Belial kept firing Heat Ray, his feet grinding the ground into powder as his claws dug in. The screech of tearing and shattering echoed as his massive body was pushed back by recoil, colliding with the surrounding Crystal ecology.
Though the meteor was close to impact, he remained calm and even increased output. The entire ecosystem supported him, so there was nothing to fear.
The intensified Heat Ray surged like a raging tide, the heat from his body warping the air. The meteor finally failed, its lower half nearly completely melted as Rift spread upward before it shattered.
"Boom!!!"
A massive roar and expanding white light engulfed everything nearby, visible from any direction in the world, including the distant Floating City.
"He really blew it up!"
"That energy scale is insane. Even my detector there got shattered!"
Bella shouted in excitement as they watched the beam clash and completely destroy the meteor. Safas stared in disbelief again.
"It really shattered?"
That object was indeed Bahamut's egg, but its essence was fragments of Divine Kingdom ruins formed from Authority, layered with time and space. Destroying it through sheer output sounded impossible, and his mind was still reeling.
"Does this count as clearing it directly?"
The thought felt strange, but the facts seemed to line up. Divine Kingdom had crashed into ruins, the Abyss Rift was sealed by the three-headed King Ghidorah, the Authority was not fully recovered, and even the egg at birth was destroyed.
Thinking it through, Bahamut seemed to have no cards left to play. It almost felt like they had won.
"…"
"I need a moment."
Safas felt dizzy and blamed his age, while also realizing what it felt like to have a powerful patron. The big one just went out and killed everything, while the rest watched from behind and worried about the details.
"…It is not over."
A faint light flashed in Lilith's eyes as she spoke calmly. She could sense that the hostility against Belial had not faded, meaning the Abyssal Gods were making their final struggle.
And she was right.
A tall, pitch-black humanoid figure descended slowly behind Belial. It was a grotesque form made of black sludge wrapped around the fused remains of three high-tier dragon species, shaped like an armored beast.
Its body was bound not only with those dragon corpses, but also with countless remains of Great Dragon it had slaughtered and devoured over the years. Wails and fragments churned within the sludge, red light flowing like blood through veins and gathering in its head, lighting up four vicious stars.
"Roar… urgh…"
Two tails lashed behind it as the upright skeletal beast locked eyes with Belial.
Second Phase began.
Bahamut's egg was indeed blown apart. This was not a show or an illusion, it was truly shattered, with the entire shell reduced to fine Shard by unimaginable heat and impact. Among the dozens of Abyssal Gods watching from behind, quite a few had already made their choice.
What the hell was there to fight anymore, when this boss broke the rules and opened the field from below, crushing the egg into Shard before its entrance animation even finished. The remaining group had not chosen yet for a simple reason, because they were the ones who had invested the most, the true fools with sunk costs tied to the golden the Lord behind Edward. They were never going to accept this outcome.
So what now, when Authority of Fate had no chance to be fully recovered, and the most critical part was only half complete. Compared to Fate, its current importance was like the Mouse Talisman to Shendu. Without a present to anchor it, shadows that existed only in the past could not manifest in the world, which was why every incarnation of Bahamut had always been raised by the Silver Dragon.
Go get it back, someone said, but that was pure fantasy. Every remaining passage to the Abyss was inside Bahamut's body, and anything outside had already been crushed into Shard by the earlier strike. Just when despair seemed final, a schemer proposed a fresh the Lord idea.
If something was missing, then fill it with another Authority of the same level. Was there such a thing that could replace the other half of the present, they wondered, and after looking closely, there actually was. It was the very Authority they used to control Bahamut as a puppet on the surface, linked through another controller who had barely survived above ground and even lost their Divine Kingdom and Throne.
Grasping the present and controlling a puppet led to the same end, total control. It was reckless, but with no other choices left, they gambled like addicts betting their own eyes. And so it happened.
