“You wretched beast!” A piercing cry echoed from the depths of the Demon Castle, shattering the eerie silence that had settled after Philip’s gruesome death.
A golden dagger shot out like a bolt of lightning, its dark glow pulsating with ominous energy.
Kent’s heart skipped a beat at the sudden cry. He turned around, his sharp gaze locking onto the source of the malevolent voice.
Hovering above the Demon Castle, draped in robes of shifting shadows and flickering flames, was the Goddess of Destruction and Death herself. Her eyes burned with the intensity of a thousand dying stars, her expression twisted in unbridled fury.
“Do you think you have won this war by slaying that insect of a Demon Lord?” she roared, her voice shaking the very fabric of space. “As long as I exist within these walls, the Demon Race shall never fall! You made a grave mistake by marching your warriors here, human. And an even greater one by daring to use poison against my children. Now, allow me to show you what true poison looks like!”
The golden dagger in her hand flared with a ghastly dark aura, and in an instant, an inky black mist spilled from its blade. It moved like a living beast, unfurling across the battlefield in waves of suffocating death. The very air became thick with the presence of the Nether Region’s Torture Poison—one of the ten most dreaded poisons in existence.
The humans began to choke, their lungs burning as if fire and ice warred within them. Cries of agony erupted throughout the battlefield as warriors fell to their knees, clutching their throats, their bodies convulsing violently.
Kent’s eyes widened in horror. He knew this poison. It did not merely kill; it tormented its victims, making them feel the pain of death a thousand times over before the final breath left their bodies.
Meanwhile, the Demons, emboldened by their Goddess’s power, erupted in victorious cries. Their weapons gleamed under the tainted light of the battlefield as they lunged forward, hacking and slashing at their weakened human foes with newfound vigor.
Kent gritted his teeth. ‘I must act now, or this battle is lost!’
Without hesitation, he drew several rare herbs from his spatial ring, crushed them in his palm, and ignited them in his Nirvanic Flames. He had no time to prepare an antidote—the only way to counter this poison was to extract the essence of these sacred herbs through divine fire.
He circled the battlefield and burned the herbs at great speed and tried all his best to stop the dark poison.
But before he could complete the purification, a wicked cackle filled the battlefield.
The Forbidden Goddess sneered at Kent’s desperate efforts. “Pathetic. Do you think your little tricks can counter my divine curse?”
Raising her hands to the sky, she chanted an incantation in an ancient, dead language:
“Nagastho viparinaman, sratim nasa yati!”
At once, thousands of tiny spectral snakes materialized from the ground. They slithered toward Kent with unholy speed, coiling around his legs, arms, and torso. Their fangs, dripping with an unknown venom, sank into his flesh, injecting him with a poison unlike anything he had ever faced before.
Kent tried to shake them off, but for every snake he crushed, two more took its place. Whenever the snake died, more was produced from its blood. Within seconds, his entire body was encased in a writhing mass of spectral serpents, leaving no part of him visible.
A strangled gasp escaped his lips as he fell to the ground, his limbs paralyzed by the sheer potency of the venom. His vision blurred, his heartbeat slowed, and a cold numbness began creeping through his veins. He could feel the poison eating away at his soul.
“KENT!” Madam Clark’s voice rang out in sheer desperation.
A choked sob escaped her as she saw her son’s motionless form. Around her, warriors fell into despair, their morale crumbling like sandcastles before a tidal wave.
All women of Kent rushed towards him with tears streaking down their cheeks. The elders rushed to see the situation of Kent life.
The Forbidden Goddess let out a triumphant laugh. “Kill them all!” she commanded. “Do not let a single human leave this battlefield alive!”
The Demon Army surged forward, their bloodlust ignited anew. The Abyssal Ghosts rose from the depths of the castle, their ethereal wails chilling even the bravest of warriors to their very core.
The battlefield descended into madness.
Just as all hope seemed lost, a figure descended from the Eternal Musical Hall which is hovering at the end of the battlefield. His frail form barely visible through the dense smoke of battle.
It was an old man. Skinny, withered, and draped in tattered robes, he looked as if a single gust of wind could scatter him into dust. Yet, despite his frailty, there was an undeniable power in his presence. His very existence radiated an aura of defiance against death itself.
The legendary Life Bender had arrived.
A mournful wail echoed across the battlefield. Sparky, the ancient dragon, flew to the old man’s side for help, tears glistening in its luminous eyes.
The old man patted the dragon’s head and murmured, “Don’t worry, nothing will happen to your master.”
Mounting the beast, he shot forward like a comet. As he entered the battlefield, he simply raised his hands.
At once, millions of demons let out piercing cries of agony. They clawed at their own flesh, their bodies convulsing in unnatural ways. Some dropped their weapons, others fell to their knees, writhing in pain. The once victorious Demon Army was now nothing more than a sea of suffering creatures.
The spectators watching through glass orbs gasped in disbelief.
“This… This is the power of the Life Bender! He is still alive… the legend is true!” one lesser god shouted in awe.
The Forbidden Goddess’s expression twisted into one of pure rage. “How dare you interfere, old fool!” she shrieked, gathering dark energy between her hands.
But before she could unleash her wrath, the first rays of the sun pierced the battlefield.