Read Novel Full Chapter 388: The Death of The Leader
Chapter 388: The Death of The Leader
The silence of the Negation Domain was shattered by the rhythmic, thunderous impact of a Sovereign's strike.
Sunny moved like a blurred streak of violet lightning, his physical form propelled by the raw strength of the Nihilium bloodline.
"Long time no see, Deimos!" Sunny roared.
He didn't wait for a greeting. He drove a fist reinforced by a layer of Faith directly into the humanoid entity's solar plexus.
The shockwave of the blow rippled through the darkness, sending the Beyonder tumbling backward.
Before the creature could stabilize, Sunny initiated a Void Step, a flickering movement that bypassed the sluggish physics of the domain, and reappeared behind the entity.
With a loud shout, he delivered a spinning roundhouse kick to its spine, launching the creature in the opposite direction like a discarded doll.
Deimos, the Lord of Discord, hung in the dark, his breath coming in ragged, labored gasps. His face was a mask of bruised pride and crimson shame.
He had entered this domain to hunt Cosmos, to peel the skin from Sunny's soul and drag him back to the Capital in chains. Yet here he was, saved from this entity by the very man he sought to kill.
"Cosmos?" Deimos wheezed, his demonic eyes flickering with a mix of fury and disbelief.
"Don't get sentimental," Sunny whispered, his eyes scanning the perimeter. "My talents can disappear at any second. The Domain is adapting to both of us. If we don't end this thing in the next few minutes, we're both just meat for the grinder."
On the surface, it looked like a heroic rescue. But inside, Sunny's mind was a cold forge of calculation. He knew that as long as the Negation remained, he held the advantage due to his superior physical vessel and his reservoir of Faith.
However, the moment the domain lifted and the Laws returned, Deimos would regain his full power as a Lord of Discord. In that instant, Deimos would likely use his Aura to freeze Sunny in place before he could even blink.
"How are you using your talents?" Deimos demanded, his voice a jagged rasp. "If I had my Laws, I would tear this void apart! Tell me the secret of your movement!"
Deimos was already plotting. If he could trick Sunny into sharing the Key to the Negation, he would destroy both the Sovereign and the Beyonder in a single stroke of chaotic energy.
"D-Don't... interfere..."
A voice broke through the silence. It wasn't the roar of a beast, but a high-pitched, feminine scream that sounded like a violin string snapping.
The Beyonder had stopped tumbling. It hung in the air, its formless limbs shifting into a more defined, slender shape.
This was the first time it had spoken, the words sounding clumsy and alien.
Sunny paused, his body hovering in the void. "Who? Me? Or the big guy over there? Do you two have some history I should know about?"
Sunny's mind pivoted. He had been ready to kill the entity to protect Sansa's world, but the realization that the creature possessed high-level intelligence changed the situation of the encounter.
If the Beyonder wasn't a mindless predator, there was a possibility of a deal. And in the dark, a deal was often sharper than a sword.
"N-no..." the entity whispered, the sound vibrating Sunny's very bones. "We are not rivals. But his scent... his aura... it is the same as the one who disturbed my eons of sleep. The one who poked my nest."
Sunny's heart hammered against his ribs. It's him, he thought. The mastermind. The creator of the Demon Lords.
"I think I know the man you're looking for," Sunny said, his voice turning silk-smooth. He had to move fast. "I am a guest in this bubble, just like you. The man who disturbed you... he is a coward who hides in the deeper rifts of the Real Void. He sent this Demon Lord here to act as a shield."
"Where is he?" the Beyonder screamed, her form expanding until she was twenty times Sunny's size.
The darkness around her began to boil with a new, aggressive hunger. Her talons reached out, threatening to tear the very concept of space into ribbons.
"I cannot give you his exact coordinates while we are trapped in this cage," Sunny lied with the practiced ease of a king. "But this bubble belongs to Lady Sansa. The one you seek, the one who truly offended you, lives in a hidden layer of the Real Void."
"If you leave this place, I can open a path for you. You can continue your feast in his territory. I am sure the coward would come out to save his precious Farms if you started eating his favorite demons."
