Chapter 720: “Cruotis Prime’s Consciousness” V
[Huh?]
Bewússtsein, Arthur, and Evan all froze in collective bewilderment.
For a moment, there was nothing but stunned silence.
After all, who wouldn’t be caught off guard if their ally—or enemy—suddenly decapitated themselves mid-battle?
Naturally, confusion only deepened when the headless body of said opponent casually snatched its severed head from mid-air and flung it directly at them.
[What the fuck?!]
Bewússtsein cursed aloud, immediately raising his hand to summon a spatial wormhole, aiming to intercept the airborne head before it reached him.
But Jamie’s severed head, still bearing that same mischievous grin, began to change. As it sailed through the air, it morphed, transforming into the head of a wolf with gaping jaws.
|Aspect of the Wolf: World-Devouring Jaws.|
An enormous, unseen maw materialized and snapped shut on the space where Bewússtsein stood.
Reacting at the last possible moment, Bewússtsein twisted his body to evade the attack. He barely escaped, but at a steep cost: everything from the elbow down on his already-injured left arm was obliterated in an instant.
His right arm had yet to regenerate after being obliterated by Evan’s earlier attack. His left arm, still battered from Arthur’s strike, was now completely severed.
Bewússtsein stumbled backwards, glaring at the grinning wolf head as rage and desperation flared in his eyes.
Jamie’s headless body, still gripping the Galaxy Sword, lunged forward and slashed Bewússtsein from the side, sending him hurtling through the air.
A moment later, Jamie’s severed head teleported into his body’s hands, and with a casual motion, he reattached it to his neck. The two pieces fused seamlessly, as if he had never been decapitated in the first place.
Evan, who had been temporarily immobilized due to the soul damage he’d suffered earlier, finally pushed himself to his feet. He glanced at Arthur and muttered.
"This guy is just flexing his immortality."
Arthur rolled his eyes, unimpressed.
"Tell me something I don’t know."
Jamie turned toward them, his expression amused, clear evidence that Evan’s observation wasn’t wrong.
"Less jealousy, more attacking."
To his words, Arthur chuckled. "What do you mean?"
"We’ve already attacked." Evan finished, pointing at a spot behind Jamie.
Indeed, they had.
Jamie turned back just in time to see Bewússtsein being dragged toward the centre of a raging gravitational maelstrom, along with hundreds of the Fallen Deity Corpses he had summoned.
He was about to turn back to Arthur and Evan when a flicker of Life Law energy caught his attention. His gaze snapped back to the maelstrom just as a surge of Destruction energy exploded from its core, shattering the gravitational force.
Bewússtsein emerged from within, his new left hand clutching the severed right hand of one of the Fallen Deities.
Without hesitation, he pressed it against his shoulder and used Life Law energy to fuse it in place. Evidently, he had done the same for his left hand—the one Jamie had bitten off moments ago.
Naturally, there were downsides to this, which was why Bewússtsein preferred absorbing the corpses to regenerate lost mass.
But alas, he had little choices now.
One such downside became evident as he extended his arms stiffly, barely fast enough to block Jamie’s Spatial-Destruction shots.
Evan raised his hand and activated his Burst Cannon skill, firing fist-sized bolts of flames with the rapid-fire speed of an assault rifle, a barrage Bewússtsein struggled to fend off.
The energy circulation through his newly attached arms was slower, too sluggish for him to reinforce them adequately against the attacks.
To make matters worse, he couldn’t teleport out of range—Jamie had locked down the surrounding space.
Bewússtsein’s frustration boiled into rage as he forcefully released his law energies. Slaughter, Death and Destruction surged, intertwining with one another as his voice echoed through the Core Dimension.
[Todesmarsch-Unheil!]
From the ground below, black tendrils erupted like serpents, their jagged edges writhing and growing larger as they formed a massive vortex of destructive energy.
The vortex twisted and pulsed with violent intensity, its core a grotesque amalgamation of flesh-like shapes, screaming faces, and writhing claws.
The fabric of space tore apart as the technique expanded, devouring everything in its path.
Roaring, Bewússtsein lurched it at them, the vortex threatening to engulf the entire Core Dimension.
But he wasn’t done.
He unleashed more death energy, summoning another army of walking dead. The corpses of the Fallen Deities staggered to their feet, their decaying bodies enhanced by the energy of his technique.
The undead charged behind the vortex, a tide of death meant to overwhelm the trio after the devastation of his Calamity technique.
Faced with this, Arthur infused energy into his sword, preparing to use ’Chaos’, but Evan moved first.
He kicked off the ground and dashed straight towards the oncoming vortex of cosmic destruction.
Indigo-coloured flames engulfed his arm, surging upwards and solidifying into a spear. Evan’s pupils seemingly turned to flame motifs as he hurled the spear forward with every ounce of his strength.
|Calamity Queller! |
The Calamity Queller soared through the air, leaving a blazing trail of indigo fire in its wake. It collided with the vortex, piercing into its chaotic centre.
For a moment, there was silence—then, an earth-shattering explosion erupted. The vortex imploded violently, consuming itself in a surge of destructive energy that obliterated the undead army trailing behind it.
The spear didn’t stop there. It shot through the aftermath of the explosion, hurtling toward Bewússtsein.
His eyes widened in shock as the weapon pierced through his chest, the indigo flames searing his flesh and sending him crashing into the distance with the force of a meteor strike.
As the smoke and flames cleared, Evan turned to Arthur with a grin, shouting over the roaring winds.
"Hey, Arthur. Let’s make it rain!"
