Countless screams and wailing souls poured into Augustus's already chaotic mind. Hundreds of millions of lives burned, causing his body to swell rapidly as golden blood sprayed out.
"Die!"
The nearly mindless beast roared again. Golden light surged like Lightning Magic, and several, then dozens of overwhelming golden Clone tore free with Rend.
These lesser Clone roared as well, charging forward in waves toward the center. Seeing this, the Black Dragon inside raised its head slightly.
"Nice ultimate move. But if this is all you can do after coming this far…"
"Then I won't bother playing anymore. You can just die."
The shield shattered into Shard, not from Augustus's strikes, but from the far more violent energy within. Vast blue flames surged out like an ocean, instantly swallowing all of Augustus's figures.
A huge blue sun thousands of meters wide formed in the air. The temperature spiked toward a million degrees, and the shockwaves crushed every Clone like fragile glass.
Only Augustus's burning body remained, screaming. Then from the blue-white blaze, a black Great Dragon burst out.
Before he could react, powerful claws locked around his neck. He opened his mouth and fired a golden shockwave at Belial.
Belial did not care. He pushed through the blast, raised his fist, spread his wings, and drove his engines as he dove downward.
Two intertwined colors fell like a meteor into the ground.
"Space…"
"Explosive Punch!!!"
After a massive tremor, a towering beam of light shot upward from the ruined capital. Extreme heat turned everything around into molten lava, and blue-white flames spread outward like a tide.
The overwhelming force created massive lava waves that rolled across the land. Everything melted into Shard, surging up in waves over a hundred meters tall, and the last remains of the capital became a sea of magma.
At the center was a crater nearly a thousand meters wide and even deeper. At the edge of it, Belial slowly flew up, staring at Augustus who was smashed into the ground, dim gold light flickering over a shattered body.
Half of his head was destroyed. After taking that full-powered Space explosive punch with a diving boost, he was still not dead, which made Belial slightly impressed.
But only slightly. In the stories, that Caesar King was never very strong anyway.
The job was not finished yet. Almost dead was not dead, and Belial needed to make sure it was final.
He opened his mouth as blue light gathered, preparing the finishing blow.
"Hmm?"
"Boom!"
Caught off guard, he was blasted backward. His massive body crashed into the rock wall, collapsing half of the crater from the sudden impact.
In that instant, the dying beast had snapped upright and thrown a desperate punch. Belial poked his head out of the rubble, shook it, and touched his chest.
"What just happened?"
"Also, I'm supposed to be the the Lord here. Why is it always my opponents who power up like this?"
As he complained, he saw golden tides washing over everything ahead. Burning light shot skyward, fierce but not truly stronger.
It was just a final flare, burning the last moments of life into a single brilliant instant.
"Roar…"
"Hah…!"
Augustus regained a bit of clarity. That punch had nearly shattered his soul and forced a life-flash, which ironically cleared his mind slightly.
Despair flooded him. Even in this form, the opponent's power was overwhelming, so what could make him stronger now?
Anything would do. He could abandon whatever he still had, since he did not have long to live anyway.
What was left?
"There's still something…"
"I'm not pure enough. Why am I still clinging to that domain that now seems so laughable?"
"Slowly gaining power through sacrifice? How ridiculous. I'd be killed before that ever finished."
"…Then let it go. Come on, world, open your mouth. I will return everything I once stole. Break into Shard!"
He grinned fiercely and roared one last time. The massive domain covering thousands of kilometers and the entire nation shattered into Shard and vanished completely.
In that moment, all images, statues, history, and memories related to Augustus burned away at terrifying speed.
Last of all, the name Augustus itself burned out.
After the last of himself burned away, what stood there was no longer Augustus but Golden Beast. The speed of the burn was abnormal, and in the final moment when Augustus still had a trace of reason, he realized someone was pushing from behind. As for who it was, that was easy to guess, because aside from those from Abyss, there was no one else.
Being treated as a chess piece, a tool to stall for time, did not matter. This kind of push was exactly what he needed right now. What was burning was not only himself, but also something obscure that supported the last blaze of Golden Beast, and it seemed to carry traces of Fate.
From this moment on, from the present back through thousands of years of the past and down to a future that no longer existed, everything was burning. The existence once called Augustus was being erased from Fate across the entire timeline. If Golden Beast still had reason, it might have guessed who was acting, but at this point it no longer cared.
The gold and silver ornaments and the Crown once worn were cast aside, leaving only savage scales, claws, and wild hair. Like a roaring lion, the beast charged at Belial, shattering the rock wall behind it and raising a fist. Earlier, Belial had reminded it that if you cannot break defense, do not use weak tricks, just pour everything into your fist and hit.
The result was that this punch was stronger than all of Augustus's previous output combined, enough to make Belial widen his eyes with interest. He pulled back his lips with Rend, baring fangs as his pupils turned pale, and finally moved in earnest. "Now this looks right. What a move, Lion Overlord Fist."
This punch was not only far stronger than before, its force and intent were also much more violent. He glanced around and saw they were underground with nowhere to dodge, so he would take it head on. It had been a long time since he used this level of power on a decent punching bag.
"Magnetic Field Rotation… Atomic Fission Power!" "Try again and see if you can break this. Space, Detonation Punch!"
Two immense forces collided. The already ruined surface was thrown away again across dozens of kilometers, turning into a vast hollow of nothing. Mountains dozens of kilometers away collapsed as a huge fan-shaped area suddenly exploded, and a figure burning with golden light was blasted out.
With its entire right arm blown apart to the bone, Golden Beast barely stabilized itself in the air, spat blood, and roared as a shockwave surged with golden Lightning Magic toward the distant hollow where Belial stood. He casually deployed photon reflection, absorbed it with a shield, then opened his mouth as the spines on his back lit orange-red with surging current. "Corona Beam!"
The opposing Corona Beam crushed the golden shockwave and slammed into Golden Beast, charring the blockbuster flesh and scales before blasting it away inside a massive fireball. Before it could crawl out of the crater, several blue-green bolts appeared in an instant and pierced straight through its sturdy body. The forces carried by Charged Particle Cannon hindered Golden Beast's regeneration, breaking down its body at a microscopic level as the many burning souls sustaining it also began to collapse.
It did not matter, because Golden Beast had completely lost reason and did not care about its life. As the burn reached its end, its power swelled to the limit. The right arm began to reform, but ordinary flesh could no longer bind such power, turning into a pure arm of light and flame.
Just as Augustus had said before, a beast near death only grows more ferocious as it is injured. Now Golden Beast dropped to all fours, kicked off with its hind legs, and truly sprinted like a beast. It smashed through everything ahead, carving a huge triangular path as flames spread and shockwaves erupted along its charge.
In the blink of an eye it crossed nearly a hundred kilometers and rushed at Belial, raising its fist again. The next strike would be the moment of death, and also its strongest blow. It was strong enough that if Belial stood still and took it, he might actually be hurt.
"By normal logic, you already died twice. How are you still powering up?" "I am supposed to be the righteous partner, so why do I look like the big Demon King here?"
Watching the beast charge like it had opened all its limits, Belial complained like this. He felt as if the other side had secretly finished a full memory kill while he was not looking, and was now in an unreasonable bond buff phase. He could only sigh that the day he once worried about had indeed arrived, because the other side really did get a memory kill.
His own relationships did not need that kind of thing, since none were dead, and those who were had been revived anyway. There was no need for it at all. In fact, in the last century, a life loving giant once showed how to deal with this kind of situation.