Chapter 192: Unseen Enemy [ Bonus Chapter ]

The battlefield offered no celebration of victory. It neither roared nor trembled in triumph; it simply lay there, broken, scorched, and gutted, like a corpse too vast for mourning.

Once a sovereign domain ruled by fire and abyss, it had become a wasteland stripped of identity, its very geography erased by violence so extreme that even the land seemed reluctant to remember what it once was.

Craters overlapped like scars upon scars, molten rock cooling into jagged obsidian veins while residual mana storms drifted aimlessly above, spiraling without purpose like the last breaths of a dying god.

At the center of this devastation stood Valeria. She leaned heavily against her sword, the massive crimson blade embedded deep in the ruined ground, its edge chipped and dulled from the most brutal battle of her life.

Her fingers trembled faintly around the hilt, not from fear or mere exhaustion but from the aftershock of pushing her body and soul beyond limits she had vowed never to cross.

Blood flowed freely down her armor, tracing paths along shattered plates and pooling at her boots before soaking into the cracked earth beneath her. Each breath was slow and deliberate; every inhale burned her lungs while each exhale carried pain she refused to reveal.

Beside her lay the Crimson Abyssal Lion. Even in death, it was terrifying. Its massive body had collapsed into the earth, blackened fur still smoldering faintly as abyssal flames dissipated reluctantly like wisps unwilling to accept their master’s end.

One foreleg lay severed several meters away, the cut so clean it appeared almost surgical, while its torso bore marks of a final strike, an execution rather than just a kill. Its head rested at an unnatural angle, jaws half-open as if frozen mid-roar; beneath cracked flesh and bone pulsed the faint glow of its beast core.

Valeria stared at it for a long moment before laughing softly, a dry sound stripped of humor yet honest in a way only survivors understood.

Tilting her head back slightly, crimson hair clinging to her face and neck, she muttered hoarsely, “I really didn’t expect this.”

Her voice echoed weakly across the desolate expanse. “I didn’t expect I’d end up working for a man,” she continued with a wry smile forming on her lips, “and I definitely didn’t expect it would land me here… standing over a dead Lord Beast while barely able to stand myself.”

She exhaled slowly and looked down at the Lion again; her expression shifted. not to pride or relief but contemplation.

The fight replayed itself in fragments rather than sequence: first clash, transformation, blinding speed, the moment it adapted and then when retreat became impossible; that instant when death turned from threat to certainty.

“If only the terrain hadn’t collapsed when it did…” she murmured. “If it hadn’t overcommitted during the second rotation… if I hadn’t pushed it to regenerate too soon…”

Her jaw tightened. “Any one of those factors missing, and this would have turned out very differently.”

Her gaze swept across the battlefield, instinctively searching for familiar faces, even though she knew what she would find.

Broken forms lay scattered across kilometers of devastation, some unconscious, some unmoving, all silent. Her chest constricted as her eyes finally settled on the spot where Calista had fallen; only shattered trees and scorched earth remained, as if the land itself had consumed her sacrifice.

Valeria closed her eyes.

“…Calista,” she said softly.

“Your blade landed in the right place,” she muttered. “It blinded a monster that thought itself untouchable. That moment… it mattered.”

Her fingers curled around her sword’s hilt.

“Your sacrifice wasn’t in vain.”

Pain surged through her body like an affront to her moment of stillness. Valeria hissed softly, shifting her weight before finally looking down at herself.

The damage was worse than she had allowed herself to acknowledge during the fight. Her armor was nearly destroyed, large sections melted or shattered completely, leaving burns and deep gashes across her torso and legs. Blood seeped steadily from a massive wound on her abdomen where a flame-forged blade had torn through her defenses. And then there was her arm….

Her charred arm.

She raised it slowly, watching flakes of blackened flesh peel away with each movement, revealing raw tissue beneath that still faintly smoked with residual abyssal heat. The pain was constant and unyielding, a reminder that even she wasn’t invincible.

Valeria gritted her teeth.

“I really didn’t think I’d need to use that technique again,” she muttered.

For just a fraction of a second, hesitation flickered in her eyes: disgust and reluctance.

Then it vanished.

Resolve hardened her gaze as she straightened with effort, releasing her sword and stepping toward the Lion’s corpse.

She planted her boot against its massive skull, braced herself, and with a sharp twist of her blade severed its head in one brutal motion. The sound echoed across the battlefield, a wet thud as the head rolled aside, abyssal blood spilling freely onto the ruined ground.

She placed her palm against the Lion’s still-warm torso.

Mana surged within her.

“Crimson Sovereign Devourment,” she said quietly.

The technique activated instantly.

The Lion’s blood surged violently, as if summoned by an unseen force. Thick, molten streams of abyssal-red liquid tore free from ruptured veins and wounds, flowing upward like rivers defying gravity before plunging into Valeria’s body through her palm, her wounds, her very pores.

The sensation was immediate and overwhelming, pain so intense it eclipsed thought, as if she were swallowing liquid magma and forcing it through every pathway of her being.

Valeria screamed. It was a raw, unrestrained sound that tore from her throat as her mana veins flared bright crimson beneath her skin, bulging dangerously as they struggled to contain the foreign power flooding into them.

Her muscles spasmed violently; her knees buckled, but she refused to fall, teeth clenched hard enough to draw blood as she endured the agony.

It felt like burning alive from the inside.

The Lion’s blood was not passive; it was willful and dominant, echoing its former master’s authority. It tore through her system, challenging her control over her own body and attempting to overwrite her very existence with its own essence.

Her wounds began to close almost immediately. Flesh knitted together at a terrifying speed; bones realigned with audible cracks while torn muscle fibers regenerated stronger than before.

Even her charred arm began to heal, blackened layers peeling away as new skin formed beneath, though this process sent fresh waves of pain crashing through her nervous system.

But the cost was immense.

Her mana circulation screamed in protest; pathways glowed dangerously close to rupture as the influx continued unchecked.

It felt like being dragged through a sea of fire, every breath scorching her lungs and every heartbeat pounding like a war drum threatening to burst open her chest.

Meanwhile, the Lion’s body began to shrink rapidly. Its once-colossal form collapsed inward as blood and essence were forcibly extracted. The ground around them cracked and hissed as excess heat bled into the environment, steam and ash spiraling upward in chaotic columns.

Valeria’s vision blurred.

Her consciousness wavered on the edge of collapse as she forced herself to maintain the technique, knowing that stopping halfway would leave her crippled or worse.

Just then a heavy presence descended.A suffocating pressure washed over the battlefield like a tidal wave: heavy enough to crush thought and dense enough to make the air feel solid.

Valeria’s breath caught in her throat as instincts screamed danger; she opened her eyes just in time for the technique to falter.

The blood flow stuttered.

Her head snapped up.

Before she could react or even turn….

The sound of clapping echoed across the devastated land with unnatural clarity, cutting through howling mana storms and lingering flames like a blade through silk.

Valeria’s pupils constricted as she severed the technique instantly, staggering back a step while the remaining Lion’s blood crashed uselessly to the ground.

Her sword was back in her hand in a heartbeat, even as her body protested with every movement. She forced herself into a guarded stance, her eyes zeroing in on the source of that unexpected sound.

Someone was applauding.

And whoever it was… they had been watching the entire time.

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