CHAPTER 196: The Song of the Nine and the Heavenly Abyss (Part 2)
The nine girls did not retreat a single millimeter upon seeing the four colossi emerge from the fissures of the fortress. On the contrary, the draconic blood in their veins boiled with anticipation. Far from feeling fear, a look of uncontrollable fervor appeared on their faces. Eris displayed a macabre and bloodthirsty smile upon seeing that there was more flesh to tear apart, while Violeta simply clicked her tongue in annoyance at the new nuisance.
In front of them, the titanic Magma Centaur exhaled a cloud of burning sulfur. Rurik, with a hoarse and distorted voice that resonated like a demon emerging from the center of the earth, raised his incandescent axe.
"It's time for round 2," he bellowed, making a sharp gesture with his free hand for the Semi-Saints to attack.
But the girls of the Vanguard knew exactly what to do. The Soul Nexus flickered, connecting their minds in an instant, with Violeta assuming absolute tactical command.
"Split up and fight in teams of two," ordered Violeta's cold voice in their minds. "Those beasts might seem like little, but under Rurik's domain they heal and grow stronger with each blow. Find their weak points and destroy them quickly."
Eris, spinning her immense halberd with one hand, glanced sideways at her companion.
"Hey, Vio..." asked Eris telepathically, voicing the doubt they all shared. "Can't you use that absurd spatial power? The one you used with the Demon King, or whatever his name is now, Xaloc. We would finish this in a second."
Violeta remembered the omnipotence of that gaze, but shook her head slightly.
"Unfortunately, it's not possible. I tried to activate it, but something is blocking my perception. We will have to rely on ourselves." Violeta gritted her teeth, muttering in her mind: ("I only know they are called the Eyes of the Heavenly Abyss. I wish I could use them. I will ask my brother why this happens when I return.")"Now attack. I will distract this main monster. I won't be able to hold out for long alone, so finish your fights quickly."
The order was given. The battlefield exploded.
The first to move were Eris and Xylia. By instinct and through the Nexus, they targeted the most immense physical threat: the Stage 9 Tectonic Avalanche Beetle.
Eris, with her predatory smile on her face, did not wait for Violeta to open a portal for her. She activated her [Incandescent Dance of Judgment]. Her body turned into a ray of black light that zigzagged across the courtyard, leaving scars of white fire suspended in the air that tore through the dimensions themselves. With a leap that shattered gravity, she soared towards the firmament to execute the [Descent of the Igneous Phoenix]. The immense friction manifested a bird of crimson plasma around her halberd, plummeting directly onto the colossus's obsidian carapace.
But the giant beetle responded. Activating its [Volcanic Bellows Mantle], it exhaled a superheated mist of ash from the joints of its chitin, so dense that it acted as a physical wall. The impact was titanic. Eris's deflagration clashed against the beast's bellows. To prevent the ash from melting her lungs, Eris unleashed her [Flame of Eternal Ruin], a black and white fire that devoured the ash's structure, using it as a defense. Even so, the monster's brute inertia sent her flying backward.
Xylia, using her mastery over magnetism, caught her in the air, smoothly halting her fall.
"Hey, Lady of Thunder, a little help here," Eris joked, wiping a trickle of blood from her cheek.
Xylia glared at her with an electric gaze. "Do not call me that, berserker."
Eris let out a dismal laugh. "Hahahaha, fine. But seriously, that regeneration and that defense are a pain. I'll attack it head-on, you look for its weakness."
Xylia nodded. Her white eyes shone, processing the world at incomprehensible speeds. Eris did not waste a second and charged again, activating her [Inertial Anvil Charge]. The beetle rammed at the same time, concentrating tons of tectonic pressure into its three-pronged horn. They clashed in the center of the courtyard. Seeing that the horn threatened to impale her, Eris smiled, releasing her [Decaying Core Explosion] at point-blank range. An eye-sized sphere detonated, expanding a gray and crimson shockwave that infected and rotted the beetle's energy, sapping power from its charge. Taking advantage of the opening, Eris delivered a devastating kick that shattered half of the beast's face.
The monster began to regenerate instantly, but Xylia had seen it. With her hyper-accelerated perception, she noticed that, upon ramming, a tiny opening in the neck carapace would open and close.
"The neck! The chitin joint!" Xylia transmitted through the Nexus.
Immediately, Xylia opened her codex and unleashed her [Celestial Thunder Mandate]. A vortex of cyan clouds covered the sky and purifying lightning bolts began to massacre the beast's back. The beetle, enraged, tried to use its [Seismic Fault Pulse] to liquefy the girls' organs, but Xylia's constant bombardment interrupted its Qi flow. Xylia raised her whip, Indra, and shouted with her [Voice of Thunder]:
"KNEEL!"
