Chapter 501: Divine Backstab
The immense obsidian blade cleaved the sphere of gathered void energy cleanly in two and immediately swept sideways. The boundless force it bore was far beyond what any single Utopian spire could withstand. The blade bored through and slashed through the spire's core structure outright.
Wielding the power of the Tree of the Night had become second nature to Avia. She scarcely needed to call upon the Chariot at all, leaving Wang Yu free to unleash destruction without restraint.
The Lady of the Night's divine power was something Avia, Wang Yu, and the goddess herself had refined together. Among the three of them, it was Avia who grasped its nature most keenly.
The great sable sword was merely the shape taken after that power had been drawn out and molded. In essence, it was a tidal flood of void energy siphoned from the Tree of the Night, fueled by the ever-surging power that streamed in from the Lady's countless devotees.
And before the Utopia, who commanded the void as their own, this near-boundless divine energy was the most effective weapon.
Just as when they had invaded the material realm, the Utopian spires vibrated and linked up with one another in an instant. The only difference was that, unlike in the material realm, the chains binding them were no longer hidden. Here in the void, they gleamed starkly—chains not of iron, but of the Utopia's own members, exposed before Wang Yu and Avia.
The spires filled the void before them, bound together by a labyrinth of interwoven links. In moments, their already oppressive formation swelled with a new, unified presence. As one composite entity, the spire-mass loomed like some vast and terrible void beast, now capable of directing all its gathered power as a single force.
A titanic shield woven of innumerable strands of void energy rose to bar the descending blade. For a heartbeat, divine night and the unified will of the spires clashed. From the point of impact, a tide of void energy rippled outward like an exploding nebula, painting the dark with a violent explosion of colors.
The stalemate held for only an instant. A single link in the chain snapped without warning.
The next moment, its severed end was in someone's grasp, a man who had broken it and now dragged the entire spire it anchored. Muscle and the power of the Chariot surged through Wang Yu's frame as he swung the massive structure like a flail, hurling it toward its neighbors.
The nearest spire was crushed head-on. Its frame shattered under the impact. The still-swinging tower plowed forward, smashing through more structures and scattering the Utopia members through the void.
Spires fell in rapid succession, laid low by Wang Yu's sudden reappearance. Debris filled the gaps between them; the battlefield became a wasteland of fractured stone and broken links.
At some point, Wang Yu's form had been swallowed by the Lady of the Night's power, causing him to vanish from Utopian detection. The moment he resurfaced, the spires began to topple.
Though the Utopia had innumerable spires, the linked network meant that the shock of each collapse was divided throughout. Cracks split the massive shield holding back the sable sword; its surface continued to fracture until, moments later, it was nearly cleaved apart.
Void energy began to flood toward the region where the spires had last toppled. The Utopia wasn't bothering to search for him anymore. Instead, they condensed a titanic mass of void energy into a vast, cubic prison, sealing off all escape. The cube began to contract in an attempt to annihilate him.
Wang Yu was a pest. Unless they dealt with him, they had no way of dealing with Avia, who wielded the divine power of the Lady of the Night.
A strange, muffled sound echoed. The cube halted abruptly, unable to shrink any further. No matter how the towers pressed their power inward, something resisted, something unyielding.
Then, the cube ruptured. A fist sheathed in golden light punched clean through, followed by both of Wang Yu's hands gripping the opening. Power roared through his frame as he tore the prison apart with raw might.
The construct, formed from the pooled strength of countless spires, was ripped open like rotten wood. Wang Yu seized the compressed void mass within, reshaped it, and forged two bladed chains that coiled behind him.
Elsewhere, the shield restraining the black sword finally split down its center and broke apart. The blade descended toward the Utopia's spire network.
Sensing danger, the entire formation surged backward as one—swift and precise, just as when it had first appeared—to evade the divine strike.
But Avia had never intended to rely on a simple, linear attack. The giant sword dissolved mid-swing into a sweeping ocean of mist.
The sea of divine shadow surged forward at impossible speed, flooding the spaces between the spires and drowning them in darkness. This veiled, elusive power blanketed everything; within it, the Utopian members might fail to perceive one another even if they were face to face.
