Hyacine showed no mercy either. With a sweep of her hands, dozens of cyan wind blades formed from magical energy howled outwards. Piercing straight through the barrier like precision-guided missiles, they viciously sliced into the wings and necks of the Consecrated Red Vultures, drawing strings of blood in the air.
The battle seemed deadlocked, but a short distance away, a figure abruptly shattered the brief equilibrium.
It was Aiden.
Clutching the [Godslayer: Surtr], its blade flowing with magma-like radiance, he crouched low, the muscles in his legs tensing to their absolute limits.
The next second—
BOOM!!!
With a deafening explosion, the sand beneath his feet caved in violently, forming a massive crater over three meters wide. Violent air currents launched countless grains of sand into the sky, while Aiden himself defied gravity, shooting upwards like a crimson cannonball straight into the clouds.
His ascent was terrifyingly fast, the friction against the air generating an ear-piercing shriek. The extreme temperatures caused by his hyper-speed flight visibly warped the atmosphere along his trajectory.
His target: the alpha Consecrated Red Vulture hovering at the highest altitude, directing the flock's assault.
The alpha clearly hadn't anticipated a human launching into the sky with such explosive violence. By the time its ghost-fire-burning eye sockets registered Aiden's silhouette, it was already too late.
A flash of the blade.
It wasn't just a simple slash; it was absolute "destruction" born from an amalgamation of extreme heat and terrifying speed. The blade of the [Godslayer: Surtr] cleaved the sky, leaving a lingering crimson trail in the air that resembled a rift in space itself.
"SKREEEE—!!!"
A horrifying, agonizing shriek echoed across the heavens.
The alpha Consecrated Red Vulture's right wing was cleanly severed from the base. No blood spilled from the wound—the flesh and bone had been instantly carbonized by the heat.
Having completely lost its balance, the screaming monster spiraled downward from the sky.
However, its suffering was short-lived.
On the ground, an agile silhouette had already sprinted forward like a cheetah, flawlessly predicting its landing zone.
It was Tifa.
She leapt high into the air, her body arching in a beautiful yet lethal curve. Her long, explosive right leg swept forward with the force of a thunderbolt, ruthlessly and flawlessly smashed into the Consecrated Red Vulture's fragile neck.
CRACK—!
A crisp, sickening sound of shattering bone echoed out.
Under a kick capable of pulverizing solid steel, that rock-hard skull exploded like a fragile eggshell. The immense kinetic force sent the massive carcass tumbling several more times in mid-air before it slammed heavily into the earth, completely lifeless.
With the alpha slain in an instant, the flock of Consecrated Red Vultures circling the sky devolved into utter chaos. Having lost their unified command, their previously coordinated attack formations crumbled, leaving behind only disorganized, frantic screeches driven entirely by rage and instinct.
This was the exact opening Aiden had been waiting for.
He didn't possess wings, and he couldn't soar like a true bird, but the flames born of Everlasting Flames served as his thrusters to conquer the sky.
Tapping the empty air with his toes, a highly compressed sphere of fire violently detonated behind him. Acting like an arrow released from a bowstring, he dragged a crimson, heat-warped trajectory across the sky, instantly teleporting to the flank of a panicking Consecrated Red Vulture.
Before the monster could even process the threat, a blade of light—fusing sonic booms and blazing fire—flashed by. The Vulture's dark-red burning wing was snapped cleanly in half.
On the ground, Tifa's combat was equally decisive.
One of the Consecrated Red Vultures, abandoning its aerial advantage, initiated a steep dive from high above. Tucking its wings, its body spun rapidly during the descent, accumulating massive amounts of Pyro energy in a desperate bid to turn everything below into scorched earth with a devastating plunge.
Faced with an attack resembling a miniature meteor, Tifa didn't so much as blink. She merely pivoted slightly, evading the lethal core of the impact by a near-impossible margin.
BOOM—!
The Vulture smashed into the sand, erupting into a scorching ring of fire. Countless ignited feather bombs scattered outward, tracking Tifa like living, homing missiles.
But Tifa was already gone.
The very moment she sidestepped the crash, she pivoted on her heel, her silhouette darting like black lightning directly into the monster's blind spot. Before the swirling feather bombs could detonate, her right leg, wrapped in a meteor-like glow, ruthlessly and flawlessly smashed into the Consecrated Red Vulture's fragile neck vertebrae.
The crisp sound of snapping bone was entirely drowned out by the ensuing chain of explosions.
Witnessing this, another Consecrated Red Vulture unleashed a roar of pure fury. Instead of diving, it leveled out, flying parallel to the ground at extreme speed. With every beat of its wings, it dropped volleys of feather bombs, plowing a lethal line of fire across the sea of sand, rushing straight toward Aiden.
Suspended mid-air with nothing to push off of, Aiden merely let out a cold scoff.
He raised the [Godslayer: Surtr] high above his head. The flames and sonic waves wrapping the blade vibrated at an unprecedented, hyper-speed frequency. Then, he swung downward with all his might.
A crescent-shaped flying slash—forged from blazing white flames and golden sonic rings—erupted from the blade, tearing through the sky to flawlessly intercept the advancing line of fire.
The collision of fire against fire triggered a series of massive sympathetic detonations. However, after triggering the feather bombs, the luminous slash lost none of its momentum. It continued its forward march, flashing past in the blink of an eye as the Consecrated Red Vulture stared in sheer terror.
A rain of charred, blackened blood fell from the sky.
Moments later, the final Consecrated Red Vulture was swatted from the sky by Aiden, and the battlefield seemingly returned to a brief moment of tranquility.
However, at that very moment, disaster struck without warning.
Inside Jeanne's impenetrable golden barrier, the sand directly beneath Robin and Hyacine abruptly collapsed and exploded outward.
Three colossal, terrifying monsters—warped by lightning and corpses—burst from the earth.
They were Consecrated Scorpions.
Their heads were covered in massive, bone-white triangular carapaces, riddled with jagged fissures and bony protrusions. From either side of the headplates extended two crescent-shaped horns, emitting an ominous, pale purple glow. They possessed no eyes, only deep purple mandibles that clicked open and shut beneath their carapaces.
Their massive pincers were twisted into unnerving, asymmetrical scythes. Across the dark purple surface of their claws, lightning-like patterns flashed with blinding electricity. Large patches of the exoskeleton on their torsos had rotted away, exposing ashen bone and necrotized flesh. At the tip of their five-segmented tails, massive bone-white stingers crackled with frenzied lightning, radiating the uniquely violent, putrescent aura that comes from devouring the remains of dead gods.
Incredibly, they had bypassed the barrier's frontal defenses, tunneling through the earth to invade the very heart of the sanctuary.
───
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