The battlefield was a nightmare of chaos and destruction.
The mutated disciples of the Endless Sun Sect, now twisted into grotesque abyssal demons, tore through the ranks of the Lightning Sect across the city with relentless fury. Their corrupted attacks devastating everything in their path with bursts of sunfire.
Despite his best efforts, the ice barriers Lassim had erected were crumbling under the relentless heat and force of the attacks.
Around him, the sect’s disciples—many of them still in the Spirit Growth or Spirit Transformation stages as he was in his room in the initiate disciple’s residence building when the attack began—fought valiantly, but they were no match for the entirety of the Endless Sun Sect that attacked.
Lightning crackled in the air as the Lightning sect’s disciples unleashed their techniques, but for every demon they managed to bring down, it seemed like two more would take its place. The more powerful Sun Demons would slaughter and burn 4 or 5 disciples in a moment before being killed.
The ground shook as buildings collapsed under the onslaught, and the once-proud streets of the sect were now littered with debris and bodies.
Lassim’s heart sank as he watched the younger disciples, those nearest in age to him and still in the early stages of their cultivation journey, fall one by one. There were just too many to protect everyone all at once. Their lightning attacks fizzled out against the sheer power of the abyssal demons, and their cries of pain and terror filled the air as they were struck down.
A sense of helplessness washed over him. No matter how hard he fought, no matter how many barriers he erected, he couldn’t protect them all. Even with Grand Master Volten fighting in the sky above, Lassim could see him occasionally through bolts of lightning with his punches towards the ground when he had a moment to spare. Yet, it barely made a difference.
Lassim swung his halberd, cutting down another demon as it lunged at a nearby group of disciples, but his mind raced with panic.
His aura pulsed with the blue glow of [Grand Aegis], casting out ice shields as fast as he could manage to try and stem the tide, but the heat and random assortment of beam techniques from the abyss-tainted sunfire was burning through his defenses almost as quickly as he could form them.
Despite the chaos, Lassim wasn’t fighting alone.
From within his inner heart world, Mari and Zaphy were working in perfect harmony with him. Zaphyrella’s power surged through his veins, guiding the bolts of lightning from his halberd with every swing, striking the demons with pinpoint accuracy.
Mari, on the other hand, helped guide the flow of water and ice mana in the air, shaping defensive barriers and torrents of water around him, covering his blind spots and protecting him from surprise attacks.
"[Lassim, behind you!]" Zaphy’s voice rang out in his mind, her energy crackling as her presence flared.
Lassim felt the warning before the words even finished. A demon had charged at him from the side, claws outstretched. But before it could strike, a bolt of lightning energized with his divine mana shot from Lassim’s halberd, guided by Zaphy’s control, and slammed into the demon’s chest, sending it crashing to the ground with a gaping hole.
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"[Nice one,]" Lassim muttered under his breath, barely able to take a moment before another demon rushed him from the front.
This time, it was Mari who acted. The air around Lassim shimmered as a torrent of water surged forward, catching the demon in a powerful current.
The demon screeched in frustration as it was swept off its feet, its body slamming into a nearby building with a wet thud.
"[Careful,]" Mari’s calm voice echoed in his mind.
Lassim nodded, grateful for the help.
The two elemental companions had been with him since his Spirit Awakening, but never before had their partnership felt so fluid, so effortless. He could feel that the tethered bonds he shared with him had started adding more compatibility between the trio.
They were beginning to move as one as the bonds widened a little bit more everyday—which was useful and showing itself now as Zaphy and Mari anticipated his every move, launching attacks from within his heart world while he focused on cutting down the demons that surrounded him.
A bolt of lightning fell from Volten’s position in the sky and struck a Spirit Transcendent stage demon trying to blindside Lassim as he jumped in front of a group of Spirit Growth disciples from a duo of Spirit Ascension stage demons, its charred body collapsing in a heap before it could even land a hit.
A swirling shield of water formed around Lassim’s left side as another demon attempted to break through his defenses. The combined effort of his companions allowed Lassim to keep fighting, even as the battlefield grew more chaotic.
But despite their efforts, the situation was dire.
The transformed demons were relentless, their attacks growing more ferocious with each passing moment.
The sect’s disciples were fighting valiantly, but they were being overwhelmed. Lassim could hear their cries of pain, see the fear in their eyes as they struggled to hold their ground. And for every demon he cut down, another would rise to take its place.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that something worse was coming.