However, connected by their chains, the Utopian spires were not affected by the nullified perception. They reacted instantly, causing the surrounding void to shudder as they prepared to blast apart the insubstantial mist by unleashing waves of pure void energy.
Yet Wang Yu was no idle spectator. Shrouded in the mist, he became a true wraith, erased entirely from the Utopia's senses, free to rampage while they flailed helplessly in the dark.
The chains he wielded shot forth, driven by the power of the Chariot. Their bladed tips pierced deep into the walls of one Utopian spire after another. With a fierce yank, the chains tightened, dragging Wang Yu across the battlefield at breakneck speed. Using that wild momentum, he tore apart every chain linking the spires in his path, severing their connections, and then smashed straight through the spires themselves with brute force.
The Utopia's bulwark proved laughably fragile before him. In the material realm they were constrained by countless inviolable laws of physics. But this was the void. Here, Wang Yu's Chariot provided him with raw, overwhelming strength. Coupled with a baseline already absurd beyond reason, he had become a true terror—causing more destruction on his own than even Avia channeling the Lady of the Night.
As Wang Yu bounded between the spires, widening the swath of devastation, the Utopia's attempt to disperse the black mist faltered. The shockwaves from the ruptured chains kept interrupting their efforts.
Realizing that their interconnected network had become a fatal liability, the Utopian spires finally split up once more into independent units to confront the threats in their immediate surroundings.
But this was precisely what Avia had been waiting for. The moment their power ceased to be tethered to one another—when the unified constellation shattered into scattered stars—the sea of darkness that had once been insufficient to erode the collective suddenly became lethally potent.
Shadowed arms began to extend from the Lady of the Night's domain. They grasped at the spires attempting to break free of the mist, dragging them back toward the shrouded abyss before they could escape the fog's suppression or flee Wang Yu's hunt.
Scattered as they were, the spires no longer possessed the strength to contest divine might. Struggling feebly, they were hauled into the depths of the mist, where they vanished without a sound.
The two mortals and one goddess had fulfilled their promise. They had intercepted the Utopia's army invading from the void and unleashed a counteroffensive of overwhelming destruction.
"Do you remember what I told you? We must handle this deity of the night with care. This one is different: capable of using its power by its own free will, not merely through the guidance of believers like the others.
"That's why, even though it isn't a particularly powerful god, it is the greatest threat to us. If we want to achieve our objective, we must eliminate it at a decisive moment. That moment is now. Unfortunately, thanks to your recklessness, Domino, we have lost a great deal of strength."
Somewhere in the void, Sulla spoke to the Utopia's new executor at his side. Domino's expression was ashen. She had entirely misjudged the strength of those two mortals and their goddess, and the heavy losses to the Utopia were unquestionably her fault.
"Do not brood over it," Sulla said lightly. "The Lightless Order will shoulder their final duty. We'll seize the moment when that god's power falters. I don't expect it to kill the deity outright, but banishing it into the space we prepared should be no issue. But do not fail again."
As he spoke, Sulla's fingers brushed the sigil on his arm.
Far away, at the trading outpost where the caravan was preparing its defenses, Damian felt the matching sigil on his own flesh ignite with excruciating heat, sending pricks of pain straight toward his heart. The moment had come.
He did not hesitate. The day he let his two wavering companions fall into eternal sleep, he had already made his choice. Any peace he had enjoyed since was a brief illusion. Their aspiration was the eternal Utopia, an achievement forged through ages of preparation, something he could never forsake.
Closing his eyes, he followed the channel of faith linking him to the Lady of the Night. In both the material world and the void, he raised the dagger—which existed simultaneously in both realms—and struck.
His vast will surged forth along that conduit, flowing into the Tree of the Night, merging into the Lady's own divine power, and thence toward the realm from which it originated.
The old God of Eternal Night, who had been forced into the role of librarian for the Midnight Library, flickered abruptly. It manifested directly behind the Lady of the Night's true form. Then, without hesitation, it drove the dagger into her back.
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