Chapter 60 - 060. End Of A War
Ren stared down at the weeping handless Demon King kissing his boots.
The sight disgusted him profoundly.
This creature was nothing but a cowardly, traumatized bully hiding behind spatial tricks.
’And unfortunately for him... I hate bullies very much.’
Ren slowly reached toward his left hand as he activated his storage ring.
A flash of blue light illuminated the rain as a fresh pristine longsword materialized perfectly into his right hand.
The blade featured a flawless unblemished edge, gleaming coldly in the stormy night.
Ren gripped the hilt with both hands. He raised the pristine longsword high above his right shoulder.
He summoned Starfire for the final time.
FWOOSH!
A massive roaring pillar of blinding Starfire ignited along the blade.
The divine flame surged upward, extending above and Malakor looked up at the towering pillar of white-hot fire with his abyssal eyes reflecting his absolute doom.
He wept harder with his broken jaw flapping uselessly.
"Go fuck yourself..." Ren stated coldly.
Ren brought the blazing longsword down in a catastrophic full-force vertical cleave.
The strike moved with devastating velocity, adding up all the strength he had siphoned from Jake and what he already had... plus a new skill he purchased just now!
The Starfire blade carved effortlessly through the freezing rain, through the howling wind, and directly through the center of Malakor’s skull.
The blade bisected the Eighth Demon King completely through the heart, continuing its downward trajectory to slam violently into the obsidian bedrock of the mountain peak.
The impact triggered a catastrophe.
The overwhelming force behind the swing, combined with heat of the Starfire, tore directly into the foundation of Razorback Ridge.
The mountain emitted a deafening, groaning shriek of failing rock.
A massive ripped open across the peak.
The jagged fissure traveled rapidly forward, tearing a trench fifty feet deep and hundreds of yards long straight through the solid obsidian stone.
The earth shuddered violently, sending massive boulders tumbling down the slopes into the valley below.
The strike completely erased Malakor’s physical form.
The two halves of the Demon King’s body instantly ignited. The divine Starfire aggressively consumed his corrupted flesh, his dark mana, and his abyssal soul.
His form dispersed into wisps of glowing embers, turning entirely to brilliant white ash that the violent mountain wind immediately scattered into the stormy night.
Nothing remained of the Eighth Demon King.
Ren stood perfectly still at the edge of the newly carved canyon.
He lowered his blazing sword, allowing the Starfire to slowly recede back into his core.
The torrential rain rushed back in to fill the superheated vacuum, washing over his blue hair and his soot-stained face.
He looked out over the dark plains below.
He saw the distant, glowing golden-blue barrier of Astelvern Town holding firm and he felt the massive organized surges of human mana pushing back the disorganized remnants of the monster tide.
The abyssal gates on the mountain slopes behind him rapidly destabilized and collapsed, losing their anchor to the physical world upon Malakor’s death.
The invasion was broken and the calamity was over.
Miles away, on the elevated forested hill overlooking the valley, absolute silence reigned.
The torrential rain battered the thick pine needles, dripping onto the muddy earth.
The distant booming echo of the mountain splitting apart slowly faded into the rumble of the storm.
Elara knelt in the freezing mud with her hands gripping the heavy brass frame of the Broadcasting Mirror as Kal sat completely frozen beside her, the glowing mana crystals humming softly in the quiet night.
The enchanted silver glass displayed the flawless high-definition image of the peak of Razorback Ridge.
It showed the massive, smoking canyon carved into the stone.
It showed the tall, imposing figure of the Second Star of the Empire standing victoriously in the rain, his brilliant blue hair and golden eyes radiating victory.
The chat interface scrolling down the left side of the Arcane Network remained completely terrifyingly static.
Over ten million million viewers across the entire continent... from the opulent manors of the Emperor’s inner circle to the lowest, dirtiest taverns of the borderlands sat in paralyzing shock.
Their minds completely failed to process the legendary clash they had just witnessed broadcasted live into their homes.
Elara stared at the image on her mirror as her breath hitched in her throat.
A cold, awe-struck shiver raced down her spine, completely unrelated to the freezing rain.
The woman streaming widened her eyes... and the millions upon millions of people who were watching the stream were surprised as well.
Ren Crowhurst... had just slain a Demon King!
...
The dense suffocating canopy of the Whispering Pines finally surrendered completely to the apocalyptic storm.
Located three miles away from the crumbling outer walls of Astelvern Town, the elevated heavily forested hill served as the perfect isolated vantage point.
