Chapter 209: Mass Release event notification at the end of the Chapter - All out

"Hmm. A flame devil with phoenix flames?"

Battlebeast looked down at Zeke with something close to amusement.

He had him by the throat, one hand, effortless, the two of them suspended in the air while the fight continued below. His grip didn’t tighten. It didn’t need to.

"Nice. Maybe we’ll visit your home world next. I’ve always wanted a flying bird."

The smirk settled on his face and stayed there.

The sons of corruption were the most advanced predators in the entire universe. One of one. It took very rare bloodlines just to stand across from them, and even then, they still came out on top nine times out of ten. Zeke’s attacks had been damaging, genuinely, but damaging wasn’t the same as dangerous. There was nothing lethal about any of it.

Battlebeast knew the difference.

"You can see the phoenix in my flames."

Zeke’s voice came out strained. Struggling against the grip but holding it together.

"And you still dare to hold onto me like that."

A pause. His eyes stayed on Battlebeast’s face.

"You must have a death wish."

A millisecond passed.

The flames around Zeke spiked. Not gradually. All at once, jumping to one hundred and one percent of their original force in a single instant.

Battlebeast felt it before he processed it.

His hand pulled back on instinct.

Too late.

"Boom!!!"

The explosion detonated outward from Zeke’s body in every direction, massive and immediate, sending Battlebeast flying backward through the air by several steps before he could stabilize.

The phoenix signature move.

Suicide attacks.

They burned their own core to bring down the opponent. Gave everything in a single moment. And because of the nature of their flames, they came back from it. Rebirth was built into the bloodline.

Zeke didn’t have that bloodline.

"Cough cough."

He pulled back, bent forward, and coughed up two mouthfuls of blood. When he looked up his eyes had that particular quality to them. Suicidal in the most literal sense. Not afraid of it.

What he had managed to do without the full bloodline was already more than it should have been.

The little he did was a lot for him.

A hand came down on his shoulder from behind, firm and steady, pressing him back before he could push forward again.

"Take it easy, kid."

Nibbleskin’s voice was calm. He didn’t look at Zeke when he said it, his eyes still forward on Battlebeast, but the grip on Zeke’s shoulder held.

"You’re not there yet."

He meant it plainly. No cruelty in it.

’Crazy friends,’ Nibbleskin thought to himself, watching the young man breathe through the blood in his throat. Just like himself, really. Add one more and they’d have a full squad of suicidal maniacs charging at things that should kill them.

"But good job."

His grip on Zeke’s shoulder eased slightly.

"You created enough time."

—woosh

From the side, Enzo’s blade tore through the darkness.

The slash came when Battlebeast least expected it, cutting across his back in a clean diagonal line, deep enough to matter. And before Battlebeast could even begin to turn toward where it came from, Enzo was already gone.

Silence for a half second.

"This..."

Battlebeast went still.

He reached back, not touching the wound, just staring at it from the corner of his perception, watching as it spread. Not healing. Corroding. The cut moved through his body like something alive, suppressing the corruption that was inherent in him, pushing it back from the edges of the wound inward.

An image surfaced in his mind without his permission.

An older man. Petty eyes. Patient in the way that only truly dangerous things were patient.

"Life Monarch!!"

He cursed it out loud.

The sons of corruption were the equivalent of the children of the monarchs of the domains of heaven. Mirror images of each other, built to cancel each other out. Only something on that level of existence could kill them effectively. They were each other’s bane, and everyone on both sides knew it.

The truce had made direct conflict impossible. So the Life Domain had sent a representative instead.

Enzo, carrying the Red of Life’s power in his blade.

"I’ll kill every single one of you."

It wasn’t bluster. The threat landed differently now that something had actually made him feel it.

For the first time since the ambush began, Battlebeast felt genuinely threatened.

First the white hole devourer. Then the undying phoenix bastard burning himself down to the bone. And now this. The Red of Life’s power cutting into him like the truce meant nothing at all.

"We finish him together."

Nibbleskin’s voice was steady. He looked across the group, one face to the next, making sure each of them understood.

The other sons of corruption would notice eventually. Battlebeast had been cut off from them, isolated inside the wonderland, but that wouldn’t hold indefinitely. They had to be fast.

The first to move was Gaia.

A beam of unbridled light broke from the White Tower and came barreling toward Battlebeast with no warning and no adjustment period.

He raised the chainsaw sword to block it.

The impact hit and kept pushing, driving him backward, forcing him to dig in and struggle against the pressure. His feet carved lines through the air as he braced.

The White Tower was no joke of a treasure.

And none of them were a joke either.

—woosh

Enzo flashed forward. Nibbleskin moved at the same time, coming in from the opposite angle. Raven followed close behind, reading the gaps between the others and filling them without instruction.

At some point Zeke was there too, flames rebuilt, back in it.

From the top of the surrounding terrain, the darkness that covered the area stayed perfectly still. Silent. Sealed. To anyone outside the wonderland’s boundary, nothing was visible. No sound. No movement. Nothing to indicate what was happening inside.

Just dark land.

Just quiet.

Several long minutes passed.

Then the dome came down.

The boundary of the wonderland dissolved, the suppression lifting, the darkness thinning out until the sky was visible again and the air felt normal.

But Battlebeast wasn’t dead.

Or at least it didn’t look like it.

He was bound. Heavy chains wrapped around him, locked tight, his body suspended inside the void coffin with no room to move and nowhere for his energy to go.

"Let’s head back."

Nibbleskin looked at him for a moment, calm, then looked away.

The plan was never to kill him here.

At least not yet.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​