Then, as if in answer to his unspoken fear, a strange ripple tore through the air.
Lassim froze, his senses flaring as he felt the distortion in the fabric of space. His progenitor marks, glowing faintly with the void energy that had become his strange ally, buzzed with a familiar hum.
Something was wrong.
He sent his spirit sense as far out as he could, covering the whole city as he scanned the battlefield. His eyes narrowed as he focused on the disturbance.
Amid the chaos, he could sense it—an unnatural pull, a shift in weave. It wasn’t just the abyssal demons rampaging through the streets. There was a pressure building in multiple spots around the city, something that he felt threatened to strain or possibly tear the spatial fabric apart.
A strange energy rippled as it built up through the air, and Lassim’s eyes widened in realization.
"They’re gonna make portals…" he muttered.
Without another moment’s hesitation, Lassim sprinted through the battlefield, his feet light as he darted between the fallen bodies of his comrades and enemies alike. His [Tempest Steps] carried him quickly, his halberd glowing with lightning and water mana as he cut down any demon that crossed his path without interrupting his charge.
He could sense the nearest distortion ahead, the strange, unnerving warping of space.
Lassim reached the source of the disturbance, skidding to a stop as he saw what was happening.
Two Sun Sect demons, their bodies grotesquely warped by abyssal power, stood at the center of the distortion. Their forms were barely recognizable as human with these two particular disciples—massive, hulking creatures with bulging muscles and eyes that glowed with the eerie light of corrupted day energy. But it wasn’t their appearance that sent a chill down Lassim’s spine.
It was what they were doing.
The two demons were standing side by side, their hands outstretched as they channeled their energy into the space between them. The air around them crackled with abyssal power, the threads of space twisting and warping as they forced them apart.
Lassim’s progenitor marks began reacting to the massive amount of spatial energy being tampered with and they shot up from his chest and covered his face and reached his eyes.
His eyes that normally were violet and occasionally shot out tiny lightning bolts transformed into pitch black voids as the spatial element gave him the ability to see the physical strain in the very fabric of reality as they manipulated it, pulling it apart as if they were trying to tear open a wound in the universe.
His eyes narrowed. Lassim didn’t wait.
He shot forward, his halberd crackling with both water and lightning mana as he swung it in a wide arc. The blade sliced cleanly through one of the demons’ outstretched arms, severing it at the elbow as the lightning traveled up what remained of its amputated arm. The creature let out a deafening roar, its body convulsing as it staggered backward.
But it was too late.
With a sickening crack, the space between the two demons shattered.
For a brief moment, everything seemed to freeze.
The air around them grew unnaturally still, and the light dimmed as the portal formed. It wasn’t like the small spatial rips Lassim had recently begun creating in his own experiments.
This was something far more sinister. The portal was jagged and uneven, its edges bubbling with red, abyssal energy. It pulsed with an eerie light, and from its depths, a horrifying image emerged.
An eye.
Massive, demonic and bloodshot, it hovered just beyond the portal’s edge, staring directly at Lassim. The eye was one he had seen twice before—filled with a malevolent intelligence that sent a shiver down his spine. It blinked once, slowly, as if acknowledging him.
Lassim felt a surge of panic.
This wasn’t just a normal abyssal invasion. This was something far worse. The abyss itself was watching and was an active participant in helping stabilize such a rash attempt at building the portals to this spot in Nexaria..
Then, just as suddenly as the eye had appeared, it vanished, and the portal’s surface shifted, turning into a bubbling mass of red, swirling energy. The abyss was open, and from its depths, demons began to pour through.
The first one emerged, its hulking form covered in jagged armor, its eyes glowing with the same corrupted light as the others. It let out a guttural snarl as it stepped through the portal, followed quickly by another, and another.
In total, a battalion of fifteen demons emerged from the portal, their bodies radiating the same twisted energy as the Sun Sect demons that had summoned them, but with an unmatched purity as they were the real abyssal legion members from the Abyss.
Lassim’s heart raced. Things were going to get worse for the Lightning sect that was managing well despite the chaos. They were going to be several outnumbered now, but he didn’t have time to think about that now.
The portal was still open, and more demons would follow if he didn’t act fast.
Focusing inward, he drew upon the void energy within him, letting it flow through his progenitor marks that had already extended and covered his entire body in preparation.
His senses sharpened as he reached out, feeling the threads of space around the portal with more comfortability than the last time he severed the connection between universes back in the Sinalta outpost.