The synaptic block struck the beetle's nervous system, paralyzing it for a fraction of a second.
"Now, Eris!" shouted Xylia.
Eris, whose eyes were closed, snapped them open. Her lethal [Eyes of Ruin] activated. Her crimson pupil saw the seams of the world; her neon violet pupil saw the exact point of combustion beneath the massive horn. She executed her ultimate technique: the [True Destruction Slash]. Her halberd did not cut flesh; it traced an arc of nonexistence in the air. The energy of Ruin penetrated the beetle's weak joint. The beast, instead of bleeding, simply ceased to be recognized by the universe and crumbled into black ashes, with no opportunity to heal or react.
Eris coughed up a large mouthful of blood from stopping the deadly attack before it consumed her own body, but Xylia held her firmly. They high-fived, sharing a smile of victory.
A few meters away, Lys and Lirael ran toward the Twilight Widow. Both women looked at the giant spider with an evident expression of disgust. However, as they approached, the spider with eight red eyes instinctively backed away. Its dark nature felt a biological terror toward the immaculate light radiating from Lys's Semi-Transformation.
Lirael smiled under her hood. "The beast fears your light. Let's take advantage of it."
Lys gave a purely sadistic smile, floating forward. "Come, ugly little thing. We won't do anything to you, you won't feel pain... just come a little closer."
The spider, desperate, launched its [Event Horizon Threads], invisible shadow nets that would crush the bones of any prey attempting to flee. But Lirael, moving with millimeter precision, cut all the threads with her Moon Fang. Seeing the beast's aggressiveness, Lys's gaze darkened.
Lys snapped her fingers and unleashed her [Purifying Flash]. A sphere of incandescent white light erupted on the field, erasing the shadows and burning the spider's multiple eyes, leaving it temporarily blind. In that instant of blindness, Lirael submerged herself in her [Veil of Eternal Night] and executed the [Fragmented Mirror Execution: A Thousand Twilight Slashes]. She did not attack the spider; she attacked the thousands of reflections in the mercury drops suspended in the air. Hundreds of deep wounds spontaneously bloomed on the spider's flesh, burning with lunar energy and preventing healing.
Maddened, the Twilight Widow tried to use its [Veil of Umbrial Amnesia] to create a mist of mental confusion, but Lys firmly planted her staff.
"I won't let you do that, darling," said Lys, activating the [Sanctuary of the Eternal Dawn: Dome of Absolute Grace]. An immense dome of golden fractals covered the girls. The photonic light instantly drained the poisonous mist and completely cut off the healing that Rurik's domain granted the spider.
With its healing power nullified, the spider attacked in pure desperation using its [Corrosive Twilight Claws] against Lirael, seeking to impose a molecular erosion on her armor. But Lirael became intangible. Passing through the attack as if it were smoke, she activated her codex [Shattered Moon Reflection]. Her transparent sword did not cut the spider's flesh; it bypassed its shield and cut the beast's Spiritual Shadow. In absolute silence, all of the Widow's legs fell dead, severed from material existence.
The spider collapsed onto the ground. Lys, floating above, raised her Aurora Beacon. A golden thread connected the jewel with the stratosphere.
"[Decree of the Unconquered Sun: Spear of Divine Sublimation]," proclaimed Lys.
A pillar of bluish-white light the thickness of a pin, but with the density of a star, descended from the sky. The spider was instantly annihilated, sublimated into glowing ash, leaving a massive crater of liquid glass.
A cloud of dirt and smoke rose. Lirael coughed, brushing off her clothes. "Next time give a warning, I don't want to be swallowing dirt."
Lys scratched her cheek with an embarrassed smile. "Hehehe, sorry."
Simultaneously, Eira and Mira waged a battle of attrition against the colossal Bloody Root Bear. The Stage 5 Semi-Saint's endurance was absurd; every wound it received closed thanks to Rurik's domain and its own [Bronze Root Storm].
Mira dodged a forest of sharp roots sprouting from the ground, huffing with annoyance. "Tch! What a pain. Without this damned domain you'd be dead already, disgusting beast."
Eira nodded, her face impassive as ice. The bear, understanding it was being underestimated, roared and activated its [Meteorite Dust Wall]. A dome of heavy gravity was established, making everything feel as if it were underwater, attempting to halt the girls' agile movements.
"Is that all your power, ugly little thing?" mocked Mira, bursting into laughter. "Hahahaha!"