Just as the entire egg was about to be blasted apart, between the Wheel of Fate, fractured gaps were forcibly pulled together by threads and crudely stitched closed. Inside the shell, the incomplete and turbid mass was wrapped and restrained by several not fully digested remains, barely pieced into something resembling a puppet. In the instant before destruction, it shifted, jumped, landed on the ground, and began to breathe like a living thing.
With one last shred of hope, anyone would claw at it with everything they had. The Abyssal Rift remaining within its body erupted like a raging tide, spewing murky black sludge and blood-red power. During the forced shaping, the newborn monster wailed as foreign things were crammed inside it, needle-like threads piercing every inch of its body.
The surging viscous sludge temporarily hardened, forming mottled scales on the surface while shaping strands of muscle inside, multiplying at high speed. Countless bones once devoured were gathered and twisted to form a skeleton capable of supporting the body, while a solid layer of bone armor grew outward. Even so, this was not complete.
Its defense and recovery rose sharply, but the transformation was unfinished, and the gamblers behind it kept throwing in more chips. With its skin and scales still incomplete, the monster showed only its black and vicious core as it slowly landed and turned its head. Two equally pitch-black giants locked eyes.
Belial, already prepared, greeted it warmly with a shout of "Corona Beam!" Energy surged across his entire body, even over his wings, as countless Heat Ray like Lightning Magic blasted outward in a storm. Bahamut barely raised his arms to block before being blasted back, crushed into Shard, and slammed deep into the mountains of Crystal.
"Hehehe, I knew you still had Second Phase!" Belial laughed. "Good thing I prepared early!" After a brief pause, he fired another Corona Beam.
This time it missed, as a swift black shadow smashed the surrounding Crystal terrain within nearly a thousand meters into powder and leapt into the sky. Its form multiplied hundreds and thousands of times, blinking again and again with Blink. Each shadow swung its claws, blood-red light pouring from the gaps in flesh and gathering in their eyes.
Space was torn apart by Rend. Everything in its path was erased, and rain-like beams of violent light covered Belial's body, exploding into blockbuster flashes. Bahamut charged on all fours like a beast, diving through space as everything around him was ripped into nothingness, tearing the Crystal Domain apart piece by piece.
The ground split open under repeated cuts. A vast Rift spread outward from Belial like a bottomless chasm, swallowing matter as space itself devoured it. Endless slashes followed, shredding thousands of miles of terrain into Shard fragments, while countless Clone from different timelines swarmed to attack Belial.
"Internal discharge." "Boom!"
The blast was like a nuclear detonation, shockwaves and light flooding every inch of space as countless shadows were erased into Shard. Bahamut raised his arms to block, but his chest opened as ribs and skulls parted, revealing a Rift leading straight to the Abyss. He roared as destruction poured forth.
Belial stepped forward calmly, Photon Reflection Shield rising just as a flood of blood-red energy swallowed him whole. Matter and even existence itself were stripped away, peeled from time and space alike. The aftermath carved a vast vacuum fan across the land, leaving nothing but ruin.
Mountains and rivers behind Belial vanished in blinding light, erased without a sound. The beam kept advancing, like a mythic deluge that devoured everything, carving a bleeding Rift across the world. From afar, Safas stared wide-eyed, knowing that without Bella's skill, they would have been caught as well.
That strike reached nearly a hundred thousand miles from the center. Using Earth as a measure, it was like circling the planet three times. The space it passed through was completely destroyed, cut away like fabric with no chance of recovery.
So this was truly god-level power. Bahamut stood like a turret, pouring annihilation from the Abyssal Rift in his chest, yet something unusual came from ahead. A voice followed.
"Pretty strong." "Good thing I am a bit better at being tough and stacking shields."
With photon reflection and electromagnetic shields active, Belial charged through the beam and burst out in front of a stunned Bahamut. He answered with a brutal Space Detonation Punch. The blow sent the humanoid Bahamut flying, black flesh and bone bursting into Shard as explosions rippled across his body.
The impact defied description, not an earthquake but total destruction. Bahamut shifted into space, spreading the damage across timelines, then returned almost instantly to resume close combat. He attacked recklessly, reduced to a pure battle puppet.