"Drop the hammer!"
Cecil's voice pierced the static of the command channel, firm and unyielding.
Far above the Bermuda Triangle, the sky ruptured as a colossal orbital platform came to life. For one blinding moment, it rivaled the brilliance of the sun before releasing a scorching column of red light that ripped downward with the force of divine retribution.
The ocean heaved violently. Water transformed instantly into vapor, spawning a massive whirlpool that threatened to devour the surrounding waves.
Deep within the abyss, the battle had already driven four heroes to their limits.
"Hold him, NOW!" William bellowed, blood pouring from numerous wounds as his sword plunged into the beast's ridged scales. His trembling arms betrayed his exhaustion, yet he refused to relinquish his grip.
Eve's glowing pink constructs wrapped around Nereuson's immense limbs, crackling with strain as they struggled to keep the monstrous dragon restrained. "I can't hold him much longer!" she yelled, her voice strained as fractures spread across her energy bindings.
Rain surged ahead, his form dissolving into a spiraling vortex. Coiling around the creature's neck, he transformed into a living noose of water. "Then I'll make him choke on me!"
"RAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
Nereuson's twin maws gaped wide, one unleashing a torrent of crushing oceanic power, the other expelling void-black energy that seemed to consume the surrounding light. The abyss quaked with his fury.
And then he felt it, the descending brilliance. His massive eyes snapped upward, pupils shrinking in primal recognition of the impending destruction.
With a violent thrash, he broke free of Eve's chains, flinging William from his back. William hurtled through the water until he collided brutally with a coral outcropping, coughing blood. Yet, summoning all the will and grit he had left, he forced himself upright.
"No… not yet…!" William staggered forward once more, blade raised high.
The sea itself rumbled as Nereuson coiled upward, his jaws parting to unleash his destructive will against the incoming star-fire. His twin beams converged into a single shrieking torrent, one half ocean-blue, the other an abyssal void of black, and he launched it skyward with devastating force.
"NOW, RAIN!" Eve shouted.
Rain's liquid body constricted tightly around the dragon's throat like a crushing vice. The strain was unbearable, boiling his very essence, yet he pulled with every ounce of strength he had.
Nereuson's aim faltered, just enough.
The twin beam missed by a fraction, shearing into the depths while the descending orbital blast cleaved through it like a molten blade through silk.
No…! the dragon realized too late.
The red light consumed his counterattack, tearing it apart before continuing its unrelenting path. It struck Nereuson's body, carving deep into his tail.
Scales. Muscle. Bone. All obliterated into nothingness.
"RAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHH!" His scream reverberated through the abyss as half his form disintegrated under the torrent of annihilation. He crashed onto the ocean floor, thrashing and clawing in desperation, but the beam did not relent. It pinned him there, an insect caught beneath a magnifying glass.
The abyss turned to daylight.
The ocean boiled.
And in that searing brilliance, Nereuson's colossal frame was utterly consumed.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
The shockwave ripped through the sea, silencing all sound. When the light finally dimmed, the abyss held only a smoking crater where the great dragon had once loomed.
The heroes drifted amid the settling chaos, broken, bloodied, but alive.
From high above, Cecil's voice crackled through the comms, quieter this time. "God help us… if that wasn't enough."
For a long moment, silence reigned. The abyss, once teeming with chaos and fury, now lay eerily still and lifeless. Only drifting plumes of vapor and faint tremors from collapsing stone, where the dragon's immense weight had crushed the seabed, disturbed the quiet.
William floated unsteadily in the water, his chest rising and falling with labored breaths. His sword hung loosely from his hand, its once-proud edge dulled by the relentless punishment it had endured. Scarlet ribbons of blood spiraled upward from his wounds, unnoticed as his gaze remained fixed on the crater below.
"Is… is it over?" Eve's voice broke the silence, weak and brittle. Her glowing constructs flickered uncertainly before dissolving into fading motes of pink light as she finally surrendered to rest.
Rain reformed beside her, his movements sluggish and unstable, as though even the water resisted holding his form together. "It has to be," he rasped, droplets falling from his face like beads of sweat. "Nothing could survive that."
William didn't respond immediately. His narrowed eyes stayed locked on the smoldering wound carved into the earth, the crater's edges faintly glowing where the beam had turned stone to glass. No movement. No shadow. Not a trace of the beast's scales.
