Leonidas drove his arm deep into its void, flooding it with Reira. The only conventional method to kill the creature was to overwhelm its corrupted core, drowning it from the inside out. It let out a piercing scream that tore through his ears, but he did not flinch or pull away, instead forcing his arm deeper, driving through resistance with grim intent.
For a brief moment, there was struggle, then silence. The creature went still.
Its gaze locked onto Leonidas as it began gathering another dense concentration of energy. The mark embedded in its chest split wider, crawling up toward its neck as the mass condensed there, shaping itself with deliberate precision — aimed straight at his face.
For the first time, a clear crack of shock surfaced in the young emperor's expression. It had adapted. Not only had it survived the only known method of execution, it had begun evolving around it. Worse still, it had reshaped its own void.
A curse slipped from his breath as he tried to pull his arm free, but it would not budge. It was stuck fast. Another attack at this range would be unavoidable; at point-blank distance, there would be no escape without considerable damage.
Even the previous strike had left visible marks across his body, remnants of its force still lingering.
Dammit he cursed inwardly.
The attack was gathering faster now, more heavier, denser, as though the very air was being compressed into violence.
"You wretched abomination!"
The words tore out of him in frustration, but the response came instantly: a loud, ominous surge of energy.
The wicked beam erupted. Dense and blinding pressure like a collapsing sky slammed into him and drove him far back across the terrain. The earth split in a long cratered scar beneath its passage, the ground itself groaning under the force. Trees were erased in an instant, they were splintered, uprooted, hurled and crushed together like driftwood in a flood just from the sheer pressure behind this particular attack.
The landscape became stripped bare, devoured in a straight line of annihilation.
For a moment, only dust remained, it was thick and choking, drifting like a pale storm settling over ruin.
Then it began to clear after the heavy silence.
Within the fading haze, the creature twitched in erratic motions, its gaze fixed on the space where the beam had struck. First, a silhouette appeared to be standing before it sharpened into form.
Leonidas stood.
Barely.
His body was battered beyond recognition, one hand braced against a knee for support while the other hung loosely at his side, shoulders slumped under the weight of impact. Blood ran freely down his face, across his torso, mixing with dirt into a dark, muddied stain. His breath was uneven, heavy.
He struggled to main eye contact with it.
This is bad… really bad. Dammit.
The creature's face distorted. The surface of its face cracked open where a mouth should be, a jagged horizontal split tearing outward toward its jaw, forming something like a grin, eeriely wide, unnatural, wrong.
It had adapted again.
"…So you're not done," he muttered, a deep frown settling on his face.
He had survived an attack capable of destroying a full mountain, but barely. Only his Grace had kept him from death, invoked just moments before impact.
'The Grace Of Survival.'
Another high-risk invocation.
And he had already pushed beyond his limit.
Any further use of a high cost Grace now would collapse his body from within, leaving him completely exposed. What he was feeling now was not just injury, it was the aftermath of breaking his own threshold, compounded by the creature's devastation. Pain layered upon consequence.
That was the curse of an Obscium Nexus. Power born with balance enforced through cost. Immense capability… bound by equally heavy limits. Perhaps Mother Nature's way of ensuring nothing like it ever grew without restraint.
It keeps adapting mid-fight… I can't kill it through its void anymore.
His eyes locked onto the gaping hole in its chest when it suddenly closed up, a very rare sight.
Leonidas simply smiled. He did not care about its adaptation anymore. Normally, these creatures could not survive once their voids were sealed shut, but this one was clearly different.
A faint grin spread beneath his shadowed expression.
"Whatever level you think you've ascended to. Whatever changes you think you've overcome. They mean nothing to me… because right now, I will break my limits and pulverize you into nothingness!"
His fist clenched with boiling anger. His entire body stiffened as a loud scream tore from his throat. Dirt, blood, and ash clung to him, making the sight even more terrifying beneath the dying night.
"Grace of Strength!"
Another layer of grace stacked violently atop the previous one, further increasing his attack potency and destructive power. The pressure around him thickened. Cracks quietly spread beneath his feet.
Morning was only minutes away.
He would end it before then.
The mindless evil twitched erratically before releasing another distorted scream.
Leonidas closed the distance in an instant and delivered a clean strike to its torso before it could process the attack, sending the creature hurtling away.
He appeared beside it midair before it could even touch the ground. Grabbing its elongated legs, he swung the creature downward and smashed it violently into the earth.
The abomination barely had time to react before another punch drove it even deeper into the ground. The earth groaned beneath the impact.
Leonidas did not relent.
Blow after blow, he delivered with cold precision, denying it any chance to heal or adapt. His attacks flowed without pause, each strike carrying enough force to shake the shattered battlefield.
"If I cannot kill you, I'll carve holes into you until nothing remains!"
Its body burst apart at every impact like burning embers scattering through the dark, except these flames were pitch black. Corrupted fragments writhed violently across the ruined ground, desperately struggling to regenerate beneath the overwhelming pressure of his assault.
He pulverized its head and body again and again, reducing flesh and bone into ruined fragments, that's would have been the situation except it wasn't born of flesh and bone. Even with all that was being thrown at it, the evil still regenerated.
But it was slower now, weaker, but alive.
Leonidas immediately aligned the backs of his hands together and drove them violently into its chest. He was going to force its void open.
The creature screamed and writhed beneath him, but the movements lacked strength. It had been battered so relentlessly that even its regeneration was beginning to fail.
With brute force, Leonidas tore its chest apart and thrust his arm deep back into the exposed void, forcing a violent flood of Reira into its core.
The creature raised one of its wicked, blade-like arms in protest, but the limb froze halfway in the air.
The attack had worked.
Whatever enhancement it had gained had been weakened, stripped down just enough for Reira to finally destroy it.
Leonidas screamed as he forced even more power into the void. Veins bulged across his neck and arms while the pressure around him spiraled out of control.
Then blood burst from his mouth.
A thick stream spilled down his chin and onto the creature beneath him. The sight alone looked painful, no matter how one viewed it. Perhaps this was the punishment for pushing far beyond his limits.
The abomination convulsed violently.
Dust rose around its dying body as its limbs jerked in bizarre, broken motions. Its entire frame twitched one final time before stopping abruptly.
Silence followed briefly.
Leonidas slowly pulled his arm free after making certain it was dead. He staggered away from the corpse before quickly covering his mouth with one hand.
More blood poured through his fingers.
His knees hit the ground heavily.
For a brief moment, he remained there in silence, gathering his thoughts through the pain before lifting his eyes back toward the corpse to confirm the kill once more.
The creature had not died the way he expected.
Normally, beings like it collapsed under the pressure entirely. Their bodies crumbled apart, sometimes even imploding from the overload. But this thing had resisted until the very end.
Leonidas did not dwell on it further.
He simply assumed its ability to adapt along with whatever enhancement it had undergone explained the abnormal death well enough.