Logically, the very second a crack appeared in the runic array, Gehrman should have bolted. He should have gotten the hell out of there and to the safety of a place in which Anvil's very soul did not encompass the world.
However, he was not in a logical state.
From within his [Hunter's Attire] he produced twin siderite blades. The [Blades of Mercy] flashed with Gehrman's own blood coating them.
He was already summoning some more tentacles to have a supply of Great blood ready to go, but at the moment he wasn't ready yet, so instead he simply relied on his own.
The countless Vermin flared in burning heat further amplifying the blades power.
With the heat of an old star he launched a myriad of attacks all at once at Anvil. His sword technique was flawless catching each strike and canceling all momentum.
However, even he could not predict Gehrman sacrificing his own arm. Dashing forward, he sliced off Gehrman's left arm at the shoulder, but unwittingly allowed the hunter to close the distance.
The tentacles formed and one was immediately assimilated. Gehrman's arm – along with the [Hunter's Attire] instantly regrew.
This Memory was Transcedent, but it was also from a Pseudo-Supreme. As such, it held a single enchantment of such terrifying power that it put it on the level of the 5th Rank under certain conditions.
Those conditions were now met.
He was attacking a fellow human, and so the [Blades of Mercy], or rather, the single blade remaining in the grip of Gehrman's right hand cleaved deep into Anvil's armor.
The remaining Supreme blades that circled him flashed, attempting to decimate Gehrman, but they were all met with great resistance and thrown off course.
The immense weight of the [Rusted Anchor], combined with the momentum gathered and the strength of the Supreme Devil all worked to push the blades to the side.
At the same time, a separate, grey tentacle-like appendage caused the [Bloodletter] to slam into the now open spot in Anvil's armor.
The time between Gehrman's attack with the [Blades of Mercy] and Phantsam's arrival was within the same second.
The perfectly coordinated attack sent the Supreme flying backward as the blunt force of the [Bloodletter] smashed into his side. However, the dangerous spikes on the weapon did manage to nick the King of Swords, and despite his Supreme body, he was now bleeding.
Already, the [Bloodletter] glowed with even more dangerous power. Its singular Enchantment allowed it to radically increase in strength with each wound it managed to inflict on an enemy.
Gehrman now radiated such Madness that it seemed to warp the space around him. It was how he managed to cut so deep into the King of Swords and how Phantasm had managed to wound him.
Fortunately, Phantasam shared a high affinity for Madness, and was not affected too much by the inordinate amount pouring off its master.
"Good hit," Gehrman said, offering a fist to his Echo.
Phantasm wiggled a bit, his grey mass transforming into a fist-like appendage. He returned the gesture and their fists shared a gentle tap.
In the throes of Madness, Geherman idly thought that now would probably be a good time to run.
Before he could though, like divine smiting from the sky, the Supreme swords returned along with a flurry of the remaining Transcendent ones.
Gehrman gave the projectiles an annoyed look.
"Cover me," he ordered Phantasam. At the same time, summoned almost all the Memories in his arsenal. All Armor and Weapon type-Memories of Transcendent Rank appeared in an enormous storm of pale purple sparks.
Over a hundred tentacles with hands that had far too many fingers grasped each item, coating them with the flesh of the Supreme Devil.
Not only was Phantasam's current skin ridiculously strong, but the nature of his [Formless] Attribute allowed him to shrug off even stronger blows by displacing the kinetic energy through warping his flesh.
Furthermore, since he shared all of Gehrman's resistances, he also gained the boon of [Hunter's Flesh] from Gehrman's [Greedy Bloodstone Talisman], further increasing his defense.
Using the Memories as anchors for the many, many shields, Phantasm created protective shields that halted all but a few of the Supreme Blades, which did manage to poke through.
They exploded into the ground, destroying large chunks of Gehrman's body, but he just summoned more tentacles to replace the ones lost due to the assimilated blood as he healed himself.
The Supreme Swords then turned their attention toward Phantasm.
Armed with the enhanced version of the [Bloodletter], the bloodied [Burial Blade] Gehrman had enhanced with Great blood when he summoned the scythe, and the [Rusted Anchor], Phantasm protected himself from the onslaught.
All the while Gehrman's brain was split.
The Brains of Johann and Old Gehrman were totally incapacitated, but with their combined Will, they allowed Gehrman to continue to walk towards the other Blade of Mercy he had dropped when his arm had been severed just moments before.
