Episode-797
Chapter : 1593
The sound was deafening. It wasn't the sound of metal on stone. It was the sound of two absolute laws of physics colliding. The unstoppable force meeting the immovable object.
The shockwave radiated outward from the point of impact. It blew the dust from the courtyard into a ring of clouds. It knocked the unconscious guards rolling. It pushed Lucifer's cape back.
For one impossible, glorious second, the diamond held.
The black spear spun, drilling into the crystal surface. Sparks of dark energy and chips of diamond dust flew like fireworks. The spear stopped. It was halted in mid-air by the sheer density of Jasmin's spirit.
Lucifer's eyes widened slightly. The boredom vanished, replaced by a flicker of genuine surprise.
"What?" he muttered.
He looked at the statue. It wasn't a knight. It wasn't a lord. It was a low-born girl with a spirit that shouldn't have been able to stop a stiff breeze, let alone a Devil King's execution technique.
But she had. She had caught the death meant for a Sovereign.
Roy Ferrum, his eyes wide with horror and awe, looked up at the glittering figure hovering above him. He saw the face of the diamond statue. It was Jasmin's face, frozen in a scream of effort.
"Jasmin..." Roy whispered.
For that one second, the servant was stronger than the master. For that one second, the Diamond Queen was the strongest thing in the North.
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The collision between the Spear of Nihil and the Diamond Queen created a sphere of distorted gravity in the center of the courtyard. The air rippled like water. The ground beneath Jasmin’s suspended form was pulverized into fine sand, creating a crater purely from the pressure of the impact.
Lucifer stood ten feet away, his hand still extended in the throwing motion. He stared at the diamond statue. The spear was spinning against her chest, a drill of darkness trying to pierce a wall of light.
"A diamond spirit," Lucifer said, his voice cutting through the roaring noise of the grinding energy. "Rare. And developed to this level? By a servant?"
He frowned. The surprise faded, replaced by a cold irritation. It was the irritation of a man who finds a pebble in his shoe. It was insignificant, but it was annoying.
"You are strong for an insect," Lucifer acknowledged. "But you are still an insect. Did you think hardness alone is enough to stop the Void? Did you think you could deny me?"
He didn't summon another weapon. He didn't cast a spell. He simply pushed. He exerted his will. He poured more of his spiritual pressure into the spear.
"Break," Lucifer commanded.
The black spear flared. It grew larger, the darkness intensifying until it looked like a tear in reality. The humming sound rose in pitch to a shriek. The rotational force of the spear doubled, then tripled.
Inside the diamond form, Jasmin felt the universe compressing.
She couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. She was the diamond. She felt the tip of the spear grinding against her chest. It felt like a hot iron boring into her soul. The pain was beyond anything physical. It was the pain of her very existence being eroded.
Hold, she screamed in her mind. Just hold. Just a little longer. Give Master Roy a chance. Give him a second.
She poured her life force into the shell. Every memory, every hope, every dream she had—she fed it into the diamond. She burned her future to buy a moment of the present.
But physics was cruel. The difference in dimension was too vast. Lucifer was a King-Level entity, a being who had existed for eons. Jasmin was a girl who had awakened her power a month ago.
The first crack appeared.
It started at the point of impact, right over her heart. It was a tiny, hairline fracture, a white spiderweb in the flawless transparency.
CRACK.
The sound was like a gunshot.
Roy heard it. He saw it. "No!" he roared, trying to force his paralyzed body to move, trying to reach up and pull her down. "Jasmin! Release it! Run!"
She couldn't run. She was locked in place by the force of the attack. If she deactivated her spirit now, she would be vaporized. If she held it, she would be shattered. There was no escape.
A second crack appeared, shooting down her torso. Then a third, running up her neck. The beautiful, clear diamond began to turn opaque, white stress lines clouding the perfection.
Chapter : 1594
Lucifer watched with clinical detachment. "Structural integrity failing," he noted. "Ninety percent. Eighty percent. You are stubborn, little girl. But stubbornness breaks."