For the past hour, a high-tier cloaking spell shielded the two desperate broadcasters from the howling wind, the freezing rain, and the prying corrupted eyes of the abyssal monster tide surging through the valley below.
BOOM!
The cloaking spell violently shattered as a massive, blinding fork of natural lightning struck a towering, ancient pine tree less than thirty feet away from their position.
The concussive thunderclap physically shook the muddy earth, vibrating straight up through the soles of their boots.
The torrential rain instantly flooded their hidden enclave, drenching the heavy brass frame of the Broadcasting Mirror resting on the tripod.
’F-fuck...’ Elara thought while gritting her teeth.
The highly enchanted silver glass violently sparked.
CRACKLE!
A jagged erratic line of uncontrolled arcane electricity arched aggressively across the smooth, reflective surface.
The mirror emitted a sharp high-pitched agonizing whine as the delicate transmission runes etched into the glass overloaded simultaneously, completely short-circuiting the artifact and plunging the magical projection into total suffocating darkness.
Elara wiped the freezing rain from her wide eyes as she pointed frantically at the smoking, ruined artifact.
"Kal! Check the arcane matrix!" Elara shouted with her voice barely sounding over the roaring storm. "We lost the feed! Re-establish the connection to the Royal Network right now before we lose the audience!"
Kal, her Commoner arcane engineer, scrambled forward on his hands and knees through the slick, freezing mud.
He reached out, grabbing the primary mana crystal embedded in the brass frame, fully intending to manually swap the polarized energy flow to bypass the blown circuits but the overloaded crystal violently discharged.
A massive surge of residual lightning blasted Kal’s outstretched hand.
"Ahhhh!"
He let out a sharp agonizing yell, flying backward and crashing heavily into the freezing mud.
He groaned, shaking his numb smoking fingers, nursing the severe arcane burn spreading across his palm.
He completely abandoned any further attempt to salvage the heavy ruined artifact.
"The storm breached the core..." Kal reported, spitting a mouthful of muddy, freezing water into the wet grass. "The entire transmission grid is fried! The internal mana pathways are melted to slag! The mirror is completely dead, Elara!"
Elara stared blankly at the smoking piece of twisted metal. She let out a long, heavy, trembling sigh, running a shaking hand through her soaked matted hair.
The broadcast of the century was permanently severed.
They successfully captured the explosive descent of the Second Star of the Empire, the blinding ignition of the divine Starfire, and the terrifying moment Ren Crowhurst dragged the Eighth Demon King kicking and screaming into the Void World.
They barely missed the final glorious expression of his face after killing that thing.
She reached into her soaked leather satchel with trembling fingers, pulling out a small palm-sized secondary diagnostic crystal.
This low-tier artifact simply tracked the viewer metrics recorded seconds before the primary mirror failed.
She tapped the crystal, illuminating the final tally in a soft pulsing blue light as Elara’s eyes widened to absolutely impossible proportions.
The breath vanished from her lungs.
Ten million, four hundred and fifty thousand concurrent viewers!
"By the Light of the Goddess," Elara whispered. Her exhausted mind struggled violently to process the sheer, astronomical scale of the glowing numbers.
She quickly performed the mental mathematics, her aristocratic education kicking into overdrive.
Utilizing the Royal Arcane Network’s bandwidth for a continental broadcast of this magnitude incurred a brutal, borderline extortionate tax.
Princess Azayla, the ruthless, hyper-capitalist overseer of the Kingdom’s communications infrastructure, demanded a massive seventy-percent cut of all viewer-generated revenue for utilizing emergency channels.
It was daylight robbery sanctioned directly by the crown, designed to keep independent broadcasters permanently marginalized.
Elara stared at the glowing blue numbers and she factored in the Princess’s royal tax. She calculated the remaining thirty percent payout deposited directly into her accounts.
’Fucking hell...’
The realization hit her like a physical blow to the stomach.
Even after paying the exorbitant royal cut, they possessed enough liquid gold to purchase a sprawlingmulti-story estate in the wealthiest ring of the capital outright.
They could buy real noble titles. They could retire tomorrow and live like royalty for the rest of their natural lives!
Elara threw her hands high into the freezing rain.
"Hahahahahaha!!!"
She completely abandoned her refined half-noble composure, tossing her aristocratic dignity directly into the mud.
"We did it Kai... we fucking did it."
She danced wildly in the storm, cheering at the top of her lungs, grabbing Kal by the shoulders and shaking him violently.
