What followed was no longer a battle.
It was a one-sided massacre.
With the rift destabilized and their command structure broken, the remaining Eternal forces had no way to recover. Lyrate rejoined the battlefield without hesitation, and this time there was no restraint in her actions. She moved through their ranks like a force of nature, cutting through their numbers as easily as one would cut through grass.
My summons did not slow down either. If anything, they became even more intense.
Each of them fought with a renewed drive, their attacks carrying far more weight than before. There was no holding back, no testing, no hesitation. Every strike was meant to end the fight faster, to erase whatever remained of the legion.
The battlefield emptied quickly.
Within a few hours, it was over.
The void, which had once been filled with endless enemies and chaos, now stood silent. Only the Naga forces, my summons, and my companions remained, floating in the aftermath of what had just taken place.
A series of notifications appeared in front of me. I glanced at them briefly and then paused.
My merit points had surged.
107 million.
I raised an eyebrow in surprise.
I had expected that I would need to clear both Grade 3 rifts to reach the hundred million mark, but it seemed that a single one had been enough.
"That was... faster than expected," I muttered.
Gradually, everyone began to gather around me.
My summons arrived first, followed by Steve, North, and finally the Naga forces, with Xeron and Azalea at the front. They stopped a short distance away, their attention fixed on me.
I looked at them all for a moment.
Then nodded.
"Well done," I said. "All of you. That went better than expected."
Xeron hadn’t responded. Neither had Azalea.
They were just standing there.
Looking at me.
I frowned slightly.
"What?" I asked.
Xeron blinked, as if snapping out of something, then let out a slow breath.
"That..." he said, glancing briefly at the now-empty space where the rift had been. "That was not what I expected to witness today."
Azalea remained quiet, though the look in her eyes mirrored the same disbelief.
"You people..." Xeron continued, shaking his head lightly. "You just erased a Grade 3 rift like it was nothing."
I let out a small chuckle.
"Not nothing," I said. "But yeah... it went well."
He exhaled once more, then straightened slightly, his tone returning to something more composed.
"We will gather our forces from here," he said. "And then move directly to the second rift."
I nodded.
"That makes sense. It’s better to hit them fast before they reinforce the other rift."
He looked at me again.
"And... thank you," he added. "What you did here, it changed things for us."
Azalea stepped forward slightly.
"Thank you Lord Billion," she said. "I never thought that even today you will again end up helping me. First you saved my life and then the lives of millions of Nagas. I am not sure how I will ever repay you."
I shrugged.
"We’re not done yet," I replied. "One more rift."
Xeron gave a faint smile at that.
"Right," he said. "One more."
Behind me, I could feel the presence of my summons, all of them roaring to go.
*******
The journey to the second Grade 3 rift did not take long.
Xeron’s craft cut through the void at full speed, carrying all of us across sectors that had once felt vast but now seemed insignificant. The earlier battle still lingered in my body, the exhaustion from pushing my limits, but I had recovered fully.
When we arrived, the battlefield revealed itself.
This rift was different.
It did not stretch wide like the previous one, nor was it held open by massive spikes driven into space. Instead, the tear was narrower but far deeper, like a wound that had been drilled into reality rather than torn apart. Around it, massive rings floated in layered formation, not solid structures but rotating bands of dark crystalline fragments, each one orbiting the rift at different speeds.
The rings weren’t decorative.
They were active.
Each fragment within them shifted constantly, locking and unlocking space in intervals, creating zones where movement slowed or accelerated unpredictably.
The Eternal forces here had adapted to it.
Instead of spreading out, they moved within those rotating layers, phasing between zones, striking and retreating. Phantoms flickered through distorted intervals, abominations emerged from compressed pockets of space, and the Iron and Flame legion stood at the center, controlling everything.
The Naga forces were holding them back.
Barely.
"This one is worse," Xeron muttered beside me.
I didn’t respond immediately. Because my attention had shifted. Lyrate stood beside me, her silver glow calm but intense, her gaze fixed directly on the rift.
Then she turned slightly and looked at me.
"Master," she said, her voice carrying that same soft confidence as before, "would you like to see who is more powerful?"
I met her gaze. There was no arrogance in it. She was very confident.
A small smile formed on my face.
"Alright," I said. "Let’s see."
That was all the confirmation she needed. In the next instant both of us moved.
Our bodies surged forward, cutting through the battlefield, ignoring everything in between. The glow around us intensified rapidly, silver light enveloping both of us as we rose higher, positioning ourselves directly in front of the rift.
The battlefield reacted. Both sides felt it but we didn’t wait. I drew in a breath and focused everything into a single point.
"Absolute Destruction."
The silver glow gathered into my fist again, compressing with overwhelming density as I twisted my body and drove the attack forward. The moment it left my hand, it shot outward like a comet, tearing through space with that same screaming distortion, ripping the void apart as it advanced.
At the same time, Lyrate moved.
She did not compress her power the same way I did.
She expanded it.
"World Root: Sovereign Bloom."
Her hands opened, and from around the rift itself, countless crimson roots erupted into existence, from space itself. They pierced into the rotating rings, into the fragments, into the very structure holding the rift stable.
Then they bloomed.
Massive flowers burst open across the entire formation, far larger than before, their petals spreading wide as they consumed everything they touched. The rings shattered almost instantly, their controlled rotations collapsing as the roots devoured them from within.
My attack struck the rift at the same moment. The silver comet crashed into its core, tearing through its structure, forcing it open from within.
And then Lyrate’s domain took over.
The roots spread deeper, invading the rift itself, blooming again and again, forcing the tear to collapse under the weight of her control.
The System responded.
Runes appeared instantly, surrounding the rift as its structure failed.
And within seconds, it was gone.