With the Red King's order, the pillar-like weapon began to shine with blinding light as massive energy rapidly gathered.
Even before it fired, the temperature in the air was already climbing at a terrifying pace.
"Just to kill two people, he's willing to bury an entire village with them?" Despair surfaced in Caiera's eyes.
"You've stayed by his side for more than ten years. Don't tell me you only learned his true nature today?" Bant shot back.
Caiera shook her head.
She lowered her head and pulled the child who had attacked her with a blade into her arms, as if she wanted to shield her with her own body.
But she knew it was useless.
Her steel-like bones could not block the Deathflame's heat.
Maybe the Deathflame couldn't necessarily kill her, a warrior who had mastered Eternal Power, but everyone in this village would still be reduced to ash.
And for some reason, at this moment, Caiera gave up the thought of using Eternal Power to resist it.
Maybe it would be a good thing to let the flames burn this sinner to nothing as well.
Also…
She turned her head, looked at Bant, and smiled. "It's not really the right time to say it, but you're actually pretty much my type."
"Yeah, everyone says that." Bant shrugged.
He didn't have any special thoughts about Caiera. Maybe by Phantom Tribe standards she was a beauty, but to an Earthling, she was still a little too exotic.
"You should go," Caiera said. "Your Eternal Power still isn't enough to withstand the Deathflame. If you run now, you still have a chance to live."
"And you?" Bant asked.
Caiera lifted her head toward the Deathflame that was ready to fire, her voice filled with regret and a strange sense of release. "I'll stay here, and perish together with everyone in this village…"
Then she looked back at Bant, almost pleading. "If you really are the Son of Sakaar, the savior of this planet, then leave. Defeat the Red King. Save the Sakaarans!"
Bant looked up at the flames in the sky and smiled. "If I really am the Son of Sakaar, then no one dies."
He had no intention of running.
At that moment, the Deathflame Shell fully finished charging.
In the arena, when the Red King saw that Bant and Caiera had actually given up even trying to escape, his mood turned even better.
"Die, you lowly trash!"
With that curse, the Deathflame Shell fell.
It was like a sun smashing down from the heavens. The heat spiked so violently that the air warped, and the ground under Bant's feet melted into liquid in an instant.
"Hahahaha! Burn to ash in the Deathflame's fire!" The Red King threw his head back and laughed, his voice echoing through the empty arena.
"Xiao Ban won't die." Luma clenched her fist unconsciously, worry breaking through her confidence.
"Won't die?" The Red King gripped his blade and laughed even louder. "Ridiculous. The Deathflame is hotter than the surface of the star Taiyou, and its power blankets several kilometers. He can't resist it, and he can't escape it!"
Caiera's gray skin glowed red under the falling fire. Watching death descend, her past flashed before her eyes, the Red King's blade, the traitor to Sakaar.
Her life of sin finally reached its end.
Her arms tightened around the child in her embrace, as if when she was young, her mother had once tried to protect her the same way.
"It's over…"
"It's not over."
Bant's confident voice sounded beside her.
Caiera and the child both looked over, but what they saw was no longer the silver-gray Phantom Tribe warrior.
In front of them stood a flame warrior made of crimson rock, as if magma ran like blood through his body.
Flame Man!
The warrior of fire didn't look particularly tall, but he stood between heaven and earth with both arms raised. In an instant, endless flames responded as if receiving their king's command, forming a flowing vortex that surged toward him.
At this moment, the Deathflame was nothing more than a subject kneeling at his feet, even the sun forced to yield!
Caiera's eyes went completely blank.
She watched boundless fire flow past her like a river, yet she couldn't feel any burning heat at all.
The child in her arms even stretched out a small hand toward the flames.
"So warm…"
"T-This is impossible!"
"He absorbed the Deathflame Shell…"
Even from far away, in the arena, the Red King still recoiled half a step in fear when he saw it, his gaze wavering.
Not just him.
Anyone who saw Bant absorb the Deathflame would think they were witnessing a god!
"A Pyronite…" Luma murmured. "Those guys really do have some skill."
Boom!
In the blink of an eye, the searing Deathflame vanished into nothingness. The sudden cooling triggered violent air currents, whipping up a fierce wind.
Bant felt fire-energy overflowing through his entire body. The flames above his head burned even more fiercely, and even his shoulders erupted like vents, spewing flames hot enough to warp the air itself!
"You conquered the monster inside the Great Maw, and now you've become the volcano itself…" Caiera stared at Bant in a daze. "You are the incarnation of nature. There's no doubt you are the Son of Sakaar!"
"Maybe." Bant sounded indifferent. To be honest, he was already tired of hearing that title.
"Caiera, if you truly hate the Red King, if you truly feel ashamed for betraying the Sakaarans in the past, then what you should do now isn't to wait for execution."
"Come with me and kill the Red King!"
Caiera looked shaken, but she still shook her head and said bitterly, "It's useless. He only needs to press the button. The neurotoxin will spread through my body immediately. I can't resist at all."
That was the greatest despair of everyone enslaved by the Red King.
They didn't even have the hope of rebellion. The moment they stood before the Red King, death could come easily.
"What if I said I can deal with the Obedience Disc?" Bant asked.
"Really?!" Caiera's eyes widened.
"We'll talk about that later." Bant bared his teeth in a grin and looked up at the sky. "Something else is coming!"
"Something else?" Caiera froze.
Then she saw the enormous object overhead plunge down.
Boom!
Like a spacecraft crashing from orbit, the black pillar smashed through the surface. The next second, its hatch opened, and dense yellow-brown insects poured out like a swarm of mosquitoes.