"I saw it take him," William said at last, his voice low and subdued. "Every piece of him. He's gone."
The three heroes hovered in the vast emptiness, their exhaustion palpable. Their limbs trembled, their lungs burned, and their minds struggled to grasp the enormity of what they had just endured.
"We… we did it," Eve whispered tentatively, as if voicing it might shatter the fragile peace. Then, with a shaky laugh, she repeated louder, "We actually did it."
Rain managed a smirk, though it was tinged with weariness and bitterness. "Looks like we're the team that killed a god."
William didn't share their relief. His eyes remained fixed on the crater. Even in his battered state, instincts gnawed at him, instincts passed down from an immortal father who had witnessed too many foes rise again from presumed graves. Yet, he forced himself to believe, if only for a moment, that this time it was truly over.
"We managed to give the world one more day," he finally said, his voice steady but laced with grim determination.
RUMBLE!!!
As if emphasizing the fragile balance between hope and terror, an immense and unholy pressure bore down on the ocean floor, scattering the dense dust cloud around Nereuson's body with violent force. In its wake, his bloodied and severely wounded form was unveiled, a grim testament to the battle endured.
However, Nereuson, instead of launching another attack, began to writhe violently, resembling a snake caught in an electric current, with an unusual dark ichor oozing from its wounds in place of blood.
In a scene so grotesque that Eve vomited and Rain averted her gaze, the dragon's body began to visibly shrink, its muscles, bones, and tendons snapping and contorting as they were forcibly rearranged by an unknown power.
"N... Nooo... You promised we would work together... You..."
A pained gurgle echoed as tears streamed down the dragon's face, its form being forcibly drawn into a strange, dark orb mid-sentence. Every scale, every tooth was absorbed in a process that was both violent and agonizing until the dark orb finally cracked.
WENG!
A dazzling light erupted across the ocean floor, its brilliance rivaling that of Atlantis itself. The radiance forced William, Eve, Rain, Aquarius, and the surviving Atlanteans, who had just endured the battle with the smaller fish, to shield their eyes, lest they risk losing their sight entirely.
As the light dimmed sufficiently for the heroes and Atlanteans to regain their vision, they were united in astonishment. The dragon had seemingly taken on a humanoid form, its body covered in dark, menacing scales instead of soft flesh. This transformation was unmistakable, marked by the prominent, thick draconic horns jutting from its head and the long, scaled tail, which it swiftly coiled around its waist like a belt.
The draconic human abruptly opened his eyes, unveiling a pair of irises that gleamed with pure gold, radiating an overwhelming sense of primal and profound fear among the Atlanteans, as though they were standing before a true apex predator.
"That dragon had an insatiable penchant for squandering precious time, time that could have been dedicated to achieving meaningful goals, such as locating my lost brother. However, that is now irrelevant. I have seized control of this draconic form, and you now stand before Ruin!" A voice, both terrifying and eloquent, echoed across the nearby oceans, its sheer power causing millions of smaller sea creatures to perish instantly from overwhelming fear.
William's grip tightened around his sword, the weapon trembling as much from his exhaustion as from the overwhelming presence of what stood before them.
Eve swallowed hard, her shaking hands flaring again with pink light. "We can't let him… we can't let this thing leave."
Rain, still unstable in form, snarled and surged forward. "Then we finish him here and now!"
"Together," William growled, lifting his blade high. "We hold nothing back."
They attacked as one.
Eve unleashed a tempest of colossal constructs, jagged spears of radiant energy, luminous fists the size of buildings, walls collapsing inward like crushing jaws. Each blow, powerful enough to destroy fortresses, converged upon Ruin in a dazzling, unrelenting onslaught.
Simultaneously, Rain transformed into a cyclone, swirling around their foe like a predatory whirlpool, every particle of his being sharpening into blades of high-pressure water capable of slicing through steel.
With a thunderous roar, William threw himself forward, his sword blazing as it slashed downward with the immortal fury surging through his veins. The very ocean seemed to part under the force of his strike.
The abyss trembled from the force of their combined assault.
But Ruin… did not flinch.
The barrage struck him like a convergence of a thousand storms. Light, water, and steel pounded his body in an unrelenting cascade. The seabed fractured, sending shockwaves that displaced the Atlanteans miles away.
