Chapter 449: Darkness Before The Dawn
Alvey’s eyes narrowed and his expression contorted into a frown as he understood how Duskhand had mysteriously disappeared.
’A god deity intervened.’
Just as he thought that, the familiar voice of Demon King McEnda II rang out in his head.
[Return to the frontlines, Alvey. I’d handle this.]
Powerful spatial power wrapped around Alvey’s body and he was instantly sent over 20,000 kilometres distance through space.
It was obvious that whoever had done so, had a high enough spatial Authority to ignore the spatial laws that had been distorted by Cattleya’s power.
This returned Alvey straight to the main battlefield and as soon as he reappeared there, he looked up into the sky with a confused gaze.
The battle here had begun in the morning and they had been fighting for over six hours already, so it should have been around 3 pm in the afternoon.
Yet, the sky above him had dark clouds and twinkling stars with Aramis’ moon hovering above.
It was clearly the scene of the night sky.
"Oh, you’re back."
A familiar voice rang out and Alvey turned his gaze towards the direction of the reason why it was ’Night’.
"What was the situation?"
McEnda III questioned Alvey and the man dusted his clothes before replying.
"Duskhand. A god Lord or King intervened so I could only take an arm. Your father said he’d handle it."
Hearing this, McEnda nodded in understanding and spoke.
"My old man may be an idiot sometimes, but I have to admit that he’s competent when needed. We can consider that matter ’handled’.
Besides, when did you get a new sword?"
"Just now."
Alvey answered as he unsummoned the Rule Breaker and turned his gaze towards the battlefield in front of him.
"We’ll discuss your weapon later. How much energy do you have left?"
"Getting to Arthur and dealing with Duskhand took quite a bit out of me. I only have enough for one last ’Bang’."
McEnda chuckled lightly as he coincidentally also had just that much energy left. Even if they were nonstandard, fighting against multiple Transcendents over the course of six hours was enough to tire anyone out.
He turned his eyes back to the battlefield in front of them with a glint in his eyes.
It was a sprawling expanse of chaos and carnage, with over a million soldiers clashed in a relentless slugfest.
Humans, Demons, Flugels, Dragons, Dwarves and Elves fought with fervour as the ground beneath their feet was painted crimson with blood.
Amidst the melee, Divine Dragons soared through the cloudy skies, their colossal forms unleashing devastating breath attacks in all directions.
However, they were met with fierce resistance as hordes of demons swarmed them, overwhelming them and beating them to death amidst the cacophony of the battle.
Explosions reverberated across the battlefield, erupting with bursts of demonic energy and divine power.
Clouds of smoke billowed into the air, mingling with the flames and lightning that danced across the sky and with each second that passed, golden blood spilt onto the earth.
While gazing at this battlefield, McEnda spoke towards Alvey who was beside him.
"Let’s end it all with a ’Bang’."
"A combination attack?"
"Yes. The technique Demon King Westley taught us."
The mention of this Race King brought Alvey’s mind back to the fact that he was instantly teleported back to the frontlines, guessing it may have been Westley who did that.
"Very well then."
Alvey replied as he roused his demonic and light law energy and McEnda did the same with his darkness law energy.
The ’Night’ vanished and the light of the sun shone down on the battlefield, instantly capturing the attention of all the entities present.
Divine Humans and gods turned towards McEnda, their gazes hopeful as they asked.
"Has he finally run out of power?!"
McEnda’s ’Night’ was a technique that empowered his allies under it. All Demons were stronger under it.
It enhanced everything from their attack power and their defences to their regenerative ability and energy recovery.
But it had a staggering energy cost and him suddenly dismissing it made everyone think he had run out.
They weren’t far off as he was indeed running out of energy, but he still had enough for a final ’Bang’.
Holding out his right hand, he condensed darkness law energy on his palm.
"Pseudo-Authority of Darkness."
Standing beside McEnda, Alvey stretched out his right hand and condensed his light law energy.
"Pseudo-Authority of Light."
Seeing the converging power, the Aramisian Transcendents instantly felt goosebumps on their skin and they charged towards the two High-Ranking demons, fully intent on stopping whatever they were planning.
