainfall, generated from the blackhole of heat.

If thrown at a city, there was no doubt it’d be able to reduce everything within the cityscape to cinder; such power was the honed and controlled destructive of his system–a technique solely focused on mass-scale destruction: [“Dragonheart: Ultima Fireball”]

All there was left to do was wait for the woman’s signal, though every passing second was an agonizing eternity for him as he used every ounce of concentration to contain the fireball.

Clashing against the entity, Excelsior summoned her bronze, polished shield that resembled a mirror in its shine: “Aegis!”

‘Aegis–the shield of Perseus; it specializes in stopping intangible attacks, blocking concepts themselves. It’s my best bet against a foe like this!’ She thought.

Even if she could defend against the unseen attacks of Darkness, they still took their toll, forcing her to strain herself to keep the shield straight as it was repeatedly slammed by the abyssal maledictions.

Finding an opening, Excelsior transcended from her current stage as her snow-white armor reshaped itself, becoming bulkier as the helm resembled that of an amalgamation of a deer and fox, changing from a white complexion to an amber material.

[Current Stage: 6/10 | Mythical Huntress]

“Ragnarok!”

Shaping through primal embers, a sword of flame and cinder came into Excelsior’s grip, possessing a length akin to a claymore before being swept forward with the heat of Surtr.

Jab.

At the same time as the tidal wave of flames carved forth, Darkness pointed forward, blasting Excelsior back with a pressure that caved in her chest with a crunch of her ribs.

“Ghh–!” Excelsior spit out.

Being blasted back, the woman didn’t fail to give the signal to the man who waited behind, wielding the blackhole that siphoned a cataclysmic heat.

“Do your thing!” Excelsior spat the words out, catching herself with a manifestation of pegasus wings.

With the signal given and the woman being a fair distance away from where the entity was last at, Emilio didn’t waste a moment finally raising the condensed, ultimate fireball up. The wind spiraled around him, intertwined deeply with the aspect of fire itself into an air unbreathable by anybody but him.

Tossing it forth with all the strength in his arm, he released the draconic blackhole forth as it carved a path forward: it tunneled through the dark mist, absorbing the shadows in its path with unreachable temperatures.

As it reached the location where the entity skulked, he clenched his fist shut while gritting his teeth, causing the sphere to finally expand from its condensed state–

BOOOOOOOOM

A colossal sphere of destruction emerged, still kept contained through the Dragonheart’s will not to destroy everything around, though the spiraling heat undoubtedly swept away the darkness around it.

–Everything shook as though a region-wide earthquake had taken hold of the land, causing the boundless, shallow sea to vigorously shake along with the ceiling far above.

“Ha-ha! Now that’s some firepower, Emilio-boy!” Excelsior remarked, holding her stomach.

It was a true showing of destructive power; a force that echoed and hummed with the melody of ruination, casting away the overbearing darkness that had engulfed them. A monumental focus of cataclysmic power; a swirl that encapsulated a pressure capable of crushing steel into ash, and heat easily able to burn diamond into ash.

There was a hefty requirement of control needed to make sure the demolition stayed controlled, having to control the boundaries of the black hole of heat as not to have the land collapse in around them.

As the blinding flash of sublime azure dwindled into an end, leaving bountiful, colorful steam that intertwined with the mist, he breathed out. After unleashing and having to control such a potent creation, he felt his arm tremble as a biting pain shot through his limb.

“Nngh…” He quietly let out, holding his left arm.

“Are you alright?” Excelsior asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.

He nodded, “…Did we get it?”

“If you have to ask that…” Excelsior began to say.

He let out a tired sigh, straightening himself out as he rolled his shoulder a few times, squeezing his fist as he forced his arm back into shape, “Yeah, I know. It wouldn’t be that easy.”

Despite the great void of fire having wiped away the black mist and assuredly crushed the Primordial aspect, that eerie feeling never died out as cracks began to form across the shallow sea.

Through the cracks, the abyss poured out, rising as the pitch darkness rebuilt itself into the malignant entity. Bones creaked, joints popped into place, and the murmurs of ancient tongues emitted like maledictions from the freakish being.

“Can you go higher than that stage?” Excelsior asked.

Reinforcing herself, the silver-haired woman toughened the amber-tinged armor around her body, invoking [“Basilisk”] to create stone-like armor around her fists and feet.

“I don’t like tapping into it much, but…I’ve got something higher, yeah,” Emilio responded.

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