Chapter 1207: Devoured
Chapter 1207: Devoured
Vivi did not retreat.
She simply turned sideways.
The enormous blade passed within inches of her body before she caught its edge with one hand. Essence exploded from her palm, and the weapon shattered as though it had been made from glass. At the same time, the destructive sphere reached her back.
Steve appeared.
His sword flashed through the air, and a dark arc wrapped in black lightning swept across the incoming attack. The sphere split cleanly in two before the remaining energy dispersed harmlessly into the atmosphere.
"Now!" Steve shouted.
North had already disappeared.
Her figure became nothing more than a blur carried by the wind as she crossed the battlefield in an instant. Her two blades moved simultaneously, one striking toward the first girl’s shoulder while the second curved toward her waist. She barely managed to block the first strike, but North’s second blade changed direction midway through the movement, following the flow of her momentum and slipping past her defense.
The girl was thrown backward.
Her sister immediately moved to protect her, but Vivi was already there.
She raised her hand toward the sky, and an enormous sphere of Essence appeared above the battlefield. It collapsed inward before suddenly exploding outward, releasing a tremendous pressure wave that caught both twins and hurled them toward the ground.
They crashed into the surface one after another.
The impact created two enormous craters.
Before either could rise, Steve descended from above. Lightning erupted from his body as he swung his sword downward, and a massive black arc tore through the air. The attack carried the principles of his evolved Abyss Severance, no longer limited to simply cutting physical matter. The arc passed through the Essence barrier surrounding one of the girls and tore through it.
Vivi’s presence descended upon her like an entire galaxy pressing against her shoulders. The ground beneath the girl fractured as Vivi raised both hands, and the space around them filled with countless brilliant points of light.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then every point became a miniature star.
The stars erupted simultaneously.
A tremendous rain of stellar fire descended upon the battlefield, each explosion overlapping with the next until the entire region disappeared beneath a blazing inferno. The twin tried to escape through the flames, but Steve’s lightning suddenly appeared beside her, forcing her back toward the center. North followed immediately, her body spinning through the storm as both blades released enormous compressed wind slashes.
The three attacks converged.
The resulting explosion tore apart the surrounding clouds and sent a shockwave across the planet.
When the light finally faded, the two manifestations were lying within the enormous crater at the center of the battlefield.
They were still alive.
Barely.
Their bodies were covered in wounds, their Essence was fluctuating violently, and the ethereal aura that had surrounded them at the beginning of the battle had weakened to the point where it was almost difficult to sense. One of the girls struggled to lift herself onto an elbow, but her arm trembled and collapsed beneath her weight.
The other did not even manage that.
Vivi slowly descended before them while Steve and North landed on either side of her. None of the three were untouched, but compared to the two manifestations lying before them, their condition was remarkably stable.
I watched the scene from a distance, unable to hide the faint smile forming on my face.
The three of them had changed enormously.
Steve was no longer the swordsman who relied on speed and lightning to overwhelm opponents. Every movement now carried the weight of a Saint, and his sword could sever defenses that would once have been completely beyond his reach. North had similarly transformed her movements into something almost impossible to follow, combining her momentum and wind laws until her entire body seemed to become part of the storm itself.
And Vivi was perhaps the most terrifying of all.
She was treating the Essence of an entire galaxy as an extension of her own body.
The two girls had possessed the same fundamental advantage, but they had failed to match the coordination and battle experience of the three Saints standing before them. Against Vivi alone, they might have endured far longer. Against Steve and North together, they could have defended themselves. But against all three working in perfect coordination, their defeat had become inevitable.
Vivi looked down at the two wounded manifestations, her expression calm.
"Do you still intend to refuse?"
Neither girl answered.
They simply remained where they were, breathing heavily while staring at the three figures standing above them.
The two girls remained motionless for several seconds, their weakened bodies barely capable of maintaining their forms. Vivi looked down at them in silence before slowly raising one hand. A faint violet glow gathered around her palm, and the surrounding Essence began flowing toward a single point.
The space in front of her gradually twisted into a deep violet vortex, its center so dark that even light seemed to disappear within it. Unlike the black hole she had summoned earlier, this vortex did not possess a violent gravitational pull.
Instead, it carried a strange and profound force of devouring, drawing directly upon the essence that constituted the two manifestations.
The girls immediately realized what was happening. They attempted to resist, but their weakened state made resistance almost meaningless.
Their bodies began dissolving into streams of brilliant Essence that were slowly drawn toward the violet vortex.
Vivi maintained complete control over the process, preventing the Essence from scattering into the surrounding cosmos. Little by little, the ethereal forms of the twins became thinner until even their faces began disappearing into countless particles of light. There was no dramatic explosion.
Their existence simply continued to diminish until, eventually, the final traces of their consciousness vanished into the vortex.
The violet vortex remained for another few moments before shrinking into Vivi’s palm and disappearing completely.
The change in her was immediate.
Her aura surged.
I could clearly sense the difference from where I was standing. The enormous quantity of Essence belonging to the two galaxy manifestations had been absorbed directly by Vivi, and her connection with the galaxy had consequently become even deeper.
The pressure radiating from her body increased several times over, and even the surrounding space seemed to instinctively bend around her presence.
Then, as if none of that had happened, Vivi suddenly dropped onto the ground.
She sat there with her legs crossed and her cheeks puffed out, looking more like a sullen child who had just been denied her favorite toy than a Saint who had just devoured two powerful galaxy manifestations.
Steve and North exchanged a glance.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
"What’s wrong with you?" Steve finally asked.
Vivi crossed her arms and looked away. "They’re difficult."
North raised an eyebrow. "You just defeated both of them."
"That’s not what I mean." Vivi’s expression became even more dissatisfied. "I offered them a perfectly reasonable alliance. They refused. I explained that I was stronger than them. They still refused. Then we fought, and I had to destroy them anyway. Why is everyone so troublesome?"
Steve sighed and sheathed his sword. "Because not everyone thinks the way you do."
Vivi looked at him suspiciously. "What’s that supposed to mean?"
"It means you’ve become spoiled," North said bluntly as she walked over and sat down nearby. "You’ve been with Billion for too long."
Vivi’s eyes widened. "How am I spoiled?"
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