However, there was no way that their High-Rank Demon subordinates would sit back and watch the Aramisians succeed in stopping Alvey and McEnda’s big move.
They spread out their own Demonic Energies and clashed with the Divinity of the Aramisians Transcendents, buying enough time for the duo to complete the technique.
""Combination: Darkness Before The Dawn!!""
Their energies exploded outwards and everything was blanketed in a veil of darkness.
The darkness was one that came in with a deluge of debuffs affecting everything ’Non-Demonic’ on the battlefield.
Vision impairment, movement restrictions, hallucinations of death, perception distortion, vitality-draining curses, soul corruption, fear and despair inducement, magic and divinity emission disruption.
Finally, the most dreaded of them all, the ability that the McEnda Archdemon bloodline was known for.
Corrosion.
All the targets were infused with insidious darkness that corroded their physical body, afflicting them with a chilling sensation as their skin was being eaten away by unseen tendrils of darkness.
The darkness law energy penetrated deeper into their being, directly attacking the remaining two Major Aspects of existence.
Their energy cores, and their souls.
It began to erode the very essence of their souls and everything in the Epic Realm and below was instantly killed by the encroaching darkness.
Legendries and above who could use law energies were able to protect themselves, but this was just the ’Darkness’.
The ’Dawn’ was yet to come.
Abruptly, there was a giant bright flash of light that pierced through the darkness and illuminated the battlefield with a blinding brilliance.
Light energy condensed into a raging blaze like a giant seething mass of plasma that seemed to shine across the world.
’Is that...the sun?’
One of the Divine Humans thought this as he saw the giant orb of light descend towards the ground. Many others roused their divinity and tried to fight back against it, but they had just consumed a lot of energy to deal with the ’Darkness’.
The combined might of their remaining powers was not enough to match the enveloping fury of the ’Dawn’.
With a deafening roar, it collided with the earth, unleashing a cataclysmic explosion that engulfed everything within thousands of miles in its incandescent fury.
The blast raged on for a full minute, a relentless onslaught of searing light and plasmic force. When it finally subsided, the previously bustling battlefield was now littered with the charred remains of tens of thousands of fallen fighters—humans, elves, and dragons alike.
Even some of the Transcendent Divines weakened and exhausted from their previous battles, succumbed to the overwhelming power of the Dawn’s fury.
Remarkably, amidst the devastation, the Demonic forces remained unscathed, untouched by the wrath of the light.
The very earth beneath their feet remained unblemished, untouched by the conflagration that had consumed their enemies.
’Selective Destruction...’
Sigesi thought to herself as she identified the reason for this, a newfound respect for McEnda and Alvey blooming in her heart at this astonishing display of power control.
It targeted only those deemed adversaries, leaving everything else untouched in its wake.
"I expected this but...we didn’t get all of them, did we?"
"Obviously not. We don’t have that much power left."
Alvey and McEnda’s voices broke the eerie silence that had settled on the battlefield. Looking closely, beads of sweat could be seen dripping down from the foreheads of the two Demons, but they wiped it off with their hands before looking towards the High Ranked demons staring at them dumbfoundedly.
"What are you waiting around for?"
"Start killing the rest of them already."
Their words snapped them back from their dazes and they roused their demonic energies and dashed forward, clashing with the weakened and wounded Divine Transcendents and quickly consigning them to the afterlife.
Alvey and McEnda took a step back from the battle, their gazes focused on their Status boards with narrowed eyes.
"Alright, on 3, 2, 1—."
"990!" "991."
""...""
Silence pervaded the area between the both of them and McEnda gaped at Alvey, before dropping to his knees in defeat.
"How?!"
"I had more kills."
Alvey calmly retorted as he gazed at the ’991’ sitting in his level tab, as opposed to McEnda’s ’990’.
The demons had won the day’s battle, with a victory that would be spoken about for centuries and millennia to come.
In the Observations by Future Historians of the Valmone Universe, there would be a small section that stated that although the demons had emerged victorious, for some reason, the then Demon General McEnda III, was sighted kneeling on the floor with an expression of despair while muttering to himself; ’I lost’.
