Chapter 112: The Architect’s Defense
The Aether-Forge was a battlefield of contrasting magic.
The intense rhythmic thrumming of the Void-Core Reactor filled the massive subterranean cavern.
The deep blue and purple energy of the Mythic engine clashed violently with the pulsing crimson light of the Sanguine Grid woven into the bedrock.
Vexia stood perfectly still on the metal catwalk overlooking the reactor. The Sanguine Princess did not move.
Suspended in the air beside her and pinned by four thick spikes of hardened crystallized blood was Revenant Lord Vorian!
The undead noble was a horrifying sight. The thick glowing green stitches securing his severed head to his neck bulged as he thrashed. His purple Abyssal eyes burned with mindless fury.
He roared and his heavy iron-gray armor scraped loudly against the blood spikes. He was a Level 55 Abyssal Knight built to smash shield walls and command undead hordes.
He was completely helpless against the localized blood magic of a Level 65 Epic Blood Sorceress!
Down on the floor of the forge, High Warlock Xoroth was screaming.
The dark mage was pinned to the stone wall by Elara’s celestial spear. The violet twilight fire burning on the blade was actively searing his corrupted flesh.
His midnight blue robes smoldered. The Abyssal Charge he had intended to use on the reactor lay uselessly on the floor ten feet away.
"You cannot hold me!" Vorian roared. His dead voice was a wet guttural rasp that echoed through the cavern. "I am forged in the Abyss! I do not bleed!"
"You don’t need to bleed," Vexia replied smoothly. A cruel aristocratic smile touched her pale lips. She did not even look at the struggling zombie.
She looked down at her perfectly manicured nails. "I control the blood in my tethers. You are just a heavy piece of meat caught in the wire."
The heavy iron doors of the forge slammed open.
Lucifer walked in.
The Warlord did not sprint. He did not rush. He moved with the slow deliberate terrifying cadence of an apex predator returning to its den!
The Warlord aura radiating from his dark armor felt incredibly dense and almost suffocating in the enclosed space. The Heart of Ruin on his hip pulsed a steady violent red.
"Lucifer," Elara said and stepped back from the pinned Warlock to allow the Warlord a clear path. The Eclipse Valkyrie kept her golden eyes locked on the threats.
"They bypassed the outer Pylons using a Mythic-tier Shadow-Step ritual. They targeted the engine."
Lucifer did not stop walking until he reached the base of the raised dais. He looked at the massive Void-Core Reactor.
The blue and purple sphere was humming perfectly and completely untouched.
He turned his void-swirling eyes toward the wall.
High Warlock Xoroth stopped screaming. The mage stared at Lucifer.
Xoroth’s half-burned skull face twisted in absolute unadulterated terror as he felt the crushing weight of the Sovereign’s Eclipse aura hit him!
"You..." Xoroth gasped and coughed up a mouthful of black blood. "You dropped a sun on the Umbral Ridge. You wiped out the Coalition. How... how are you back here so fast?"
"I am the Grand Marshal," Lucifer stated coldly. "I don’t walk when I can step."
Lucifer raised his right hand. The Gauntlet of the Void King crackled with black lightning.
He did not draw a weapon. He simply pointed his iron-clad index finger at the Abyssal Charge lying on the floor near the Warlock’s boots.
"Gravity Crush," Lucifer commanded quietly.
A microscopic black hole materialized directly over the jagged black explosive! The intense localized gravity slammed down.
CRUNCH!
The Abyssal Charge was instantly pulverized! The dense volatile explosive magic was crushed into a completely inert harmless pile of black dust before it could even trigger a spark.
Xoroth stared at the dust. His final desperate backup plan was gone.
Lucifer turned his attention upward. He looked at the metal catwalk.
Vorian was still thrashing against the blood spikes. The Revenant Lord stopped roaring when he saw Lucifer. The mindless purple fire in his eyes flared brighter fueled by an ancient programmed hatred.
"Warlord!" Vorian spat. His severed neck shifted grotesquely against the green stitches. "You severed my head! You stole my vanguard! The King will hang you from the highest tower!"