Meanwhile, the barely lucid True Gehrman Brain traversed into his Soul Sea.
In truth, this was something he should have done at the start, but it was only in the depths of Madness that he had conceived the idea of splitting his Brains to be in the physical world and the Soul Sea simultaneously.
He had two Blood Rocks left.
He summoned the Tool and then the Weapon he desired and placed them on the workbench.
He needed time.
And for that, he would need the outside Gehrman – who was a frothing lunatic at this point – to survive against Anvil for a decent chunk of time.
Fortunately, he had Phantasm as well.
Though his Echo had grown tremendously strong, Gehrman did not like his chances one on one against Anvil, even outside his Domain.
He could probably last a few minutes, but nothing more than that.
Right…
At that moment he sent a single order to Phantsam.
"Get my body the hell out of the confines of that damn Domain!"
…
The Hunter and his strange Echo ran. Or, more accurately, the hunter ran. The Echo could not keep up with Gehrman in terms of speed, even though he could alter his form into the ultimate aero dynamic body.
So what the man did was constantly dismiss, and then summon his Echo whenever he felt Anvil closing in.
And he did close in. Multiple times.
Though he loathed to admit, it had been well over a decade since Anvil had been pushed like this. So much so that he was forced to experiment with new applications of Will.
Currently, he was semi-successfully employing a technique that Anvil was not overly familiar with, but one that he had seen employed before a few times by Great creatures of high Class and even the few Cursed he had briefly encountered.
Warping space itself with one's Will.
Though the hunter was hypersonic and technically could reach the outside of Anvil's Domain in about a minute, the space was greatly increased by Anvil, allowing him to catch up multiple times.
However, at that point that unreasonably versatile Echo came back, giving Gehrman a chance to get ahead again. Infuriatingly, before he could finish the thing off, it was dismissed.
Anvil still managed to maintain the warping of space during these exchanges, but the man still made progress –albeit slow progress.
Still, this was only possible because he was within his Domain.
Anvil knew for a fact that if Gehrman managed to get outside his Domain, it would take a long while to track him down.
He would, inevitably, kill the hunter.
This region of the Dream Realm ended at the Hollow Mountains, which were arguably even more dangerous than the Nightmare Dessert.
Anvil also knew that the Transcendent Titan would run out of Essence soon enough. Though he had multiple Soul Cores, the difference between a Supreme's amount of Essence was like night in day. Since Anvil could draw upon more Essence depending on the size of his Domain, his reserves were practically endless.
Still, the longer he was away from Bastion, the more dangerous it would be.
Coming here was a gamble.
Ki Song was practical enough to know that this was her chance to make several blows against his Domain. However, Anvil was more than prepared for that.
The gallery of corpses she gathered could easily move outside her own Domain, however, it would take a while to reach any Citadels.
A few gatherings of powerful corpses had made camps within regions of the Dream Realm close to certain Citadels of Valor. They mixed in with regular Nightmare Creatures to make it seem like nothing was different.
If they then made a move, it would seem that it was nothing but Nightmare Creatures invading, not Song.
That ability of Ki Song's was not known to the public, and though Anvil could pin it on Beastmaster, that was flimsy, especially since she was currently in Antarctica.
Still, Anvil was not a fool, he had arranged several runic traps ahead of time to decimate the forces that would invade his Citadels once Ki Song caught wind that Anvil was not at Bastion.
It would likely not be perfect. Many would die, but in order to kill this abomination it was a necessary sacrifice.
None of the Citadels would fall, he was certain of that, and thus no major losses would be taken.
Ki Song couldn't deploy more corpses either since she had no way of transporting them over humongous distances.
Of course, now that this had happened, Song would know that Anvil indeed had that ability.
It was another application of Runic Sorcery. Now that Nephis had sworn herself to him, he was able to analyze the Runes of the Ivory Tower. Much was beyond even him, but he was able to glean a good amount about the portal or teleportation circles.
It was by no means efficient at this point. In fact, Anvil had to sacrifice over 50 Supreme Soul Shards to transport himself here, and that was only possible because there was a brief moment in which a Master of his Domain had owned the Black Skull Citadel.
Several Knights had arranged the runic array for the teleportation in a hidden area beforehand, but in that short moment before that abomination killed his Knight and took the Citadel for himself, he was able to share the burden of the transportation with the Citadel's gateway.
