Chapter 503: Convergence
The power of the Chariot set the Tree of the Night in motion. Wrapped in the veiling force of the divine power of the night, he could move about unhindered by the Utopian spires.
Without any forewarning, one of the Utopian spires closest to Wang Yu shattered in an instant. Those within were crushed into a formless, glutinous smear; their unshielded souls were consumed by the void a heartbeat later.
And that was only the beginning. One spire after another buckled and burst, destruction rippling outward from the first point of impact—like some unseen leviathan threading through the cluster, dragging a lengthening tendril that crushed every spire it brushed.
The power of the Chariot sculpted the divinity of the night. Wang Yu, wielding a technique far from refined, drove that force into a single annihilating tendril. It lanced through the enemy ranks, tearing open a path of ruin. The Utopia proved shockingly fragile against the power of a god.
Events unfolded so quickly that the Utopia's members, Sulla included, barely understood what was happening to Wang Yu. The Lady of the Night had been slain, and her mantle stolen by an ancient god that had been resurrected. Somehow, all that stolen divinity had landed in Wang Yu's hands.
In other words, he was now essentially a god himself, though one who didn't have to worry about the will of his devotees. He simply hauled the divine power up and swung it like a club. None of his powers were those of a great divinity, but his utter disregard for restraint made him terrifying.
Within moments, the unseen tendril had punched entirely through Utopia's formation. The chain of destruction widened, branching until it reached the far end of the Utopia's territory.
Still unfamiliar with the Lady of the Night's power, Wang Yu's technique was crude, akin to strapping a nuclear warhead to a stick and using it as a hammer. It was effective only because the yield was obscene; compared to what the power could do when properly harnessed, it was pitiful.
But Wang Yu wasn't alone. He had an external brain. In the blink of an eye, the Perfect Fractal lens over his right eye, linked to Avia, processed the sensations and data he fed back and returned a concise set of instructions telling him what to do next.
"So that's how it works. Understood."
Even simplified by Avia's genius, the explanations remained complex. Wielding divine power with mortal hands—mastering it rather than yanking it around as Wang Yu had been doing—was anything but easy.
But Wang Yu had been learning diligently all this time, even if he could never compare to Avia. What Avia explained, he understood well enough. At once, he roused the Tree of the Night, invoking a true divine art rather than mere crude dragging and swinging.
Elsewhere, the divine apparition the Utopia had once crafted manifested again among the spires. This time, however, its purpose was not a psychic assault.
That would be pointless against the two humans and one god present. Rather, the apparition existed only to use its near-divine qualities to pierce the night's divine concealment, to identify Wang Yu's position.
Wang Yu twisted his wrist and curled his fingers. The annihilating tendril of the night abruptly changed form. Countless filaments of darkness unfurled from it, shooting outward with impossible speed.
They anchored themselves in empty space, fixing upon nothing, interlacing through the air until they formed a vast web with many gaps. Wang Yu stood upon this web, watching silently as the Utopia fell into the trap.
At that same moment, the Utopia's apparition pierced the veil and perceived the "spiderweb" enclosing its forces—along with Wang Yu standing above it in grim silence.
Nearly half the spires erupted in unison, firing beams laden with void energy. The beams threaded through the gaps in the web, converging upon Wang Yu.
Yet Wang Yu now held divinity in his hands. Even without it, he would not have been so easily struck down. Now, he was all but unassailable. The Chariot's power thrummed. The vast web shifted as lightly as silk. Wang Yu drew a dense sheet of interwoven filaments of the night before himself. The converging beams slammed into the barrier.
There was scarcely a tremor. These threads were, at their essence, still void energy, yet Avia had helped Wang Yu imbue them with spatial distortion.
Then came a sharp sound, like that of a snapped bowstring. The filament bent back under the assault, stretched nearly to the point of snapping, when a flash of light rippled across it. Space folded. Another thread from elsewhere in the web immediately replaced the strained one.