"The King is currently kneeling on the floor of his throne room, crying over a crushed crown," Lucifer corrected smoothly.
He did not look angry. He looked profoundly annoyed.
"I executed you once, Vorian," Lucifer said with his voice a low resonant rumble. "I wiped out your entire noble house. I fed your successor to the Abyss. And yet, you are still cluttering up my fortress."
"I am immortal!" Vorian shrieked and twisted his heavy body, trying to snap the blood tethers. "The Abyss gave me strength! I will tear your floating rock out of the sky!"
Lucifer looked at Vexia.
"Architect," Lucifer said calmly.
"Yes, Grand Marshal?" Vexia replied and grinned widely. She relished the absolute control she had over the massive undead knight.
"He says he is immortal," Lucifer noted. "Test that theory. I want him dismantled. Carefully."
Vexia’s smile turned feral. "With absolute pleasure."
The Sanguine Princess raised her right hand.
She did not use a spell to explode the Revenant. She used the blood tethers holding him suspended in the air.
"Sanguine Rend," Vexia whispered.
The four thick spikes of crystallized blood piercing Vorian’s shoulders and thighs suddenly expanded! They did not just grow larger.
They grew hundreds of razor-sharp microscopic internal barbs that hooked directly into the undead Lord’s heavy iron-gray armor and rotting flesh.
Vorian gasped with a sickening wet sound.
Vexia slowly and deliberately pulled her hand backward.
The four blood spikes pulled in opposite directions simultaneously.
The physical force exerted by the Level 65 Blood Sorceress was catastrophic! Vorian’s enchanted heavy plate armor began to groan loudly under the immense multidirectional tension.
It was originally designed to withstand ballista bolts and heavy cavalry charges!
"No!" Vorian roared. Panic finally broke through his Abyssal programming.
CRACK!
The heavy iron breastplate ripped open down the center!
Vexia pulled harder.
The sound of tearing metal and snapping undead bone filled the silent Aether-Forge. The blood tethers violently ripped Vorian’s left arm entirely out of its socket! The heavy armored limb flew across the cavern and smashed against the stone wall.
SNAP!
The right leg followed and tore free from the hip joint with a shower of thick foul-smelling black dust!
Vorian’s roaring turned into a high shriek of systems failure. He was an undead siege weapon, but he was being physically disassembled in mid-air!
"You are making a mess on my catwalk," Vexia chided mockingly.
She twisted her wrist.
The two remaining blood tethers snapped upward and downward. They ripped the Revenant Lord’s torso completely in half!
The heavy iron-gray armor and rotting flesh fell apart, tumbled off the catwalk, and crashed heavily onto the stone floor of the forge below.
All that remained suspended in the air was Vorian’s severed head, pinned through the neck by a single thin spike of red blood!
The glowing green stitches were gone. The purple fire in the eyes flickered and died.
[Target Eliminated: Revenant Lord Vorian (Level 55)]
[Status: Absolute Dismemberment.]
Vexia lowered her hand. The blood spike dissolved into crimson mist, and the severed head dropped over the edge. It landed with a dull thud next to the crushed armor.
Lucifer did not blink. The execution was flawless, brutal, and entirely efficient. He had turned a high-tier assassination attempt into a localized cleanup operation!
"The pest is removed, Warlord," Vexia announced smoothly. She hovered down from the catwalk with her red bat wings beating softly and landed beside Elara. She dusted off her hands. "Do you want me to bleed the Warlock, or are you going to use your shiny new gauntlet?"
Lucifer turned his void-swirling eyes toward High Warlock Xoroth.
The dark mage was still pinned to the wall by Elara’s spear. He was shaking violently and his black eyes were wide with absolute primal terror! He had just watched a Level 55 Abyssal Knight get physically ripped apart like wet paper by a vampire.
"You... you cannot kill me," Xoroth stammered desperately. The arrogant slithering tone was completely gone. He was begging. "I have value! I know the Abyssal summoning codes! I know the defensive weaknesses of the Royal Palace! I can give you the King’s personal vault codes!"