He clenched his fist. The spear surged forward another inch.
Jasmin felt her spirit core—the source of her power, the glowing ember inside the diamond—begin to vibrate. It was overheating. It was cracking under the strain.
She knew. In that moment of absolute clarity that comes before the end, she knew she wasn't going to survive this. She wasn't going to wake up in the infirmary. She wasn't going to make tea for Lloyd again. She wasn't going to sing with Annalisa.
She tried to turn her head. It was impossible, but she shifted her focus. She looked down through her own transparent body at the man she was protecting. She looked at Arch Duke Roy.
Her diamond eyes didn't have pupils, but Roy felt her gaze. It wasn't fearful. It wasn't full of regret. It was sad, yes. There were tears—diamond tears—forming in the corners of her eyes. But underneath the sadness was a fierce, burning pride.
Tell him, she thought, projecting the intent toward Roy. Tell Master Lloyd I did my job. Tell him I was his shield.
The cracks spread to her face. The world became a mosaic of fractured light.
"Goodbye," she thought.
The end was not silent. It was the loudest sound the estate had ever heard.
"DIE!" Lucifer roared, shoving his hand forward.
The Spear of Nihil pulsed with a final, overwhelming surge of power. The tip punched through the outer layer of the diamond.
SHATTER.
It sounded like a thousand chandeliers falling from the sky at once. It sounded like a glacier calving into the ocean.
Jasmin’s diamond form couldn't hold. The structure failed catastrophically. The statue exploded.
WARNING: IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ JASMIN’S REMAINING, THEN YOU SHOULD JUST AVOID NEXT 5 SENTENCE.
But it was not a clean disintegration. The Spear of Nihil had pierced her center, erasing her torso and spirit core in a flash of void energy. But the diamond hardness of her extremities held.
The explosion sheared her apart.
There was a sickening, heavy sound of crystal clattering against stone. Her right arm, severed at the shoulder, spun through the air and embedded itself in the dirt. Her left leg, crystallized and bent at the knee, fell near the crater.
And her head.
Her head, perfectly preserved in transparent diamond, rolled across the courtyard. It came to a stop face up, her expression frozen in a scream of absolute effort, her hair fanned out like a halo of jagged glass.
But the spear didn't stop. It punched through the cloud of diamond dust. It drove straight through the center of where Jasmin's chest had been.
There was a wet, sickening thud.
The spear pierced her physical body, which had been encased within the spirit. It went through her heart. It went through her spine. It destroyed her spirit core instantly.
Jasmin didn't scream. She didn't have time. Her life was extinguished in the nanosecond the spear cleared her body.
But her sacrifice was not in vain.
Because the diamond had held for that one, crucial second, and because the explosion of her form had created a kinetic shockwave, the trajectory of the spear was altered. Just a fraction. Just a degree.
The black spear continued its path downward. It was aimed at Roy's heart. But the deflection pushed it to the right.
THUNK.
The spear slammed into Roy. It didn't hit his heart. It buried itself deep in his right shoulder, punching through the rusted armor, through the muscle and bone, and pinning him to the ground.
"ARGH!" Roy screamed, the pain finally breaking his silence. The dark energy of the spear began to eat at his flesh, burning like acid.
But he was alive. His heart was beating.
The explosion of Jasmin's death sent a cloud of dust and debris washing over Lucifer. The Devil King didn't move his feet, but he raised an arm to shield his face. The shockwave ruffled his cape. A single shard of diamond—a piece of Jasmin—flew past his cheek, leaving a thin, red scratch on his perfect white skin.
Lucifer lowered his arm. He touched his cheek. He looked at the drop of blood on his finger.
He looked at the spot where Jasmin had been. There was nothing left. Just blood mist and glittering dust settling on the stones.
He looked at Roy, pinned to the ground by the spear, groaning in agony but breathing.