The moment the spear of crimson star-iron materialized in Kale's hand, the battlefield forgot what mercy even meant.
No grand speech.
No dramatic pause.
No slow, cinematic walk.
He simply moved.
A thousand meters away, an A-rank Stormrend commander's head vanished in a red mist before the man even registered the motion. His body stayed upright for half a heartbeat, then folded like wet paper.
Kale was already somewhere else.
|Crimson Tide Dominion|
Fifty thousand kilometers of sky turned the color of an open wound. Every droplet of moisture in the air, every bead of sweat on a soldier's brow, every lungful of breath... all of it transmuted instantly into living blood-mist that answered only to him. The mist condensed into ten thousand crimson spears that hung above the battlefield like a forest of hanging corpses.
Then they fell.
SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRIP!
Twenty-three thousand Stormrend cultivators, C-rank and B-rank fodder were stitched to the ground in the space of a single breath. Blood-mist spears punched through chests, throats, skulls, and kept going, dragging bodies into the air on crimson chains before ripping them apart mid-flight. Gore rained in sheets.
A freshly arrived A-rank wind manipulator screamed and hurled a tornado of blades at the mist. The blood-mist gurgled (a wet, laughing sound) and poured down his open throat. Lungs filled. Eyes burst like overripe grapes.
His affinity was torn out of his core with a sickening rip and swallowed whole by the crimson sigil blazing on Kale's tongue
[Devoured: Wind Affinity]
Kale didn't slow.
With his Sovereign's Rebuke still activated.... his voice rolled across the sky-islands, calm as a funeral bell.
"Die."
Every enemy who heard it directly felt forty percent of their existence level drain away like blood from a slit wrist. A-ranks dropped to their knees, auras guttering like candles in a storm. B-ranks vomited black. C-ranks simply died where they stood, hearts stopping mid-beat.
Kale flickered, he wasn't teleporting, just raw speed that made the air scream... he appeared inside a formation of eight A-rank veterans who had managed to raise a joint lightning barrier. The spear spun once. The barrier shattered like glass. Eight heads rolled in eight different directions, expressions still frozen in disbelief.
He opened his mouth.
The crimson sigil flared hungry and alive.
|Maw of Empire|
Every severed talent, every dying affinity, every drop of blood-mist that touched the sigil was devoured. A storm manipulator's core talent tore free of its dying owner and poured down Kale's throat like molten gold. A lightning affinity followed, then a thunder physique.
[Devoured: Thunder Physique – Rank A]
[Devoured: Lightning Affinity]
[Devoured: Stormheart Talent – Rank A]
The spear moved again (no technique, no name, just pure, contemptuous violence). A hundred A-ranks charged in perfect formation, lightning lances leveled. Kale walked straight through them. The spear carved a perfect circle. One hundred bodies fell in two perfect halves, entrails steaming on the broken sky-islands.
Blood-mist condensed into a crimson dragon that coiled around his arm, roaring with ten thousand stolen voices. It lunged, swallowed an entire battalion whole, and spat out nothing but bones that rained like hail.
Another A-rank (this one desperate, suicidal) detonated his own core in a final lightning nova that lit the horizon white.
Kale opened his mouth and ate the explosion.
The sigil pulsed once, satisfied.
The battlefield was silent...
Kale stood in the center of it all, spear resting lazily on one shoulder, crimson mist swirling around him like a living cloak. His lovers watched from the back lines (eyes wide, lips parted, blood still drying on their skin) and for the first time truly understood the difference between their power and the monster who owned them.
Since being bound to him, they had always felt his aura... however seeing it was a whole different matter.
"We keep moving.... slaughter everyone you see. Until those three decide to show up, we drown this Kingdom in blood!!!" Kale rumbled as he and all the Voss troops moved.
[+520,000] (I rounded it, this includes the bunch from the end of the last chapter.)
[Rank - Low Rank S (Existence Level 540,300)]
[A/N: Rank S, Low to Peak moves based on path progression.... EL is a requirement, but minor in comparison.]
-----
Far above, in a chamber of storm-glass, three silhouettes watched the scrying pool turn red.
"So, the stele wasn't exaggerating," King Tharion rumbled, voice like mountains grinding. "His SSS talent is indeed something"
Queen Maelina's fingers tightened on her throne until the armrests cracked. "How did an unranked mongrel reach S-rank? That's knowledge exclusive to only ranked Kingdoms..."
Orion rose slowly, lightning crawling across his skin like eager spiders. '"Let me face him.... I want to see if his strength matches his arrogance.'" Orion for the first time spoke as he stood up.
King Tharion however shook his head.
Tharion's smile was winter and graves. "No. We all go. First, we offer the boy a throne beside us.
Talent like that can be useful during our next wager..."
He stood, and the chamber trembled.
"If he refuses… then he dies with the rest of the ants. Orion, gather the rest of our legions."
At those words they all three left the room.