The bear, infuriated, intensified its attacks. Eira, with her amber eyes shining frostily, tracked the flow of the roots' Qi and the gravity.
"Its weak point is the joints between the organic jade plates on its back," Eira indicated to Mira via the Nexus. "That's where the flesh meets the mineral."
"We just have to strike there to kill it in one blow, hehehe," replied Mira. "You do the honors, I'll distract it."
Mira contorted in the air, gliding under the crushing gravity thanks to her ophidian bones. She launched her [Amethyst Fang Dance: Law Rot]. The blades of her daggers corrupted the bronze roots and the gravity wall. The bear tried to bite her with its [Garden of Forced Life], seeking to inject her with cellular wood tumors, but Mira simply exhaled her [Amethyst Mist]. The thick vapor flooded the beast's face, plunging it into a deep lethargy. Its movements became horribly predictable and slow.
That was the moment. Eira raised the Scepter of the Absolute Zero Sovereign and transformed it into a sword. She invoked the [Waltz of the Thousand Ice Splinters]. Twelve crystal petals of Imperial Ice detached from the guard and orbited her body. Like missiles of fragility, the twelve petals flew and lodged themselves in the exact joints of the jade plates on the bear's back. The Law of Fragility expanded, freezing and turning the monster's skin as brittle as blown glass.
Mira, taking advantage of the bear's immobility, appeared above it in a purple blur. Her crystal dagger sank into the frozen wound with a clean cut. The bear lay inert, dead before it could register the pain.
"Yes, this ugly bug finally died," sighed Mira. "Come on, Eira, let's move on to the main course."
Both shot toward the center of the courtyard.
Meanwhile, Vania and Lia faced the fastest and most elusive beast of all: the Mute Void Vulture. The avian colossus relentlessly dodged Lia's arrows using the [Wind Wake Phaseshift], curving light to create false images of itself.
Lia muttered a curse as another plasma arrow struck dead air. But upon feeling the beetle fall, the vulture made a fatal mistake: it was distracted for a thousandth of a second.
Vania struck the ground with her Scepter of the Eternal Siren. She opened her mouth and intoned the [Song of the End of the World: Requiem of Singularity]. The super-compressed sound beam, so dense that it distorted space, traveled at the speed of light toward the beast, destabilizing its flight and stunning it with the pressure of the singularity.
"Attack its wings now!" Vania shouted to her through the Nexus.
Lia activated her [Thunder Hawk Eyes] to the maximum and forced the [Static Attraction Charge] into the air. Her silver feathers anchored her arms with magnetism. In an instant of [Chain Shot], she released ten [Bolts of Celestial Judgment]. The vulture could not dodge; its own body attracted the arrows. The projectiles impacted its translucent void wings, causing massive convulsions.
The bird, in a nosedive, desperately launched its [Shadow Mirror Slash], invisible air blades that traveled through the void straight toward Vania's neck. But she did not even flinch. She activated the [Empress's Silence: Acoustic Void]. A violet bubble erased all kinetic energy; the wind slashes fell to the ground like dry leaves. Immediately after, Vania released the immense pressure of her [Resonant Mercury Blood], added to her [Authority of the Requiem]. A crushing acoustic force struck the vulture, causing it to lose control completely and smashing it against the ground with the force of a meteorite, opening a huge crater.
Lia drew her bow to finish it off. "Now, end it!"
But before she could fire, a shadow fell from the heights. Eris landed brutally on the vulture, driving her halberd in and unleashing the [Flame of Eternal Ruin] combined with a [Decaying Core Explosion]. The vulture was erased from existence in a burst of black and white fire.
Eris, leaning on the handle of her weapon, looked at Vania and Lia with a wild smile. "What's up! I saw you needed help, hahaha."
As she finished speaking, the auras of the other beasts had disappeared. The nine girls, although exhausted, immediately regrouped. Their attention focused entirely on the furious battle raging in the center of the courtyard, running toward their tactical commander.
While all this was happening, Violeta was waging a suicidal fight against Rurik's monstrosity.
The Magma Centaur maintained a sadistic smile, confident in his superiority. But Violeta activated her [Bridge Between Worlds], compressing her body and instantly reappearing behind the colossus. Without hesitation, she executed the [Absolute Zero Lotus: Singularity Petal Execution]. Her thrust multiplied; twelve tips of black ice emerged from the void attempting to freeze the mercenary's atoms.
Rurik reacted with the speed of a Grand Saint at his peak. He spun around and unleashed the [Minotaur's Charge: The Anvil of Extinction]. His white fire axe clashed against Violeta's Lotus with a dull, low-frequency BANG! that made the igneous fault tremble. The thermal shockwave pierced through the ice defense.