She was absolutely thrilled by the overwhelming undeniable triumph of capitalism in the face of an abyssal apocalypse.
They just broadcasted the greatest fight in modern history, and they were going to be obscenely rich!
High above the dark, sprawling valley, the ruined, fractured peak of Razorback Ridge cooled rapidly under the relentless, torrential downpour.
Ren stood perfectly still at the edge of the massive fissure he carved into the mountain’s solid obsidian bedrock.
The Eighth Demon King was entirely eradicated, reduced to scattering, glowing ash quickly swept away by the howling wind.
Ren opened his right hand, releasing his iron grip on his weapon.
The pristine S-rank steel longsword clattered heavily against the wet obsidian stone.
The heat of Starfire completely compromised the blade’s structural integrity even if it was for a moment.
’Starfire sure is making me buy swords again and again...’
The metal was warped, melted, and entirely useless, resembling a piece of twisted, glowing slag rather than a master weapon from the system.
The enchantments woven into the steel were burned away completely.
The precise moment the ruined sword hit the ground, his vision violently erupted as amyriad of massive glowing blue System tabs detonated directly in front of his face.
They overlapped and flashed with triumphant, gilded borders, flooding his consciousness with astronomical rewards.
[Achievement Unlocked: Slayer of Kings!]
[You successfully eradicated a Demon King before the Protagonist (Jace) even reached Level 50! The sheer narrative disrespect is astronomical! You are actively destroying the destined timeline and rewriting the foundational lore of this world!]
[Status Update: You have drawn the absolute undivided attention of the Pantheon of Gods once more! The divine entities are scrambling to calculate your true threat level! Caution is advised.]
[Narrative Shift: All Heroines observing the continental broadcast are completely mesmerized by your display of overwhelming power. They actively pray for your safety and well-being! Your passive charisma rating is skyrocketing beyond system parameters!]
Ren casually swiped the massive, flashing notifications to the left, clearing the clutter from his immediate field of vision.
A final ab snapped into the exact center of his view, glowing with an intense light.
[Bonus Payout: 100,000 SP Awarded for successfully completing the Hidden Objective: (Defeat the Abyssal Monarch within his own Void Realm)]
’Fuck...’
Ren sighed.
’At least I made the points I spent on that Amulet and swords back...’
He stared at the massive, six-figure SP payout.
The thrill of the successful gamble rushed through his exhausted veins.
’Those fools didn’t really think I’d sacrifice myself, did they?’
The entire continent, watching through those broadcasting mirrors, likely believed he possessed a noble suicidal bravery.
They probably thought he plunged into the terrifying Void World to protect the town from the collateral damage of the Demon King’s magic.
’Well I’m glad it all worked out in the end.’
The System had given him a Bonus mission of fighting that monster in his own domain and also a 50% off to purchase a gate from the Void to Earth...
If the Void World fight turned against him, if Malakor somehow gained the upper hand in the suffocating darkness, Ren planned to instantly activate the emergency artifact.
He fully intended to bail back to the physical world, leaving the Demon King trapped in the dark without a second thought.
’Now what do I do with that gate... Will I need it later?’
Ren raised his hand, fully intending to dismiss the final glowing tab, summon a fresh coat from his inventory, and begin the long incredibly annoying trek down the muddy mountain to check on Astrid and his subordinates but his thoughts violently paused.
A sudden wave of intense vertigo slammed directly into his brain as the entire world tilted severely sideways, the horizon spinning out of control.
Ren staggered backward with his heavy leather boots slipping precariously on the slick wet obsidian stone.
The side-effects of wielding those white flames caught up.
Channeling it at absolute maximum capacity to completely erase an abyssal monarch demanded an astronomical devastating physical toll.
His mana core, his complex mana veins, and his very soul pushed leagues beyond their absolute limits to sustain the white-hot fire.
The recoil hit him with the devastating crushing force of a runaway freight train.
Ren’s vision dissolved completely into a blinding sea of white static as an agonizing pressure built directly behind his eyes, feeling as though his skull was physically cracking open.
A thick steady stream of warm crimson blood violently shot out of his nose, dripping rapidly down his chin to stain the collar of his ruined burned charcoal-grey coat.
His muscular legs entirely gave out with the strength vanished from his limbs in a singular, terrifying instant, his nervous system completely shutting down to protect his core from further damage.
Ren fell backward.
His boots slipped smoothly over the jagged edge of the massive precipice he carved into the mountain moments prior as gravity instantly took hold of his exhausted paralyzed body.
