My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger

Chapter 1303: Chapter 1303: Path To The Pillar

Matia and Ashcroft were fighting evenly, though Ashcroft had a hard time hitting Matia with conventional attacks. Her swordplay was like a dance that allowed her to weave around his attacks in a lethal fashion. Both of them were consumed by the power of the Pillar.

Damon looked up to see Leona choking him, sparks dancing in her eyes.

He didn’t hesitate to punch her in the face. The reason he did that wasn’t because he didn’t care about Leona. It was because if he didn’t, she would actually end his life.

He kicked her back towards the massive head of Ashergon, where she landed and rolled before catching herself. Then she pulled out her sword, looking at those behind them who were rushing to attack the flying dragon.

Damon held his sword tightly.

"You don’t want to do this, Leona. It won’t end well."

She smiled, showing her teeth.

"Actually, I really do."

She flashed in front of him, a slash coming towards his head. He bent backwards as the sword swung past him, but before he could dodge, she slammed her fist into him, and he crashed onto the dragon’s wide back.

He rolled out of the way when she stomped down on him, then kicked her with both legs, grabbing her hand and twisting it against his leg before turning his body and grappling her.

He pinned her to the body of the large, mountain-sized dragon. Destructive attacks rained towards Ashergon from behind, but the dragon created a barrier around himself and flew higher and higher towards the dome of the Underworld.

Damon, on the other hand, pinned Leona down as she struggled against him, smashing her head into his nose and causing blood to flow out. Damon knew the worst thing that could happen was for him to lose his grip on her, because if he did, it would become a contest of skill.

Leona was a dangerous fighter. In terms of speed, she might even be faster than Damon. That was saying something because Damon was quite fast himself. Of his party, Leona and Evangeline were the only two he could admit had a crazy speed advantage in battle, and both of them happened to be masters of the sword.

Well, actually, Leona was a master of fighting in general.

She was at the top of the list of people he did not want to fight at all.

Damon used both his arms and legs to pin her down and cloaked his whole body with shadows. With such close contact, if she were an enemy, she would already be dead because Damon would have used his Umbral attribute to disfigure her very soul, twisting it, breaking it, or turning it into something else.

Then again, he might not succeed if her soul was too strong or if she was wearing a powerful protective tool like her armor.

It was part of the reason he didn’t even try with Morticai. His soul was much too powerful for Damon.

Leona’s body began to spark, and then Damon felt a tingle in his body. He glanced at her, then whispered,

"You wouldn’t dare."

"Try me."

Turns out she would, because at the next moment, everything became white as Damon let out an involuntary hiss. His body convulsed, and billions of volts of lightning blasted through his body from Leona.

Damon gritted his teeth.

"Lightning Dominate!"

He twisted the lightning with pure willpower and changed its direction, shooting it behind him towards everyone else who was chasing them. He gritted his teeth when he felt the laws of the world become more chaotic.

"Ashergon, what are you doing?" he screamed, feeling the dragon go higher and higher.

"Escaping the disaster you lured."

Damon could feel the chaotic storm of space and time laws breaking and shattering as they followed him into destruction.

A spear of space struck Ashergon, and a deep, gashing wound tore through his almost indestructible dragon scales.

"Roarrrr!"

His roar was swallowed by the silence of this void.

Damon turned his head to look back, only to see the red energy and those who had been following them out of the Underworld. Before he could do anything, Leona tapped her hand against the dragon’s scales and sent them both into the air. She turned her back and slammed Damon against the edge of a spatial slice. Damon tried to move out of the way, but he wasn’t fast enough, and the thin slice of ruined space cut into his armor. Blood began gushing out. Using that chance, Leona broke free, and then, with her fist clenched, she buried it in his face. Wild bolts of lightning filled the air.

He bounced across Ashergon’s back. Damon shook his head as they broke free from the world below, and when he saw the sky once more, he saw an area of the heavens without any stars, only darkness. Below, the Abyss was spreading upward into the heavens. Fragments of the world floated around, dying chaotic streams of light carrying faint memories of the people who had once called this world home. There was no air. This whole world was now a vacuum, and there was no atmosphere.

Even Leona, who was consumed by the redness of the Pillar, stopped to look at their world, or what it had once been. It was now a dead world where life could no longer be sustained.

Seeing this despair and the gods fighting above in the heavens, bathing the world with the radiance of their might, she couldn’t help but cry.

Tears streamed down Leona’s face. She wiped them away as the power of the Pillar released her, and Leona fell to her knees.

Behind Ashergon, the Outsiders, lesser gods, and all those he had enraged came flying out of the Underworld. Some of them had acquired newer wounds. As soon as they began to appear, Ashergon’s maw was already filled with flames, and the Great Dragon bathed them all in his crimson fury.

His flames could casually burn a whole region, but he had been charging this attack since the beginning, so its devastation was not to be taken lightly.

Ashergon was ready to remind them why he was feared.

"Leona, are you okay?" Damon asked, clearing the blood from his face.

Leona nodded, then bit her lips, looking almost bleak before she said,

"I have an idea, but you won’t like it."

Damon narrowed his eyes. What was she talking about?

She grabbed his hands.

"I know, okay? I asked Matia, and she said you are her master, right?"

Damon was a bit confused. When had all this happened?

"Look, what happened to Matia in Lysithara was bad, and I know you still blame yourself for her death, but this is the only way to turn things around."

His gaze remained fixed on Leona.

"What are you talking about? I’m confused. What does Matia have to do with anything?"

Leona gripped her sword harder.

"Look, Matia is already overtaken by now, but there is a way for her to complete her mission even if she doesn’t want to..."

Damon paused when he realized what she was talking about.

"Oh, I see. Matia told you I could force her to obey my will."

"That’s not how she put it, but yes."

Damon glanced at Leona as attacks reached the heavens from below. Magic and powers they did not even know very well were being unleashed.

"You want me to force Matia to act like my puppet and order her to complete the mission against her will? To make her act like a slave? No, worse than that, a mindless drone?"

Leona bit her lips, then took a deep breath.

"The world is coming to an end. No, the world has ended. We must all defy ourselves."

Damon was quiet. Then he realized who had said something similar to him last.

"This isn’t something you came up with, is it? No, you wouldn’t do something so bitter, and Matia didn’t tell you either. It was Sylvia, wasn’t it? This was her plan."

Leona was quiet, then she nodded slowly.

"It was. It’s her failsafe. She cast some spell on me. This is the only way."

Damon was quiet for a moment, then he nodded.

"Very well, then."