Chapter 365: Dying Sky Red

Chapter 365: Chapter 365: Dying Sky Red

Chapter 365: Dying Sky Red

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.

Golden lightning crackled wildly, gathering into a concentrated beam.

It was visibly weaker and thinner than the previous two—a clear sign that the beast’s life force was heavily drained from overdrawing its innate skill—but it was still a Level 8 Domain Master’s attack.

Against Rhain and Lyra in their current, half-dead states, it was still a guaranteed death sentence.

Karsten and the mercenaries were already rushing frantically across the cratered wasteland toward them.

"LORD RHAIN! WATCH OUT!"

The golden beam fired, shooting down from the heavens like a spear of divine judgment.

Seeing the lightning firing down from the sky, one of the mercenaries—the man Lyra had saved from the Six-Winged Terror Wyrm’s black feather days prior—showed a look of fierce resolve.

He stood directly over Lyra and Rhain, opening his arms wide

"Lady Lyra... I will repay my life debt to you!" the mercenary shouted, closing his eyes.

BOOM—!!!

The golden beam slammed directly into his chest.

The mercenary was instantly vaporized from the waist up, his life snuffed out in a fraction of a second to repay the debt he owed to the crimson-haired girl.

His bisected corpse collapsed heavily onto the ground.

Karsten let out a heart-wrenching scream, sliding to a halt beside his fallen brother.

Rhain stared at the dissipating mist of blood raining down around them, and then slowly raised his head to look up at the towering beast in the sky.

He gently laid Lyra’s head onto the scorched earth.

"Take care of her," Rhain commanded Karsten in a voice so terrifyingly cold that the temperature in the basin seemed to plummet to absolute zero.

Rhain slowly stood up.

His dark grey eyes were consumed by a murderous red light.

"DIE FOR ME!"

Rhain roared, a sound that resembled an ancient demon crawling out of the abyss.

Ignoring the gaping wound in his own abdomen, he pushed the Heaven-Grade Boundless Sky Wind to its limit and propelled himself into the sky like a fired cannonball.

With a flash of spatial light, the massive, pitch-black heavy broadsword materialized in his grasp.

"EMPYREAN PURGATORY BLOOM. SECOND FORM!"

A majestic blood-red fire erupted from his body, entirely engulfing the heavy blade.

Dozens of massive Flame Pythons, constructed purely of the Red Tribulations Heavenly Flame, shot into the sky, roaring as they rushed directly toward the eagle.

The eagle shrieked, unleashing a storm of golden lightning from its remaining wing to intercept the rising tide of fire.

BANG! CLANG! BOOM!

The golden lightning violently tore through the pythons, shredding the flames and incinerating them into dissipating sparks.

But trailing behind the fading fire, Rhain materialized.

He gripped his heavy broadsword with both hands, thrusting it straight toward the beast’s chest with every last ounce of his strength.

Sensing the fatal threat closing in, the eagle vigorously swung its massive razor-sharp claw to impale the youth.

But Rhain didn’t care in the slightest. He completely abandoned all defense.

SLASH!

The beast’s claw mercilessly tore across Rhain’s chest, ripping a gruesome bloody mark that nearly exposed his ribs.

Blood sprayed wildly into the air.

But Rhain thrust didn’t stop.

"DIIIEEEEEE!"

Rhain roared with volcanic rage.

Pushing the broadsword with his four pitch-black cores spinning at a cyclonic velocity, the dark steel sank deep into the eagle’s chest.

The overwhelming momentum of the strike forced the colossal beast out of the sky.

They plummeted downward like a falling meteor.

BOOOOOOM—!!!

The beast’s massive body crashed heavily into the earth, cratering the scorched wasteland and sending a massive shockwave of dust and shattered rock hundreds of feet into the air.

"SKREEEEEE—!!!"

The beast let out a furious scream filled with pain.

A violent burst of residual golden lightning erupted from its body, sending a shockwave that threw Rhain backward.

Rhain skidded across the dirt, coughing up blood.

The eagle struggled to stand up on its one remaining wing.

Its golden eyes, once filled with arrogant malice, now reflected with fear.

