Chapter 718: Suicidal Sovereign
The centipede commander hissed. The sound was a harsh metallic scrape that made the surrounding air vibrate with toxic energy. It vanished from its spot on the dried riverbed. Its many segmented legs moved so fast that they completely blurred into a dark smear against the grey ash.
Thorne met the charge head on. He swung his broken sword with reckless fury. The dark metal scimitars crashed against the jagged blade of the Sovereign. The impact sent a massive shockwave tearing through the valley, kicking up a dense cloud of ash and dust.
Thorne immediately channeled his Metal laws. His skin took on a dull heavy iron sheen. The Hive commander unleashed a relentless flurry of strikes. Each swing of the dark weapons left a lingering trail of corrosive purple mist in the air. Thorne deflected three heavy strikes but the fourth slipped past his guard and sliced deeply across his ribs. The alien poison immediately began to sizzle and burn against his metallic skin.
Thorne did not even blink at what was clearly a painful injury. He dropped seamlessly into the shadow of the massive commander. He reappeared directly above the towering monster and pointed his fingers downward. The shadows cast by the surrounding rocks violently converged. A massive and thick pillar of condensed shadow and iron shot up from the ground and was aiming to impale the beast.
The centipede commander crossed its scimitars downward and blocked the pillar with difficulty. The beast looked up with its six glowing red eyes and was tracking Thorne through the air. It opened its mandibles and spat a torrent of concentrated green acid.
Thorne fell directly into the center of the acid stream.
He coated his body in a thick layer of metal Qi but the acid was strong. It was incredibly potent. It melted rapidly through his metallic defenses and burned away the flesh on his left arm and shoulder, exposing the white bone underneath.
Thorne once again didn’t seem to react to the excruciating pain at all. He plunged right through the deadly acid stream and landed heavily on the segmented, armored back of the monstrous centipede.
The commander screeched in sudden anger. It twisted its long muscular upper torso completely around to face the old man on its back. It brought both scimitars down in a lethal cross slash aimed right at Thorne's neck.
Thorne stepped forward into the strike. He raised his ruined left arm and intentionally caught the right scimitar. The dark blade cut straight through his forearm bone and lodged deep into his chest and pierced his lung. He reached out and grabbed the left scimitar with his bare right hand, letting the highly toxic metal slice his palm down to the bone.
The Hive commander froze for a fraction of a second and was confused by the suicidal tactic. It tried to pull its weapons free but Thorne locked them in place. That fraction of a second was all Thorne needed.
He had trapped the primary weapons. He gathered every single drop of his remaining Qi into his broken sword that was now floating in the air. The shadows around them violently compressed into the jagged edge of the blade, making it infinitely dark and sharp.
Thorne used his Qi and drove the sword fiercely upward. He pierced the softer joint directly beneath the commander's dripping mandibles. The shadow blade pushed effortlessly through flesh and bone and erupted out the top of the monster's skull. Destroying both its soul and brain in one go.
The six glowing red eyes dimmed instantly. The centipede body thrashed violently for a few seconds, causing small earthquakes before finally collapsing entirely into the grey ash.
Thorne stood victorious over the massive corpse. He coughed up a heavy mouthful of black and poisoned blood. He casually ripped the scimitar out of his chest and tossed it aside. Without saying a single word to Li Yu or Garrick, he stumbled away toward a small outcropping of rocks and sat down heavily to heal.
The remaining Hive Empire forces shrieked in fury. Their powerful commander was dead but they were soldiers driven by command. Thousands of insectoid demons surged forward to overwhelm the group and avenge their fallen leader.
Li Yu stepped up to intercept them. He held his staff firmly in his hands. He couldn’t get involved in the battle just now but he could fight here.
Li Yu leaped high into the air. He brought Star Crusher down in a brutal vertical smash. He did not aim for a specific monster in the crowd. He aimed for the geography itself. The heavy staff struck the exact center of the dried riverbed.
A wave of kinetic force infused with the crushing weight of the void exploded outward. The ground literally flattened under the impact. Hundreds of charging black beetles and scythe armed demons were instantly pulverized into mist under the immense pressure.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting NovelFire for this novel and more.
Garrick roared in deep approval. The Great Sage swung his spiked metal mace in wide and brutal arcs. He did not bother with elegant martial techniques, Li Yu had never even seen him use any yet. He just used his overwhelming physical strength. Every casual swing sent a massive shockwave that turned the flying insects into a fine paste before the blunt spikes even touched them.
More demons poured endlessly over the rocky ridges. Li Yu shifted his stance. He gripped the end of his staff and began to spin it rapidly and was building momentum.
"Second Form." Li Yu called out his voice carrying over the screeching horde. "Sweeping Tsunami."