In the span of a moment, dozens of such exchanges occurred. Wang Yu's web possessed the strength of a wall. The void beams struck it and dissipated into waste energy.
These drifting motes of void energy were, to Wang Yu, power lying ready at hand. The power of the Chariot unfurled from the "web," seized the loose void energy, dragged it back into the mesh, and sent it racing at tremendous speed along the strands. It coursed around the Utopia's spires trapped beneath the web, circling like a predator testing its cage, waiting for the right moment to strike.
Another spire attempted to fire, but the web instantly sensed the faintest quiver of void energy. That section of the web exploded as countless black spikes thrust outward from every angle, impaling and obliterating the spire. Once caught within the "web," every point in space became a place where Wang Yu could strike at will.
Wang Yu resembled a supreme hunter holding taut the cords of a deadly snare. The prey within the mesh could scarcely harm him, while he could pluck at the strands as though playing a piano, each touch unleashing a fresh barrage that steadily wore down the trapped Utopian operatives.
The spiderweb imbued with divinity lashed out again and again, destroying the spires that attempted to resist him. Those who fought back perished all the faster; those who remained still could survive a little longer.
It was an excellent method for making his prey abandon their resistance and succumb to a slow death, though it wasn't especially effective against the Utopia. Their unified collective will was far too strong to be shaken by such tactics.
That was fine. Wang Yu had no intention of annihilating every spire. His mission was solely to prevent the Utopia from interfering with the dragons' advance. He had time to spare—this wouldn't take long at all.
A strange, muffled gulping sound echoed. To Wang Yu's surprise, exactly half the spires abruptly self-destructed without any prelude. Where they collapsed, violet fissures yawned open, swallowing nearby spires whole. One by one, they vanished from the web he had woven.
"The depths of the void? Well, there's not much I can do. Still, my job's done."
He attempted to destroy a few more of the Utopian spires before they were drawn away, but the suction from those rifts was immense, and the distortion leaking from them was far beyond what he could counter. Dragging anything back out was impossible.
Still, that was just a minor inconvenience at most. He had achieved his objective of keeping the Utopia contained in the void.
Retrieving the divine energy back into his personal domain in the void, Wang Yu exchanged a triumphant high-five with Avia—only to turn and find the Lady of the Night drastically reduced in size.
"Lady Darkness... are you feeling all right?"
He scratched his head. It felt strange to see this imposing, statuesque deity who once had to stoop to speak to him now barely the height of a child. Something felt off. Wrong, even. It was very odd.
"No need to worry," the miniature Lady of the Night replied, gazing up at him. "I'm much the same as when we first met. I've lost my power, but... I am being sustained by something I don't fully understand myself. I'm free, but I won't dissipate. It feels pleasant, actually."
Without her divinity, she could no longer sense her worshipers, but the resulting, laid-back idleness suited her lazy nature perfectly.
"How did you end up shrinking?"
Wang Yu was unable to suppress his curiosity. It made no sense.
"I..."
"Let's get a move on," Avia interrupted.
She rapped her knuckles lightly against Wang Yu's head, then scooped up the miniature goddess and carried her into Wang Yu's void domain, placing her upon the reclining chair she often used. The Lady of the Night sank into it contentedly.
Wang Yu rubbed his chin. "Well... I suppose it's fine. If she's okay, that's good enough."
He let the matter drop, took Avia's hand, and stepped out through a newly opened void rift. The rift hovered above him like a pitch-black halo, moving alongside him, allowing him to draw upon the divinity of the night whenever he pleased.
At that moment, the distant wall of the passage the dragons had carved open erupted with a thunderous explosion. It was not a Utopian attack, but rather artillery fire from Skyborne City. With the Church of Nightfall having drawn away most of the Utopia's attention, the Alliance legions had advanced unimpeded and blasted through the barrier separating the two friendly forces. At long last, the two sides converged in triumph.
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