Violeta was sent flying backward, her arms trembling uncontrollably. The [Passage of Ethereal Blood] saved her from losing her limbs by partially turning her into a hologram, but the kinetic impact still reached her. She spat blood as she fell, feeling her ribs fracture under the pressure.
Rurik, seeing all his precious beasts fall one by one, lost his sanity.
"AAAAAAH! DAMNED BITCHES, YOU ALL HAVE TO DIE!" he howled, and charged with a new [Minotaur's Charge] at maximum speed.
Violeta, barely recovering from the first blow, knew she could not dodge. She thrust her rapier into the air and activated the [Astral Frost Prison: Horizon of Immobility]. A 50-meter zone froze, turning the air as dense as steel. But Rurik's attack was too massive; it broke the horizon of stasis, and the lateral strike impacted Violeta's waist, fracturing more bones and sending her rolling across the volcanic rocks, completely exhausted.
The girls were approaching quickly to support her, but Rurik raised his axe for a final blow, one that Violeta, wounded and breathless, would not be able to stop.
It was in that microsecond of impending death when Violeta's deepest bloodline roared. She felt an absolute pull on her soul. The power she yearned to use, the forbidden heritage, forced its way to the surface. The temperature of the world ceased to matter; the ice disappeared from her pupils, replaced solely by the immensity of the absolute void.
The [Eyes of the Heavenly Abyss] opened.
Her irises transformed into vibrant neon purple jewels, as deep as the universe itself. In the center, the [Imperial Seal of Space] shone incandescently. There was no cold, there was no ice; there only existed the pure and dictatorial Law of Space.
Using the absolute power she had once seen in Samael, Violeta executed the [Bridge Between Dimensions]. Without moving a millimeter, she folded the fabric of the coliseum's reality. In a single blink, the other eight girls were ripped from their positions and teleported directly to Violeta's field, surrounding the back and flanks of Rurik's Centaur.
The girls were surprised by the jump, but their Morningstar combat mastery made them focus in a fraction of a second, knowing it was Violeta's doing.
At the same time, Violeta fixed her gaze on the monster. She unleashed the [Oppression of the Spiritual Void].
Rurik tried to bring down the axe, but his body froze in time. He felt the space around his brain contract massively. An abyssal and irrational terror, amplified by the Magma Hound's animal instincts, paralyzed him completely. He roared, trying to force his muscles, but the gaze of the Ethereal Blood Executioner anchored him to his physical coordinate. And now, he had the gaze of nine apex predators fixed upon him.
However, Violeta's eyes began to bleed profusely. She was at her limit; the collapse from maintaining the Heavenly Abyss was destroying her own meridians.
The Soul Nexus connection flared with urgency.
"I can't hold on any longer!" Violeta shouted telepathically, with blood staining her porcelain cheeks. "We have to finish this in a single coordinated strike! I hold him, you execute him!"
The eight heroines did not hesitate. On the rubble walkways, Lys and Lia took the initiative. The heavy artillery of the sky was ready.
Lia aimed her bow. Taking advantage of the residual ions floating in the air, she unleashed her [Superconductor Nervous System]. Her nervous impulses operated at the speed of light. In a blink, she fired ten [Arrows of Celestial Punishment], which broke the sound barrier and curved magnetically, embedding themselves deep into the colossus's chest armor.
Lys, rising majestically, deployed her [Dictatorial Purification]. The immense [Sky of Justice] fell over the courtyard. The photonic light bathed Violeta and the others, closing their wounds and stabilizing their Qi. But for Rurik, that divine light was corrosive; his magma armor and his own Qi began to boil and evaporate violently.
Violeta, taking advantage of the last second before her eyes closed, executed the [Song of the Void Winter Sword: Crystal Coffin: Absolute Zero]. The thrust did not travel through the air; it crossed the folded space. Three immense chunks of absolute ice materialized directly inside the three hearts of the symbiotic beast. Time froze within Rurik's wounds, permanently blocking his Fire Law and any remaining regeneration.
Xylia pointed two fingers toward the sky, her plasma veins throbbing. With her [Plasma Reaction Circuit], she drew a colossal pillar of tribulation lightning from the clouds, guided by Lia's arrows.
"Yield!" ordered Xylia, injecting her [Sovereign's Mandate] into the discharge. The immense electrical pressure electrocuted the centaur's nervous system, leaving it in a catatonic state.
