Chapter 58: Absolute Dominance

Vane’s large first tightened on the handle till it twisted. “Very well, Princess. But I must follow you.”

Elara nodded with poorly hidden excitement. “That much is expected of you, now get on it!”

Vane sighed heavily. The weight of consciously leading the Heir to the Kingdom to certain doom weighed heavily upon him, and the brutal punishment that followed.

The door was kicked open. A suffocating heaviness and bloodlust rushed into the opening it created.

Elara jumped down from the carriage, the purple gown she wore dissapearing as she made her descent and being replaced by a white dress that shone with unfiltered divinity.

Vane landed with a thud, creating large cracks on the ground. A great contrast to the silent landing of the Princess.

The Entity cackled. “So these are the ones after my life. Still the same as you were that year.”

Vane’s arm bulged as he pulled out the large sword from it’s scabbard. The air instantly grew ten times heavier and an overwhelming sense of bloodlust flowed from the dark blade.

“Princess, just say the word and you’ll have his head.”

Elara raised her arm calmly. “Calm yourself, Vane. There’s no need for an altercation.”

Vane’s eyes widened to the limit. “Look at what he did to our Saintess!”

Elara’s eyes ignored the wide smile that let black bile ooze from the opening and rested on the supposed upholder of light who was currently hanging onto her life by a thread.

She faced forward with an unreadable expression. “She’ll survive. And in the event that she doesn’t, her death would make little effect in the Kingdom’s military power.”

“I forbid you from thinking like that!”

Elara glanced at Vane from the corner of her eye. “You are not my Father, Vane. You seem to forget that.”

Vane’s grip on the blade tightened, but before he could respond, a black blur flashed before him.

“You can continue your family disputes in the Nether realm!”

Aden extended his arms and swung fiercely. A large crater formed beneath them as Vane blocked the assault with his broad blade.

“Princess, I ask that you leave this to me,” Vane asked between gasps as he pushed upwards.

Elara bit her lips imperceptibly before she said, “Very well.”

A small, green dome immediately covered her as soon as those words left her lips.

A flash of annoyance passed through the Entity’s face as he noticed the protective barrier. “I didn’t come to waste time in theatrics, Princess.”

He closed the distance between the Princess and himself immediately. A large column of black energy formed between his hands as he swung down.

A loud clang resonated throughout the battlefield, but it was not from the collision of the dome and the column.

“You wretched beast. You have no right to glance at the Princess!”

Vane’s blade immediately shone a darker hue, the black-iron surface pulsing like a living heart. The bloodlust radiating from the blade began to physically manifest as a viscous, shadowy mist that clung to the Entity’s black energy column.

The collision sent a shockwave through the Sinking District that leveled the remaining ruins for half a mile.

[Adaptive Resonance: Kinetic Feedback—Redirecting…]

The Entity’s feet skidded back, his heels carving deep trenches into the earth. A look of delight carving itself into his expression.

He stared at the black blade, watching the way it consumed the light around it.

“A Soul-Eater that actually bites,” the Entity laughed, the sound vibrating through Aden’s vocal cords with a raspy, jagged edge. “I haven’t felt a frequency this heavy since the border wars. But tell me, Vane, does your blade taste the guilt of the man wielding it?”

“Silence!”

Vane roared, stepping into the Entity’s space with a speed that belied his massive frame. He swung the broad blade in a horizontal arc, a crescent of dark gravity following the steel.

The attack went beyond physical as the air itself was being vacuumed into the path of the sword.

The Entity didn’t use the Perfect Phase this time. Instead, he let the mercury-like fluid on his arms harden into jagged, obsidian-black gauntlets.

He caught the edge of the soul-eating blade with his bare hands.

The screech of metal on metal was deafening. Sparks of violet and black lightning danced between the two.

Vane’s muscles corded, his veins popping against his skin as he tried to force the blade through. The ground beneath them began to sink further, the gravity from Vane’s sword and the Void from the Entity creating a localized collapse.

“Princess!” Vane yelled over the roar of the energy. “The barrier won’t hold if the core of this district collapses! You must retreat to the carriage!”

Elara stood behind the green dome, her fingers pressed against the translucent wall. She wasn’t scared. She was watching the way the black-iron blade interacted with the Void.

“The Void isn’t just absorbing the gravity,” she whispered to herself, her eyes tracking the microscopic lines of the fight. “It’s… feeding it back. It’s an infinite loop.”

“Vane is losing,” she noted calmly, though her heart hammered against her ribs.

The Entity’s grin split Aden’s face even further. “The little girl is right, Vane. You’re pushing against a wall that grows taller the harder you shove.”

With a sudden, violent twist, the Entity pulled the blade towards himself.

He used the momentum of Vane’s own crushing weight against him. Vane stumbled forward, his center of gravity compromised for a fraction of a second. In that window, the Entity’s hand shot out with his palm flat and struck the center of Vane’s chest.

“Third Movement: Collapse.”

A concentrated burst of inverted frequency slammed into Vane’s armor. The black-iron plate didn’t break, but the man inside it was sent flying.

Vane hit the green dome with enough force to make it spider-web with cracks, his body slumping to the base of the barrier.

The Entity turned his attention back to Elara. He walked toward the cracking green dome, his footsteps heavy and rhythmic.

“Now, Princess,” the Entity said, stopping just inches from the glass-like wall. “About your father. Did he ever tell you why he never let you play in the Royal Gardens after sunset? Why he was so afraid of the shadows that didn’t move with the light?”

He pressed his hand against the dome. The green energy began to turn grey and brittle wherever his skin touched it.

“He wasn’t protecting you from the dark, Elara. He was protecting the dark from you.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep