Chapter 65: Answer my blood... Your Liege calls

The High Sanctuary was no longer a sacred hall.

It was a screaming storm of dark arcana and shattered stone.

The once-pristine marble floor had become a landscape of fractured tiles, molten black glass, and smoking craters. Ancient pillars leaned at impossible angles, their surfaces crawling with corrosive void-fire. The shattered remains of holy statues lay scattered across the sanctuary, their faces melted away by the sheer intensity of the battle.

Above it all, Elizabeth hovered three feet above the liquefying marble floor.

Her four raven-black wings were fully expanded, casting massive, writhing shadows that stretched across the cathedral walls. Corrosive void-fire swirled around her in violent, razor-sharp torrents, darkening the air so severely that the only source of light came from the violent crimson pulses bleeding from Valerian’s black porcelain mask.

BOOM!

Valerian’s morphing staff was currently locked in its heavy, black-iron warhammer form.

He slammed the massive head into a rising pillar of void-fire.

The collision detonated with enough force to shake the entire sanctuary.

The dense gravitational weight embedded within the weapon shattered the spell in a blinding shockwave, scattering fragments of compressed darkness across the cathedral.

The recoil blew Valerian ten paces backward.

His boots carved deep, smoking grooves into the scorched floor.

His dark silk coat was frayed at the edges, singed by abyssal heat. A thin line of blood ran beneath his mask, disappearing along his jaw.

And his breathing—normally silent and imperceptible—was heavy, echoing raspily from behind his pitch-black porcelain mask.

Beside him, Seraphina was panting heavily.

Her face was covered in sweat and grey soot. Her ceremonial white robes were torn and stained with blood, and several strands of golden hair clung to her forehead.

In her trembling hands, she held a short holy crest dagger.

Golden divine arcana flared around her body, stretched to its absolute limit as she maintained a cracking light barrier around them both.

CRACK!

A second volley of void-blades slammed into the golden barrier.

The holy light shattered into glittering dust.

The sheer kinetic force blasted Seraphina off her feet.

"Seraphina!"

Valerian moved instantly.

He executed an instantaneous shadow-step, disappearing into a smear of black.

He reappeared behind her and caught her mid-air.

The impact drove him backward.

His shoulder slammed hard against a fallen marble pillar.

CRUNCH!

Valerian coughed.

A thin trail of dark blood trickled down his jaw beneath the edge of his black mask.

Seraphina stared at him in horror.

"Valerian..."

"Are you injured?"

She shook her head rapidly.

"No."

"Good."

Valerian released her and stepped forward again.

His gaze returned to Elizabeth.

They were losing.

Elizabeth was not an opponent that could be casually dismantled through assassination techniques.

Five hundred years of bearing the weight of abyssal corruption had turned her into a walking calamity.

Her reaction speeds matched Valerian’s spatial micro-shifts, while her void-fire continuously eroded both divine magic and dragon-fire alike.

Worse, every attack she unleashed seemed to grow stronger.

She wasn’t merely fighting.

She was adapting.

"Is this the extent of the northern phantom?" Elizabeth mocked softly.

Her voice echoed with thousands of whispering, overlapping spectral tones.

She drifted lower, her abyssal crimson eyes looking down upon the battered pair with absolute superiority.

"You move with precision, masked boy. You shift through space, wield morphing steel, and shelter a Saintess whose prayers are useless against me."

Her lips curved into a faint smile.

"But precision means nothing against absolute destruction."

Elizabeth raised her left hand toward the dark, swirling ceiling.

THOOM.

THOOM.

THOOM.

The air in the sanctuary grew impossibly heavy.

Spatial fissures cracked open around the altar.

They resembled wounds in reality itself, leaking black, pool-like portals of liquid shadows onto the marble floor.

Something moved inside them.

Then something stepped out.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Massive figures emerged from the darkness.

They were clad in jagged, obsidian full-plate armor, their faces entirely hidden behind barbed visors.

Black, ethereal flames burst from their eye-slits.

Each warrior carried an eight-foot executioner’s greatsword dripping with dark, soul-eating arcana.

The Dark Knights of Abaddon.

The moment all six stepped onto the marble floor, the sanctuary groaned beneath their combined presence.