Even with all these tricks it was still an inordinately expensive means of travel. Especially for transporting him. The Sorcery used in the Ivory Tower did not discriminate between individuals and their power, it teleported them to a fixed location all the same.
However, Anvil's Sorcery was not as sophisticated, thus greater sacrifices had to be made to transport himself.
Fortunately, he could get back to Bastion easily, as he was still anchored there, all he would have to do was return to the Waking World and then return to the Dream Realm.
This was not something that could be used often, however. Only once before had it been put into play, and that was when Madoc, Jest, and Tyris had attempted to imprison the abomination at Gehrman's wedding.
The runic circle those knights had been crafting would have sent that evil as well as Tyris to God Grave. There a prison was already set in place. Tyris would use her Aspect to spread the clouds above and shine down the obliterating divine light that constantly existed above the grey sky of God Grave.
Even that fiend would not be able to escape its wrath. He would be forced to stay still and let them imprison him once again.
Of course, this did not come to pass.
Anvil was not willing to let such expensive plans fail once again.
The hundreds of thousands of swords that had formed the imprisoning runic array now flew forward, creating a single familiar rune that faced forward.
Gehrman was in his sights now, and as he summoned his Echo he was forced to immediately dismiss it.
In the sky, Anvil had been forming this Sorcery during the entire chase.
Once again, he allowed his sword to take in, amplify, and then send forth – in a much grander scale this time – annihilation.
…
"Oh shi–"
The second Gehrmaan sensed the myriad of swords approaching, he activated [Infant Great One]. However, in a moment of panic that ended up saving his life, he immediately split off a tentacle and threw it with all his might.
In half a second it crossed half a kilometer, even then, only the tiniest bit managed to escape the sheer destruction wrought by Anvil.
A scar was torn across the world.
Gehrman was briefly reminded of the [Siege Souvenir] that Sunny had made. That Memory had unleashed a torrent of destruction that had slain even the dreaded Winter Beast. It had decimated a mountain and left only ruin in its wake.
This was on a much, much larger scale.
In what appeared to be an instant, a gigantic portion of the world simply disintegrated. The scar took the form of a sword strike, and the cavity that was carved into the world was as thick as a kilometer in diameter.
Within that kilometer the sand was not turned to glass from the heat generated by the attack, it simply ceased to exist.
The destruction continued farther than the human eye could see, even farther than Gehrman's own [Sixth Sense]. With that single blow, if he aimed it right, he may very well have been able to destroy a small continent in the waking world. For even though it was so wide, it had actually been condensed in order to ensure the destruction of a Transcendent Titan with high resistances to all things.
Still, Gehrman survived, that tiny bit of tentacle had a tiny bit of blood.
From that, he could heal and summon more.
What looked like a ball of writhing black snakes eventually tore open into Gehrman's Transcendent Form.
"Why won't you die?" Anvil approached calmly, the army of swords in the sky moving to surround the two of them from all sides.
"Why do you cling to life so desperately when you know it is futile?"
Gehrman did not answer, he could not speak in his Transcendent Form after all.
Anvil sighed.
"This has gone on for long enough."
Gehrman started to form a pair of Memories, but by then it was two late.
Anvil had crossed the distance in a mere moment, bringing his blade down and cleaving Gehrman in two.
Then in four pieces, then 8.
Thin lines appeared all across the harrowing form of the [Infant Great One], each of them splitting apart with a wretched sound of bone cracking and muscle tearing. The Will Anvil applied was tyrannical, and while the Madness combated it, he was still a Supreme in his own Domain.
Pressing down with the force of the entire Valor Clan, the entire body of Gehrman shattered into hundreds of chunks.
Sparks shone for a moment as Gehrman transformed back into a human. Unlike Memories which took a few seconds to form, the Transformation of a Saint was near instantaneous.
Now in his human form, he was no less eviscerated.
A few tentacles formed, but as they did they were pierced by a few dozen of the thousands of swords circling right above him.
The meaty pile of flesh that Gehrman had become fell helplessly to the ground.
He was unable to heal.
The Memories finished forming, two previously Transcendent ones.
Anvil tensed as a bullet was shot at him. It was nigh instantaneous in its movement, only slightly slower than the speed of light even.
However, Anvil instinctively stretched space, giving him enough time to bring one of his Supreme swords down to block it.