He plummeted backward into the dark, yawning abyss of the newly formed canyon.
The freezing mountain wind rushed past his ears, violently whipping his brilliant blue hair around his bloody face as the jagged obsidian walls of the trench blurred past him.
His final fading thought as the world went entirely black and his consciousness shattered into a million pieces, was a simple, profoundly exhausted...
’Fuck.’
Down in the dark, sprawling, devastated forest bordering the base of Razorback Ridge, Astrid sprinted through the deep mud.
She successfully pushed the Twilight Guild forward, driving the routing disorganized remnants of the abyssal horde entirely out of the valley.
The battlefield was completely secured.
The golden-blue Aegis dome over the town lowered, signaling the end of the siege as the frantic wailing emergency sirens finally faded into the distance, leaving only the sound of the rain and the groans of the dying monsters.
Astrid looked up toward the towering lightning-scarred peaks of the mountain.
She tracked the dissipating storm clouds, frantically searching for the brilliant, pulsing aura of the man who engaged the Demon King.
Her striking blue eyes locked onto the summit.
She saw the tiny distant silhouette of a man plummeting backward off the edge of the newly carved canyon.
He was entirely limp, falling rapidly toward the lethal rocks at the base of the trench and Astrid’s heart completely stopped in her chest as a cold terror gripped her throat.
"No!"
She dropped her heavy enchanted magical staff directly into the mud as she abandoned her primary, A-rank weapon without a second thought to maximize her movement speed and reduce her carrying weight.
Astrid channeled highly volatile twilight mana directly into the soles of her combat boots and she violently manipulated her own specific gravity, effectively reducing her mass to absolute zero while exponentially increasing her output.
As a result, the mage launched herself through the dense forest like a purple cruise missile.
The concussive force of her takeoff completely uprooted the massive pine trees immediately surrounding her.
Astrid tore upward through the dense canopy, violently shattering thick branches and scattering pine needles into the storm as she pushed her A-rank core to absolute maximum capacity in a desperate gravity-defying aerial sprint to close the miles-wide gap.
The G-force tore at her skin, but she ignored the pain. She soared up the steep, muddy slope of the mountain with her dense purple aura burning a brilliant blinding trail through the freezing rain.
She tracked his falling body flawlessly, calculating his descent speed against her own rapid ascent and Astrid reached the base of the canyon just as Ren plummeted past the halfway mark.
She violently inverted her gravity field, soaring straight upward on a perfect flawless interception trajectory so she collided softly with him in mid-air.
"Got you... Haah..."
Astrid wrapped both of her arms securely around his broad torso, catching him perfectly against her chest.
She instantly stabilized their descent, utilizing her twilight mana to create a floating pocket of absolute zero gravity.
They hovered gently in the stormy sky, safely suspended hundreds of feet above the jagged, lethal rocks below.
Astrid pulled him close, cradling his heavy head gently against her shoulder.
She looked down at his face and she raised her bare hand, softly and carefully wiping the thick stream of crimson blood from his nose, his lips, and his pale cheeks.
The disguise artifact was completely gone, destroyed by the Demon King’s void magic earlier in the fight so Astrid stared at the brilliant, cascading blue hair.
She looked at his relaxed... flawlessly handsome noble features and his piercing golden eyes were currently closed in exhausted unconsciousness.
She knew exactly who he was.
He was Ren Crowhurst... The Second Star of the Empire... The absolute second strongest fighter of the new generation, standing only a fraction of a step behind her nephew, Jace, the prophesied Hero.
He was the man the Kingdom expected to be a mortal rival, a political adversary, and a ruthless, arrogant noble.
None of it mattered... The titles, the politics, the imperial rankings meant absolutely nothing to her heart in that specific moment...
He was the man who bought her a trashy romance novel simply to make her smile.
He was the man who wrapped a protective, holy pendant around her throat from miles away, ensuring her survival against an impossible lethal ambush.
He was the man who descended from the sky alone and completely eradicated an apocalyptic threat to protect her home, pushing his own body to the point of complete collapse.
Astrid held him tightly and she rested her forehead against his, completely shielding his face from the freezing rain.
The warmth of his body seeped into her soaked muddy clothes.
"Thank you," Astrid whispered fiercely into the roaring storm as tears of overwhelming relief mixed freely with the rain on her cheeks. "Thank you so much, Ren."
She tightened her grip around his shoulders with her dense twilight aura pulsing warmly around them both, providing a safe impenetrable cocoon in the sky.
"I love you," Astrid vowed. "And I won’t let you go."