Yet when the chaos subsided, Ruin remained exactly where he had stood, arms folded behind his back, golden eyes watching the three heroes with an air of detached indifference.
Not a scratch.Not a bruise.Not even a ripple of resistance.
His expression never changed, calm, bored, as though they were children striking a mountain with sticks.
William froze mid-swing, the tip of his blade resting against Ruin's collarbone. It had stopped there, as though striking solid stone. He pushed harder, muscles bulging, veins tearing beneath his skin. The blade refused to pierce even an inch.
"W-What…?" Eve's voice broke, horror flooding her face as her constructs shattered harmlessly against him.
Rain reformed, panting, water dripping from him as though wrung dry. His eyes widened with dawning terror. "That was everything I had…"
Ruin tilted his head slightly, finally acknowledging them with the faintest flicker of interest. "Hmm. Pathetic."
The single word cut deeper than any blade.
With casual indifference, Ruin lifted one hand, slow, deliberate. William braced, raising his sword in defense. Eve flared her constructs again, trembling. Rain tried to rally, his form unsteady.
Ruin seized the blade William wielded with his bare hands, gripping it firmly and applying immense pressure.
CRACK!
The sword, Morganna, began to splinter and, moments later, shattered completely under the force of Ruin's grip. Without hesitation, Ruin drove his hand through the broken blade and clasped William by the throat.
"AGGH!"
William clawed desperately at the hand crushing his neck, but it felt as though iron clamps were locking him in place. Despite all the strength he had gained, he was powerless, reduced to the helplessness of a child being overpowered by an adult.
SNAP!
William's eyes widened in shock and pain as his spine snapped under Ruin's merciless grip. The light drained from his eyes, and with a disdainful flick of his arm, Ruin hurled William aside. His body collided with a nearby cliff, the impact so devastating that the entire structure crumbled around him.
Eve's scream ripped through the abyss, raw and primal, as William's body crumpled beneath Ruin's effortless brutality, breaking something fundamental within her. Her constructs no longer shimmered with precision; instead, they erupted in jagged, chaotic spires of blinding pink light. The ocean seethed and roiled, her grief manifesting as a swarm of serrated lances that descended upon Ruin like a divine storm, intent on tearing him asunder.
Rain was already in motion, his fluid form transforming into a colossal tidal serpent, abandoning his calm, strategic demeanor for a vengeful fury. "YOU MONSTER!" he roared, his voice reverberating with rage as he collided with Ruin's side, enveloping him in a crushing maelstrom of immense pressure, capable of shredding steel into ribbons.
Even the battered Atlanteans, who moments ago had quailed in fear before the abomination, felt their spirits ignite. Wielding spears, tridents, and blades now glowing with bioluminescent fury, they charged forward with deafening war cries, driven by a shared thirst for vengeance for the one who had stood as their shield and strength.
Ruin remained unfazed. His expression betrayed no hint of concern. The pink lances tore into his flesh, the whirlpool battered against his unyielding form, and Atlantean steel struck his frame with fervor, all to no effect, as though raindrops splattered against stone. He tilted his head slightly, his golden predator eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly.
"Better," he murmured.
He moved.
One hand tore through Rain's liquid form, scattering him into countless droplets. With the other, he swept aside Eve's storm of constructs, shattering them like delicate glass. An Atlantean captain charged forward with a glowing trident; Ruin caught the weapon mid-thrust, snapping it in half and driving the jagged end into the warrior's chest in a single motion.
Yet they persisted. They screamed. They bled.
Eve's constructs reformed, no longer chains or shields but massive, unyielding fists that pummeled Ruin without hesitation. Rain reassembled, hurling himself at Ruin repeatedly like a frenzied beast, disregarding the searing pain coursing through his liquid body. The Atlanteans fought with reckless determination, scores falling in moments but refusing to retreat.
For the first time, Ruin's composed demeanor shifted, ever so slightly. A faint smile played at the corner of his lips. Not irritation. Not fury. Pleasure.
"You fight well… despite your defeat being certain," he murmured, almost approvingly, as his form began to radiate a darker, more menacing energy, his scales glowing like molten obsidian. "Show me more."
[AN - All will fall into Ruin! so why not leave me a review telling me what you all thought of the chapter?]