The freezing night was finally breaking.
High above the suffocating, blood-soaked canopy of The Treachery, Rayn, Vespera, Peter, Victus, and Freddy silently walked along the colossal branches of the ancient redwood trees. They were moving directly toward the heavily fortified central region.
Slowly, the horizon began to bleed. The rising sun pierced through the dark clouds, casting a violent, deep-red glow over the valley.
Rayn stopped on the edge of a massive branch, looking out at the crimson dawn. A faint, completely arrogant smile touched his lips.
He tapped his communication artifact. "Executioners," Rayn said smoothly. "The sun is finally rising. It is the absolute indicator that we have survived the night, and we are going to completely win this impossible war."
Hearing the Conqueror's absolute confidence, the team looked toward the bleeding horizon. Despite the exhaustion and the rivers of blood they had waded through, genuine smiles broke across their faces.
A few minutes later, they stood perfectly concealed on the absolute highest branch overlooking the central camp.
Down below, the massive iron gates were sealed shut. Exactly 6,000 surviving bandits were packed tightly into the valley, murmuring in absolute, disorganized terror. At the center stood the Supreme Leader, surrounded by the 1,000 heavily armored elites of the King's Battalion.
Victus swallowed hard, looking at the catastrophic sea of armed men.
"Alright, Rayn," Victus whispered, gripping his heavy broadsword. "Tell us the absolute plan for this final assault. Because if we directly charge 6,000 men and 1,000 elites, it is going to be guaranteed suicide. What is the tactical formation?"
Rayn slowly turned his head to look at Victus. He casually placed a blood-stained hand on the captain's heavy shoulder.
"The tactical formation," Rayn said, his crimson eyes entirely devoid of fear, "is that we are going to drop down there and violently confront every single one of them right now."
Victus froze. His jaw dropped. It was the most brain-dead, suicidal plan he had ever heard, and it was coming from the most brilliant tactician he knew.
"What the absolute fuck are you talking about, Rayn?!" Freddy hissed in panic. "That is a direct suicide mission! Did you just bring us here to die?!"
Rayn sighed, looking at Peter and Vespera.
"Hey," Rayn asked them casually. "Do you guys honestly think we can't completely butcher all of them?"
Peter( Magnus) smirked arrogantly, adjusting the cuffs of his dark shirt. "I could drop down there and violently slaughter every last one of them by myself. I don't even need your absolute help."
Vespera crossed her arms, her golden eyes glowing with ancient disdain for the mortals below. "I agree with Peter. I could turn this entire valley into absolute ash in exactly ten minutes."
Rayn smiled. "Okay, guys. If you are going to completely eradicate them, just make sure to leave a few for me to butcher. I am incredibly eager to send a massive pile of their severed heads back to the three towns."
The three monsters shared a dark, completely sociopathic laugh.
Victus and Freddy stared at them in absolute horror. These three treated the slaughter of 7,000 men like it was a casual morning exercise.
"Ready, Executioners?" Rayn asked, the ambient temperature violently dropping around him. "We are going to kill them all."
Without a single microsecond of warning, Rayn casually stepped behind Victus and Freddy and violently shoved both of them directly off the colossal branch.
"You fucking bastard, Rayn! I am going to kill you!" Victus and Freddy screamed in absolute terror as they plummeted thousands of feet through the freezing clouds.
"Just make sure you survive the landing first!" Rayn shouted back with a dark laugh.
The catastrophic, echoing screams of the two captains immediately attracted the attention of the 6,000 bandits below.
Thousands of mercenaries violently drew their weapons, looking up at the sky.
In the center of the camp, an eleven-year-old captive girl—whose father had been butchered and served in the Trojan Boar the night before—was clutching her mother's hand. She slowly pointed a trembling finger directly into the bleeding clouds.
"Look," a bandit gasped in terror. "Is that... is God coming to punish us?"
The little girl stared at the figures violently piercing the cloud cover.
"Mom," the little girl whispered, her eyes wide with absolute awe. "It isn't God. You told me stories about a monster who comes to punish evil men. That is the Slayer."
Rayn violently slashed entirely through the cloud cover. He unleashed a burst of Wind Gnosis, gracefully slowing his catastrophic descent and floating down like an absolute, descended deity.
Beside him, Peter utilized his profound Merchant's Dao, weaving a massive, glowing golden carpet of kinetic energy that he casually surfed down to the earth.
Behind them, a terrifying roar echoed through the valley as Vespera violently manifested massive, ethereal Black Dragon Wings. She swooped down, aggressively grabbing the screaming Victus and Freddy by the collars of their heavy armor before they could violently splatter against the mud, dropping them roughly to the ground.
THUD.
The five Executioners landed perfectly inside the heavy iron gates.
"Are you completely trying to kill us?!" Victus roared, violently catching his breath.
"I am an old man, Rayn!" Freddy gasped, clutching his chest. "I cannot survive these absolute, heaven-defying jumps!"
