Chapter 116: The Sovereign’s Duel
The antechamber was bathed in the soft pulsing blue light of the Primary Conduit.
Lucifer stood near the shattered iron doors with his back turned to the gruesome scene.
The crushed remains of Lord Vorian lay motionless in the center of the room.
High Warlock Xoroth huddled pathetically against the far wall. The dark mage was completely blind and his face heavily scarred by the Starlight Purge.
His midnight blue robes were charred rags. He trembled violently and listened to the heavy echoing footsteps of the Warlord.
"I gave you the codes!" Xoroth shrieked. His voice cracked with desperate panic. "I gave the Oracle everything! The palace anti-magic dome is down! The King is completely exposed! You promised me life!"
Lucifer did not stop walking. He did not turn around.
"I promised to extract your mind," Lucifer corrected smoothly. His voice carried the cold absolute resonance of the Void. "I never promised you life."
He stopped at the threshold of the ruined doorway.
"Sarah," Lucifer commanded.
The Star-Touched Oracle stood directly in front of the cowering Warlock. She did not hold her Scepter of Cosmic Alignment like a delicate holy relic.
She held it like an executioner’s staff! The starlight radiating from her hair had lost its gentle warmth. It burned with a harsh unforgiving intensity.
"The codes are verified, Grand Marshal," Sarah reported with her musical voice completely flat. "The Royal Defense Grid is deactivated. The palace is open."
"Excellent," Lucifer stated. He did not look back. "Finish it."
Xoroth realized the execution was imminent!
The cowardice vanished and was instantly replaced by the raw manic desperation of a cornered animal. If he was going to die, he was not going to die quietly.
"I am a master of the deep dark!" Xoroth screamed.
The blind Warlock slammed his bloody hands against the white marble floor. He did not try to cast a fireball or a shadow bind.
He bypassed standard evocation magic entirely and tapped directly into the darkest most forbidden sector of his Level 50 core.
He initiated a desperate suicidal Abyssal summoning!
[System Warning: Forbidden Magic Detected!]
[Class: Dark Magus (Level 50)]
[Action: Unbound Demonic Manifestation.]
The marble floor around Xoroth instantly turned pitch black! A thick corrosive pool of liquid shadow rapidly expanded and ate into the pristine stone. The smell of burning sulfur and rotting meat flooded the antechamber.
"He is tearing a rift to the Abyss!" Elara shouted and raised her violet-flaming spear. The Valkyrie stepped forward.
Her Twilight wings flared defensively to protect Sarah. "He is trying to pull a Greater Demon through!"
"Let him try," Lucifer said softly.
He did not order Elara to strike. He did not order Sarah to cast another Starlight Purge.
Lucifer turned around.
He looked at the frantic Warlock. The pool of liquid shadow was expanding rapidly and bubbling with chaotic violent dark energy.
A massive black claw was already beginning to push its way out of the portal, reaching for the mortal plane!
Lucifer unhooked the translucent shimmering short blade from his dark leather belt.
The Blade of the Sovereign’s Duel hummed with ancient authoritative Law-magic!
He did not activate Void Step or Zephyr’s Grace. He simply raised the short blade and pointed it directly at the frantic chanting Warlock.
"High Warlock Xoroth," Lucifer declared. His voice cut entirely through the roaring of the Abyssal portal. "I challenge you to a Sovereign’s Duel."
[System: Law-Weapon Activated.]
[Initiating Sovereign’s Duel.]
[Target 1: Lucifer of Obsidian (Level 50 - Void Monarch)]
[Target 2: High Warlock Xoroth (Level 50 - Dark Magus)]
The shimmering blade did not shatter like it had with Isolde. Lucifer had mastered the artifact’s resonance.
A blinding ring of pure white light erupted from the tip of the weapon. It shot across the room and instantly encircled the Warlock.
The physical world vanished.
The ruined antechamber, the glowing Primary Conduit, the blood-soaked marble floor, and the expanding Abyssal portal completely disappeared! Elara and Sarah were gone.
Lucifer and Xoroth materialized inside the pocket dimension.
It was the same vast perfectly flat arena of flawless white marble. The sky was an endless expanse of neutral swirling gray mist. The air was perfectly still.
[System: Pocket Dimension Established.]
[Rules of Engagement:]
[- No external interference.]
[- No environmental hazards.]
[- Combat ends upon elimination or absolute submission.]
Xoroth stumbled and fell onto the white marble.
The Warlock was completely disoriented. The massive pool of liquid shadow and the Greater Demon he had been summoning were gone! The Law-Weapon strictly enforced a neutral battlefield. Any spell relying on external environmental factors or dimensional rifts was instantly nullified.
"Where... where am I?!" Xoroth shrieked and blindly clawed at the smooth floor. He could sense the sudden absolute isolation.
"You are in the box," Lucifer answered.
The Warlord stood thirty feet away. He did not draw his ruby-red longsword. He casually sheathed the Blade of the Sovereign’s Duel.
He stood completely unarmed!
Xoroth heard Lucifer’s voice. The dark mage scrambled to his feet. His burned eyeless face twisted with manic fury.
"You stripped my portal!" Xoroth roared. He raised his trembling hands and desperately tried to pull on the ambient magic of the dimension. "But I am still a Level 50 Magus! I do not need a demon to flay you alive!"
Xoroth channeled every ounce of his remaining dark mana into a single highly concentrated offensive spell!
"Void Lance!" the Warlock screamed.
A massive six-foot-long spear of pure crackling black energy materialized between his hands! He hurled it directly at the sound of Lucifer’s voice.
