CHAPTER 90: | THE DESTRUCTION OF ATLANTIS | 11
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"..."
The ground quivered, then trembled, shaking violently.
In the next second, the earth rose into jagged mountain peaks, as the world trembled from the roar of the mighty dragon looming above the sky ocean.
The survivors who were fortunate enough to remain alive after a series of disasters, from the invasion of the five demon gods and their devotees sowing chaos, to a scorching heatwave from Surtr, and a massive trident hurled by the Demon God of Water, now faced another devastation, an Earth Dragon.
This new disaster slew all the remaining citizens and the forces of the Five Gods.
The moment it appeared, it seized control of the earth below, unleashing a violent earthquake as jagged mountain peaks rose in the very next instant.
Who could survive such calamities, striking one after another, much like how a young noble lady would savor her tea time in grandeur?
Even natural disasters would fear it.
It was a pitiful sight... these citizens, who had lived their lives earnestly, believed that their Emperor and their only god would protect them.
But their Emperor couldn't stop those disasters.
Or perhaps she didn't see the need to, as she was drawing a magic circle on the ground with the blood of all her servants.
Her face was solemn, a rare expression for a woman of her stature.
"Finally, my plan will succeed… after waiting for thousands of years, repeating this cycle for the hundredth time."
Ashin Sae Acoustine gazed at the magic circle, her blood-red pupils fixed on it.
She moved her bloodied index finger across the ground with measured gentleness, sketching a magic circle that allowed no room for mistakes.
She bit her lips as her disciple watched her with a worried face.
Even though her disciple was always pragmatic, wearing an ice-cold expression, Ashin still couldn't help but smile.
She had already experienced this segment reset a hundred times, every time she died.
"Worry not, my dear disciple… you are my anchor to free myself from the clutches of the great mother… from the sins that I've committed…"
"Worry not, my dear disciple… you are my anchor to free myself from the clutches of the great mother… from the sins that I've committed…"
Samantha gazed at her master, biting her lips before sighing.
No memory remained, not even of the life she had before, in that other world her master spoke of, a world named 'Mara.'
Even with her master explaining everything, she still couldn't remember.
She felt empty, as if the void didn't want her to remember, preventing her from recalling anything after her death.
All she wanted was to accompany her master in her suffering.
She lifted her hand, eyes drifting to the ceiling where an angel was carved in stone, its outstretched hand reaching toward mortals.
With a bored expression, she muttered softly.
"Master…"
But she was interrupted as her master, Ashin Sae Acoustine, shook her head.
She gazed at her dear disciple as she continued to etch the magic circle on the ground.
"There is no need to pity me, Samantha… I, your master, shall bear these sins all alone… I am glad that you can't remember anything due to your rare constitution, so speak no more and let this unworthy master guide you."
Her voice was soft and motherly as Samantha smiled at her master's warm words.
She remained still on the altar.
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? Empire of Atlantis — Imperial Capital —Elra Sector ?
Amidst the rubble spread across the Elra Sector, where boulders, corals, shells, and broken furniture littered every corner, a man-made disaster was taking place as the sound of a world-rending howl changed everything.
The earth trembled.
In the next second, pillars of jagged mountains rose without rest, killing the citizens inside the imperial city.
They were either crushed by the moving platform or torn apart by a spike.
It was sheer cruelty.
The dragon merely gazed below at a man who was blazing with fire, fighting a young woman.
The dragon’s eyes sharpened into golden slits, narrowing as its gaze fixed on the handsome man before it.
Surtr’s gaze lingered on the dragon’s majestic form, and for a fleeting moment, a tinge of regret stirred within him.
He thought of his brother, with whom he spent his childhood, along with his other brothers and sister.
“Is this the end for us? Elizia… my wife, you once told me that karma would follow us to the very end... that the sins we committed would one day return to haunt us. Has that day finally come?”
He spoke, reminiscing about the past as he gazed at his current form.
He wasn't the demon god of fire, nor a draconian.
He was a mere human chosen by the dragon god.
He was glad that the dragon god had chosen them, the five of them, when they were nothing but mere mongrels.
"We have ruled the abyss since the day we've received his blessings with an iron fist… At first, we were gracious. At the start, we were kind… but by the draconic authority of the dragon god…"
He sighed as he watched Solia slash through his neck.
He clenched his six hands, and molten sickles appeared in his grip.
His pupils tracked Solia's every intent, from where she would strike her sword now and in the future, as he intercepted it with a casual strike.
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"But I don't regret the sins that I've committed… Titaness, you understand me the most… we are warmongers who live through killing… we kill to feel alive, to feel the thrill, to control the lives of others, so don't ask me to apologize for killing your parents."
