Chapter 94: The Toll for Betrayal
Lucifer drove his fist directly into the center of the indestructible Royal Ward.
The Gauntlet of the Void King did not hit the golden barrier with a concussive shockwave. It hit it with absolute spatial disruption.
CRACK.
The sound was not shattering glass; it was the agonizing shriek of raw magic being violently ripped apart at the molecular level.
Black lightning spiderwebbed across the flawless golden surface of the Dimensional Lock.
Lucifer didn’t just punch the ward. He grabbed it.
The dark metal fingers of the Mythic gauntlet sank deep into the glowing runes. He curled his fingers into a tight fist, locking his grip onto the invisible magical matrix holding the barrier together.
"Spatial Rend," Lucifer commanded.
He planted his boots on the invisible spatial highway, twisted his torso, and yanked his arm backward with every ounce of his Level 50 Warlord strength.
The massive, impenetrable golden wall bowed inward.
The hundreds of Royal Archmages on the other side of the portal, standing safely behind the Cryo-Pylons in the mortal plane, screamed in sudden, agonizing feedback.
The sheer physical torque Lucifer applied to the spell tore the mana directly from their cores.
The golden barrier shattered.
It exploded into a million harmless, glowing shards of light that rained down over the Vanguard.
The swirling, bruised-purple portal to the Citadel of Obsidian was completely clear.
Through the rift, Lucifer could see the terrified faces of the Coalition mages scrambling backward in the snow, realizing their ultimate lock had just been ripped off its hinges by bare hands.
"The gate is open!" High Ranger Celeste roared, her dire wolf barking in triumph.
The thirteen million mortal soldiers of the Crusade erupted in a deafening cheer of absolute relief. They surged forward, ready to pour through the portal and escape the collapsing Umbral Plane.
"Halt!" Lucifer’s voice boomed over the comms rune, laced with the crushing gravity of Sovereign’s Weight.
The massive army stopped instantly, fifty yards from the swirling rift.
Lucifer did not lower his right hand. The Gauntlet of the Void King continued to crackle with violent black lightning.
He didn’t step through the portal. He looked back at Elara and Lyra, who had sprinted up the spatial highway to join him at the front.
"They think they locked me in," Lucifer stated smoothly. A dark, terrifying smile spread across his face.
He watched the cowardly nobles and mages fleeing across the snowy plains of his home. "They think they can just run away when their trap fails."
"You are not going to let them run," Elara realized, her Twilight wings shifting eagerly. The Eclipse Valkyrie gripped her violet-flaming spear.
"No," Lucifer said. "I locked them in with me."
He raised his right arm, pointing the black-lightning-wreathed Gauntlet directly through the portal, targeting the distant, retreating Coalition forces.
Lucifer channeled his Archmage-level Void Arcanist mana into the Mythic artifact. He didn’t use it to rewrite the portal’s destination. He used the Gauntlet’s absolute dominion over space to reach across the dimensions.
[System Warning: Massive Spatial Override Detected!]
[Skill Triggered: Distance Negation + Absolute Crush.]
[Targeting: Coalition Forces (Quantity: 50,000+)]
"You want the Umbral Plane so badly," Lucifer whispered, his void-swirling eyes turning pitch black. "Have it."
Lucifer clenched his iron-clad fist and pulled backward.
On the other side of the dimensional barrier, outside the Citadel of Obsidian, the trap was sprung.
The fifty thousand surviving Coalition soldiers, the nobles, the mages, the heavily armored knights were retreating rapidly.
They were trudging through the thick snow, desperate to escape the Warlord’s reach.
Suddenly, the air around them screamed.
A massive, invisible hand of pure gravity slammed into their backs.
"What is happening?!" a Royal General shrieked as his heavy warhorse was violently yanked backward, its hooves losing all traction on the frozen earth.
The siege ballistas, the heavy supply wagons, and the armored knights didn’t just slide backward. They were lifted into the air.
The Warlord’s gravitational pull was absolute. It dragged the entire fifty-thousand-strong army backward across the snow, accelerating them to terrifying speeds.
They flew through the air, screaming in unadulterated panic, completely helpless against the spatial vacuum.
They were pulled directly into the massive, swirling purple rift hovering above the Citadel courtyard.
Back in the Umbral Plane, Lucifer stood perfectly still.
He watched the chaotic, horrifying waterfall of screaming men and heavy armor falling in reverse.
The Coalition army was sucked through the portal, flying past Lucifer and crashing heavily onto the invisible spatial highway of the dying dimension.
The impact was brutal. Dozens of heavily armored knights smashed against the hardened spatial magic of the floor. Heavy siege engines tumbled through the rift, crushing the screaming mages beneath them.
In less than a minute, the snowy plains outside the Citadel were completely empty.
The entire Coalition army was now piled in a massive, bruised, and terrified heap on the invisible bridge, directly in front of the Vanguard they had just tried to kill.
Lucifer closed his fist. The black lightning on the Gauntlet faded. The massive gravitational pull instantly ceased.
The Royal General groaned, pushing himself up from the pile of tangled bodies and broken shields. He looked around.
