Kyle indifferently watched the brutal storm and fury of violence as time slipped by.
He could see clearly that neither of the two fighting in front of him spared any effort to tear the other to pieces—Nathaniel’s every strike driven by the intent to erase Azazeal’s existence completely, while Azazeal fought with cruelty, each blow meant to torment and make his opponent writhe in agony.
He floated above the overwhelming chaos like a distant spectator, untouched by the turmoil below—power that transcended the very fabric of reality raging beneath him—never intervening, only watching in silence.
An entire week passed, yet the two men continued to clash as if their energy were inexhaustible, their fury unyielding. Well, that was only to be expected, for they both stood at the pinnacle of the Celestial rank—a power unmatched since the fall of the first three Celestials—just like him.
In the end, Kyle could see that Nathaniel was beginning to retreat. His movements were slow, but unlike Azazeal, who looked as if he had lost all reason, Kyle could read Nathaniel’s intentions easily as someone watching everything from a distance.
Eyeing the man’s blood-red glowing eyes shift with clear unease, Kyle sneered.
"Hah, I was actually wondering why this man still had the nerve to face Azazeal head-on, even after seeing his seven bodies and knowing I was watching. It seems it was just a fleeting overconfidence—one that appeared after he reached the End, something no one else in the Celestial realm had. Now that he’s slowly slipping into a disadvantage, is he planning to flee?"
Kyle wanted to laugh at the absurdity of Nathaniel thinking he could flee from someone who had clearly lost all restraint.
Even if his luck equaled Kyle’s, escape was impossible now. Unlike in the past, when he had secretly plotted for years to betray allies and steal their powers, this time he faced someone unhinged—someone who had walked through hell to reach him.
How could Azazeal possibly let him slip away?
Ultimately, the haggard Nathaniel finally tried to manipulate the Celestial symbol of time to escape—only to be yanked back as Azazeal’s maniacal laughter tore through the air, shaking everything like a storm.
The sheer, unrestrained power that tore through the already gloomy space, long filled with oppressive darkness, even pushed Kyle several steps back mid-air, leaving a chilling echo lingering in the void.
For an entire week, Kyle had ensured that the boundary of the Layer of Ancients held firm with his own power, even when Azazeal and Nathaniel used all their strength. Now, nothing remained in the realm except eerie darkness, restrained solely by him against the last frail barrier. He had also exhausted a great deal of his power in the process.
A vein flared on his forehead as he battled the relentless wave of darkness that once again slammed against the barrier. But he knew he couldn’t hold out for much longer.
After all, even if he managed to prevent the darkness from shattering the final, already shaking barrier, it was devouring his energy like an insatiable monster. Once his power could no longer encompass the entire Layer of Ancients, some of the darkness would inevitably spill into the outside world.
Knowing this, Kyle couldn’t help but curse under his breath, frustration evident in his voice.
"Damn these two! Can’t they torture each other a little more... carefully? Don’t they know it’s not easy to confine their power?"
At that moment, he witnessed Azazeal rip off one of the snake heads that tirelessly protected Nathaniel. Nathaniel cried out in agony, yet with his immense power, another head instantly sprouted above the severed one. The seven-headed snake, forged from energy, could not be truly destroyed as long as he still had energy in his body. Still, the agonizing pain coursing through him every time Azazeal consumed even a fraction of his power—drawn from his link with the End—was beyond words.
Kyle frowned when, amidst the chaotic battle, a crack suddenly appeared in the boundary holding the Layer of Ancients.
He moved to immediately seal it with his power, but who would have thought that the moment the crack appeared, the darkness would slam against the barrier with such force that he blacked out trying to stop it.
"Fuck!"
Cursing under his breath, Kyle ignored the battle and vanished immediately toward the affected area of the barrier. As he vanished, the air grew frigid, frost forming in his wake as a thick layer of snow spread amidst the darkness, coating everything in a blinding white. The sheer cold seemed to bite at the chaos itself, forcing the darkness to recoil slightly under the weight of his cold power.
It took him no more than a heartbeat to reach the affected section of the barrier—after all, he was one of the strongest existences in the Celestial realm now.
Yet, to his shock, even that little fleeting moment had been enough for the ecstatic darkness to hack the barrier completely.
Before his dilated green eyes, with a sharp, resonating crack, the barrier splintered into countless fragments, scattering like shards of fragile glass across the void. The pieces shimmered briefly in the dark before fading into nothingness, leaving a chilling dread.
Without a moment’s hesitation, the ecstatic darkness burst outward in every direction, as if it had a consciousness of its own. It surged greedily, immediately devouring everything that existed in the surroundings.
The Layer of Ancients had long been a hollow shell, emptied of power after the darkness devoured everything. Now that it had finally broken the restraint confining it within the Layer of Ancients—there was no way it could hold itself back any longer.
Kyle instantly created another barrier to hurriedly confine the darkness and stop it from spreading further and growing more—but it shattered almost immediately. Still, he didn’t stop, relentlessly trying again and again. Yet, how could the darkness that had finally found something to devour again be stopped? Like a dark tornado, the darkness swept through everything, devouring all in its path and growing stronger with each passing second. Nature mourned silently, powerless to intervene, forced to watch as the dark consumed everything in its path.