Sunny glanced at Deimos, his violet eyes cold and devoid of any lingering mercy. He had saved the Demon Lord as a tactical diversion, but now, Deimos was more useful as a sacrifice.
"And as for him?" Sunny gestured to the Lord of Discord. "He is the favored son of your enemy. If you kill him, the master will feel the sting. He might even come out to play."
"Cosmos! You traitorous cur!" Deimos roared, his aura of Discord trying to flare but failing against the Negation. "Do you think I am so easily discarded? I am Deimos! I am the end of all harmony! I am the demon lords of Discord. I will..."
Before the threat could leave his throat, the Beyonder moved. She was a blur of absolute zero. Her obsidian claws lashed out, silent and precise, splitting Deimos's throat open from ear to ear.
"Your laws do not work in my house, little fly," the Beyonder whispered, her voice now cold and melodic as she retracted her dripping claws.
At that exact moment, the Demonic Realm experienced a cataclysm.
The crimson sky turned a bruised, rotting black. The volcanic mountain ranges, which had stood since the beginning of the realm, began to melt into rivers of white-hot lava.
Every demon lifeform, from the lowliest imp to the highest God, felt a sudden, hollow ache in their chest. The anchor had been severed.
In the Great Meeting Hall of the Capital, the remaining six Demon Lords stood in unison, their faces pale with a shock that bordered on madness. They looked at the horizon, watching as the very fabric of their reality began to weep.
"Deimos is... dead," Maledictus whispered, the word tasting like ash.
"How?" Phobos asked, his voice trembling. "He was the Lord of Discord."
"He will need at least a thousand to atmost a hundred thousand years to reconstruct his essence from the void. For all intents and purposes... we are leaderless." Maledictus replied, her voice hollow.
The Lords turned as one toward the figure sitting at the far end of the table. Beelzebub, the Lord of Greed, remained seated. He looked remarkably calm, a thin, disturbing smile playing on his lips.
"Now you look to me?" Beelzebub chuckled, the sound deep and resonant. "Have you finally remembered that I exist? You all stood by while Deimos chained me. You supported his decree that the Lord of Greed must never eat, for fear that my hunger would consume the realm. You traded my potential for your stability."
He stood up, his aura expanding until it filled the hall with a suffocating, golden pressure. "I tolerated your chains for the sake of our race. I suppressed my nature so the Demonic Realm could prosper under Deimos's Strategy. But the strategist is gone. The chains have rotted."
Beelzebub laughed, a sound of pure, unbridled liberation. "I will not harm you today; our old companionship still holds a drop of value. But mark my words: the next time we meet, we are rivals. I am going to eat until the bubble is empty."
"Beelzebub, wait!" Maledictus cried, her heart hammering against her ribs. "The realm is in crisis! Lom is harvesting our children and eating our multiverses! You cannot leave us now!"
"The Demonic Realm is self-sufficient," Beelzebub said, his form beginning to fade into a golden mist. "If you are afraid, then do the only sensible thing: sever the connection. Cut the Demonic Realm away from the outer world. Go into hiding, like the cowards you are. As for Lom... I will deal with the thief in my own time."
With a final, mocking bow, the Lord of Greed vanished.
The remaining five Lords stood in the ruins of their council, feeling like fish in a drying pond. They were the masters of terror, yet they were terrified.
"Do as he said," Maledictus commanded, her voice regaining a sliver of ice. "Initiate the Great Severance. We will pull the Demonic Realm into the deep folds of the void. We will vanish until Deimos returns."
"But Maledictus," Belial whispered, his brow furrowing in confusion. "To undo the connection... doesn't it require the Seven of us to act in unison?"
Maledictus paused. She tried to remember how they had forged the demonic realm.
"No... yes... I..." Her mind suddenly felt like it was being scrubbed with wire. A massive chunk of her memory was being manipulated, rewritten by a force far greater than a Demon Lord.
The other four Lords shared her expression. They looked at each other, their eyes blank and searching.
"Wait," Phobos said, his voice trembling. "Who... who actually created the Demonic Realm? Why can't I remember how we created it... And why it never crossed our mind?"