Karna was keeping Ankhseram at bay while pushing his skills to the maximum. But he was not able to do so with the manipulation of death energy alone.
He was channelling the power in his other heart, the heart he had created to be the antithesis of the devil heart that radiated pure death energy. He had created it by using both the ethernano crystals from the R-System and the secrets of Nirvana he had obtained from the weapon all those years ago.
He used the reversal of Nirvana to flip his death energy into pure life energy and then created a devil heart based on pure life energy.
It was the existence of this heart that allowed him to survive until now against Ankhseram. The heart was pumping energy into his body, because of which he was not tired at all. Plus, it also created a small layer around him that helped him repel the death energy used by Ankhseram.
But other than repelling it slightly, Karna did not dare to use the heart too much. If he directly used it at full power, the chances of him pushing back Ankhseram were very high, but he would not win the battle.
The heart's output was nothing compared to the vast death domain around him. So, in a tug-of-war, his life heart would run out of energy before he defeated Ankhseram. So he had to hide it until he was sure the attack he landed would be effective enough to take him out.
But as he was fighting Ankhseram, he felt something was wrong. His instincts were telling him that he was in some kind of trouble, but he was unable to sense anything.
But the next moment….
his life heart suddenly shut off.
'What the-'
Bam!
Karna didn't even get a chance to process it before he was suddenly slammed into the ground by a claw made of pure death energy.
He tried to fight back, but he suddenly felt his body weakening by the second. No amount of effort was bringing out even an ounce of magic within him.
He felt like his entire being had been emptied.
"Aah!! Damn it!!" Karna cursed as spikes suddenly started to grow inside the fist that was holding him. They slowly pierced into his body as if they were made to inflict the maximum amount of pain for the longest period possible.
Karna looked up to find his enemy smiling as he trapped Karna with his power.
"It took me a moment to realise that you were using some kind of energy to negate the power of my death element," he said as he brought Karna close to his face. "So at first, I was planning on identifying that power so as to fight against it. But what do you know? When I looked at you, I realised something absolutely interesting.
You are still a human being."
Ankhseram then moved backward for a bit and channelled the death energy to form a throne.
"Unlike me, who has completely assimilated with the death domain, you are still a human being who uses magic to channel power and energy through your body.
So to defeat you, all I had to do was remove magic completely from this domain," Ankhseram gloated and raised his hand, revealing symbols present within the ground.
Karna had been unable to sense them before because they were radiating the same aura and power as the ground and the sky. Ankhseram, with his enormous experience in this domain over centuries, had managed to find out Karna's weakness and create a counter for it.
He had completely removed the magic from his body by enacting the same magic he had used to remove the memory of Fairy Sphere all those years ago.
But unlike that time, when he erased the memory and information of a spell, this time he deleted the concept of magic itself from around him, thereby stopping his reactor heart,
making him completely powerless.
Karna realised for the first time that he had no way to escape from this predicament. The removal of his magic had destroyed the majority of his arsenal, including his archery. His Incursio was still destroyed from how much he had pushed the armour while fighting Acnologia. Plus, the other artifacts or items he could use were unavailable because he could not access the system.
All in all, Ankhseram had completely caught him this time.
"Hmm, no witty remarks, no backup plans? Considering you somehow managed to create an improved version of Fairy Sphere seven years ago on Tenrou when I had clearly deleted it, I expected a bit more.
But if this is all you can do, I was foolish for thinking I had to make a deal with you just minutes ago. So how do you feel? Should I tighten it a bit more?" Ankhseram asked in glee as more spikes grew inside the arm, piercing into Karna's body.
But Karna held the pain in as he did not want to satisfy Ankhseram by showing his pain.
"Oh, still spirited, I see. But you lack the conviction to gain power. You know how strong you can get in the domain of death by killing. You knew about me and Acnologia; both of us obtained and reached this realm by killing millions of living beings. But even while knowing that, what gave you enough confidence to think that you could beat me by just entering the death domain?"
"I am not a MONSTER LIKE YOU WHO WILL DESECRATE INNOCENT LIVES TO GET STRONGER!!" Karna roared. He was not only voicing his conviction but was also shouting to ignore the pain he was feeling from Ankhseram's attack.
"Innocent, hahahaha! How naïve, child. The domain of death does not care about that at all. Death only aims at sniffing out as many lives as it can. It does not care whom it takes as long as it does," Ankhseram said with a fanatical expression on his face. "That is what the domain of death means, and I will use it to kill every life on this planet, and then...
I will ascend to the next form that will surpass anything that you can ever imagine," Ankhseram declared with complete seriousness.
But when he turned back to Karna, all he received was a look of pity.
A/N- Hope you like it.