Marvas fell, struggling for his life while a dark hole consumed his chest with a lethal force he could not expel.
Lying upon the shattered ground, bleeding without end, he watched as the battle behind him descended into its most savage and extreme phase.
Agares attacked Gael, Gael attacked him in return, while the golem Zahara targeted them both alike.
The battlefield became a relentless storm of shattered bones and raw violence, all three monsters displaying horrifying levels of endurance.
Agares was clearly the weakest among them, yet the King’s Hardness kept him standing, refusing to let him collapse despite the monstrous pressure crushing down on him.
On the other hand, even after copying three World-breaking abilities, Zahara still failed to seize the upper hand against the Duke of Hell.
In the middle of the savage exchange, Gael’s mutated arm suddenly transformed into the maw of a colossal beast over five meters long.
The monstrous jaws opened before Zahara’s face and unleashed an enormous Aura bomb point-blank, blasting the golem away.
The moment he created distance, Gael immediately shifted his focus back to Agares, tightening the pressure around him as countless blade-like tendrils battered the Upper Second’s hardened body.
Gael could reshape the composition of his body however he pleased, endlessly increasing both his size and the amount of exposed mutated flesh that formed him.
To the point where he covered a massive area, becoming eerily similar to Agaroth’s King’s Shadow ability.
The only difference... was that the Demon King spread shadows.
This monster spread his literal flesh.
"You will die, Agares... you will die!"
Gael pressed down violently, forcing the Upper Second through absolute hell.
"Why, Gael?! Why do you oppose your own kind?!"
Agares roared in fury, while Gael answered with a hissing laugh.
"What nonsense are you spouting?"
Dark Aura surged around Gael in even greater quantities, his reserves vastly surpassing Agares and Marvas combined.
"From the very beginning, I never considered any of you Upper Demons my allies."
"And I do not acknowledge a single one of you as true demons."
Gael attacked from blind spots with horrifying density, completely cornering Agares and leaving him no room for anything but defense.
"Agaroth is not my king."
"And he was never a demon to begin with."
"Just an outsider who carved his way in through sheer force and imposed himself upon us."
Gael’s body swelled larger with every passing second, transforming into a gigantic abomination.
Even Agares’ absurdly durable body had begun to crack and split apart beneath the pressure.
"Yes, he is strong... but I am not obligated to follow him."
"And I have no need for his ridiculous abilities to make me stronger."
"You kneel before him like slaves, before a foreigner who has nothing to do with us in the slightest!"
"You bow your heads for the sake of a single World-breaking ability!"
"Tell me something, Agares... what good did that ability ever do you?!"
"The King’s Hardness, was it? Look carefully."
"I am crushing you with ease!"
Gael unleashed a monstrous howl and attacked with berserk savagery.
"The Upper Demons are nothing but a pathetic, meaningless system overflowing with worthless weaklings!"
He openly mocked Agaroth, insulting all the Upper Demons alike while cursing their very existence.
Agares could not even answer those insults anymore.
Breathing itself had become difficult before the frenzied Duke of Hell, who gave him absolutely no chance to retaliate.
Gael stood at the peak of the SSS class, having already reached its final stage.
’This feels just like that time I nearly died against that damned ruler of the Pantheons...’
Very few enemies had ever pushed Agares into a situation where death stared him directly in the face.
Yet Gael oppressed him every bit as heavily as Midir once had.
And what worsened his predicament further... was Zahara’s relentless assaults upon them both.
The golem itself was a walking catastrophe, regenerating from any damage while copying World-breaking abilities as though they were nothing.
Before long, Zahara charged back into battle, displaying particular hatred toward Gael.
But the Duke of Hell was cunning.
He expanded his flesh in every direction until his body resembled a gigantic hive covering a vast area, making it impossible for the golem to determine where to strike.
Zahara punched through chunks of Gael’s rotten flesh and blew them apart, yet inflicted no real damage since the original body continuously shifted within that mountain of meat.
Zahara was monstrously powerful, but his mind remained that of a slow-witted child.
Gael noticed that weakness immediately... and chose to exploit it by using the golem to tighten the pressure upon Agares even further.
Without warning, the Upper Second found himself trapped between both monsters.
Zahara’s monstrous fists came crashing from one side.
Gael’s sudden ambushes attacked from the other.
The golem’s punches arrived infused with the flames of the Dark Soul, and Agares blocked them.
Gael’s tendrils followed, packed with the deadly powers of the Abyss, and Agares blocked those as well.
His body left afterimages as he defended everything in place without being able to escape even a single step.
The Upper Second had pushed the King’s Hardness to its absolute limit, enduring the combined frenzy of two savage monsters.
"Damn you, Gael... damn you..."
Agares cursed beneath his breath with difficulty as the cracks covering his body deepened and blood poured from him relentlessly.
Then the finishing blow arrived.
One of Gael’s tendrils pierced straight through Agares’ back, impaling him and condemning him to a fate similar to Marvas’.
At that same moment, Zahara descended upon him like a mad beast, burying him beneath a rain of punches empowered by multiple World-breaking abilities.
Gael burst into loud laughter the instant he inflicted fatal damage, a sick and sadistic laugh filled with exhilaration.
"And another one falls..."
"I hope you’re watching this, Agaroth."
The Duke of Hell laughed madly.
"Your dogs are dying one after another, and you can’t do a single thing about it!!"
Gael laughed.
Mocked.
Insulted the king without pause, loudly enough for his voice to echo across the battlefield itself.