Hearing the final screams and the blood raining from the sky, Davion closed his eyes, overwhelmed by pain.
At the same time, Lanaya stayed silent, tears streaming from her eyes like a flood. The pain and regret she felt couldn't be measured.
...
Until...
*BUZZ*
Suddenly, space began to hum. People looked up in surprise, then saw a multicolored streak approaching like a shooting star.
It came toward them without any pressure. Only when it got close did they notice the change...
The air in their lungs seemed to freeze. Their souls trembled. Their bodies stiffened.
It was death. An instinctive sense of the end took over them.
The multicolored shooting star tore through the air at an incredible speed. They had barely seen it when...
"Kill the princess!"
An Elder from the Golden Scale Kingdom was the first to react. Gofan snapped out of his daze by force. He had already decided not to kill her. Instead, he grabbed her by the neck, wanting to keep using her as a hostage.
Suddenly, a cold voice echoed in his ears.
"Disappear."
At that instant, Gofan's eyes bulged. All the energy in his body moved against his will and ignited.
*BOOOM!*
The unknown force caused an explosion, followed by a bloody mist spreading through the air.
Everyone went completely still.
Gofan... he just exploded!
Suddenly, a new figure appeared where he had been.
"Darian!"
Both sides cried out in shock. But while Davion's side shouted in joy, the enemies' voices were filled with pure horror.
He had instantly killed that prince in a way no one understood. Just how overwhelming was that? Everyone was completely shaken.
Darian held Lanaya gently in his arms. He saw the injuries on her face. She looked incredibly miserable, especially with the red handprint so clearly visible.
"Sorry, I'm late," Darian said softly.
"I knew you'd come. I knew it." Her eyes trembled, and she broke down in Darian's arms, her voice so hoarse it caused him deep pain.
This child was too innocent, and she reminded him of Alear when she was young. Seeing her cry like that was like seeing his own daughter in that situation.
"Alright, that's enough. You're the Princess, you need to stay strong now, this isn't over yet. Your Kingdom still has a tough battle ahead. After that, you can cry as much as you want." Darian said, gently patting Lanaya's back. His white power flowed into her body, fully healing her injuries.
"Sir Darian... you came back."
Seeing Lanaya safe, Davion's emotional armor collapsed. The proud heir of the White Scale Kingdom was now sobbing. To him, his little sister's life was worth a thousand times more than his own.
Wiping the blood from his face, Davion stood up with difficulty, drawing his sword. His aura exploded, burning his own life force to distort the space around him. He was ready to make one final stand.
"Please, run with her!" he shouted, his eyes full of determination. "I'll open a path for you to escape. Go! Don't look back!"
Darian didn't move. He just turned his head slightly, meeting the prince's desperate eyes. There was no urgency, no fear. Just a faint, almost imperceptible smile.
Davion froze for a moment at that look.
Then Darian turned and took a step forward, ignoring him. He faced the army of the Golden Scale Kingdom.
The world stopped.
At that moment, Darian's pupils ignited. A multicolored light flowed from his eyes, piercing reality itself.
*Vrummm*
An invisible ripple spread through space-time from his feet. It wasn't a burst of raw energy, but something far more terrifying: absolute authority; absolute dominion over life and death; it was as if he were the will of the world itself.
The thousands of enemy soldiers froze. Their hearts, once beating with the rhythm of battle, now pounded with pure instinctive terror. It was like ants standing before a sun about to explode.
"You dared to betray her kindness..."
Darian's voice was slow, almost melodic, but carried a terrifying weight. Every syllable vibrated in the bones of those present.
"Killing you is an act of mercy. If it were her punishing you... I guarantee not even your souls would remain for the cycle of reincarnation."
He casually raised his hand, as if brushing away an annoying fly.
"Disappear."
**RUMBLE!**
There was no sound of swords, no battle cries. Only the dry sound of reality being torn apart.
The world lost its color for a split second. An invisible force, from a dimension beyond comprehension, descended over the battlefield.
Davion stood frozen. He felt the Laws of the World bend. It wasn't a magical attack; it was as if the world itself had decided those enemies should never have existed.
In the blink of an eye, the pressure vanished.
Silence.
Where there used to be an army of thousands from the Golden Scale Kingdom, now there was only emptiness. No armor, bones, or ashes remained.
Just a thin mist of blood lingered in the air, quickly dispersing with the breeze, as if the world itself was trying to erase any proof those people had ever existed.
Darian had simply activated his domain, making the Qi and the surrounding power move to attack. For him, it was simple... but for everyone who witnessed it, it was like watching a God casually erase people from existence.
Everyone behind him turned their eyes in a single direction. Then they saw Darian gently stroking Lanaya's hair and lifting her to her feet in front of him. She seemed unaware of everything that had just happened.
"Darian... I..."
She was filled with regret and hatred. She hated herself for being useless and unable to block the rain when danger came, unlike Darian.