Each one radiated an aura equivalent to an elite high-tier abyssal commander.

The pressure in the room multiplied tenfold.

Seraphina’s knees buckled.

She clutched Valerian’s arm, her sapphire eyes wide with utter, hopeless horror.

"Valerian..."

Her voice trembled.

"Those are... those are fallen paladins corrupted by the abyss."

She swallowed.

"We can’t defeat six of them alongside her."

The six Dark Knights drew their massive blades in unison.

SHRIIIIING!

The screech of dark iron echoed through the ruined hall like the screams of the damned.

They stepped forward.

One knight moved toward the eastern exit.

Another blocked the western corridor.

Two positioned themselves directly in front of Valerian.

The final pair remained near Elizabeth, forming an impenetrable defensive formation.

Every escape route was gone.

Elizabeth rested her hands over her collarbone, floating gracefully above her iron champions.

She looked at Valerian’s battered form.

At his singed coat.

At the thin trail of blood dripping from beneath his mask.

Her smile widened.

"You brought no army, boy."

Her voice carried a cold, chilling edge of triumph.

"You leaped into my domain with a broken Saintess and a toy staff."

She tilted her head.

"Is that all you have?"

The void-fire surrounding her intensified.

"Is this the absolute limit of the northern shadow?"

Silence descended upon the High Sanctuary.

Only the crackle of burning void-fire remained.

And the heavy, ragged breathing of the Saintess.

Valerian didn’t pull Seraphina behind him.

He didn’t raise his warhammer.

He didn’t shift his stance.

Instead...

He slowly released his grip.

The charcoal weapon slipped from his fingers.

CLANG.

The morphing staff struck the stone floor.

Its spatial runes dimmed.

Seraphina stared at him.

"Valerian?"

He didn’t answer.

Slowly, methodically, Valerian stood to his full height.

Then he raised his right hand to his black porcelain mask.

CLICK.

He unhooked the side latches.

He didn’t remove the mask.

He simply shifted it slightly, tilting it just enough to expose his mouth and jaw.

Elizabeth’s expression changed.

Only slightly.

But it changed.

Something about the movement felt wrong.

Valerian raised his left hand.

His long fingers pressed against his own neck.

Then his nails pierced his flesh.

Blood welled instantly.

Not ordinary blood.

Dark, glowing crimson blood flowed over his fingers and down his collarbone.

Valerian didn’t scream.

He didn’t wince.

He didn’t even blink.

As his blood spilled onto his hand, something changed inside his body.

The three dragon cores in his chest didn’t hum.

They screamed.

A dense, ancient, terrifying pressure began leaking from his body.

The black void-fire swirling around Elizabeth stalled.

For the first time since the battle began, the flames stopped moving.

Elizabeth’s eyes widened.

"What..."

The shadows beneath Valerian’s coat began to move.

Nox’Aethel’s presence erupted.

His shadow form thrashed violently, transforming into a tide of living, pitch-black liquid that poured from beneath Valerian’s coat and pooled around his boots.

The Dark Knights stopped.

Their black flames flickered.

One of them instinctively took a step backward.

Elizabeth noticed.

Her eyes narrowed.

"What are you?"

Valerian slowly lifted his blood-covered hand.

His crimson eyes burned through the narrow openings of his mask.

The light inside them was no longer entirely human.

It was ancient.

Predatory.

Absolute.

When he spoke, his voice was no longer that of a mortal boy.

Nor was it the voice of Ghost.

It was a cold, slow, heavy resonance that vibrated through the deep bedrock of the continent itself.

A voice woven from dragon-fire, abyssal authority, and primordial dominion.

"Answer my blood..."

The words rolled through the sanctuary.

The Dark Knights trembled.

Valerian opened his fingers.

A single drop of crimson blood fell from his fingertip.

It struck the scorched floor.

THUD.

The sound was impossibly loud.

Valerian lowered his head.

"...Your Liege calls."

BOOM!

The High Sanctuary exploded.

The floor didn’t merely crack.

It shattered.

Every remaining section of marble beneath Valerian collapsed into a bottomless lake of boiling crimson light.

