The earth spears were no longer just magic; they were the physical manifestation of my death. They descended with a sound like tearing silk, thousands of them, aimed at the broken mess of my body. I lay in the dirt, blood pooling beneath my shattered ribs, cursing the very air I couldn't breathe.
"You and your big mouth, Night," I hissed internally, my consciousness flickering. "You talked about being a Sovereign, but we're dying in a hole. Just let it end. I'm tired of the pain."
"Shut up, brat! Watch!" Night's voice was a guttural snarl.
Just as the first spear touched the fabric of my shirt, it didn't pierce me. Instead, it shattered against a shimmering, translucent wall. Four distinct Barriers manifested over me in a staggered formation. It wasn't Night's power. The First Rank Valkyries had arrived. The first three earth-shattering layers of the barrier exploded under the pressure, but the fourth—a swirling, turbulent layer of High-Density Water Magic—absorbed the kinetic force and spiraled the spears away into the dirt.
"Gravity... someone is going to pay for this," I wheezed as a White Healing Light enveloped me. My bones groaned as they knit back together, the jagged edges of my ribs sliding into place. For the first time, I could draw a full, agonizing breath.
The Symphony of the First Rank
I looked up and saw the four girls. They were no longer the elegant debutantes of the ballroom. They stood in a perfect diamond formation, their mana syncing until the air hummed with a frequency that made my teeth ache.
"Formation Alpha! Launch!" the leader commanded.
The first girl raised her bow, her fingers a blur as she conjured thousands of Mana Arrows that shimmered like liquid silver. Beside her, the second girl slammed her hands together, creating a series of Spatial Amplification Circles in front of the archer. Every arrow that passed through those circles didn't just speed up; it multiplied. One became ten, ten became a hundred.
A storm of arrows tracked the General with predatory intelligence. As he raised his massive arms to swat them away, the third girl—the Lightning Specialist—blurred. She moved so fast she left after-images of blue electricity. She didn't attack the General's front; she used the arrow storm as cover to strike at the joints of his obsidian armor.
Clang! Boom!
The pressure was immense. Every time the Lightning girl struck, a localized shockwave rippled through the arena, cracking the very pillars holding up the ceiling. The fourth girl, the Barrier Specialist, wasn't just defending; she was creating mini-barriers in mid-air to act as footholds for the Lightning girl, allowing her to change direction in a millisecond, striking from angles that seemed impossible.
The General roared, his fists smashing the stone where the girls had stood a microsecond before. He was being peppered by thousands of arrows while being sliced by a lightning-fast blade, yet his obsidian skin remained unmarked.
The Suicide Ritual: The Weaving of Souls
"He's too durable!" the archer screamed, her fingers bleeding from the tension of her mana-bow.
"We have no choice," the leader replied, her eyes burning with a cold, suicidal resolve. "Bind him!"
The girls reached for their waists and unfurled White Soul-Chains. These weren't made of mana; they were forged from their own life force. They began a high-speed sprint around the General, weaving the chains into a complex geometric web.
The General snarled, his muscles bulging as he tried to snap the restraints. He grabbed one of the chains and yanked, sending the girl flying into a stone pillar. She coughed up blood but didn't let go. Instead, she began to glow.
They were all glowing now. Their skin began to char, and the smell of ozone and burning spirit filled the air. They were draining the General's force into themselves, using their own bodies as grounded conductors for his massive power. It was a slow suicide. Their bodies were burning from the inside out just to hold him still for a few heartbeats.
"NOW, NIGHT! FINISH IT!" they screamed in a chorus of agony.The Black Strike and the Void
Night didn't waste the sacrifice. He seized every ounce of my Soul-Weight, every drop of my boiling mana. He leapt into the air, the sword igniting with an aura that was no longer blue. It was Pitch Black—a color so dark it felt like a hole in reality.
The blade descended in a perfect arc, aimed directly at the General's throat. I felt my soul being stretched to the breaking point. The pain was transcendental, a scream that had no sound.
Then, the nightmare truly began.
A figure appeared out of thin air, standing between our black blade and the General. He didn't move a muscle. He didn't draw a weapon. He stood there with a terrifying calm.
As Night's full-power Black Strike collided with him, the figure simply raised his bare hand.
The moment of impact didn't result in an explosion. There was no sound. No shockwave. As the black blade touched his palm, the figure's expression remained unchanged. He looked almost bored.
Suddenly, the black energy of our strike began to flicker. It didn't break; it dissolved. The figure's hand didn't move an inch. Instead, the strike seemed to be swallowed by his very presence. Within a second, the massive, soul-crushing black energy we had gathered simply vanished into thin air, as if it had never existed.
The silence that followed was more terrifying than the battle.
The four girls behind me instantly collapsed, vomiting thick, black blood. The aura radiating from this man was so corrosive that the very stone beneath his feet began to melt into a bubbling sludge. He looked at me, his eyes two voids of absolute nothingness.
With a single hand, he had turned the Sovereign's ultimate strike into nothing.