Lucifer walked slowly toward the pinned Warlock.
"I already have the King," Lucifer stated coldly. "I already have the vaults. And I don’t need Abyssal summoning codes. I have the Void."
He stopped two feet away from Xoroth. The heat radiating from Elara’s celestial spear was intense, but Lucifer’s dark armor neutralized it.
"You brought a bomb into my engine room," Lucifer said. His voice was a low terrifying rumble that carried the full weight of the Sovereign’s Eclipse aura. "You tried to drop Zephyria out of the sky."
"It was Vorian’s plan!" Xoroth shrieked and pointed a trembling finger at the pile of shattered armor on the floor. "He paid me! I am just a mercenary! I offer services!"
Lucifer did not smile. He did not draw his sword.
"I don’t hire rats," Lucifer said.
He raised his right hand.
He did not use Gravity Crush. He did not use Spatial Rend. He used the most basic fundamental property of his Void Arcanist core!
Lucifer placed his iron-clad palm directly over Xoroth’s face.
"Consume," Lucifer whispered.
The void-swirling magic in Lucifer’s eyes flared violently! A massive singularity opened directly against the Warlock’s skull.
The dark magic did not crush Xoroth. It ate him!
The intense gravitational pull instantly devoured the Warlock’s physical matter, his magical shields, and his mana core. Xoroth did not have time to scream!
In a fraction of a second, his entire body was pulled into the microscopic black hole resting in the palm of Lucifer’s gauntlet!
The Warlock simply ceased to exist.
Lucifer closed his fist. The singularity vanished.
Elara’s violet-flaming spear clattered against the stone wall and fell to the floor.
[Target Eliminated: High Warlock Xoroth (Level 50)]
[Experience Gain Suspended: Mortal Level Cap Reached.]
Lucifer lowered his hand. The black lightning on his gauntlet faded.
The Aether-Forge was quiet again save for the steady rhythmic pulsing of the Void-Core Reactor.
"The trash is cleared," Lucifer announced smoothly. He turned to face Vexia and Elara.
The Sanguine Princess looked at the spot where the Warlock had been. She had seen Lucifer vaporize monsters, but the absolute silent consumption of a Level 50 mage was uniquely terrifying.
"You didn’t even leave ash," Vexia noted softly and crossed her arms.
"Ash is messy," Lucifer replied.
He picked up Elara’s spear and handed it back to the Twilight Sovereign. Elara took the weapon with her golden eyes tracking the steady pulse of the Warlord’s Carnage Core.
"The assassination attempt failed," Elara said and gripped her spear. "But the fact that they bypassed the perimeter means our anti-spatial wards are incomplete.
The Sanguine Grid stops physical and magical breaches, but a Mythic-tier Shadow-Step can still slip through."
"I know," Lucifer agreed. He looked up at the ceiling of the forge. "That is why we are not staying stationary. The King is broken, but the human kingdoms are vast.
We need to solidify our absolute dominance before the other noble houses try to form a second Coalition."
He tapped his comms rune and connected to the observation deck.
"Sarah," Lucifer commanded.
"I am here, Grand Marshal," the Oracle’s voice replied instantly.
"The engine room is secure," Lucifer reported. "Increase altitude to ten thousand feet. Set a course due north. We are moving Zephyria over the center of the continent."
"Understood," Sarah confirmed. "Adjusting navigation grid now."
The massive floating black mountain shuddered slightly as the Void-Core Reactor increased its output. The acceleration was smooth and perfectly stabilized by the Sanguine Ward.
Lucifer turned and walked toward the heavy iron doors leading out of the forge.
He had crushed the Royal Armada. He had claimed the capital. He had executed the last remnants of the Coalition’s leadership in his own basement!
The ground war was over. The sky belonged entirely to Obsidian!
"We are going back to the throne room," Lucifer stated to Elara and Vexia. "It is time to officially announce the new world order."