Chapter 172: Invasion (Part 4)
The situation looked too bleak.
But there might be one opportunity—if he could make Valdris believe he’d surrendered, create a moment of vulnerability, and exploit it with everything he had.
"Wait!" Rey shouted, raising his hands in apparent surrender. "Stop! I’ll cooperate! Just... don’t kill any more of my people!"
Valdris paused, his expression showing interest rather than suspicion.
"You’re the one who destroyed my first Divine Beast," he observed. "Your capabilities exceed normal Nephilim standards significantly. Who trained you? How did you achieve Sequence #1 mastery at such young age?"
"I’ll tell you everything," Rey replied, his voice carrying convincing desperation. "Just promise you won’t harm the survivors. They’re not your enemy—they’re just defending their home."
Valdris considered the offer with visible calculation.
"Acceptable. Surrender completely, provide the information I seek, and I’ll allow non-combatant survivors to receive treatment."
He gestured toward Elara, who stood beside Rey with obvious injuries from the earlier Divine Beast encounter.
"Starting with her. She’s severely wounded. Surrender now, and I’ll stabilize her condition before it deteriorates further."
Elara looked at Rey with confusion mixed with desperate hope. She wanted to believe the Devil would honor his word, that cooperation might save lives.
Rey met her gaze, his expression showing what appeared to be anguished decision-making.
Then he activated every Tier 10 Artifact simultaneously and committed his entire remaining Ether pool to a single devastating attack.
"Chaos Art, Entropy Technique, Sequence #0: Anti-Life Genesis!"
The Forbidden Sequence activated with power that made reality itself scream. This wasn’t just entropy—this was the concept of life’s opposite made manifest, existence negation operating at the highest possible level.
The technique detonated point-blank, centered on Valdris’s position but with area-of-effect radius that included Elara.
Rey had deliberately targeted both of them.
Elara’s eyes widened in shock and betrayal as she realized what Rey had done. He’d used her as bait, positioned her close to Valdris specifically so she’d be caught in the blast when he executed his true attack.
"But... why—"
Her words cut off as Anti-Life Genesis consumed her.
Her physical body, her soul, her consciousness—all of it simply ceased to exist, annihilated at fundamental levels that prevented even mystical resurrection.
The woman who’d admired Rey, who’d fought beside him, who’d developed feelings for him over their expedition together—
Died without understanding why her prophesied champion had killed her.
Valdris weathered the attack with significantly more success, his Devil-tier capabilities and Divine-grade equipment providing protection that Elara had lacked. But even he was damaged, his Ethereal Form technique disrupted by entropy operating at Sequence #0, forcing him back into vulnerable physical manifestation.
"Ruthless," Valdris stated, his voice carrying genuine surprise. "You sacrificed your own ally to create an opening against me. Most practitioners lack the conviction for such cold calculation."
Blood ran from wounds across Valdris’s body—the first time he’d been injured since entering the Sanctuary. His black sclera made his expression difficult to read, but his body language suggested respect mixed with grim determination.
"Impressive capability. Forbidden Sequence execution at your age demonstrates exceptional talent. Under different circumstances, I might have recruited you for Archduke service."
Rey had actually considered surrendering.
After all, he was no match for someone of this Devil’s capabilities.
But then he remembered he was a Nephilim—someone regarded as cursed in Nether society. There was also the fact that he was already wanted for the Desgarron Incident as well as the Black Market saga. He had even caused the deaths of three Category S Guards.
Perhaps this Devil didn’t know all the details yet, but if he soul-searched him, the truth was bound to come to light.
Besides, if he were taken to the surface and thoroughly investigated, it would all be over.
Thus, surrendering was not an option.
He had to fight!
The Devil raised one hand, mystical energy gathering with lethal intent.
"Too bad you’ve chosen defiance over cooperation. And that choice has consequences."
"Null Art, Erasure Technique, Sequence #0: Existence Deletion!"
Rey tried to dodge, tried to activate defensive Artifacts, tried to do anything that might save him from the attack he knew was coming.
But Valdris was a Devil, and the gap between their capabilities remained insurmountable despite Rey’s impressive showing.
The technique struck Rey directly, and his body simply ceased to exist. Not destroyed or dissolved—deleted from reality at the conceptual level, erased as though he’d never been present.
Valdris stood over where Rey had been moments before, analyzing the combat results with professional detachment.
"Waste of potential," he murmured. "You could have accomplished significant things if you’d chosen cooperation over—"
He stopped mid-sentence, his enhanced perception detecting something wrong about Rey’s dissolution.
The mystical signature had been... incomplete.
As though he’d erased a construction rather than an actual living being.
"A clone," Valdris realized with cold fury. "That wasn’t the real practitioner. It was a duplicate sent to delay me while the original—"
"ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!!!"
A roar shook the Sanctuary.
Not a sound exactly, but a pressure wave of pure mystical force that transcended normal acoustic phenomena. It resonated through the Labyrinth’s depths, through the ancient stone, through the very fabric of reality itself.
Every Nephilim still fighting, every Divine Beast still hunting, every consciousness still present in the Sanctuary—all of them recognized what that roar signified.
The Prince of Darkness.
The Tier 5 Chaos Dweller that had ruled the Labyrinth’s depths for millennia, that had destroyed an ancient civilization, that even the Nephilim feared to confront—
Was approaching.
And it was coming toward the Sanctuary.
Valdris’s eyes widened in genuine alarm, his wings spreading reflexively as combat instincts screamed warnings.
"The Prince of Darkness," he whispered, his multiple-toned voice carrying shock. "He drew the Prince of Darkness here deliberately. Used my assault on the Sanctuary to—"
Another roar, closer now, carrying mystical pressure that made even Valdris’s Devil-tier capabilities feel suddenly inadequate.
"You fool!" Valdris shouted toward where Rey’s clone had been, knowing the real practitioner could likely hear him through mystical connection. "The Prince will slaughter everyone! Not just me—your Nephilim allies, your Sanctuary, everything you’ve built here! Is this what you want?!"
Silence answered him.
Rey—the real Rey, wherever he was hidden—offered no response.
Only the approaching presence of the Prince of Darkness, growing stronger with each passing moment.
Valdris analyzed the mystical signature with techniques operating at the peak of his capabilities, and what he detected made his blood run cold.
"No," he breathed, horror replacing his earlier confidence. "That’s... that’s not Tier 5. The pressure, the density, the fundamental nature of the Chaos Energy—"
The Prince of Darkness had evolved.
Not just grown stronger within its tier, but transcended classification entirely.
What approached the Sanctuary wasn’t a Tier 5 Chaos Dweller.
It was Tier 4.
A category of power that shouldn’t exist here, according to contemporary understanding.
One that hadn’t been documented in living memory.
It represented evolution into something that approached the legendary entities from ancient times.
And it was heading directly toward them.
Drawn by the conflict, by the mystical energy expenditure, by the presence of a Devil whose power rivaled its own.
Valdris stared toward the passages leading deeper into the Labyrinth, watching as reality itself began distorting under the Prince’s approaching presence.
"What have you done?" he whispered.
But Rey offered no answer.
Only the approaching roar of the Prince of Darkness, growing louder with each passing second.