Surtr gripped his molten, obsidian-covered sickles.
A wave of blistering heat radiated from the glowing metal as he swung the first down.
Solia crossed her dual swords just in the nick of time.
The clang of their exchange rang like a hammer on an anvil as the shock rattled her bones.
The second sickle swept low, carving the pavement like butter
Solia twisted her waist, her swords crackling with thunder.
With a strained grunt, she met the strike, and their clash sent sparks scattering across the currents.
Before she could rest, a third blow came crashing toward her head, and sparks erupted like fireworks as her blades met his once more.
But the sheer weight of the attack drove her to her knees, her feet scraping against the cracking ground as the currents hissed with heat around them.
"So let us battle for the last time… let me feel the thrill of death that I've granted to others! Take my life, Solia! Get your revenge! And emerge victorious, and you shall have all of my spoils!"
Solia gazed at him, not with rage or vengeance for him killing her family, but with the respect of a warrior ready for death.
She twisted her body, imbued her feet with five hundred units of mana, and sent a powerful kick toward Surtr's stomach, sending him flying away.
She brushed a smear of blood from her plump lips, the stain only deepening their allure.
"I didn't even expect you to apologize, Surtr, nor do I want to hear your sob background story… we all are the same, we kill to survive, so don't feel sorry for me! Don't pity me! It's disgusting! Take me seriously and fight me like the man you are!"
Surtr stumbled through the currents, crashing into the rubble.
He reached his hand into the sky as he smiled.
"Brother… it seems that I've found someone worthy."
A soft smile appeared on Surtr's face, then a low chuckle rumbled from his chest.
He calmly placed his palm on the stony ground, and the rock sizzled and hissed, melting into a smoking pool of obsidian.
Without effort, he rose to his full, towering height, his gaze fixed on Solia with a cold, almost bored contempt.
"Then let us fight, Solia! I acknowledge you as a worthy opponent!"
The atmosphere shifted as the abyssal waters trembled.
A heat that should not exist beneath the sea spread outward, boiling the currents until they churned into a violent maelstrom.
Surtr’s form blazed brighter, a living furnace in the deep, his outline distorting through waves of scalding light.
From the fissures in his body, molten magma bled like liquid fire, hissing and roaring as it forced the ocean to steam and seethe around him.
This time, Surtr wasn't holding back.
He poured all of his mana into a transformation, becoming a monstrosity that even he subconsciously feared.
It was the form of the god of fire, Surtr, the Ever-Burning Giant of Muspelheim.
This was his 'Ascension IV' skill, polished to the extreme.
A smirk appeared on his face as he muttered.
"I should be able to maintain 'the Ever-Burning God' for a quarter of an hour."
Surtr clapped his hands, generating a sound similar to that of thunder.
A heatwave, as intense as a solar flare, erupted from his palms, instantly turning the rubble within a hundred-meter radius into molten slag.
Solia felt a searing pain as her shell-like skin began to melt.
This shouldn't be possible, she thought, her mind reeling.
Her master's blessings couldn't be this weak.
Even as her skin blistered, she gripped her sword, its weight a calming force against the immense heat.
She looked up at Surtr and muttered with a nervous shout.
"L-let us exchange our final bout, Surtr!"
Surtr stomped his leg on the ground, took a stance, and then vanished.
Countless projectiles appeared out of nowhere.
Solia's pupils tracked their intent, then slashed her swords at the weakest points, cutting the projectiles in half again and again like a goddess dancing in the pit of hell.
Surtr, bewildered by Solia, smiled harder.
He smashed his hammers again and again, generating sparks with their exchanges.
But Solia begrudgingly bit her lips until they bled from the strength that she weakly mustered.
She gazed at Surtr's face, who was as calm as the ember of a small fire, with her bloodied eyes.
She felt it, her arms were losing their strength, her body was failing her.
She wasn't like her master, who could fight even with his body broken.
She couldn’t help but shiver as a chill ran down her spine, the sight dragging her back to what she had witnessed decades ago, the moment she realized what a monster of a man her master truly was.
She took a deep inhale, clenching her dual swords as the atmosphere around them dropped to zero degrees.
Surtr’s smirk faltered for the first time as a chill shot down his torso.
He saw Solia lift her hands in a slow, deliberate motion.
Her blades, which had been shimmering with a borrowed orange light, slowly began to lose their hue, the color leaching out until they hummed a brilliant, pure white.
Then... a low, ominous hum grew into a sharp crackle as lightning began to dance between the twin blades. And then, she moved.