In his spatial sight, Lassim saw the threads around the portal were jagged, corrupted, and looked like they were weirdly torn apart only to be fused and melded together again by the abyss’ tampering to activate and maintain the connection. The portal itself pulsed with a deep red glow, its edges bubbling with abyssal energy.
But to Lassim, with his powers, those threads looked incredibly vulnerable to manipulation.
Gritting his teeth, he reached for the void energy that thrummed within his body, feeling the familiar buzz of his progenitor marks light up along his arms.
Instead of manipulating the space directly with his mind, however, he poured the void energy into his halberd, willing it to become an extension of his spatial manipulation as it just felt like the correct and most natural instinctive choice.
The blade of his halberd shimmered, glowing faintly with a black void-like hue as the energy enveloped it, fusing with the lightning and water mana already coursing through his weapon.
He raised his halberd, its blade vibrating with spatial energy, and swung it in a precise, calculated arc toward the portal. The blade sliced through the air, leaving a faint trail of void energy in its wake.
As it made contact with the threads, there was a sudden resistance—the space around the portal fought back, trying to hold itself together—but Lassim pushed harder, channeling every ounce of void energy he could muster into his halberd.
With a sharp crack, the first thread snapped.
The portal flickered, its glow dimming slightly. Lassim didn’t hesitate. He swung again, his halberd cutting through the remaining threads with precision. Each swing severed more of the connection, and with each cut, the portal shrank, growing smaller and weaker.
But the demons weren’t going to let him close it so easily.
Realizing what he was doing, several of the abyssal demons lunged at him, their claws gleaming with corrupted sunfire energy. Their roars filled the air, and their monstrous forms moved with terrifying speed.
Lassim reacted instinctively, twisting his body and thrusting his halberd forward. "[Zaphy, Mari—now!]" he called to his companions inside his inner heart world.
At his command, Zaphyrella’s lightning surged through the halberd, and a massive bolt of oddly void-ish looking blue lightning shot out, striking the closest demon with pinpoint accuracy. The creature howled as it was blasted backward, its body convulsing from the electrical surge before shattering into pieces as the spatial threads carried with the lightning diced its body apart.
At the same time, Marinelle’s power flooded into Lassim, and with a sharp command, he unleashed a powerful [Hydroburst]. The air around him rippled as a massive explosion of plasmafied water erupted from his halberd, crashing into the remaining demons with the force of a tidal wave that bent the spatial weave hard.
The water exploded outward, warping and pressing the space ever so slightly that the slamming force into the demons hurled them across the city through several buildings in an unexpected reaction. Several of them were instead immediately torn apart or crushed into a paste by the sheer force of the attack, their bodies disintegrating into the abyssal goo..
But Lassim couldn’t stop to think about the odd interaction he was experiencing with his powers.
The portal was still open and another wave of demons could come through at any moment. He could feel the abyssal energy growing more unstable with each passing second. He swung his halberd one final time, the blade crackling with the combined power of his lightning, water, and void energy.
With a loud, resonating snap, the last thread was severed.
The portal shuddered violently, its form collapsing in on itself. The red, bubbling energy that had once flowed from it twisted and contorted before disappearing in a flash of light. The portal imploded with a deafening crack, leaving nothing behind but empty space.
Lassim staggered back. His body ached slightly from the strain of the spatial energy, and his hand trembled lightly as he gripped his halberd. But it was done. The portal was closed.
He spared a glance at the battlefield around him. The fifteen demons that had emerged from the portal were dead thankfully; their grotesque bodies lying scattered across the ground.
But as Lassim allowed himself a moment to breathe, his spirit sense flared again.
More portals had opened as he nearly forgot at that moment that he had sensed that same building pressure in many spots throughout the city before he arrived at this one..
His eyes widened in horror as he sensed them—dozens of portals, nearly 50 in total were scattered across the sect, each one pulsing with the same abyssal energy.
He could feel and see their presence all around him, like small tears in the fabric of reality, threatening to unleash more demons into the world.
His heart sank. He had barely managed to close one portal, and now there were fifty more?
How could he possibly stop them all before things got out of hand?
Lassim clenched his jaw, forcing down the rising panic. He didn’t have time to worry about the odds. The only thing that mattered now was stopping the abyssal invasion before it was too late.
With renewed determination, Lassim set off, racing toward the next portal.