BOOM!
Another shockwave tore through the frozen plains.
Nemo, the terrifying Overlord of the region, was smashed into the ground. His massive body skidded across the ice, leaving a trail of violet blood and shattered earth behind him.
He tried to stand, his legs trembling, but a shadow was already looming over him.
Bane descended from the sky like a fallen angel. His expression was devoid of mercy.
CRACK.
A fist wrapped in solidified darkness piston-ed into Nemo’s ribs. The sound of bones snapping echoed sickeningly in the night air.
"Gah...!"
Nemo coughed up a mouthful of glowing blood.
He was being dismantled. Systematically. Brutally.
It was obvious that the prince wanted to break his spirit.
He wanted to carve fear so deep into Nemo’s soul that the thought of rebellion would never surface again.
However, he wasn’t unscathed either.
The black symbol on his forehead was flickering. His breathing was heavy, and the majestic wings on his back were beginning to lose their stability, turning misty at the edges.
’I don’t have much time left in this form,’ Bane thought, his eyes narrowing.
He floated down, hovering just inches above the broken beast’s snout.
"Do you surrender now?"
Bane asked, his voice dripping with icy authority. He raised his hand, gathering a dense sphere of void energy.
"Submit, and you live. Refuse, and you become dust."
"Never..."
Nemo wheezed, baring his bloodstained fangs. His violet eyes dimmed, yet the hatred within them burned brighter than ever.
"I will... never... bow to your kind... again!"
He gathered the last scraps of his aura. He would rather self-destruct than bow to another Noble who looked at him like he was garbage.
But just as his resolve hardened—
<Do you want to live?>
A voice slipped into his mind.
It was smooth, clear, and terrifyingly calm amidst the chaos.
Nemo froze, his concentration shattering.
’A trick!’ He roared internally, his eyes darting around. ’Get out of my head!’
He snarled at Bane, ignoring the whisper.
<I won’t ask again. Do you want to live?>
The voice returned. It slithered past his mental defenses with terrifying ease.
<Do you want to get revenge? Against this arrogant brat standing in front of you? Against the ones who threw you away like garbage?>
Thump.
Nemo’s heart skipped a beat.
A tiny, dangerous emotion bloomed in his chest... Revenge. One thing he desperately wanted. One thing-
<Ignore it! It’s a trap!>
Nemo suppressed the feeling violently. He rolled to the side, narrowly dodging another crushing stomp from Bane.
BAM!
Black shards exploded where his head had been a second ago.
"Stubborn," Bane spat. He conjured three spears of darkness and aimed them at Nemo’s remaining limbs.
<Look at you,> the voice teased. It sounded like a devil whispering from the shadows. <Getting beaten into a pulp, dying a dog’s death in the middle of nowhere. Is this how the story of ’King of the Night’ comes to an end?>
"Shut up!" Nemo growled. He slashed his claws at Bane, but the Prince easily swatted the attack aside.
<...I can save you,> the voice continued, unbothered by the chaos. <I can give you the power to tear him apart.>
’Lies!’ Nemo thought, panting heavily as blood filled his vision. ’You just want to enslave me too!’
<Enslave? No. That is his method.>
The voice chuckled softly.
<I am offering an Equal Contract. A partnership. You keep your will. You keep your pride. We simply fight together.>
Nemo faltered.
An Equal Contract?
For a creature of his level, such a thing was unheard of. Humans were greedy. They always demanded absolute submission, especially the powerful ones.
’Could this voice... be telling the truth?’
The silence stretched, thick with a tension Bane misinterpreted. All he saw was the beast’s unwavering, hateful glare and the proud refusal to lower its head.
"So be it," Bane muttered. His voice lost all patience. "You have chosen death."
The void sphere in his hand collapsed. It formed a blade of pure annihilation.
He swung down.
Vwoom.
The air screamed.
Nemo stared at the incoming attack. It would obliterate him. There would be no regeneration from this.