However, the bullet from the [Slothful Evelyn] that had merely dented him before now shattered the Supreme Rank sword, the projectile even penetrating Anvil's armor.
The King of Swords seethed as several tendrils of blood reached at him, but he easily picked out the dangerous one.
Straining his Will, all the tendrils fell to the ground. Gehrman was fading, and could no longer supply an adequate amount of Madness nor Will to reinforce his attacks. Without that, the blood outside his body would falter and kneel before the Sovereign.
Gehrman's last ditch effort fell to the ground. The now Supreme [Wrathful Shaman Bone Blade] clattered helplessly, oozing dangerous green liquid that would have sent the King of Swords into a rage induced fever.
It never reached the opening of his armor though.
The helm that Anvil wore disappeared and he scowled at Gehrman. Taking a step forward, he made a move to crush the Tool beneath his feet, but Gehrman dismissed both it and the remaining memories he had before Anvil could do anymore damage.
"I know you will come back. Do not expect that this will make a difference. I will have prepared for your return, and all you will be met with is death after death until whatever powers that absurd ability is left feeble."
The runic array of annihilation formed above Gehrman, ready to erase him from existence completely this time. The swords on all sides making sure there was no room for escape.
Anvil raised his blade…
And the world shuddered.
A horrendous chill crept up the many pieces of Gehrman's spine. Indeed, even the King of Swords paused as the pressure in the entire region of the Nightmare Desert shifted.
Anvil's jaw clenched.
"Three Category 4 Gates…and all of the guardians are of high Class."
Indeed, at that moment, three Nightmare Seeds simultaneously blossomed, ripping a hole in the fabric of reality and opening a Gate to the Waking World.
The odds of such Gates forming was extraordinarily rare, only a small handful had been recorded in human history. Three at the same time was almost equivalent to the Category 5 Gate that decimated the Americas.
Especially if there were Titans or Terrors among them, and it indeed seemed this was the case.
Gehrman used the last of his powers.
His mouth stitched back together and a false voice box and throat of blood formed so he could speak.
"Let me heal. Let me go help them. You can kill me after, please. Those Gates opened right on top of where they were fighting, it'll be a massacre!"
Anvil paused, and then returned his gaze to Gehrman.
"The strong will survive."
"You're damn brothers out there you fucking maniac!" Gehrman cursed, the blood manifestation of his throat faltering and his voice warbled.
"The way I see it. You are much more of a threat than those Great abominations."
Anvil raised his sword.
The skies of the Nightmare Desert were still ablaze from all the absurd nuclear warfare that had taken place high above them, even though they were now a decent bit farther from the Citadel, the burning atmosphere still reached all the way here.
It looked like an apocalypse. The end of the world.
And standing in a suit of armor, bringing down his sword, Anvil of Valor looked like a herald of an era in which all would fall to ruin.
Gehrman's entire being was enveloped, seared into nothingness completely this time.
Once more, he suffered another death.
…
Authors Notes (Putting these in the chapter since they are important):
So, where do we go from here? Well it's gonna be bouncing around a little bit. The timeline is going to get even more screwed up in a dozen or so chapters (if you can believe that).
The first thing I want to do is do a Caster POV (and maybe a separate Sunny POV chapter) for the Battle of The Black Skull. After that, I'm going to be doing an informal summary/general rant about his 3rd Nightmare.
After THAT we need to catch up with how this battle changed the timeline and the Domain War. So that will be a different, kind of broad chapter that isn't going to be an informal summary like the 3rd Nightmare since the prose will be the same as a normal chapter, maybe I'll make it Seishan POV.
Then I want to give a special treat for everyone since they're going through a few chapters without the damn protagonist. I am going to be giving you the complete Runes of Caster, Milo, and Oskar. This is everything from True Names to Attributes to Flaws to Aspect Abilities (Not listing all the damn Memories). I'm giving detailed descriptions on how each can work also. This is a big project but also pretty fun for me and hopefully for you too so look forward to it.
You also may note that we are coming up on 200 chapters (WTF) and so I wanted to do another Q&A since it was really fun last time. Just post it in the chapter comments. It will be posted as Chapter 200 so if you are reading this and it doesn't say 200 chapters yet feel free to add a comment even if it's a week or two after I post this chapter.
Anyway that's all for now. Thank you for the continued support.