Surtr’s eyes couldn't track the blur of her blades.
All he saw was a brilliant white line cutting through his torso as a slow, appreciative smile spread across his face.
"Impressive… I may say that you've nearly reached the heights that only us gods could. Polish your technique, maybe someday you will reach heights greater than us old gods…"
The white line exploded into gore as molten magma splashed everywhere.
In the next second, Surtr's torso tilted, but he only flicked his hands as molten magma covered his wounds and reconnected his torso.
He smiled.
Smiling, Solia clenched her dual swords.
She sheathed them and then gazed at Surtr's form, which was emitting an intense radiation.
She smirked, then closed her eyes as she exhaled her breath, as it misted.
She then glanced at Surtr for a split second before calming herself down.
Miniature suns, arrows made of fire, javelins, and swords hurled at her, but she wasn't nervous.
She gazed at them, then with a smile, she inhaled a mouthful of breath.
Then her gray eyes sharpened as she tracked all of the projectiles' intent, locating their weakest point.
She walked forward calmly as her face shone from the flames, but she smirked as she continuously slashed and sheathed her sword with a click.
She approached Surtr, who was thirty meters away from her.
Surtr, watching this happen, was quite taken aback.
He couldn't believe that Solia, who was a mere fledgling a decade ago, was now this powerful.
He grinned from ear to ear with excitement as he shouted, not with rage, but with fervor.
"This is fun! Let us fight more, Skaira betrayer! Show me the latent power of your race, little girl!"
Solia's face flushed.
She reveled in the fight, the pain lancing through her nerves, the crack of her bones beneath Surtr’s might, the searing heat that melted her skin.
Every agony only fed her exhilaration.
Grinning, she sank low into a crouch, ready to spring.
Then she took a drawing stance and clenched her swords, as her smile widened as she muttered.
"Then let I, Solia, the subordinate of the one true god Alister von Fai, the Distorted Emperor, show you what it means to be his first apostle."
With a single step, Solia vanished from sight.
A wide, exultant smile spread across Surtr's face.
His golden eyes didn’t follow her movement, but they tracked the killing intent aimed at him.
He brandished a wicked sickle in each of his six hands and unleashed a sweeping vertical slash.
His blood boiled, since it had been ages since he’d fought someone on equal footing.
Surtr threw his head back and roared with wild excitement.
"Meet your maker, Solia!"
Excitement was visible on Solia's face as her own trait of being a warmonger activated.
She sensed death from Surtr's sickle, but she only smirked before replying in kind as she shouted.
"Hehe, then allow me to show you what it means to face me, Surtr!"
Her gray pupils softened into calm, before settling on Surtr with a cold, calculating gaze.
The currents hushed as her demeanor shifted to cold resolve.
She brandished her swords, then spun them like the eye of a storm.
Before she leaped from the ground and into the sky ocean as she smirked.
Surtr faltered at the sudden shift in Solia’s demeanor, disbelief flashing in his eyes, then he roared back in defiance.
“Come!”
He smirked, then stomped his feet into the ground, anchoring them as magma flowed into his body.
He gazed at Solia as his vision heightened.
He took a stance as he smirked.
"Show me your true power, Solia!"
Solia nodded at Surtr's words.
Leaping into the sky, white lightning crackled around her.
The sound of a pulse echoed as the lightning spread everywhere like the branch of a tree, then gathered into her body.
Her hair turned neon white, and her gray eyes turned white as she activated 'Asurat Lightning Form.'
Then, like a flash of lightning striking the ground, Solia vanished from the sky ocean.
She appeared three meters away from Surtr, then an inch, as her sword sliced through his skin with surgical precision.
Solia appeared behind him, kneeling on the ground as she shouted.
"Storm Sword Art: Sky Breaker Requiem!"
White lines could be seen on Surtr's body as his transformation was undone.
But he only gazed above at what had become of his brother, then sighed.
"Such a pity that we couldn't die together, brother…"
He gazed at Solia, then pulled something from his inventory before throwing it to her.
His hand exploded into dust in the next second as he chuckled.
"What an honor it is… to duel someone as strong as you before I die."
He grinned, then clenched his hand.
He then stabbed his chest and grabbed the thing that fueled his existence, ripping it out of his flesh.
He offered it to Solia with his hands falling apart into dust as he smiled with triumph.
"Take your spoils, victor… let me watch your journey from now! And… sorry for destroying your li…"
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[Year 1, Month 4, Day 25 of the Imperial Calendar]
The Demon God of Fire retired from the scene in a satisfied death, slain by none other than the Apostle of the Distorted Emperor, thus marking the fall of the third god out of five.
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