The theater dimension was a fractured mirror of the universe, a place where the reddish-black mist pulsed in time with the entropic screaming of the rifts. The white cracks in the sky had spread into a jagged canopy, dripping indigo light onto the obsidian ruins of the floor. My heart—thump, thump, thump—beat with a cold, mechanical precision, my "Body Enhanced State" processing every flicker of mana and every micro-shiver of the atmosphere. Beside me, Eufrien stood as a pillar of crumbling radiance, the white light leaking from the fissures in his skin so intense that it turned the surrounding shadows into ash. The sound of cracking vases was no longer a subtle chime; it was a continuous, high-pitched resonance that vibrated through the very marrow of my bones.
Zaltraf stood thirty yards away, his obsidian hide glowing with a predatory violet hue. He was sweating, the dark ichor steaming as it hit the ground, yet his barrier remained a solid, translucent wall of death magic that distorted the space around him. He was an immovable anchor of darkness in a world of dying light.
Eufrien turned his head slightly toward us. The fissures on his face were wider now, weeping pure divinity. His voice, when it came, was a metallic echo that bypassed our ears and resonated directly in our minds.
"I'll use the 1,000-fold attack that killed Zaltraf before," he said, his hand tightening on the hilt of his white-gold sword. "We need to break his barrier first, and I'll instantly fire it."
The words hit me with the weight of a death sentence. The "Body Enhanced State" immediately calculated the mana cost of such a maneuver—it was a consumption rate that no physical vessel could survive twice. The internal pressure required to fold mana a thousand times would turn his cells into glass and shatter them into the void.
"You'll die again!" I shouted, the emerald light of my creation magic flaring in a desperate, jagged aura. I stepped toward him, my hand reaching out as if I could physically hold back the power he was preparing to unleash. "Eufrien, stop! There has to be another way!"
Eufrien didn't pull back. Instead, he looked at me, and for a fleeting second, the cracks in his skin seemed to soften. He smiled—a calm, knowing expression that accepted the price he was about to pay. It was the smile of a legend who had already made peace with the end of his story.
Without another word, he dashed forward.
He was a blur of white-gold light, leaving a trail of shattered porcelain sounds in his wake. He didn't strike the barrier yet; he circled it, positioning himself at the apex of the dimension as his mana began to fold. The air around him began to distort, the space collapsing inward as he drew upon every remaining spark of his existence.
"Now!" Eufrien's voice rang out, a clarion call that ignited our resolve.
We moved as one. We all tried to break Zaltraf's barrier.
I led the assault, the "Body Enhanced State" pushing my perception into the realm of the infinite. I used my creation magic to manifest two massive emerald Greatswords, their edges vibrating at a frequency designed to disrupt death magic. I lunged forward, my heart—thump, thump, thump—driving my muscles into a frenzy of high-speed violence. I hammered against the violet shield, my blades creating sparks of green and purple that illuminated the entire theater.
Beside me, Celdrich was a phantom of black steel. He unleashed a barrage of shadow-strikes, his black katana and dagger finding the resonant frequencies of the barrier. He fired pulses of violet energy that acted as wedges, prying at the seams of Zaltraf's defense. His movements were clinical, a surgical dissection of the Demonking's protective shell.
Euphyne and Tokine were a storm on the opposite side. Euphyne brought his war axe down in a series of crushing, golden-fire blows. Each hit was a tectonic event, the golden ego-fire turning the reddish mist into a searing plasma. Tokine wove through the seconds, her silver scythe striking the barrier in the gaps between frames of reality. She was hitting the shield from the past and the future simultaneously, creating a temporal stress that made the violet energy flicker and groan.
Suddenly, all of us were attacking Zaltraf with our all.
It was a symphony of destruction. Emerald creation, shadow-steel, golden fire, and silver time converged into a singular, overwhelming point of pressure. We didn't stop for breath. We didn't look at the cracking sky. We poured our spirits, our mana, and our very lives into the assault. The sound was a continuous, bone-shaking roar—CLANG. CRASH. SLICE. BOOM.—that drowned out the howling of the rifts.
Zaltraf snarled from behind the shield, his violet eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp realization of the danger. He tried to reinforce the barrier, his dark aura surging outward, but we were a hurricane that refused to be quelled.
Suddenly, Zaltraf's barrier cracked.
A jagged, silver line appeared at the center of the violet shield, spreading like a spiderweb across the surface. The sound was like the world itself splitting apart.
"Break it!" I roared, my emerald swords glowing with a blinding intensity.
We delivered one final, unified strike. The "Body Enhanced State" pushed my strength to its ultimate limit as I brought both Greatswords down on the crack. Celdrich's shadow-steel followed, Euphyne's axe hammered the center, and Tokine's scythe severed the temporal anchors.
The barrier got destroyed.