Behind them came countless humanoid monsters that moved like zombies.
"What is this? Don't tell me we're opening a zombie universe?" Bant's face went stiff. Those humanoid monsters looked like rotting corpses crawling back from the dead, twisting as they charged toward them.
"Those are Spikes!" Caiera's voice turned sharp the moment she saw them. "Spikes…"
"Don't let them parasite you!" she warned. "If they get inside, we'll become monsters just like them!"
Her eyes burned with fury as she clenched her fist and lightning burst out again.
"It was these monsters that attacked my village and killed my parents!"
Once, Caiera had believed the Red King was the one who saved her from death, but she'd been wrong.
Spikes had been his weapon all along.
That attack had been planned by him from the start, all to find the slave he wanted most, sacrificing countless lives…
Caiera didn't need to explain.
Bant could already see how terrifying they were.
The Spikes swarmed onto the Skull Soldiers who had already been knocked down. They pierced their skin and immediately burrowed inside.
Under the soldiers' once-smooth skin, it looked like worms were writhing.
Like sandworms, the Spikes crawled beneath the flesh until they reached the brain and completely seized control!
The dead rose again.
The defeated Skull Army truly became skulls…
Caiera pulled the child behind her and prepared to fight.
But Bant stepped in front of her.
"Take that child and go. Get the other villagers out."
"But…"
"Don't worry." Bant let out a feral grin. "I just happen to have more power than I can use right now!"
In an instant, the flames around him surged with the wind, turning blood-red like the Deathflame itself!
"Fine!"
Caiera finally made her decision. She touched the disc at her neck and thought, even if I die, I'll make the Red King pay!
"Then we'll meet in the capital!"
She turned and ran.
The village's elders and children scrambled out and followed Caiera's footsteps.
The Spikes tried to chase them, but Bant swept his palm and a wall of fire rose up like a bottomless chasm, cutting the swarm off.
"Your opponent is me!"
In an instant, all the insects and all the creatures they'd turned into monsters surged toward Bant.
Bant didn't flinch.
First, he used flames to trap the Spikes and their monsters, making sure not a single one slipped away.
Only after Caiera and the villagers had vanished into the distance did Bant finally begin the real attack.
He took one step forward and raised his arm high. Fire gathered in his palm, condensing into a gigantic sphere, like a burning red giant star.
"Deathflame Shell!"
After absorbing the Red King's Deathflame, Bant had fully mastered that energy.
But against these monsters, he didn't need to release its full power.
Boom!
A fireball hundreds of meters across detonated in an instant. Crimson flames devoured everything!
When the fire finally burned out, there was nothing left before Bant's eyes.
All the monsters, the insects, even the surface itself had vanished completely, leaving only molten lava that had not yet cooled, flowing heavily.
Bzzzt…
The drone feed went dead.
Under that single strike, every drone had already melted into liquid metal.
But no one believed Bant had lost to the Spikes.
He was powerful like a god.
In the arena, Luma looked at the Red King with smug satisfaction.
Everything was ready now.
All that remained was the final war.
Too bad I still haven't found an ice creature, she thought.
But that didn't matter anymore.
"You've lost, Anmor A'shan."
"Lost?" The Red King sneered. "You won the second match, and you really think the two of you can oppose me?"
As the emperor of a planet, the Red King's military strength was obviously far more than this.
Luma and the Hacker might be strong, but could they really make enemies of the entire world?
He didn't even take Caiera seriously. With an Obedience Disc on her, she was an ant he could crush at any time.
"The two of you are isolated. What can you possibly do?"
As he spoke, he swung his double-bladed greatsword, and the remaining royal guards prepared to attack.
Luma swept her gaze around, her knees bending slightly. She clearly intended to fight the Red King head-on.
"Royal Guard, attack!"
With a slash of his blade, the guards in golden exoskeleton armor charged at Luma.
"Come!"
Luma roared a battle cry. The two arms on her right side punched together, sending one guard flying.
But at the same time, three attacks reached her back. Golden spears stabbed against her skin, sparks bursting.
"Trash that can't even pierce my skin!" Luma seized three spears under her ribs with one arm-pair, then chopped down with another hand like a blade, snapping them all.
Then she swung her arm and slammed the attackers to the ground.
But the enemy numbers were too great, and their advanced specialized armor made her blows far less effective than they should have been.
She kept knocking them away, but the guards still stood back up and swarmed her again and again.
Four guards seized her two upper arms and yanked hard. Then the others piled onto her like ants, trying to pin her down!
"You're so damn annoying, you little bugs!" Luma exploded in fury.
Her shout blasted them all back.
Then her four blood-red eyes locked onto the Red King as she charged like a war chariot.
"I'm going to smash your skull!"
Luma leapt, twisting in midair, gathering all her strength.
A punch capable of causing an earthquake slammed down toward the Red King!
Boom!
The entire arena trembled!
"Hah!"
Up above, Bill slammed a guard into the wall with one hammer strike.
Clearly, aside from the royal guards, the other defenders didn't have such strong exoskeletons.
"The second match is over. We have to move faster!" Bill shouted.
As he led the fighters forward, he glanced out the window. On the distant horizon, scattered black shadows were beginning to appear.
Bill knew what that meant.
Reinforcements.
The backbone of this war.
Whether they were gladiators or scavengers who had dragged them into this hell, at this moment they were all comrades on the same front line.
Bill bared his teeth and, rare for him, cracked a joke. "When we run into those hateful scavengers later, don't you dare attack them!"
The counterattack had begun!
/-\
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