Reincarnated in a novel: I am the villain!-Chapter 307: First Sight of Parents!

[Location: Abyss Layer 6 – The Slag Heap Chasm]

The defense line of Layer 6 was drowning.

The concept of a "frontline" had dissolved entirely.

There were no longer tactical formations or coordinated artillery strikes.

There was only a chaotic, suffocating ocean of teeth, claws, and toxic blood.

To the right, a squad of Drifter mercenaries hardened fighters who had survived decades in the Abyss were cornered by a surging tide of Abyssal Centipedes.

The mercenaries didn’t scream or beg.

Seeing the sheer futility of their situation, the squad leader locked eyes with his men, nodded once, and detonated his own mana core.

The resulting explosion vaporized the centipedes, but it was a pyrrhic victory; seconds later, a dozen more mutated horrors crawled over the smoldering crater where the mercenaries had just stood.

Sacrifice had lost its meaning. It was no longer a heroic choice; it was simply the currency required to buy five more seconds of oxygen.

The ground was a grotesque carpet of viscera. The corpses were piling so high that the stampeding beasts were using the mangled bodies of their own kind as ramps to vault over the magical barricades.

"Boss! The western flank is gone!" Ziriork screamed into his communication crystal, his tailored suit torn to shreds, his metallic body covered in dents and corrosive acid.

He was wielding a heavy rotary cannon, firing blindly into the mist.

"We can’t hold them! There’s too many!"

Damien didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

He was entirely submerged in the meat-grinder. His Eclipse Core flared with the intensity of a dying star, his Golden Dragon Aura and Hollow King’s Shadow perfectly synthesized to create an absolute zone of death around him.

Every swing of the Pantheon Sword cleaved through dozens of Tier 6 and Tier 7 beasts, turning them into mist.

Yet, for every hundred he killed, a thousand more poured out of the bleeding chasm.

The air was so thick with the stench of rot and panic that it felt like breathing sludge.

The sky above was faring no better; the jagged spatial scars continued to tear open, leaking a primal, suffocating pressure that made the very atmosphere of Layer 6 groan in agony.

The Platinum Prince was still hovering at the apex of the city, using his 9th Order divine power just to keep the sky from shattering entirely.

THOOM.

A tectonic vibration rolled up from the depths of the chasm, far heavier than anything they had felt before.

It was a singular, massive weight.

Suddenly, the ocean of weaker beasts parted.

They were violently thrown aside, crushed underfoot by something massive surging up from behind them.

A colossal hand, wreathed in dark matter and rusted armor, slammed onto the edge of the ridge.

The earth cracked.

An entity hauled itself out of the pit.

It was a Minor Demon Lord, a towering, four-armed Asura clad in jagged, volcanic plate armor.

He radiated the distinct, oppressive, and undeniable pressure of an 8th Order Warlord.

This was a king of the deep, a ruler of Layer 7 or 8, a being that had likely commanded millions of lesser demons just hours ago.

But as the Demon Lord stood up, crushing a pack of Void-Hounds beneath his massive hooves,

he didn’t roar a challenge at the defenders of Layer 6. He didn’t even look at them.

He looked back over his shoulder, down into the bleeding abyss, his four hands trembling.

His eyes were wide, dilated with a terror so profound it bordered on madness.

"Get out of my way!" the Asura shrieked, swinging a massive dark-matter halberd wildly to clear the path, indiscriminately slaughtering both the beasts behind him and the mercenaries in front of him.

Damien’s eyes narrowed. The cross-shaped pupils in his eyes flared with a lethal, calculating light.

’An 8th Order,’ Damien thought, his muscles tensing.

’Yet he’s not even attacking, instead He’s running, perhaps this my chance to find out what exactly is happening down there.’

Damien stepped directly into the path of the charging Asura.

"Isabelle! Pin his legs!" Damien roared, his voice laced with the [Siren’s Chord] to cut through the din of the battlefield.

"Yes, Master!"

Isabelle, covered in soot and demon ichor, slammed both her hands onto the blood-soaked earth.

Her demon horns elongated, glowing with a blinding violet light.

[Gravity Art: Event Horizon - Maximum Compression!]

The space around the Asura’s feet warped violently.

The gravity multiplied by a thousand times in a localized sphere.

The 8th Order Demon Lord gasped as his hooves shattered the bedrock, sinking knee-deep into the stone.

Before the Asura could swing his halberd to break the spell, Damien was already in the air.

[Shadow Art: Flash Step]

Damien materialized directly above the giant’s head.

He channeled his newly forged 8th Order Will the Greedy King’s Intent directly into his fist, combining the crushing weight of the Shadow with the tyrannical dominance of the Dragon.

He slammed his fist into the center of the Asura’s helmet.

KRA-KOOM.

The impact sounded like a meteor strike.

The Demon Lord’s armor cracked, and the giant was driven face-first into the dirt, his four arms splayed out as the sheer density of Damien’s Intent paralyzed his nervous system.

Damien landed gracefully on the back of the downed Warlord.

He pressed the tip of the Pantheon Sword against the gap in the demon’s neck armor.

"Listen to me closely," Damien whispered, his voice cold, projecting directly into the Demon Lord’s mind.

"You are an 8th Order Warlord, Tell me what is chasing you out of your own home, or I will sever your core right now."

The Asura coughed up a mouthful of black blood. He just stared wildly at the spatial tears bleeding in the sky above.

"You... you surface trash know nothing!" the Demon Lord babbled, his voice cracking with hysteria.

"The bottom of the world is gone! Layer 9 is a slaughterhouse!"

"The Rotting King?" Damien pressed, pressing the blade a millimeter deeper.

"Isn’t that his domain? How could that happen?"

"The Rotting King is fighting for his life!" the Asura screamed, the revelation shocking Damien to his core. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

"It’s because of those bastards that fell into the abyss all those years ago! The foundations of the Abyss are cracking because of them!"

"Who?!"

"Demigods!" the Warlord shrieked, tears of pure terror leaking from his eyes.

"Four of them! Clashing in the center of Layer 9! The sheer fallout of their domain clashes is vaporizing the 8th Layer! They are beings so monstrous they could tear down the lower gods of the surface!"

Damien’s breath hitched. Four Demigods?

"The Rotting King is one," the Asura gasped, frantically trying to explain so Damien would let him run.

"But the other three... they are invaders! Anomalies!"

"Describe them," Damien commanded, his heart suddenly hammering against his ribs in a chaotic, desperate rhythm.

"A man!" the Demon Lord sobbed.

"A human man! He wields shadows so dense they devour the Void itself! He commands an army of ten thousand darknesses!"

Damien froze. *Midnight Domain. The Shadow of Ten Thousand Armies.*

"A woman!" the Asura continued, babbling uncontrollably.

"She weaves illusions so absolute that reality bends to her whim! She turns the Rotting King’s decay into petals of blood!"

Damien’s grip on the sword trembled. *The Queen of Ten Thousand Illusions.*

"And the last one... a monster of ancient bone and necrotic magic!" the Warlord wheezed.

"An ancient entity that shouldn’t exist! They are tearing the Rotting King’s citadel apart brick by brick!"

Theron Voss. Elizabeth Voss. And the Voss Ancestor.

For sixteen years, while the world above thought they were dead, the remnants of the Voss family had descended into the deepest, darkest pit of hell.

Meanwhile, they had actually had evolved.

They had broken through the mortal ceiling, reaching the the realm of Demigods.

This meant that right now, at the very bottom of the Abyss, Damien’s family was waging an apocalyptic, world-ending war against the Lord of Layer 9.