He saw the swirling, bruised-purple sky. He saw the gray Fog of Deceit boiling as the dimension tore itself apart. He realized he was no longer in the mortal plane.
He looked up and saw Lucifer standing between him and the exit.
"No," the General sobbed, his face completely pale. He fell to his knees. "No, please! We yield! The King ordered us to seal the gate! We had no choice! Have mercy!"
Lucifer projected his voice, amplifying it with Void magic so it boomed across the screaming, trapped Coalition army.
"The toll for betrayal is death," Lucifer announced. His voice was a low, resonant rumble of absolute, terrifying finality.
He didn’t draw his sword. He didn’t order the Paladin-Mechs to fire.
Lucifer simply raised his boot.
He looked down at the section of the invisible spatial highway where the fifty thousand Coalition soldiers were groveling.
He isolated the magic maintaining that specific grid of the floor.
Lucifer stomped his iron boot down.
"Spatial Rend," Lucifer commanded.
He didn’t tear a portal. He severed the bridge.
The invisible floor beneath the Coalition army shattered like a pane of glass. The spatial magic maintaining gravity simply switched off.
The Royal General didn’t even have time to scream.
The fifty thousand elite troops, the mages, the nobles, and the heavy siege engines instantly plummeted straight down into the lightless, endless abyss of the Umbral Plane.
They fell into the boiling gray fog, disappearing into the dark void in seconds.
The slaughter was entirely bloodless, but perfectly absolute.
[System: Hostile Forces Eliminated.]
Lucifer stood at the new edge of the severed highway.
He looked down into the fog.
"They are gone," Lyra whispered, her blue eyes wide. The Dawn Saintess lowered her silver broadsword. "The entire Coalition... erased. You didn’t even leave bodies to bury."
"I don’t have time to dig graves, Saintess," Lucifer replied coldly. He hooked his thumbs into his dark leather belt. "I have a city to lift."
He looked past his commanders, out over the massive, thirteen-million-strong Crusade standing on the invisible spatial highway.
The mortal soldiers were dead silent. They had seen the Warlord drag an army across dimensions just to drop them into the abyss.
They fully realized the terrifying, absolute power of the man holding their contracts.
Any lingering doubts about the twenty percent Fate Energy tax were completely annihilated. The Warlord of Obsidian was a living god of war, and they were infinitely grateful to be standing on his side of the portal.
"The exit is clear," Lucifer announced, his voice carrying effortlessly over the silent army. "The Umbra is collapsing. We march."
"Move the column!" Celeste roared, her voice cracking the stunned silence. She spurred her dire wolf, waving her silver dagger. "Vanguard, advance! Keep the pace! Do not look down!"
The rhythmic loud thunder of thirteen million iron boots hitting the invisible floor resumed.
The massive, golden army poured toward the stable purple portal. The Solaris Templars marched through first, their heavy tower shields lowered. The Phantom Rangers followed, slipping seamlessly through the rift.
The transition was rapid. Lucifer’s Warlord aura stabilized the spatial pressure, allowing the massive column to cross back into the mortal plane without suffering the severe disorientation of the dimension shift.
Lucifer stood by the portal, acting as the anchor.
He watched the endless stream of soldiers, the heavy transport wagons overflowing with unrefined Umbral Ore step through the doorway.
The physical laws of the Umbral Plane were screaming louder now.
The Eclipse Convergence was officially over. The gray Fog of Deceit was boiling, turning into a violent, chaotic storm of raw Void magic.
Massive, floating islands of black rock and petrified wood were colliding and shattering in the distance as the anti-gravity completely failed.
The dimension was tearing itself apart, violently rejecting the foreign holy light of the Crusade.
"The rearguard is through, Lucifer," Elara reported. The Valkyrie was the last commander standing on the invisible highway. Her Twilight wings shifted, deflecting a chunk of falling debris.
"The army is entirely on the mortal plane."
"Go," Lucifer ordered.
Elara did not hesitate. She stepped through the purple rift, vanishing into the crisp mountain air of the Citadel.
Lucifer was the last living entity in the collapsing sector of the Umbra.
He looked out over the dying dimension. He had stripped it of its ore, slaughtered its apex predators, and harvested its primordial fragments.
He had fed his Carnage Core to maximum capacity and acquired Mythic gear that broke the leveling system.
The Warlord smirked. It was a cold, highly satisfied expression.
He turned his back on the dark.
Lucifer stepped through the portal.
The moment his iron boots touched the snow-covered courtyard of the Citadel of Obsidian, he reached back with his Gauntlet of the Void King.
"Spatial Rend," Lucifer whispered.
He clenched his fist and violently crushed the invisible spatial tethers holding the portal open.
The massive, swirling purple rift collapsed instantly. It shrank into a single, blinding spark of dark energy and vanished with a sharp, echoing pop.
The connection to the Umbral Plane was permanently severed.
Lucifer stood in the center of his fortress. The sun was shining brightly in the clear blue sky, the Eclipse Convergence entirely finished.
He looked at his massive, perfectly disciplined army filling the courtyard and spilling out onto the frozen plains.
The fifty thousand Glacial Wyrms roosted on the high black-stone walls.
The Warlord had returned. Now, it was time to ascend.