Chapter 454: The Beginning Of The End [CXVI]

His shadow stretched outward across the frozen battlefield like something that was pretty muhc live.

It didn’t move the way shadows were supposed to move.

It didn’t follow light or any logic at all.

It simply spread, hundreds of meters in every direction, pressing against the ground like a second layer of reality being laid over the first.

The gods above felt it before they saw it.

“…What is that?” a water god murmured.

“Something’s wrong,…”

“Something is very wrong. Why does it feel like…”

Before he could finish his words, Aestrea’s killing intent finally materialized.

THUD!

Three gods in the lower formation collapsed immediately.

Not from any kind of injury.

Their legs simply stopped holding them as their bodies made a unilateral decision to be as close to the ground as possible.

“I CAN’T! MY LEGS WON’T MOVE!”

“WHAT IS THIS PRESSURE!? THIS ISN’T DIVINE AUTHORITY, THIS IS… KURGHHH!!!”

“DON’T LOOK AT HIS EYES! DON’T LOOK DIRECTLY AT T-THEM!”

Too late for two of them.

The Lunar Dragon Void Right Eye swept across the upper formation at full intensity, white and cold and utterly without mercy.

The gods it touched directly stumbled mid-air, hands flying to their own faces, expressions collapsing into something between vertigo and raw animal fear.

“I CAN’T SEE… EVERYTHING IS BLACK!”

“HALLUCINATIONS! HE’S PUSHING HALLUCINATIONS INTO MY BRAIN!””

“CLOSE YOUR EYES AND DON’T LOOK AT HIM!”

Taking the opportunity, Aestrea rushed forward, but unfortunately, he didn’t have the Moon Mark activated anymore, which meant that his power was much weaker.

“HAAAAAAA!!!”

The first god reached him, a fire god with divine flame wrapping both forearms like gauntlets, swinging a heavy overhead strike at Aestrea’s skull.

’Overextended. He’s angry.’

Aestrea stepped inside the arc.

The burning forearms came down on either side of him rather than on top of him.

He felt the heat on both shoulders, close enough to blister, and drove the Heavenly Swallowing Sword upward in a short thrust into the god’s guard.

The flame gauntlets died.

Fwip!

Midnight followed immediately, driving across the god’s jaw in a horizontal swing.

KRAK!

“GHK!”

The god staggered, but didn’t fall.

Swish!

Shook his head and came back with a left hook aimed at Aestrea’s temple, slower now without his authority but still carrying the raw physical strength of a divine being.

“Tsk!”

Aestrea rolled under the hook and drove his elbow into the god’s ribs.

“GHHHHK”

The god’s knee buckled, and just after, Midnight came down across the back of his neck.

SPLURT!

He went down and stayed down.

’One.’

’That took too damn long.’

Two wind gods filled the space immediately, moving in tight coordination, one high and one low, cutting off vertical and horizontal escape simultaneously.

The high one’s compressed air blades swept toward his throat. The low one’s attack drove toward his knees like a scythe.

’Can’t go up, can’t go sideways. They’ve read my movement patterns.’

He dropped straight down, sat almost completely flat against the frozen ground as both attacks passed over and under him in the same half-second.

The wind gods hadn’t expected the full drop.

Their momentum carried them past each other, and seeing this, Aestrea pushed off the ground hard, coming back up between them.

“Moonlit Ice Lotus Sword Art…”

『 First Move! (✦ Ice Lotus Bloom ✦) 』

The petals erupted outward at close range, catching both wind gods’ partially solid forms and forcing them into full physicality.

They gasped as the ice locked them into their bodies, intangibility stripped away entirely.

“MY FORM!

“GET IT OFF!!!”

Fwip!

Midnight took the first one across the throat.

Not a killing blow, but enough to fold him forward.

The Swallowing Sword drove into the second one’s shoulder, stripping the last of his authority, and then Aestrea’s fist connected with his jaw on the follow-through.

SPLAT!

Thud…!

Both went down.

’Three. That took even longer… this is getting bad.’

“HE’S SLOWER!!!”

“THAT STRANGE MARK IS GONE, AND HE’S SLOWER!!!”

’…Yes. I am slower. Thank you for noticing.’

An earth god descended from directly above, both feet aimed downward at Aestrea’s skull like a granite meteor, the sheer weight of a divine body made of living stone behind it.

’Too heavy to redirect. Too fast to fully dodge.’

He moved left. Not far enough to clear it entirely, far enough to take it on the shoulder rather than the skull.

KOOM!

The impact drove him sideways and down onto one knee again, the frozen ground cracking beneath the force of it.

His shoulder screamed as the arm below it went briefly, completely numb.

’…That one was bad.’

“GOT HIM!” the earth god bellowed, landing and pivoting immediately, both granite fists raising over his head for a follow-up aimed at the back of Aestrea’s neck.

’…Perfect!’

One move was enough.