Arthur, already catching on, gave a wry smile and sprinted to Evan’s side. Law energy flowed into his tongue as he commanded the law of Destruction.
|False Destruction Authority.|
Evan raised his hand, his grimoire materializing in a flash of light. The pages fluttered, stopping on the target spell as he spoke.
|World Magic: Spell Number 5.|
And then, in perfect unison, the two of them roared with grins on their faces.
||Armageddon!!||
The rooftop of the Core Dimension trembled violently, fractures spreading like a spider’s web across the spatial walls.
Cracks widened, glowing with molten light, before erupting in an apocalyptic burst. From within the spatial fissures, flaming meteors rained down, each one blazing with destructive energy.
The meteors crashed onto the ground with deafening roars, obliterating everything they touched in searing fire.
Everywhere, destruction reigned supreme. The fiery meteors burned through the battlefield, leaving only ash and ruin in their wake as they obliterated the walking dead army.
The flames licked the air, their reflection dancing in Bewússtsein’s eyes as he watched the carnage. His breaths came in laboured gasps, the wound from Evan’s spear burning in his chest.
His hand clenched over the injury, faint flickers of life law energy swirling around his palm in an attempt to ease the pain.
His teeth ground together as his mind raced. Options, strategies, counterattacks—each one discarded as quickly as it came.
’Wait... that Evolution girl!’
Bewússtsein’s thoughts immediately turned to Artemisia, his gaze snapping upward as if peering toward the planet’s surface.
’They left her with those demons on the surface. These three are too dangerous, so I couldn’t pay attention to her, but with the number of walking dead I left behind, they should have fallen to the swarm by now.’
Just as he had that thought, he remembered the swarms of Fallen Deities he had been sending against Arthur, Evan, and Jamie.
’No... I concentrated more of my death power here because of these three. Factoring in that demon’s cosmic weapon, the remaining walking dead on the surface might not be enough to deal with them.
But even so, their power should be completely drained by now. I can just finish them off.’
With this conclusion, Bewússtsein’s vision split in two.
His left eye remained locked on the trio charging at him, their weapons surging with powerful law energies, while his right eye scanned the surface of Cruotis Prime, searching for Artemisia, Beatrix, Alvey, and McEnda.
It did not take long for him to locate them, but the sight that met him made his eyes widen in shock.
[What the hell?!]
He exclaimed in shock even as he leapt away to evade Jamie’s spatial slash and unleashed a surge of destruction energy to counter Arthur and Evan’s attacks.
Bewússtsein had expected them to be weakened, barely holding on. And true to his expectations, they were weakened after having expended a lot of power.
But the amount of walking dead they had killed did not make any sense.
All around them lay the dismembered corpses of hundreds—no, thousands of undead.
For the weaker undead, they either decapitated them, destroyed their heads, or dismembered them to render them immobile. But for the stronger ones, they focused their power to completely obliterate them.
Yet, despite the numbers they had taken down, they still had a substantial amount of power left—something that made no sense to Bewússtsein, even when considering Alvey’s Cosmic Weapon.
Just as he processed this, he saw a giant undead throw a devastating punch at McEnda, only for the Archdemon to block it with a strange shield.
’That’s a Deity-Level Artifact!’
The realization struck him instantly.
Back during the attack on Plomux, when the Supreme Commander of the Aramisian forces had attempted to annihilate the demon army at Plomux High Command, McEnda had used this same shield—an artifact given to him by his father—to block the attack.
Back then, a single use had left him utterly drained. But now, with his strengthened soul, not only could he wield more of its power, but he could use it repeatedly.
Right after he blocked the giant’s attack with the shield, there was a brilliant flash of light, and in the next instant, the undead’s body was shredded to pieces.
’What the fuck!?’
Bewússtsein cursed again, unable to believe what he was seeing.
The giant had been torn apart in an instant, and the one responsible landed on his feet behind the collapsing corpse, gripping a sword wreathed in powerful dark light.
Naturally, this was Alvey, wielding his Rule Breaker, the Morphic Edge.
The sword was lending him its power, allowing him to exert bursts of power comparable to his original Deity Level. Naturally, there were drawbacks and repercussions he was bound to suffer later, but the most important thing was that he was going to survive.
’No, I can’t let this be.’
Bewússtsein acted immediately.
He couldn’t transmit much of his power to the surface since he lacked one of his specially created bodies to host it, but there was another way to interfere with the four directly.
It carried risks, but he was willing to take them if it meant gaining Artemisia’s power, boosting his strength, and turning the tide against the three attacking his main body.
Without hesitation, he selected one of the special Fallen Deity corpses he had set aside and transferred a portion of his soul and consciousness into it, granting him the ability to control it like a puppet and wield the power of his Destruction Sigil through it.
He had no intention of attacking Alvey or McEnda.
All he wanted was Artemisia’s power, so he went straight for her.
However, the moment he reached a suitable distance to exert control over the planet’s gravity and pull Artemisia’s body toward him through gravitational attraction, Beatrix’s eyes suddenly snapped in the direction of his Corpse Puppet.
"ALVEY!"
She screamed immediately, and before she had even finished calling his name, Alvey was already in front of her, his sword descending in a powerful arc toward the Corpse Puppet Bewússtsein was controlling.
’Damn it, her time power!’
Bewússtsein instantly realized that Beatrix must have seen the future where he attacked Artemisia beside her.
But even though she had called out to Alvey and the demon had responded nearly instantly, swinging his sword down at hypersonic speed to bifurcate the Corpse Puppet, Bewússtsein was able to twist his body to the side, dodging the attack.