Eris, propelled by the [Marrow of Unstable Singularity], launched herself like a meteor. She opened her Codex and unleashed the [Scripture of the Solar Catastrophe Spear: Black Supernova]. She spun her halberd like a vortex and delivered fifty slashes in a single second. The accretion disk of her energy devoured Rurik's magma, generating explosions of dark matter that tore the beast's back as if it were burnt paper.
Lirael, with her eyes closed, fixed her mirror vision on the immense shadow projected by Rurik against the wall. Applying the [Authority of the Lethal Reflection], she launched a flawless transversal slash with the Moon Fang. The immaterial weapon did not touch flesh, but a massive spiritual cut opened in Rurik's soul, forcibly breaking the parasitic connection of the Fire Symbiosis.
Vania inhaled, her vocal cords vibrating at the frequency of death. [Song of the End of the World: Requiem of Singularity]. The dense sonic beam distorted light and impacted the centaur's center of mass. The seismic wave penetrated to the beast's minor organs, instantly liquefying them under indescribable acoustic pressure.
Finally, Mira fell from the sky. With a fluid spin, she threw six daggers imbued with [Corrosive Neurotoxin Blood]. The blades penetrated the wounds opened by Eris and Violeta, injecting the amethyst poison straight into Rurik's and the hound's bloodstream, rotting their meridians and sealing any final attempt at self-destruction.
And then, the world collapsed.
Under the incessant and simultaneous bombardment of Ruin, Spatial Ice, Electrical Punishment, Purifying Light, Conceptual Cuts, and Absolute Poison, the majestic domain of thermal death shattered like a dome of fragile glass.
The massive explosion of energy swept the fortress courtyard. Rurik and the Magma Hound were separated in a grotesque and violent manner. The mercenary was sent flying like a broken doll, crashing against the remains of the drawbridge. His armor was melted into his skin, his lungs burned, and his bones pulverized. The once-invincible hound lay a few meters away, covered in lethal frost and black blood, emitting an agonizing whimper without the strength to even move an ear.
The dense and heavy silence returned to the Igneous Fault Bastion.
In the center of the immense crater, the nine heroines fell to their knees.
The draconic scales, the imposing horns, and the terrifying bestial pupils slowly faded into their skin, as the Semi-Transformation deactivated to protect their lives. The massive Qi consumption had been so devastating that Violeta could barely keep her eyes open. Eris leaned heavily on her halberd, coughing blood with a tired smile, while Lirael and Vania fell flat on their backs on the cold stones, completely exhausted and with their Dantians dry.
But before they fell unconscious from exhaustion, a dark, powerful, and curiously warm presence enveloped them.
Lilith floated down gracefully, landing in the middle of the group. Her face, usually carved in sadistic severity, now showed a broad and genuine smile of pride.
"You have done an exceptional job, my girls," murmured Lilith, her soft voice steeped in maternal affection. "Tearing apart a Peak Stage 2 Grand Saint and his war mount in the heart of his own territory... is an achievement worthy of the blood you bear. I assure you that Patriarch Samael will be immensely proud of your victory."
Lilith observed them, stopping her gaze a few seconds longer on Violeta, thinking to herself: ("Who would have thought that for Violeta to manage to use that ocular power she has to be on the brink of death? If the other kids also have to be pushed to these extremes to evolve, I will tell my nephew. If she ever masters that gaze to the maximum... I cannot imagine the magnitude of her power.")
Upon hearing that Patriarch Samael would be proud, the nine girls—even the expressionless and pained Violeta—drew small, relieved smiles on their lips. That simple affirmation was the only validation they cared about in the entire universe. Knowing that they had fulfilled their duty to the Morningstar, they closed their eyes and let themselves peacefully slip into unconsciousness.
Lilith did not allow them to touch the bloodstained rocks. With an elegant movement of her slender fingers, she wove shadow threads that enveloped them in comfortable cocoons of soft void, suspending them in the air.
"Sleep. The carnage is over for you," she whispered to them.
With a snap, Lilith tore space and opened a massive portal connected directly to the medical wings of the Void Herald. The nine warriors were gently sent to rest. Immediately after, the same shadow threads wrapped around the half-dead bodies of the eleven Captains, as well as Rurik, the immense Magma Hound, and old Vorg the Unbreakable, sending them all like a juicy, macabre package toward Sienna's dark laboratory.
Lilith stood completely alone in the center of the immense, destroyed courtyard of the mercenary castle. She stretched slightly, cracking her neck muscles with a dry sound. She looked up toward the depths of the central fortress, where the aura of two monstrous presences waited in the most absolute darkness.
"Good," whispered Lilith, her emerald eyes shining with a lethality that eclipsed hell itself. "The vanguard has cleared the trash. It's time for the Queens to play."