The violet energy shattered into a million jagged shards that dissolved into the mist. Zaltraf was exposed, his dark aura recoiling from the sudden loss of protection.
In an instant, the theater was filled with a light that exceeded the sun.
Eufrien was no longer a man; he was a singularity of divine wrath. He descended from the apex of the dimension, his white-gold sword trailing a ribbon of light that seemed to bind the rifts themselves. The cracking vase sounds reached a final, deafening crescendo as he roared, his voice shaking the foundations of the multiverse.
"1000 mana Fold!!! Divine Soul Breaker!!!!!!"
The strike was a line of absolute purity that cut through the reddish-black mist, the obsidian debris, and the dark aura of the Demonking. It wasn't a slash; it was a deletion of space. The white-gold light passed through Zaltraf with a sound of silence so profound it was louder than any explosion.
Eufrien suddenly sliced Zaltraf.
The impact sent a shockwave through the dimension that collapsed the remaining obsidian ridges. A thick, grey-black smoke started to appear, billowing outward from the point of impact and obscuring the center of the battlefield. The theater went still. The rifts stopped screaming. The only sound was the heavy, labored breathing of the survivors.
As the smoke began to clear, a terrifying sight emerged.
Zaltraf is still standing.
His obsidian hide was carved with a single, glowing white line that ran from his shoulder to his hip. His dark aura was gone, replaced by a hollow, entropic void. He was sweating, his violet eyes dim and unfocused, his frame trembling with the effort of remaining upright. I could tell he'll die in one hit. His regeneration had finally failed; the 1,000-fold attack had severed his connection to the dark essence that fueled his evolution. He was a mountain of ash waiting for a breeze.
But when I looked at Eufrien... my heart stopped.
He was... disintegrating.
The First Hero was no longer solid. The white light was no longer leaking from the cracks; it had consumed the cracks entirely. His hands were becoming translucent, dissolving into shimmering motes of mana that drifted upward toward the sky. The white-gold sword was already gone, turned back into the raw divinity of his spirit. He was fading, his physical vessel finally surrendering to the impossible pressure of the Divine Soul Breaker.
He looked at me one last time. There was no pain in his expression, only a profound, radiant peace.
His last words before dying were, "You can do it!"
He was smiling. A true, warm smile that belonged to the man, not the legend.
And then, he disappeared.
The light flickered and vanished, leaving the theater in a cold, oppressive shadow. The silence that followed his departure was a physical blow, a vacuum that threatened to swallow my heart. Eufrien, the First Hero, was gone.
"Eufrien..." The name died in my throat.
I stood there, my emerald swords trembling in my hands, my eyes fixed on the empty space where the legend had just stood. The rifts began to howl again, and the white cracks in the sky widened. Zaltraf let out a low, wet rasp of a laugh, his headless shadow swaying as he tried to raise a clawed hand for one final, desperate act of malice.
Suddenly, my necklace is starting to glow yellow.
The light was warm, a vibrant, amber-gold radiance that radiated from the charm against my chest. It wasn't the emerald of my creation magic or the white-gold of Eufrien's divinity. It was something older, something deeper. The yellow glow expanded, filling the space around me with a gentle, soothing heat that pushed back the reddish-black mist.
Suddenly, I can hear Eufrien.
His voice didn't come from the air; it came from within the yellow light, echoing in the center of my mind.
"I'm as surprised as you are," Eufrien said, his voice sounding clearer and stronger than it had during the battle. There was a touch of wonder in his tone, a soft realization that transcended the void. "But it must be your necklace..."
I looked down at the glowing charm, the yellow light reflecting in the "Body Enhanced State" data-stream.
"That necklace belonged to my lover..." Eufrien whispered.
The words carried a weight of a thousand years of memory and longing. Before I could process the meaning, the yellow light flared with a sudden, irresistible force. The mana didn't just surround me; it flowed into me. It merged with the emerald light of my creation magic, turning the energy in my veins into a swirling current of gold and green.
Eufrien suddenly temporarily took over my body.
I felt my muscles stiffen as a new, divine intent guided my limbs. It wasn't a cold possession; it was a warm, seamless partnership. My perception widened, the "Body Enhanced State" syncing with Eufrien's combat experience. My arm rose of its own accord, my hand gripping the hilt of my emerald sword with a strength that felt like the foundation of the world.
The emerald steel turned a shimmering, golden-green.
He made me slice Zaltraf.
The movement was a perfect, effortless arc. It was the strike of a master, delivered through the hands of a creator. The blade moved through the air with the grace of a falling leaf, yet it carried the combined momentum of two legends.
The edge of the sword met Zaltraf's chest.
There was no resistance. The blade passed through the Demonking's final, crumbling hide as if it were smoke. The yellow-green light erupted from the wound, consuming the violet embers of his soul.
Zaltraf's body disintegrated and at the same time a black smoke appeared.