"Shut your pathetic mouths and draw your weapons," Rayn commanded coldly, his Conqueror's aura violently flaring. "You have 6,000 men waiting to butcher you. Focus."
Victus and Freddy immediately drew their heavy broadswords, staring down the massive, terrified sea of bandits completely surrounding them.
"Should we officially announce who we are?" Victus asked, his Tier 6 Gnosis igniting.
"We didn't come here to drink tea and talk to them," Rayn sneered. "We came to violently harvest their souls. Kill them."
With a terrifying, synchronized battle cry, the five Executioners violently launched themselves directly into the 6,000-man army.
The official bloodbath began.
It was an absolute, one-sided massacre. Rayn, Vespera, and Peter tore through the mortal ranks like terrifying, unstoppable gods. Heads flew into the air, torsos were violently bifurcated, and golden coins completely shattered skulls. In exactly twenty minutes, they had effortlessly butchered over 200 screaming bandits without suffering a single scratch.
Watching his army get violently ripped to shreds in seconds, the Supreme Leader's mind completely snapped in terror.
"Fall back!" the Supreme Leader roared, his voice cracking. "Activate the absolute formation! THE DEATH!"
Instantly, the surviving 5,800 bandits scrambled backward in sheer panic, hiding behind the Leader's tent.
The 1,000 elite soldiers of the King's Battalion violently marched to the absolute front. They moved with terrifying, mechanical precision. Every single man raised a massive, human-sized silver shield, entirely locking them together to form an impenetrable iron wall.
"Cast it!" the Vanguard General roared.
The 1,000 elites violently bit their own tongues, spitting their life essence directly onto their shields. In perfect synchronization, a massive, heaven-defying wave of Gnosis erupted from the battalion.
The silver shields violently mutated, glowing with a catastrophic, deep-purple energy.
Rayn scoffed, wiping black blood from his cheek.
"Are you completely terrified?" Rayn mocked the Supreme Leader, his voice echoing with absolute disdain. "Hiding behind a pathetic fucking wall? What kind of a coward are you?"
Rayn aggressively stepped forward. He didn't summon his primary, heavy Crimson Sword to save his internal energy. Instead, he forged a highly condensed Ice Conqueror Sword.
"I will shatter it in one strike," Rayn decreed.
He violently lunged forward, channeling his raw Conqueror's aura entirely into the blade, and slashed heavily against the glowing purple shield wall.
CRACK!
Rayn's eyes widened in absolute shock.
The ice sword didn't pierce the shield. It violently shattered into a million pieces.
Before Rayn could even attempt to retreat, the purple shield violently absorbed the absolute kinetic pressure of his Conqueror's aura, amplified it by a factor of ten, and aggressively reflected the catastrophic energy directly back into Rayn's stomach.
BOOM!
The sheer kinetic force was apocalyptic. Rayn coughed up a massive mouthful of black blood. His ribs violently shattered as he was blasted backward through the air like a broken ragdoll, crashing heavily into the frozen mud fifty feet away.
"Rayn!" Vespera screamed, her porcelain face twisting into an expression of absolute, unadulterated panic—an emotion she had not felt in centuries.
She violently teleported to his side, her hands glowing with intense, silver healing Gnosis as she desperately pressed them against his completely shattered stomach.
"What the absolute fuck is that magic?!" Rayn gasped, violently coughing up more blood as he tried to sit up.
Peter landed beside them, his green eyes narrowed in absolute, terrifying seriousness.
"It is a catastrophic problem, Rayn," Peter analyzed, his Tier 5 senses analyzing the purple wall. "It is an ancient Absolute Gnosis Array. They have entirely locked their spiritual meridians together. That wall isn't powered by mortals. It is powered by 1,000 men at the absolute peak of Phase 6, with their commanders at the initial stage of Phase 5."
Peter gritted his teeth. "The kinetic reflection is absolute. Even a Phase 4 Conqueror like me cannot physically pierce that array without risking my own life."
Rayn groaned, a horrific, burning agony completely consuming his core. "Vespera... why is the pain increasing? Why aren't you healing it?"
Vespera's hands were violently trembling. Tears of sheer panic formed in her golden eyes.
"Rayn... I can't," Vespera whispered in horror. "The wound isn't just physical. It is entirely rejecting my Gnosis. Your stomach is completely turning black."
Rayn violently pulled his torn, blood-soaked shirt up.
Vespera was right. The flesh of his stomach was rapidly necrotizing, turning a horrific, rotting pitch-black.
But it wasn't the Gnosis Array causing the rot.
Deep inside the spatial void of the pitch-black ring on Rayn's finger, the Gambler's Heart was violently, aggressively spinning. It had consumed the 500 bodies. It had consumed the 70 gallons of blood. And now, smelling the heavy, rotting essence of its master's exposed blood, the demonic entity was forcefully activating its absolute payout.
The catastrophic pain of the ring forcing its demonic connection into Rayn's soul was too much for his physical vessel to bear.
Rayn's eyes violently rolled completely back into his head, and the God Slayer lost absolute consciousness, collapsing dead into the mud.