The battle started the moment the conversation ended, and for a moment, Karna was overwhelmed. Ankhseram had spent centuries inside the domain training himself to control the death energy within it.
Even though Ankhseram had admitted to the fact that Karna had talent that surpassed his many times over, Ankhseram still had more time to experience and control the power of death within the domain.
He still remembered how Mavis had mentioned what Ankhseram did on Tenrou Island. He took the memory of Fairy Sphere from Mavis's mind and deleted it using death energy.
If Karna didn't have the system with him, his life, along with the entire guild's, would have ended then and there.
And right now, he was getting thrashed by Ankhseram, with him barely managing to hold out, and that too not with his skills with death energy.
"With your current skills, you should have died by now. You are doing something else rather than using death energy, aren't you?" Ankhseram immediately caught on to what Karna was doing right now.
Karna didn't speak. He was trying his best to manipulate the death energy to parry the attacks shot towards him by Ankhseram. He could survive the attacks as the domain seemed to infuse him with a copious amount of death energy. He was not physically tired at all, but to keep up with the attacks put forward by Ankhseram, his mind was working at its maximum while dodging and deflecting all of the attacks.
The moment Ankhseram started attacking, it was as if the surrounding darkness and death energy had become part of his body. He was able to manipulate such a large quantity of death energy that Karna was barely keeping up.
'We are the only two people who are currently undergoing the ascension process. So the amount of control we have in this dimension is supposed to be equal. The only difference between us should be experience, but even then, the difference between the amount under each of our control is extremely uneven.
Is it because he killed millions before ascension in his hometown, Nirvana? Or the thousands he had killed while using the Ankhseram curse on Mavis and Zeref?'
Even when pushed to the limit, Karna was trying his best to figure out a way to defeat the enemy.
'Goddamn it,' Karna cursed.
At the same time on Earthland,
The Wizard Saints and the Spriggan Twelve joined the wizards of Ishgar to battle against the dragons.
Even though many of them did not have direct dragon-slaying abilities, they were able to interfere with the dragons and create gaps that the Dragon Slayers were able to take advantage of to take down the dragons.
Sting and Rogue, after getting healed, had joined back and had slain quite a few dragons compared to before.
But even the Spriggan Twelve didn't come close to the number of dragons killed by the Fairy Tail members.
Natsu was like a war god who kept on slaughtering dragons without even taking that much of a break in between. With his new ability to recover by eating air, he was like an unstoppable machine that kept on slaughtering dragons while having a big grin on his face.
Thankfully, the thousand dragons who appeared through the portal had shouted about how they were going to slaughter all the humans, with many mentioning that they were planning on keeping some so that they could breed and eat the children that were born while they were young.
That's why no one spoke against the slaughter that happened in the city, which Natsu conducted with glee.
"I don't know whether to stop him or encourage him," Lucy commented, confused. She had an awkward smile on her face as she watched the rampaging Natsu.
Some dragons even had PTSD as Natsu's rampage reminded them of the Dragon of Apocalypse that slaughtered their kind and forced them to jump through time itself to escape.
At the same time, in another part of the battlefield,
"Irene, have you noticed what is happening right now?" August asked as he and Irene monitored the entire battlefield.
"Yes, everyone is more focused on the dragons, and I can't blame them for it. It is not every day that a thousand dragons appear in the capital of their city.
Though it reminds me of everyday life four hundred years ago," Irene said with a nostalgic look in her eyes.
"Focus, Irene. How is it that the sun has not risen till now? It has been an hour since the time of sunrise had passed. The others are still focused on taking care of the dragons. So we have to find out the reason for what is causing this," August said seriously, but Irene replied in a calm tone.
"You still have not realized it at all, did you, my friend? The world is darkened because it is witnessing a battle that will determine its fate. I'm sure that Karna, who is currently in the Domain of the Dead, has no idea how significant the battle he is fighting right now is."
August's eyes widened as realization hit him. As one of the prominent minds of Alvarez, he was informed about the venture Karna Vermillion was undertaking to fight the greatest enemy of the emperor and possibly every life on the planet. But he had no idea that the effects of the battle would bleed into the real world.
"So the battle will decide our fate, I suppose," August calmed down as his mind realized the implications of this sign.
"Either Karna Vermillion will win the battle against Ankhseram and destroy him. Or a god of death will rise who will not hesitate to kill every single life on this planet if it means that he can evolve further into a higher being," Irene said with a calm expression. But her eyes were on a crimson-scaled Dragon Slayer that was wreaking havoc across the battlefield.
'So she had grown up well, and it looks like she had inherited my draconic genes. I wonder if she would end up like me.'
At the same time in the Domain of the Dead,
"Finally trapped you, damn brat," Ankhseram shouted with glee.
"Damn it," Karna cursed.
A/N - Hope you like it.