( Lucifer's POV )
When Shakuni unleashed his true aura at the peak of tier8, Lucifer immediately dropped any and all ideas of fighting him.
Rudra's unbelievable increase in strength was even more surprising to Lucifer than him not being dead, as last he remembered, Rudra was just half-way into tier7 when he fought Thor.
The EXP requirement to go from tier7 to tier8 was by no means small, however, the journey from tier8 to the peak of tier8 was even more exaggerated.
Even if Shakuni slaughtered entire planets a day, it wasn't possible to reach the peak of tier8 in just 3 years.
Every other monarch that he knew of in the universe had spent centuries moving from tier7 to tier8 and even till date, except that wicked master of his who was older than time, Lucifer had not seen a single individual who had reached the peak of tier8, including his brother Micheal.
Rudra's strength put him directly on top of the food-chain as he replaced Micheal as the strongest warrior in the universe.
Shakuni's rise was so rapid that it made every other monarch beside him look like absolute buffoons for they had spent thousands of years as a tier8 warrior and had still not reached the heights of power that Rudra had achieved within half a decade.
[ System Notification - An anomaly has been detected by the system.
Player Shakuni is still alive, issuing an emergency mission!!!! ]
[ System Notification - Delay player Shakuni from escaping the Dimensional Battlefield till the universal queen manifests a physical form and handles the problem personally.
Rewards - Unrestricted Access to the universal warehouse.
-Choice of picking any 3 items
Failure penalty - No future collaborations with the universal queen ]
Just as Lucifer made his mind to leave and get the hell out of Shakuni's cross-hair, a system notification forced him to re-evaluate his strategy as it seemed like the queen wanted to personally handle the anomaly.
The very thought of having such a powerful entity as his support gave Lucifer all the spine he needed to stand upto Shakuni, as he bravely grabbed his sword and said " Me afraid of death? I think your memory is muddled after I slit your throat, I AM DEATH "
" You- barbarian! Cover me, I'm going to show him what true terror means " Lucifer said as he commanded the Savage King to join him in battle as he bravely charged towards Rudra.
************
( Meanwhile Rudra )
Rudra saw the atmosphere above his head changing and secretly thanked the unnamed god.
Had he not warned him that this would happen the second he stepped into the controlled universe, maybe Rudra would have never come so far and would have been in a confrontation against the queen long back.
The second reason behind why he was calm was because he was literally omniscient.
In the gruelling years of isolation as he was regenerating in the middle of nowhere, Rudra had contemplated a lot about his skill-set and how he could get stronger.
After thinking about it a lot, he had came to the conclusion that his skill [ Future Sight ] was his most broken ability and if he could take it to the next level, he could walk into any battle being literally omniscient about every possible future outcome.
Hence he began deconstructing the spell formula of future sight and after countless trial and errors he evolved it from its base form to create the ultimate skill [ Absolute Omniscience]
The second he had killed Avans, he had activated his skill [ Absolute Omniscience ] and peered a full two minutes into the future, and hence when Lucifer came towards him and used his sword of darkness to swing at his neck, Rudra ducked the attack easily and thrusted both his swords towards Lucifer's abdomen which were blocked by his armour of darkness.
The devil was naturally dumbfounded at Rudra's speed, it was almost like Rudra had dodged and predicted his move before his own body had decided to perform it and it spooked the devil that he was fighting such an opponent.
" I am ready! " The Savage King bellowed from a distance, as Lucifer activated the move [ Chain Of Darkness ] and immobilised Rudra while he personally rolled away, giving the Savage King space to unleash his tier7 move.
[ CRUEL SUN ]
Compressing light energy to an extremely small point, the savage king created a miniature sun that had an extremely potent gravitational field and temperatures that mimicked the surface of the sun.
The attack could easily create a palm sized hole in any monarch's chest upon impact and hence when he unleashed it upon Shakuni, the savage king was confident to deal critical damage.
" TAKE THAT! " The savage king spoke with glee, however, at that moment the illusion suddenly broke and he was faced with an absurd reality.
Unknowingly, he had been under the effect of the Maya-Astra and had been played beautifully by Shakuni as instead of actually attacking Shakuni, he had sent the attack towards his ally Lucifer.
" FOOL! " Lucifer bellowed in rage as he desperately tried to stop the attack by countering the light using his darkness powers.
Not only did blocking the attack consume a significant portion of the devil's divine essence, but towards the end the cruel sun exploded in his face causing him to lose 10% of his HP as it knocked him off balance.
Meanwhile, Rudra closed down on the savage king who was distracted and looking at Lucifer and chopped off all four of his limbs before the other party even realised that he had been snuck- up on.
*SLASH*
His main body fell seperated from his limbs as the Savage King howled in pain.
From start to finish he had not even seen Rudra's shadow, nor did he notice any signs of his opponent casting an illusion attack, yet both of them had ended up happening.
" AGHHHHHH, AGHHH, AGHHH "
The sounds of his painful howls reverberated throughout the Dimensional Battlefield, however, there were no sympathizers for the savage king to rely on.
He was a monarch, someone who was used to standing at the pinnacle of power, yet infront of Shakuni he felt like a child who had just learned to walk battling a veteran.
At this point he knew he was vastly outmatched and secretly removed a teleportation tailsman from his inventory, and tried to crush it using his teeth, however, unfortunately for him, at this very moment a pink barrier surrounded the entire area that he was in, blocking his movement to teleport outside.
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/// A/N - This bonus sponsored by patron MagNum932 please thank him in the comments for this one ///