Chaos. Destruction. Death.
Those were the only words capable of even remotely describing the scene unfolding.
Colonel Zenon had given his rousing cry.
The sergeants and Apexes had gone on full alert.
The Paragons had clashed.
And then…
Devastation followed.
Paragon battles had always been considered world-ending events. Even a clash between two could leave entire landscapes in ruin.
But this was sixteen Paragons against eight.
Above the main island, the sky had become a battlefield of apocalyptic proportions.
The people within the banquet hall heard it first;
Not a sound, but a force.
A pressure so intense it sounded like celestial bells being struck by war gods. Like the heavens themselves were cracking apart.
And then it hit.
A shockwave, vast and merciless, slammed into the island like a divine hammer.
Buildings were reduced to rubble.
Trees were shredded into dust.
Mountains cracked. Rivers reversed. Airships exploded.
The entire island plummeted from the sky, like a dying god crashing toward the earth.
Those inside the banquet were thrown like rag dolls, blasted in every direction by the sheer force.
Recruits screamed. Recruits died.
Thousands of them had gathered in the banquet hall, the elites of the Alliance, the Apex division, geniuses from every race.
But they were still only experts, some just merely advanced.
The sound alone had imploded their eardrums. The shockwave had turned the unlucky ones into twisted flesh and splintered bones, shredded by flying debris and collapsing architecture.
Yet amid the carnage, the eyes of the Apexes glinted like sharpened blades.
Their aura erupted, shielding their bodies, stabilizing their footing even as the island crumbled beneath them.
The sergeants, too, regained their bearings, some hovering mid-air, others bracing against fractured stone as the island spiraled downward, gravity becoming erratic.
Yet even then, their gazes all snapped upward, to the army that hovered above.
An endless wave of Grandmasters, their bloodlust thick enough to drown cities.
And at their helm hovered one figure.
Carius Valarius.
Calm. Cold. Composed.
Looking down upon them like ants.
He could see their stunned faces, their shock at his betrayal.
Their disbelief that one of their own, an Apex, a member of the Dimensari race, had betrayed them.
But his expression held not a single shred of remorse.
And then, a thunderous roar split through the chaos:
"APEX CARIUS VALARIUS! WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!"
It wasn't a shout, it was a war cry, a declaration, like a god roaring across the heavens.
Carius's gaze flicked lazily toward the sergeant who had spoken, brow raised.
"What does it look like?" he replied coldly, voice like razors over glass.
"I've come for your lives."
And then, the Grandmasters behind him acted.
Their auras exploded in a thunderous storm, drenching the air in pure pressure.
The expressions of the sergeants darkened in disbelief.
A Dimensari, the self-called leaders of the Alliance, had not only betrayed them… but had led the charge.
But Carius didn't give them time to process it.
He raised a single hand, and the Grandmasters surged.
'They're targeting us.'
Lirae Bloodveil's expression turned grim, cold and calculating. Every trace of her usual mischief vanished, replaced by the predator beneath.
She was, after all, a Vampyros.
Her eyes locked briefly with the others, Karn, Maera, Torren, Kynara, Ae'ark.
No words were needed.
They were reincarnators.
They had lived, died, and risen again.
They had faced death more times than any.
They knew.
Carius wasn't here for war.
He was here to kill them.
And the first to move was Karn Voss.
A shockwave of brownish aura erupted from him, his monstrous hammer forming in his hand.
Killing intent surged like a landslide.
He leapt into the sky, ignoring the tide of Grandmasters, and hurled himself straight at Carius. His hammer descended like divine punishment.
Carius's eyes narrowed.
His sword flashed to his hand and then
CLANG!
The two forces collided.
A pulse of pure devastation exploded, shaking the skies, splitting the clouds. The sheer force shocked even the Grandmasters behind Carius.
"How strong are these kids?!" one of them muttered in disbelief.
But they had no time to ponder.
The other Apexes moved.
Lirae flared forward, wings of divine light bursting from her back, her lance glistening with lethal blood energy.
She pierced through a Grandmaster's skull with a single thrust.
Maera's eyes turned pure white. The air decayed around her, as black orbs formed, floating like cursed planets.
They glowed, then fired, beams of withering energy vaporizing several Grandmasters.
Torren moved like a war god, like he knew no pain. Gone was his flirtatious grin. In place, his twin blades danced, slicing flesh, bone, armor.
Any wound he took regenerated instantly, making him an unstoppable force.
And then came Kynara of the Evolari.
Her body had morphed to one best suited for large-scale battles, sleek, flexible armor-like skin, glowing veins of energy, elongated limbs and spine that coiled like a whip.
She lashed forward, a radiant whip glowing with lightning, snapping across the battlefield, coiling around three Grandmasters, and crushing them in a flash of thunder and gore.
The Obsidian Order's army was being torn apart, despite their numbers.
The shock that surged through the sergeants at that moment was immense. Yet, their expressions soon darkened.
Their duty flared in their hearts.
They weren't going to watch from the sidelines while their Apexes fought.
Their auras surged, and they dove into the fray, roaring like thunder gods, turning the field into a war-torn hell.
In the plummeting island of the military camp, there was only chaos.
And above it all, Carius and Karn continued their clash.
Each blow of Karn's hammer sent shockwaves through the fractured terrain, tearing open craters and pulsing out waves of pure negation.
Each swing of Carius's blade danced like death, sharp, silent, devastating. His movements seemed to ripple through the air itself, his body warping and shifting in impossible ways.
It was a battle of monsters.
The ground crumbled. The sky thundered.
Karn's negation waves surged outward, blanketing everything, suppressing mana, draining power.
However, something was wrong. They simply passed through Carius, as if he wasn't there at all.
Because he wasn't.
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This was the Dimensari way of battling the Nullite. Why they still stood as the top race.
Carius had adapted.