"Silly girl, why are you crying? It's all over," Darian murmured.
"But I... I dragged everyone into this. I dragged my Big Brother into this..." she replied, still crying nonstop.
Darian felt powerless in front of that. In truth, it wasn't her fault.
That was the result of the environment she grew up in and the teachings she received, as well as the overprotection from her parents and her brother. Now that the consequences had caught up to her, the blame couldn't fall on her alone.
Besides, Lanaya had already woken up from her illusions about Gofan. In other words, even if it had been another cultivator, if they weren't on guard, they would've been easily captured by him, too.
The problem was that Gofan was truly despicable for choosing Lanaya as his target. The innocent princess had never imagined a human heart could be so dark.
After suffering such a heavy blow, she felt like her world was collapsing around her and felt like the most useless person in the world. Her beautiful eyes were filled with nothing but sorrow.
Taking a deep breath, Darian turned to Prince Davion and grabbed the princess's hand. He pulled her along and walked toward him.
When he reached him, Darian spoke seriously.
"Go back. With everyone from the 3 Kingdoms dead, chaos must be breaking out across the universe. Most likely, those bastards will start causing trouble... and with only you returning alive, they'll accuse you of killing everyone else."
Everyone behind them felt a cold sweat run down their spine. Darian's words were more than correct, and a possible war would break out if they didn't clear things up. But how would they do that? Would the other 2 Kingdoms even believe them?
Davion nodded, swallowing hard. "My Lord?"
"I still have something to do." Darian let go of Lanaya and turned, walking forward.
No one dared to stop him or say anything. After a few meters, Darian leaped and shot forward, disappearing from their sight.
Prince Davion took a deep breath, giving the order for everyone to retreat immediately.
Lanaya was still looking in the direction Darian had left, but she remembered his last words. Now, she needed to be strong and help her Kingdom.
...
In just a few seconds, Darian activated all his power and tore through space.
When he arrived again at the place where he had been before, he let out a deep sigh.
He wanted to ignore everything and focus only on absorbing it all and breaking through... but he couldn't. Every few hours, his senses would expand, and he would check if those people were okay.
It was simply impossible for him not to care. Even knowing them for only two months, after building a bond of friendship, he couldn't just let them die without doing anything.
But now...
He felt his body and mind completely relax. As he activated the rune in his body again...
"?"
It began to pulse and glow, absorbing everything at an astonishing speed.
After a few seconds, he smiled faintly in understanding. That wasn't him, but the power of the rune, which had increased a thousandfold. The rune had been created by Heaven's Will, his father, and was still connected to him.
So, by saving those people, Darian had created enough karma for his father to help him with this.
Most likely, if those people hadn't been eliminated now, the future of this universe would have been very dark. Because of that, Darian received a reward.
He focused. Minutes later, he roared:
"Come!"
**BUZZ!!**
At that moment, all the Slaughter power, the same thing the natives called corrupted, reacted at once.
Like a tsunami, everything moved in a single direction, rapidly.
Darian felt flooded, with all that power pouring into every inch of his body without stopping.
Then...
A pair of ancient eyes, closed for ages, suddenly opened.
Niara's expression was pure fury. Who would dare? Who would have the audacity to disturb her isolation and profane the epicenter of her domain? The air around her began to crackle with a pressure capable of crushing gods and demons.
But... something was wrong.
Or rather, something was too right.
As she turned her face toward the source of that disturbance, Niara's world collapsed.
Her face, once a mask of cold authority, twisted violently. Her eyes, which had seen more than anyone could imagine, trembled like those of a lost child.
It was like a lightning bolt struck her chest, but not to harm her. It was a divine flame, a warmth she hadn't felt in millions of years, burning through the ice that covered her soul. Her entire existence, every fiber of her being, began to vibrate at a forgotten frequency.
At that same moment, Darian looked in her direction.
Their eyes met.
Niara froze.
The man before her had a different appearance. His clothes, his aura... everything had changed a little, under the weight of the cycle of reincarnation. But it didn't matter how much time had passed, or how many layers fate had added to him.
It was him.
Those eyes... even now changing color, still carried the same essence. They were the same eyes that haunted her in every dream and every nightmare during millions of years of solitude.
She had rehearsed this moment in her mind millions of times. She imagined he wouldn't remember her. She prepared herself for the pain of being a stranger to the man who was her world. She swore to herself that, if necessary, she would spend another eternity trying to win him over from zero.
But the moment she sank into that gaze... she knew.
He didn't need to say a word. The way he looked at her, the depth of that silent recognition... it was really him. Her Darian. He hadn't forgotten her.
The weight of ages of waiting collapsed onto her shoulders in a single second.
Her lips, dry and trembling, moved with difficulty, trying to form a name her soul had never stopped whispering in the dark.
"D... Dan..."
