Reincarnated as the Final Villain's Vessel

Chapter 285: The Remnants of the Smelting

The battle raged on across the Hanging Islands... only a few minutes had passed since Caius was eliminated, while the battlefield at the edge of the island had turned into pure chaos.

The fire devoured everything in sight, while the plasma blasted apart everything near it, walls of earth and magma rose, drowning everything in their way.

Arrows whistled through the air, and swords clashed against each other.

Emeris had just gotten rid of the two men in front of her, and could finally look at the spot Caius had vanished from... even though she’d been sending some attacks over there, she hadn’t really been focused.

Demir had flattened the terrain on that side, so all that was left were craters and cracks running across the rocky ground, and in front of him Leona was facing him alone.

He was stronger than her, faster than her, and higher in rank... but he couldn’t beat her.

Leona had sharpened her skills with blood and pain after coming back from Ancient Earth... she’d even sacrificed raising her rank so she could fully merge with her ability, so every move, every dodge and block she made, had been decided moments before Demir even thought of his attack.

All her movements were graceful and fast, her slender sword didn’t look like much against the heavy spear, but with every swing, every dance, she got closer to her opponent.

Then when she dodged the spear by a hair and let it sink into the ground beside her, the tip of her sword touched Demir’s ribs at a single focused point, piercing the layers of essence over them to reach his flesh and draw his blood for the first time.

And with his wound she gained access to something deeper in him... his senses! But senses were different... taking taste wasn’t like taking sight, and taking them from someone the same rank wasn’t like taking them from someone above you... it needed time.

But she didn’t have time, at that moment all she did was take his hearing before she leapt lightly back.

This was just one of the many clashes going on.

Everyone was focused on their own fight when Leona’s eyes widened, as if she were seeing something no one else could.

She stopped in place as she turned her head toward a certain direction... that was supposed to be fatal in a real battle, or even now.

But Demir didn’t get the time to move, because the next moment the world around them lit up.

Everyone went silent, then froze where they stood, turning their heads in the same direction.

The flames and explosions that had lit up the middle of the night had seemed bright to them... but now all of them dimmed.

Because in the distance, far from the Hanging Islands, a white brilliance was spreading and drowning part of the ocean and the forest... it was so bright that part of the night sky was erased and replaced by a grayish blue.

So overwhelming that when a mighty roar reached them, it came with a wave of hot air that drove the dust clouds away and whipped up the burning flames.

Everyone swallowed, even Demir, who hadn’t heard anything, stood stunned with his spear in his hand.

The explosion lit up all of the Hanging Islands and the nearby lands, turning night into day, and everything asleep woke under the deafening boom.

It was so strong that everyone wondered if a King was venting his anger over there, or maybe a Great monster...

And more importantly, were their lives in danger?

...

In the fortress below the Hanging Islands, the projections in the recording room flickered a little, which confused the staff for a few moments.

Meanwhile, each of the four Kings stationed here was doing something different.

While the King from the west was sleeping peacefully in his room, Oscar, the guardian of the Erebus delegation, was wandering somewhere at the top of the Hanging Islands.

As for the other two, they’d met in the same place... inside a luxurious lounge in the fortress, a mahogany table between them, two beautiful women sat on the leather couches.

On one side sat Alicia, her white hair falling over her shoulders like threads of silk, on the table was a cup of tea with a thin column of steam rising from it, and across from her was a woman who looked at least a few years older than her.

Her right leg rested over the other, and with a glass of wine in her hand she propped her elbow in her other palm beneath her chest.

Her shiny blonde hair fell over her white blouse, while her blue eyes glinted faintly, a faint smile on her beautiful face.

Hailey swirled the glass in her hand a little as she stared at Alicia across from her, eager to confirm something. "So? What’s your decision, Duchess, I can provide the Lifeweaver Serum in exchange for that small favor..."

Alicia didn’t answer, she seemed lost in thought, she reached for her teacup and brought it to her mouth, taking a small sip and staring at the dark liquid inside the porcelain. "Hmm... I’ll give you my answer after this game ends."

Hailey raised her eyebrow, while Alicia set the cup down with a click, meeting this woman’s eyes for a moment... and the next moment her crimson eyes widened with frightening speed, which threw Hailey off at the sudden reaction.

"..." Before she could say anything Alicia had already vanished from in front of her, and the moment she did a tremor passed through the walls of the fortress, and the tea trembled in the cup, spilling onto the polished wood.

Only then did the blonde woman get up from her seat in alarm.

...

In the middle of the sea of blinding light he’d unleashed, Caius felt nothing but pain, it wasn’t spiritual this time, just the torment of his body burning and being rebuilt at the same time, from the inside and the outside.

After all, he wasn’t immune to his own attack... if you could even call it an attack.

He didn’t hear a sound because his ears weren’t rebuilding themselves fast enough, and the same went for his eyes... it hurt... but at least he was used to this kind of pain... at least he wouldn’t die here!

Or would he?

When he released all the energy from the smelting of the souls through his arm, he made sure to aim it at the two men, which sent most of the explosion into the forest instead of the ocean.

But inside this cycle of regeneration and destruction he couldn’t hold on, soon his consciousness shut itself down and he passed out.

At the same time the white brilliance stopped expanding and reached its furthest limits, and outside its range space twisted high in the sky, where Alicia appeared first.

And with her appearance the great explosion started receding, revealing what it had left behind.

’What’s going on?’ Her crimson eyes swept over the place, which had completely changed.

The sand was gathering into a big pool of magma and cooling into black glass, and toward the ocean part of the water had disappeared, forming distant walls that collapsed the next moment as torrents rushed in to fill the gap.

The green rainforest had vanished as far as the eye could see, turned into empty blackness, not even the remains of the wood were left, except for a few small fires at the far edges.

As the explosion faded, every life that had been in the area vanished with it, hundreds of monsters in and out of the water died in a moment, and of the lucky ones nothing was left but a little of their bodies.

Alicia tensed as she stared at this, not because the explosion was frightening or strong... for someone like her it wasn’t dangerous or impressive.

But the problem was that it happened without warning... just like that, if it had been in the Hanging Islands it would’ve taken many lives... it would’ve been a global catastrophe.

But it wasn’t.

In a heartbeat Alicia swept the whole area before she found what she was looking for.

With a faint distortion she appeared on what had once been a beautiful beach, now a pool of slowly cooling magma, and on its surface two human shapes lay close to each other.

She couldn’t make out their features, one of them had already lost half of himself, and all that was left of his right side was a blackened skeleton.

The other looked better, his limbs were still there, but the skin of his face had charred and shriveled, while his mouth gaped open in a black hole, letting out his last scream.

They were dead.

But Alicia didn’t care much about them, because what she saw next made her heart sink.

Caius was lying face-down in the middle of the magma that was burning his skin... skin that kept slowly repairing itself.

"Shit!" Alicia cursed under her breath... and that was a rare thing for her, absurdly rare.

The moment she blinked she was already in front of him, his unconscious body rising into the air as she quickly checked his vital signs.

"He’s still alive." She let out a long breath of relief when she found all his signs stable, then her thoughts raced as she realized the other Kings would be here any moment.

In an instant she decided whether it was okay for them to see this or not.

And with one last look at his unconscious body, Caius vanished from in front of her.