The ground of the Crushing Void—if it could even be called ground—shuddered beneath her bare feet. Her entire body ignited in a hue of gold. Her Soul Energy was not flashy at first but as she walked, it got brighter.
The Sucking Void reacted immediately.
The oppressive darkness that perpetually pressed down on the Crushing Void began to thin. Wherever she stepped, the void-stuff unraveled. It kept dissolving into harmless static that vanished with a faint hiss. It was subtle at first but with every step, the radius expanded, as though the Void itself was giving ground out of instinct and fear.
She walked calmly with her hands loose at her sides. Every single one of the Voidborn noticed her. From the smallest skittering horrors with too many limbs and not enough faces to the towering abominations whose bodies were stitched together from the concept of violence itself, the entire army turned their heads in unison. Hundreds of thousands of glowing red orbs for eyes glared onto her glowing figure. To the Voidborn Giants, she was little more than a luminous speck but to the rest of the army, she was a blazing, golden flame.
Vastarael stopped.
Right there, at the edge of annihilation, she raised one hand and traced a Calculation Rune into the air with two fingers. The rune began to glitch. Numbers flickered wildly, struggling to stabilize under the sheer density of data being forced through them. The rune recalculated again and again and finally, it revealed the number of the Voidborn.
1,303,000.
Vastarael stared at the number for a moment.
"Huh. Triple. That's… a lot more than I expected."
High above, looming silhouettes shifted as five Voidborn Giants straightened to their full, obscene heights. Their massive frames blocked what passed for a sky. Their attention was fully on her now,
"Yeah, okay. Maybe I overdid the glow."
Her Soul Energy vanished instantly that the Sinking Void stumbled over itself in confusion. The sudden absence of Soul Energy, their weakness and existential poison, sent a ripple through the Voidborn ranks. Some were confused. Others froze. A few let out distorted, panicked shrieks as their instincts screamed that something had gone very wrong.
Vastarael kept walking. From a cinematic angle, it would have looked tragic. One lone figure was advancing into a tidal wave of monsters like she was late to an appointment rather than marching toward mass slaughter. It was a scene that one would believe was a final stand. Except, it wasn't.
The Voidborn charged.
The front lines surged forward in a chaotic flood as they rushed her position. Even the non-sentient ones knew better than to hesitate. They had seen what she did. They had watched entire battalions vanish because of them. Still, they came.
Vastarael stopped again. Her right hand clenched.
Golden light emerged from her arm itself. Soul Energy surged through her prosthetic limb. The artificial construct was responding as naturally as flesh thanks to its direct connection to her Aeterium soul. The energy wrapped around her arm in tight, controlled layers, condensing rather than expanding. Since she could actively summon Omniphage, she managed to extract a large amount of Soul Energy from her soul.
"Plenituse Technique, First Form, Viridescence."
She punched the air.
A perfect horizontal slash of golden annihilation tore forward from her fist a concept where existence simply stopped being allowed. The shockwave followed milliseconds later that shook the Void itself. Everything caught in that line ceased to exist.
Bodies, souls and void-matter were wiped clean so thoroughly that not even residue remained. The Sucking Void itself was incinerated. The darkness was stripped away in a razor-straight corridor that extended beyond sight, leaving behind nothing but blinding, absolute white. The shockwaves spread outward from the line, flattening anything nearby that wasn't directly erased.
When it was over, everyone looked at the damage.
A clean straight trench of nothingness cut through the Crushing Void, dividing the battlefield in two. On one side, the remaining Voidborn stood frozen, staring at the emptiness where over a hundred thousand of their own had just… vanished.
Vastarael lowered her arm. She flexed her fingers once, rolling her shoulder. She saw the Calculation Rune glitching again before revealing the numbers.
1,043,938.
"That should thin the crowd a bit."
The Voidborn were still processing the damage. Some stood frozen. Others twitched like broken puppets,
"As tempting as it is, using all four Plenituse Techniques right now would just end the party too fast. So, let's have some fun."
Physical Runes appeared along her body before sinking beneath her skin. She had drawn them on herself beforehand, focusing only on Speed, Agility and Strength Runes.
In a blink of an eye, she simply wasn't there anymore.
The space she had occupied exploded a split second later as Vastarael reappeared inside the Voidborn ranks. The first creature didn't even have time to react before her fist—coated in dense Soul Energy—drove clean through its torso.
The punch didn't stop.
A golden shockwave incinerated everything in a cone behind it. Voidborn were vaporized mid-scream. Their bodies were reduced to drifting mist and nothing else. Vastarael twisted on her heel and slammed her elbow into another creature's skull. Every punch was a killing technique. Every strike carried enough force to shatter cities. Shockwaves rippled through the Void with each blow, tearing apart anything unfortunate enough to be nearby.
She laughed.
"Oh, this is nice. I missed this! First Technique, Viridescence!"
She spun, sweeping her leg low.
Viridescence flared along her shin and a crescent-shaped slash of gold Soul Energy sliced through ranks of Voidborn like a scythe through tall grass. Tens of thousands were bisected instantly with their halves dissolving before they could even hit the foggy ground. The crescent detonated seconds later. The shockwave blasted Voidborn bodies in every direction when black blood raining down like oil-soaked hail. Vastarael emerged from the blast zone already moving. Her body was covered in their blood.
With one hand, she grabbed a Voidborn by the face and slammed it into the ground hard enough to crater the Void beneath them. With the other, she punched the air point blank at a charging horde. Soul Energy erupted in a blinding flash that incinerated everything in a horizontal line. She kicked off a collapsing corpse, flipped in midair and brought her heel down on another creature's spine. The shockwave split the ground.
The Voidborn began to panic.
Their formations broke. Their coordination shattered. Creatures that had charged without fear moments ago now hesitated, turned and ran. They scrambled over one another, shrieking in terror as Vastarael tore through them from behind, laughing all the while.
"Oh no, no, no!"
She said cheerfully, grabbing one by the leg and swinging it like a club through a group of its allies.
"You don't get to leave now! You started this!"
She hurled the broken body forward, then vanished again, reappearing above the fleeing masses. Her leg drew back.
"Viridescence."
A massive crescent slash erupted from her foot, slicing clean through the Voidborn horde. The energy wave detonated mid-flight, triggering a chain of explosions that swallowed tens of thousands whole. Black blood coated her from head to toe now, dripping from her hair, her combat suit and her hands. She didn't care. She reveled in it.
"I never get to do this anymore!" She shouted, tearing through another cluster with her bare hands. "I haven't gone all out like this since I was in Erna Isles!"
She punched, kicked, tore, and annihilated them. Her body was a perfect conduit for Soul Energy. She crushed skulls with her palms, shattered limbs with casual hand-to-hand combat and obliterated entire groups just by passing through them too fast for their bodies to survive.
To the Voidborn, she wasn't an enemy. She was a monster. As they fled, screamed and died in agony, Vastarael only laughed harder.
"YES! RUN AWAY! CALL OUT TO YOUR CREATORS IN AGONY! ENTERTAIN ME!"