"We got him!" Venerable Knight Damien rushed towards the earthen cauldron.
The others also rushed and surrounded the earthen cauldron, which sealed the Divine Emperor of Death.
The surviving Venerable Knights- Lussandra, Terralph, and Damien looked at each other. Five of them were taken out in a mere minute if they excluded the time spent talking, reaching here, and staring at each other. They felt it was inconceivable, but it happened. The cost of sealing an Anarchic Divergent of this caliber was steeper than they imagined.
Thankfully, they were only avatars, and even if the Divine Emperor of Death had used a grave karmic attack, it would not have affected them critically since they were Primarchs.
Venerable Knight Lussandra sighed ever so lightly, "We couldn't have done it without Renard's help and Borges's sacrifice."
Venerable Knight Renard, the possessor of the Heavenly Echo Soul, grabbed the Divine Emperor of Death's attention without them even trying. They felt it was the Divine Emperor of Death's undoing.
As for Venerable Knight Borges, he decisively chose to sacrifice his avatar to pin down the Divine Emperor of Death in his cauldron created from the Earthly Tyrant Physique. It would be nearly impossible to escape this self-sacrificial technique as it even borrows power from a realm by reversing the energy that goes to the Ethereal Lumina Tree for an extremely short period of time.
Venerable Hollow Knight Terralph nodded, "Fortunately, we made the right decision to send Foredawn away to the Verdant Vale Lower Realm. We may not be able to go there, but using fire against fire, he should be able to keep the apocalyptic flame spirit at bay for some time before we arrive there and help him take it down."
"True," Venerable Knight Lussandra nodded, "But first, we have to seal the Divine Emperor of Death fully."
The three of them watched the earthen cauldron still swallow a huge amount of divine water while the Venerable Hollow Knight's strange energy also poured into it.
There was no way the Divine Emperor of Death could come out of it. Their plan was to drown him to death and waste his energy, whereupon they could finally seal him once and for all.
"He really is dangerous." Venerable Knight Damien frowned, "Should we take him out of the realm so that he would die and his soul scatters."
The Venerable Hollow Knight shook his head.
"The Covenant should indeed be able to kill him and scatter his soul across the void. However, he was strangely confident, constantly provoking us. I presume he may have a method to recollect his shattered souls or reform himself from one shattered soul. We cannot allow that to happen."
"Then we need to seal him no matter what."
Venerable Knight Damien nodded and raised his hands towards the earthen cauldron. The rate at which the divine water poured in increased, and the ocean visibly started decreasing in size.
They knew the Divine Emperor of Death would not be able to survive as his energy would soon run out. He may have possessed terrifying abilities, but when it comes to an elaborate trap and pure force, he should run out of options, in their opinion.
After three whole minutes, they knew he would now be crushed under the stretching of space inside and the constant downpour that was like a titanic tsunami. However, his soul would survive, so they waited until the entirety of the ocean was swallowed by the earthen cauldron.
With the divine ocean gone, the earthen cauldron closed itself with a lid, completing the sealing process.
Next, the three Venerable Knights took out powerful sealing talismans and sent them towards the earthen cauldron.
However, the earthen cauldron suddenly trembled.
*Boom!~*
The entire earthen cauldron quaked, sending cracks through its hardened shell. A low, ominous hum resonated from within, like a beast awakening from its slumber. Then, darkness energy, extremely pure, over-consuming, and unrelenting, began to seep from the cracks, writhing like a living entity.
"Impossible!" Venerable Knight Damien's eyes widened. "This- this is-!"
A spiraling vortex of pitch-black energy erupted from within the cauldron, twisting into the skies like a maelstrom of the void itself. It swallowed the spatial storm in the surroundings, reducing it to minimal trouble at the edge of the void. The very air grew thin as the devouring force spread outward, sucking in the light, the heaven and earth energy, the remnants of the sky-torn battlefield.
Below that abyssal spiral, two silhouettes ascended.
One of them had their hand raised. It appeared rather frail but was currently burdened with a terrifying weight. The dark tide receded a bit, revealing black flowing hair and piercing black eyes that locked onto the Venerable Knights.
Mingzhi emerged along with Davis. Her body was wreathed in tendrils of devouring energy.
Davis stood unharmed, his gaze alight with chilling amusement. The very pressure of his presence sent cracks through the ground, his aura surging once more to its full oppressive might as the reincarnation wheel manifested behind him.
"Not a bad plan, honestly." Davis smirked, flicking his sleeves as the last traces of the earthen cauldron were sucked into Mingzhi's ever-consuming vortex.
"It's just that- you underestimated me and underestimated my people, my wives. Perhaps you should know about her because she is like the tower of my Davis Family, always having a vigilant gaze even if I mess up."
Mingzhi's lips curled, "All that drowning, and it didn't even make me use twenty percent of my energy. Are you Venerable Knights really even trying to kill my husband? Should I stand back and watch the clown show until you three are also killed?"
"…!"
The Venerable Knights glared at Mingzhi as they watched her mocking them.
"Stay out of it, Mingzhi." Davis flicked his sleeves, "I only needed your help because getting out of this cauldron myself would weaken me further, putting me at a disadvantage to new and sudden threats. Now, there are only three left, with one missing, probably having gone back to the Verdant Vale Lower Realm. I should be able to vanquish them on my own now."
"Well, have it your way. The odds are in your favor anyway."
Mingzhi shrugged, completely dismissing the threat of the Venerable Knights.
Davis grinned at Mingzhi before he turned to look at Venerable Hollow Knight.
"I kept wondering why you never dared to near me head-on. At first, I thought it was because you were strategizing on how to seal me. No, you were indeed planning on how to seal me, but it turns out that my chaos-destruction energy is your bane, so you never bothered to be near me."
"…"
The Venerable Hollow Knight didn't respond. He possessed an indifferent expression on his face.
"You can choose not to talk, but thanks to you constantly using your strange energy to restrict my movements and send me spiraling deep inside while causing me to drown, I can now gladly say that I have finished analyzing your powers."
Davis nodded to himself thrice as he continued, "So you use a fusion of Darkness Laws and Yin Fusion with Space Laws in order to create a hollow space within your body or even a single cell, allowing you to store objects and vast amounts of foreign energy, which then your physique processes by devouring like Mingzhi did or throw it outside the void through bypassing the layers through hollowing out a pathway again. Am I right?"
"…"
The Venerable Hollow Knight still looked indifferent, but his pupils clearly dilated as though he was unable to hide his shock.