Chapter 364: Shattered Heart

Chapter 364: Chapter 364: Shattered Heart

Chapter 364: Shattered Heart

DONG—!!!

An ancient bell toll rang out.

The shockwave of pure spiritual authority bypassed the eagle’s golden lightning and its indestructible feathers, striking directly into its vulnerable spiritual sea.

"SKREEE—"

The eagle’s shrieking abruptly cut off. Its golden eyes suddenly widened.

Its massive body froze mid-dive, the golden lightning around its beak violently flickering as its consciousness was momentarily wiped blank.

It was entirely paralyzed.

Rhain didn’t dare to waste a microsecond.

His dark grey eyes blazed with a chilling, murderous light. He channeled the entirety of his four pitch-black cores and his raw physical strength into his right arm.

"Emperor-Grade Martial Art..."

A rapidly swirling pitch-black vortex of obliterating essence gathered at his knuckles.

He aimed directly for the paralyzed eagle’s head, intending to obliterate its skull completely.

"...Eight Desolates Tyrant Fist!"

BOOOOOOM—!!!

An enormous, overwhelming wave of pure, pitch-black essence erupted from his fist, expanding outward like a rising black sun.

It swallowed the light, tearing through the dimension with an ear-piercing sound.

But just as the apocalyptic wave of destruction was mere inches from the eagle’s head...

An unexpected thing occurred.

The eagle was a late-stage Domain Master beast. Its deeply ingrained primal survival instincts were unimaginably powerful.

Sensing the aura of certain death approaching its skull, an impossible surge of fear exploded within the beast’s paralyzed mind.

Driven by the desperate will to survive, it forcefully broke through the spiritual shackles of the Monarch’s Bell a fraction of a second early.

It couldn’t fully dodge, but it frantically twisted its massive body to the side.

The pitch-black wave of the Eight Desolates Tyrant Fist missed the eagle’s head.

Instead, it slammed squarely into the beast’s left wing.

"SKREEEEEEEE—!!!"

The pitch-black essence completely obliterated and consumed the massive, golden-feathered left wing, turning flesh, bone, and lightning into nothingness.

The domineering force of the attack sent the colossal beast hurtling through the air.

It was thrown several hundred feet away, crashing into the dense forest and plowing a massive trench through the earth before lying motionless in a cloud of dust.

Silence descended over the ruined surrounding.

Lyra fell to her knees, panting heavily as she clutched her bleeding arm.

Hidden behind the giant roots, Karsten and the mercenaries slowly peeked out, their faces pale as ghosts.

"D-Did we get it?" Karsten stammered, hope flickering in his terrified eyes. "Is it dead?"

Rhain lowered his trembling right arm. His chest heaved violently. The backlash from executing the Eight Desolates Tyrant Fist had drained his four cores by nearly half.

If it weren’t for the fact that he had made a recent breakthrough, had he still been in the third level of Core Formation Realm, this single attack could have consumed

60-70% of his total reserves.

But as he looked at the distant dust cloud, every single hair on his body stood on end.

"No," Rhain whispered, a chilling dread gripping his heart.

SKREEEEEEEEEE—!!!

A deafening scream shook the entire ancient forest.

In the distance, a massive figure launched itself into the sky.

The eagle was missing its entire left wing, blood pouring from the gruesome stump, but it used the rampant explosion of its golden lightning essence to forcefully propel itself into the air.

Its golden eyes had turned red.

It had lost its sanity to the pain and rage. It was now operating purely on the berserk rage of a beast.

The eagle opened its beak wide. The surrounding spiritual essence in the basin was forcefully sucked inward.

This was not an ordinary attack. It was the beast’s innate skill, fueled by burning its very own life force!

SKREEEEEEEEEE—!!!

A compressed, blinding bolt of red lightning—thicker and more devastating than anything it had unleashed before—fired directly from its maw, aimed directly at Rhain.

It was unimaginably fast.

Rhain was completely caught off guard. His essence was entirely drained from the previous attack, and the Emperor-Grade mirror was still on cooldown!

He could only cross his arms in an attempt to defend himself.

BOOM—!!!

The red beam struck him point-blank.

"GAAAH!"

The attack effortlessly pierced through his defense.

A sound of tearing flesh echoed as the golden lightning drilled a bloody hole straight through his left abdomen.

Rhain was blasted off his feet, crashing heavily into the cracked earth.

"RHAIN!" Lyra screamed, immediately rushing toward him.

Rhain tried to push himself up, but the moment he moved, an excruciating agony tore through his entire body.

The concentrated red lightning was actively ravaging his meridians, wildly jumping across his internal organs.

The destructive law of the Level 8 Domain Master beast was so overwhelmingly dense that his Abyssal Sovereign Physique was momentarily unable to immediately heal the fatal wound.

Rhain dropped to his knees, coughing up a massive pool of crimson blood.

High in the sky, the one-winged eagle glared down at the creature who had severed its wing.

Its red eyes burned with unforgiving malice.

Despite being severely injured and its power heavily drained from using its innate skill, it refused to let him live.

The beast opened its beak again, gathering a second bolt of red lightning.

"RHAIN! GET AWAY FROM THERE!"

A hysterical scream ripped through the air.

Lyra had already been rushing toward him the moment she saw him fall.

Seeing the second beam charging, she didn’t have any time to think.

Swoosh—!

She materialized directly in front of him, reaching out her hands to pull him out of the line of fire.

But she was a fraction of a second too late.

SKREEEEEEEEEE—!!!

The second beam of red lightning fired.

Instead of hitting Rhain, the blinding pillar of destruction slammed directly into Lyra’s back as she shoved him backward.

The sound of flesh tearing echoed clearly.

The red lightning pierced through her back, erupting out from her chest.

It drove directly through her heart.

The force of that irresistible beam threw her slender body violently through the air.

She flew backward, crashing heavily onto the ground a few feet away from Rhain.

Her rapier slipped from her limp fingers, clattering uselessly against the stones.

The beautiful orange-crimson True Heavenly Flame that had always surrounded her instantly extinguished.

She lay still on the cracked earth with a gaping hole right through her chest.

"LYRA!"

Rhain ignored the excruciating agony tearing through his own abdomen.

Her crimson eyes were closed.

Her breathing had completely stopped.

Rhain’s trembling hands hovered over the gaping hole in her chest.

Through the shredded fabric of the robe, he could see that half of her beating heart had been shredded by the red lightning.

"No... no, this can’t be! If something happened to you, how would I face matriarch Seraphine" Rhain muttered frantically.

With a flick of his wrist, several flawless Mystic-Grade healing pills materialized in his palm.

He crushed them instantly, forcefully feeding the pure, concentrated liquid essence past her pale lips.

At the exact same time, he pressed his blood-stained hand over her shattered chest, desperately pouring his own dark essence into her body to manually sustain the flickering remnants of her life force.

But high above, the nightmare was not over.

SKREEE—!

The one-winged eagle hovered erratically in the sky.

It looked down, its red eyes burning with unforgiving hatred.

It saw that the dark-robed youth was still alive.

The beast wasn’t satisfied.

It opened its blood-stained beak once more.