The spell ripped through the silent air with terrifying speed. It possessed enough penetrative force to punch through a castle wall.
Lucifer did not move. He did not raise his hands to block.
He activated the Zephyr’s Grace Emblem!
The world slowed to an absolute crawl. The black Void Lance hung suspended in the air, inching toward him.
Lucifer stepped casually to the left and let the massive crackling spear pass harmlessly by his shoulder.
He did not wait for the spell to hit the invisible wall of the arena. He deactivated the speed emblem and instantly engaged his Void Arcanist core!
"Void Step."
Lucifer vanished.
He materialized flawlessly directly behind Xoroth! He did not give the Warlock a fraction of a second to react.
Lucifer raised his right hand. The Gauntlet of the Void King did not crackle with black lightning. He wasn’t using spatial magic to crush the mage. He was using the raw physical dominance he had absorbed from the Winter Sovereign!
He wrapped his heavy iron-clad fingers entirely around the back of Xoroth’s neck!
The Warlock gasped. It was a pathetic choking sound as the immense vice-like grip completely immobilized his spine.
"The duel is over," Lucifer whispered directly into the Warlock’s ear.
He did not ask for a submission. He did not offer mercy.
Lucifer simply squeezed his fist!
The physical strength of a Level 50 Warlord, combined with the permanent ten percent stat boost of a Royal Dragon, was absolute!
CRUNCH!
Xoroth’s neck snapped instantly! The spine shattered into powder under the iron gauntlet. The Warlock’s body went completely limp with his arms dropping uselessly to his sides.
The entire duel from the moment they entered the pocket dimension to the execution had lasted exactly 0.5 seconds.
[Target Eliminated: High Warlock Xoroth (Level 50)]
[System: Sovereign’s Duel Concluded.]
[Victor: Lucifer of Obsidian.]
[Reward: 10% of Target’s Base Stats permanently absorbed.]
A sudden intense rush of raw cold energy flowed from the broken corpse. It rushed directly up Lucifer’s arm and sank deeply into his Void Monarch core!
His magical capacity expanded slightly. His innate spellcasting speed sharpened. The system forcibly transferred ten percent of a Level 50 Dark Magus’s base magical stats permanently into Lucifer’s repertoire!
[System Alert: High-Value Loot Drop Detected.]
[Item Acquired: Grimoire of the Dead.]
[Tier: Legendary Spellbook]
[Effect: Grants the user the ability to raise and command a Legion of Undead. Subordinates scale with user’s Intelligence stat.]
A heavy bone-bound book materialized in the air above the corpse. It glowed with a sickly pulsing green light.
Lucifer let go of the Warlock’s neck. Xoroth’s lifeless body slumped to the pristine white marble floor.
Lucifer looked at the glowing Grimoire.
In his past life, entire kingdoms would have gone to war for an artifact capable of raising an undead legion! It was the ultimate necromancer’s tool.
Lucifer opened his Dimensional Vault.
He casually snatched the Grimoire of the Dead out of the air and tossed it carelessly into the dark spatial rift.
He let it land somewhere in the massive pile of rusted swords and low-tier armor he had scavenged from the Scourgelands.
He did not need an army of rotting zombies. He had an army of indestructible mechs and dragons! The Grimoire was just another piece of trash for his hoard.
The white marble arena shattered.
The gray sky dissolved into nothingness. The pocket dimension collapsed and returned him instantly to the real world.
Lucifer materialized back in the antechamber.
The ruined room was exactly as he had left it a fraction of a second ago. Elara and Sarah stood near the Primary Conduit. Their weapons were still raised and completely unaware that a duel had even taken place!
The lifeless broken body of High Warlock Xoroth materialized on the floor at Lucifer’s feet. A loud heavy thud echoed in the quiet room.
Elara blinked. The Valkyrie looked at the dead Warlock, then up at Lucifer. She lowered her violet-flaming spear.
"He is dead," Elara noted. Genuine shock laced her voice. "He didn’t even cast his portal. You... you erased him from the room and dropped his corpse back down in the blink of an eye."
"He was slow," Lucifer stated smoothly. He adjusted his heavy iron gauntlets.
Sarah stepped forward and looked down at the Warlock’s body. She did not look horrified. She looked profoundly relieved!
The man who had chained her to an altar and tried to blow up her home was permanently removed from existence.
"The threat is neutralized," Sarah said quietly. She looked up at Lucifer with her starlight eyes shining with absolute devotion. "The city is safe."
"The city was always safe," Lucifer corrected her.
He turned his back on the corpses. He walked out of the antechamber and headed for the high balcony that overlooked the burning capital.
"The codes are verified," Lucifer announced. His voice echoed back to his commanders. "The Royal Palace’s anti-magic dome is down. The King is entirely unprotected."
He stepped out onto the balcony. The freezing high-altitude wind whipped his dark leather tunic.
Miles below, the Sanctum of Solaris was a chaotic mess of smoke and running soldiers! The millions of Royal Guards who had surrendered on the plains were currently marching into the capital under the watchful terrifying gaze of the Titans.
They were effectively occupying their own city for the Warlord.
But Lucifer’s eyes were locked on the massive central white marble palace.
The glowing blue dome that had protected the Royal keep for centuries was completely gone! It was deactivated by the codes Sarah had ripped from Xoroth’s mind.
"Elara. Lyra," Lucifer commanded over the comms rune. "Meet me at the palace."
Lucifer stepped off the edge of the floating mountain! He plummeted toward the exposed palace, ready to personally deliver the final eviction notice to the King.