“Moonlit Ice Lotus Sword Art…”

『 Third Move! (✦ Moonlight’s One Flash ✦) 』

The Heavenly Swallowing Sword completed its arc before the earth god’s fists had finished their descent, a single diagonal line of frozen moonlight that hung in the air behind him as he reappeared three meters to the left.

The earth god stood completely still.

The granite across his chest cracked along the diagonal line. A gold liquid ran through the fractures freely.

He fell forward slowly, like a wall deciding to become rubble.

BOOM.

’Four. My shoulder is not going to forgive me for that.’

The numb arm was coming back in the worst possible way, pins and needles racing from shoulder to fingertip, grip on Midnight unreliable.

He tightened it anyway.

“WHY IS HE STILL SO POWERFUL!”

“JUST KEEP HITTING! HE HAS TO RUN OUT OF ENERGY EVENTUALLY!”

“TOGETHER! HIT HIM TOGETHER!”

Three storm gods dove simultaneously from three different angles, black thunderheads trailing behind them, divine lightning jumping between their outstretched hands as they converged on a single point.

Aestrea’s point.

’Three simultaneous strikes from spread angles. The lightning will arc between them if I stay in the center. I need to collapse the triangle before they close it.’

He targeted the closest one.

Fwoop!

He dashed forward, closing the distance before the other two could adjust their angles enough to matter.

The storm god’s eyes went wide.

“HE’S COMING STRAIGHT AT ME! HE’S NOT DODGING AT ALL!!!2

Fwip!

Midnight drove into the god’s forearm at a deflecting angle, redirecting the lightning strike away from its intended line.

The divine current jumped sideways and found one of the other two storm gods instead.

“GHAAAAH! THAT’S MY OWN LIGHTNING IS!!!”

The third storm god’s strike arrived at Aestrea’s back without its intended partners.

He took it.

KRRROOM!!!

It connected squarely between his shoulder blades and drove him forward three steps.

His vision went white at the edges for a half-second as his teeth came together hard enough to hurt.

’…Fuck!’

Still, he kept moving.

The Swallowing Sword found the original storm god’s chest mid-stumble, stripping his authority on contact.

Midnight followed from below, driving upward under the god’s guard.

SPLAT!

“KARGHHHH!

Another one down.

’Phew…’

His left knee buckled slightly on the way up, and he caught it before it became a full drop, teeth pressed together hard, slowly breathing through his nose.

The eighty gods above didn’t give him a second to think about it.

FWOOOOOOSH!

They came again without any kind of coordination.

Just pure relentless mass, every single one of them screaming toward him from every angle simultaneously because they had learned by now that giving him any room at all was a mistake they couldn’t afford.

A fire god from the left.

A water god from the right.

Two earth gods from directly above.

A storm god from behind.

’Too many angles. I can’t cover all of th—’

—BAAM!

The fire god’s fist connected with his left cheekbone before he finished the thought.

His head snapped right, and a white light exploded across his vision.

He felt the skin split along his cheekbone, felt the warmth of blood running immediately down the side of his face, and had almost no time to register either before the water god’s strike hit his right side like a battering ram.

KOOM!

“UGH!”

He went sideways.

Both feet left the ground for a full second before he caught himself, one hand slamming against the frozen ground to stop the fall, his palm cracking through the ice on impact.

The two earth gods landed on either side of him simultaneously.

BOOM, BOOOM!

The shockwave from their combined weight drove cracks outward across the frozen ground in every direction, the ice beneath Aestrea’s feet fracturing and dropping several inches.

He felt the drop in his knees and his ankles and his already-complaining back all at once.

’Corner. They’ve backed me into a corner.’

He looked left.

An earth god, granite fists raised.

He looked right.

A wall of compressed wind, three wind gods pressing their combined authority inward like a closing vice.

He looked up.

Fire and storm and water, descending together in a coordinated press.

Behind him, more.

’…They planned this. They were driving me here the whole time. The last thirty exchanges weren’t random. They were herding me.’

’I walked right into it… tsk.’

“NOW!!!!” the ranking officer’s voice, somewhere above, cracked with something that was almost relief.

“EVERYTHING, ALL OF IT NOW!!!”

The fire came first.

FWOOOOOOM!

A column of divine flame from directly above, wide enough to fill the entire space he occupied, driven downward with everything the fire gods had left.

Behind it came the water, pressurized and dense, designed to hit immediately after the fire and drive him into the ground.

The earth gods on either side closed inward simultaneously, their granite bodies moving to crush whatever the fire and water left standing.

’I can’t dodge. I can’t redirect. There’s nowhere to go.’

’…There is one thing left.’

His grip on both swords tightened until his knuckles went white.

’I didn’t want to use this here. Not without the Moon Mark. The output without it is going to…’

He didn’t finish the thought, as sacrificing a second more probably meant his death. And of course… he didn’t want to die here!

“Moonlit Ice Lotus Sword Art…”

『 Seventh Move! (✹ Absolute Zero Eclipse ✹) 』

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