Su Cheng's command, "End this," echoed across the chaotic void-plane. Kaelen and his void believers immediately focused their attention on the Gnoll Demon King, Gedo, who had remained motionless until this exact moment, a silent predator waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. The wounded Void Devourer was still thrashing, its psychic screams of agony creating ripples in the fabric of the dimension, but Gedo, with a patience born of absolute power, finally moved.
"As the Lord commands," Gedo's voice was a low growl that resonated with a newfound divine authority. He took a single step forward, and the very ground beneath him, a swirling mass of void energy, solidified into black, demonic rock.
He raised a single hand, palm open, towards the wounded and thrashing Void Devourer. The swirling chaos of the pocket dimension began to still around him, drawn towards him as if he were a gravitational center. This was not the raw, bloodthirsty rage he had shown as an epic-rank believer; this was the controlled, absolute power of a being who had touched godhood.
[Demonic Domain]!
An immense sphere of pure, blood-gold energy erupted from Gedo, expanding rapidly. It did not push the void back; it consumed and overwrote it. Within seconds, a massive section of the dimension was transformed. The swirling purple chaos was replaced by a landscape of jagged black rock and rivers of what looked like molten gold, all under a sky filled with a single, unblinking golden eye—the symbol of Gedo's divine will. The air grew heavy, filled with the faint, metallic scent of blood and the oppressive weight of a king's dominion.
The Void Devourer, thrashing in agony from its festering wound, suddenly froze. Inside Gedo's domain, its connection to the surrounding void energy was completely severed. Its greatest strengths—its home-field advantage and its infinite source of regenerative power—were gone. It was now just a wounded beast trapped in a predator's territory, exposed and vulnerable for the first time in its existence.
"What is this power?" Kaelen muttered, his analytical calm finally breaking, his eyes wide with disbelief as he stood beside Su Cheng. He was witnessing something beyond the scope of his data. This was not the power of a Quasi-Divine creature that had simply accumulated high stats. This was the raw, world-shaping authority of a true demigod, a power that could create its own set of rules within reality itself.
Gedo ignored the beast's psychic screams of terror. He raised his other hand, and the golden energy of his domain coalesced around his claws, flowing like liquid light to form a colossal, semi-translucent blade of divine demonic power. The blade was hundreds of meters long, engraved with countless, shifting runes of slaughter and domination—a perfect manifestation of the two Godhoods of the master he served. This was the pinnacle of his power, a strike that channeled all of his divinity.
[Demon Slashing]!
With a single, downward slash, the blade descended. It did not create a sonic boom or a grand explosion. The attack was utterly silent. A line of pure, golden light crossed the distance in an instant, striking the Void Devourer's festering wound. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the colossal, planetoid-sized beast split cleanly in two. The two halves did not dissolve or explode; they simply ceased to exist, their essence, their very concept, completely and utterly erased from reality by the divine power of the slash. The world boss was annihilated.
The Demonic Domain faded, and the chaotic void rushed back in, but the space where the Devourer had been was now a pocket of true, unnerving emptiness.
[Log]: You have successfully defeated the World Boss [Void Devourer]!
[Log]: You have obtained the [Heart of the Void] (Demigod-rank Treasure) and 3x [Void Essence] (Legendary-rank Material)!
Su Cheng gave a slight, satisfied nod. Gedo had not disappointed him.
Back in the pocket dimension, silence reigned. Kaelen's void believers were frozen, staring at Gedo with a mixture of awe and terror. Kaelen himself took a long moment to process what he had just witnessed before his calm composure returned. He floated over to Su Cheng.
"Your power is... beyond my calculations, Christon Al," he said, his voice holding a new, profound level of respect. "That believer is a demigod in all but name."
"He serves his purpose," Su Cheng replied simply, his gaze on the loot that now floated in the empty space—a pulsating, crystalline core of pure darkness and three swirling motes of condensed energy. "The Heart of the Void. Was this what you were after?"
Kaelen nodded, a look of grim satisfaction on his face as his believers carefully retrieved the items. "Yes. It is the primary reason for this hunt. The Heart is a unique, untradable material that can only be harvested from this specific creature. It is essential for the next evolution of my own Godhood of the Void. Without it, my progress would have stalled for centuries." He turned to Su Cheng. "A fair trade, I believe. You get the key to your information, and I get the key to my own power."
"A fair trade indeed," Su Cheng agreed.
"A deal is a deal," Kaelen stated. A crystalline orb, cloudy with the image of a dying star, materialized in his hand. He tossed it to Su Cheng. "The Eye of a Fallen God. It is yours."
Su Cheng took the Eye, its ancient power cool to the touch. "A pleasure doing business with you, Kaelen."
"Likewise," Kaelen replied. "We are rivals, but I respect strength and honor bargains. Until we meet again." With a final, analytical glance at Gedo, Kaelen and his believers turned and exited back through the rift.
The hunt was over. The prize was won.
"Let's go," Su Cheng commanded his Saints. "It is time to pay the Oracle."
He and his victorious believers stepped back through the portal, leaving the now-empty pocket dimension to collapse back into nothingness.