He unleashed a devastating horizontal strike. He combined the intense centrifugal force of the technique with a massive surge of freezing ice Qi. A sweeping crescent of freezing temperatures and destructive force erupted from his spinning staff. The attack washed over the front lines of the charging army, freezing the monsters entirely solid before the trailing kinetic force shattered them into thousands of harmless icy fragments.
The battle raged on but Li Yu and Garrick were more than a match for the weaker troops. Soon the entire surrounding swarm was completely eradicated. Li Yu opened a small portal to his Koi Sanctuary and vacuumed up the mountains of dead demon bodies, providing excellent high tier food for his internal ecosystem.
They walked over to the rocky outcropping. Thorne was sitting in a growing pool of his own dark blood. He had swallowed several high tier healing pills but his physical condition was still absolutely terrible. His left arm was stripped to the bone in several places from the corrosive acid and a massive bleeding stab wound dominated his chest.
Li Yu offered to help treat him but Thorne rejected everything. It looked like he would attack anyone that got too close to him so Li Yu could only watch the old man. Exactly one hour passed. The wounds had barely stopped bleeding and the flesh was just beginning to knit back together.
Thorne opened his eyes. They were still completely hollow and devoid of any lingering sanity. He grabbed his broken sword and forced himself to his feet. He swayed slightly but his suffocating killing intent immediately flared right back to life. He was nowhere near full strength.
He did not look at Li Yu. He just started walking further into the ruined human domain and was hunting for the next swarm to butcher.
Li Yu sighed softly. He couldn’t help but think how he would react or feel if he had to go through the same that Thorne was going through. He would like to think that he wouldn’t go insane but that was unlikely.
‘I would most likely be just like him if the same things had happened to me… Hopefully seeing this will help me from walking the same path in the future…’ Li Yu thought to himself but was completely unsure.
He sighed again and followed Thorne. Garrick dragged his spiked mace through the ash and was walking right behind Li Yu. They plunged deeper into the madness and were going to continue their chaotic and endless cycle of slaughter.
Far away from the desolate valleys, the main Vanguard of the Demonic Alliance was engaged in an apocalyptic meat grinder.
The sky above the central human territories was completely blacked out by flying Hive demons. The ground was a writhing ocean of dark carapaces and dripping acid that stretched all the way to the horizon.
The five Demon Lords stood at the forefront of the massive army and was leading the charge personally.
Sovereign Morven swung his heavy trident, summoning tidal waves of crushing dark water that drowned and crushed the demons.
Sovereign Ignis was a walking blazing sun. She burned entire legions into ash with casual waves of her gauntleted hands.
Sovereign Zylith called down a continuous forest of purple lightning strikes that vaporized anything they touched.
Sovereign Rathor manipulated the blood of the fallen, creating massive red spikes that impaled the charging swarms.
Sovereign Malos was using his sword to send wave after wave of strikes across the sky. Cutting the demons into pieces and also was helping to lead the troops.
They were pushing steadily toward the dimensional rift in the distance but their overall momentum was drastically slowing down. For every ten thousand demons they managed to kill twenty thousand more poured out of the tear in reality.
The demonic armies fighting behind them were incredibly brave but they were taking heavy casualties as well. The endless numbers of the Hive Empire were threatening to bog the powerful vanguard down completely.
Ignis unleashed another firestorm and panted heavily. The molten glow of her armor dimmed slightly. "There are too many of them! We are burning through our Qi reserves just trying to clear a basic path forward!"
"Keep pushing!" Morven roared while crushing a massive armored beetle beneath his heavy boot. "We must reach that rift before their true leader can cross over!"
Suddenly, the heavy oppressive atmosphere of the battlefield shifted entirely.
A massive storm cloud rolled in from the horizon. It moved with unnatural blistering speed, bringing gale force winds and crackling blue lightning. A terrifying avian screech pierced the chaotic noise of the battlefield.
A colossal bird of prey dove from the storm clouds. It was Aquila, the Falcon King. He flapped his massive wings and unleashed a terrifying hurricane of razor sharp wind blades that completely shredded an entire flanking legion of the flying insect army.
Simultaneously the ground on the eastern front began to liquefy. The dry earth turned into a massive bubbling swamp of highly toxic purple water. A gigantic serpent with hard scales slithered smoothly out of the swamp. It was Seraphis, the Snake King.
Seraphis opened his massive jaws and exhaled a thick and rolling cloud of poisonous mist. The mist rolled aggressively over the Hive Empire forces. The moment it touched the foreign insects their thick chitinous armor sizzled and melted away into useless sludge.
The Beast Kings had finally arrived. Millions of ferocious spiritual beasts charged out of the surrounding forests and crashed directly into the flanks of the Hive Empire. The Demonic Alliance roared in triumph as the tide of the massive war shifted back in their favor.