A massive rift of dark crimson arcana tore open behind him.

It stretched nearly a hundred feet into the air, ripping through the stone floor and piercing straight through the cathedral roof.

The bruised sky above the Holy Kingdom became illuminated by a pillar of blood-red light.

The six Dark Knights froze.

Their ethereal black eye-flames flickered violently.

Their massive obsidian armor trembled.

Something had awakened.

Something their corrupted souls remembered.

Something older than the abyss they served.

The first Dark Knight raised its greatsword.

It couldn’t move.

Its body refused to obey.

From the crimson rift came the sound of marching.

CLANG.

CLANG.

CLANG.

CLANG.

Five hundred armored boots struck the marble in perfect synchronization.

From the burning rift emerged the Blood Shadow Legion.

Five hundred elite knights marched into the High Sanctuary.

They were clad in dark crimson, draconian-scaled plate armor.

Their narrow helm slits burned with ember-red light.

Every warrior carried a colossal tower shield in one hand and a longsword dripping with dark dragon-fire in the other.

They marched in perfect formation.

No shouting.

No battle cries.

No wasted movement.

Only the thunderous rhythm of five hundred soldiers answering the call of their sovereign.

CLANG.

CLANG.

CLANG.

The sound rolled through the sanctuary like an approaching storm.

Seraphina stared.

Her mouth fell slightly open.

She had seen Valerian fight.

She had watched him dismantle elite cultists without magic.

She had witnessed him duel a Demon Lord.

But she had never seen this.

This wasn’t a summoned army.

It was an army answering its king.

At the front of the formation, one massive figure stepped forward.

Invictus.

General of the Blood Shadow Legion.

The eight-foot-tall warrior wore ornate crimson-gold armor, its surface carved with ancient draconic symbols.

A massive greatsword rested casually across his shoulder.

His blazing red eyes locked onto the six Dark Knights.

He flexed his aura.

BOOM!

The marble beneath his feet collapsed.

The six Dark Knights instinctively tightened their grips.

Beside Invictus stepped another figure.

Atlas.

The legion’s living fortress.

Atlas possessed a human frame, but calling him merely human would have been an insult to the sheer physical monstrosity of his body.

He was enormous.

Overwhelmingly muscular.

A giant of a man built like an immovable tank knight.

His colossal shoulders were draped in thick, dark crimson steel plate that seemed fused to his massive frame.

His arms were thick as ancient tree trunks.

In his hands rested a gargantuan fortress shield.

The thing looked less like a weapon and more like a section of a castle wall ripped from its foundations.

Atlas slammed its base into the marble floor.

BOOM!

A shockwave erupted outward.

The surrounding void-flames flattened instantly.

Elizabeth’s face went deathly pale.

Her four black wings trembled.

For the first time, the Tenth Demon Lord looked genuinely unsettled.

Five hundred blood-shadow knights stood behind their sovereign.

Five hundred elite warriors.

An entire army.

At their front stood Invictus, the vanguard general.

And beside him stood Atlas, an immovable wall of crimson steel.

The atmosphere changed completely.

Seraphina fell backward onto her hands.

Her breath had been stolen from her lungs.

She stared at the crimson army filling the cathedral.

"They... came..."

Valerian slowly lowered his bloodied hand.

The crimson glow surrounding his body settled.

His mask shifted back into place.

CLICK.

His face disappeared behind the porcelain once again.

Invictus lowered his massive greatsword.

He brought the hilt to his chest in a crisp, thunderous salute.

Atlas stood beside him like an impenetrable wall, his glowing eyes fixed upon the enemy.

Invictus’s deep voice vibrated through the stone.

"Your command, my Liege?"

Valerian stared through the narrow openings of his black porcelain mask.

His crimson gaze locked directly onto the stunned face of the Tenth Demon Lord.

Elizabeth’s wings slowly spread.

Her expression hardened.

The Blood Shadow Legion raised their weapons.

Five hundred blades ignited with dark crimson dragon-fire.

Valerian’s voice was quiet.

Almost gentle.

"Erase them."

The sanctuary shook.

Five hundred warriors moved as one.

And for the first time in five hundred years...

The Tenth Demon Lord understood fear.