<...>
The voice in his head went silent.
It didn’t try to persuade him anymore. It didn’t barter. It simply... waited.
Its offer lay bare, with no strings to pull Nemo toward it.
However, in that immense quiet, Nemo understood the terrifying truth: this entity was not another master seeking to leash him. It was a power offering a hand, and the choice to grasp it was his alone. That respect, more than any promise of strength, shattered his final defiance.
The lance of void energy, humming with finality, was a hair’s breadth from his skull.
"I AGREE!"
Nemo roared, his voice cracking with desperation.
Scrrrch.
The void blade stopped instantly. It hovered mere millimeters from Nemo’s throat, singing with lethal energy.
Bane stood there, the blade frozen in his grip.
His lips curled up faintly.
"Good," He muttered, loosening his stance. "You should have said it soon—"
Flash.
He didn’t get to finish as a figure had materialized directly behind him.
Bane’s pupils contracted.
Too late.
A gentle, pale palm was already pressed against the center of his back.
BOOM!
A terrifying burst of kinetic force exploded from the palm.
Bane’s eyes widened. His body was launched downward with the force of a meteor. He smashed into the frozen earth mercilessly.
CRASH!
The impact created a massive crater, throwing dust and ice shards high into the air.
"You made the right choice."
A calm, distorted voice echoed above the destruction.
Nemo, stunned and trembling, looked up.
Hovering where the Prince had just been was a strange, majestic creature draped in robes of frost. A vortex of white swirled where its face should be. It was none other than Amaniel who had finally decided to make his entrance.
"First, let me take care of—"
Vwoom.
Amaniel stopped mid-sentence as strange pressure enveloped the surroundings.
His gaze landed on the crater.
There was no screaming, no roar of fury.
Instead, a sphere of absolute darkness expanded silently from the center of the pit. It erased the snow, the rocks, and the very air, devouring the dust cloud instantly.
From within that void, Bane’s figure slowly rose.
His clothes hung in tatters, and black blood dripped from his eyes. His majestic wings flickered, barely holding their shape.
Yet, his expression remained terrifyingly blank.
Ignoring the trembling beast and his own injuries, he locked his pitch-black gaze solely onto the white figure.
"I see," Bane whispered. His voice was quiet, yet it carried a metallic resonance that grated against the ears. "So it was you."
Questions were unnecessary. The situation was clear.
He raised a trembling hand.
"Die."
Flash.
Bane burned his essence, executing a Void Shift.
He vanished, reappearing instantly at Amaniel’s throat. His hand, formed into a spear of condensed void, thrust forward in a perfect assassination strike.
Clang!
A wall of diamond-hard ice materialized inches from Amaniel’s neck, halting the lethal blow.
Bane’s eyes narrowed. He retracted his hand immediately, unleashing a barrage of stabs.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Shifting shields of ice intercepted every strike, moving as if they possessed a mind of their own.
"Impressive," Amaniel noted, hands still folded behind his back.
Bane remained silent, his focus absolute. Realizing his exhaustion, he changed tactics.
His wings flared, scattering into a thousand black feathers.
"Nightfall."
The darkness expanded, seeking to swallow the white figure and sever his connection to the world’s aura.
"Oh?" Amaniel chuckled, the sound like cracking ice.
He finally unfolded his arms and raised a single finger.
"You are trying to cast a night..."
Fwoosh.
The temperature in the plains plummeted to absolute zero. The falling snow suspended in mid-air.
Amaniel clenched his hand.
CRACK!
The thousand black feathers froze instantly. They turned into brittle statues of ice before shattering into dust.
Bane’s eyes widened for the first time.
"You..."
"Go down."
Amaniel swiped his hand downward.
BOOM!
The air above Bane solidified into a massive hammer of ice, slamming him back into the earth before he could process the counter-attack.
Amaniel stared down at the frozen crater.
"You seem a bit overheated, ’human’. Stay there and cool off for a while."