It looked at the blood-soaked youth standing before it—a human who had his abdomen pierced and his chest shredded, yet simply refused to die.

The beast instinctively knew that if it continued to fight this madman, even if it managed to kill him, it would undoubtedly perish as well.

Driven by the primal instinct to survive, the Level 8 Domain Master beast resolutely turned around, frantically flapping its one wing to flee into the sky.

Rhain’s bloodshot eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.

"You are not going anywhere!" Rhain roared.

He refused to let it run. Pushing his Abyssal Sovereign Physique beyond its limits, he rushed straight back into the sky, intercepting the fleeing behemoth.

The brutal battle continued as the beast fought frantically to save its own life, and Rhain fought with a singular intent to annihilate it.

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Down on the cracked earth, amidst the earth-shattering shockwaves of the battle above, Lyra lay completely motionless.

Karsten knelt beside her, his hands trembling as he poured his own essence to heal her.

But then, his eyes widened in disbelief.

The gaping hole in her chest had stopped bleeding.

Deep within her body, her heart—which had been half-obliterated—was rapidly and miraculously knitting itself back together!

The torn muscle fibers, severed veins, and shattered bones were regenerating at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"W-What is happening...?" Karsten stammered, scrambling backward in awe.

In the unknown darkeness of her unconscious mind, Lyra drifted in a boundless void.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Her heartbeat thundered in the silence.

At this moment, in this endless darkness, a series of ancient commanding words suddenly resounded clearly in her ears.

"Never yield..."

"The weak perish. The strong conquer. Do not bow to fate, for you are born to rule the battlefield..."

"The path of slaughter is paved with the oceans of blood..."

"Fight. Fight until the heavens themselves shatter...."

"Bathe the world in blood, and let your blade dictate the laws of the universe..."

"Let your fury incinerate the stars. Let your enemies tremble beneath your feet..."

Lyra’s soul was trembling as she heard those words clearly in the darkness of her mind.

"You are a Valkyrie..."

"Blood Heaven Valkyrie Physique, Awaken!"

Out in the scorched, cratered wasteland of the Sunless Umbral Basin.

Karsten was kneeling beside Lyra’s motionless body, staring at her rapidly healing chest with a stupified expression.

But the miracle of her healing was instantly overshadowed by what happened next.

Buzz—!

A ripple of energy pulsed from her chest.

"W-What the..." Karsten stammered.

Lyra’s body suddenly jolted and floated above.

Without any command, she was lifted into the air, hovering several feet above the cracked earth.

BOOM—!!!

A pillar of blinding red light erupted from her slender frame, shooting straight into the heavens.

The light completely enveloped her entire body.

Her cascading crimson hair broke free, flying wildly in the rising tempest of energy like a crown of dancing fire.

The aura radiating from her unconscious body began to climb.

it skyrocketed with a monstrous speed.

CRACK!

The bottleneck of the fourth level was instantly obliterated.

Core Formation Realm—Level 5!

The red light surrounding her thickened, turning into a swirling vortex of pure blood essence.

CRACK!

Core Formation Realm—Level 6!

"My God..." Karsten gasped, his face completely devoid of color.

The spiritual pressure radiating from her was now so overwhelmingly heavy that he was forced flat against the ground, unable to even breathe.

CRACK!

Core Formation Realm—Level 7!

CRACK!

Core Formation Realm—Level 8!

Her cultivation was breaking through major bottlenecks as easily as crushing dry leaves.

The sheer volume of essence she was drawing from the surrounding basin created a literal hurricane, ripping giant trees from their roots.

And finally, with a deafening boom that shook the entire ancient forest—

CRACK!

Peak of the Core Formation Realm—Level 9!

Her aura settled.

It radiated an oppressive and bloodthirsty majesty that completely transcended the bounds of normal Core Formation cultivators.

It felt as though she could effortlessly slaughter early-stage Domain Masters with a mere glance.

RUMBLE—!!!

High above, the clear azure sky was dyed red. The entire sky spanning for hundreds of miles turned the color of fresh blood!

A colossal, ethereal phantom of a peerless war goddess clothed in blood-red armor and holding a rapier appeared behind Lyra.

The phantom looked down upon the mortal realm with ultimate disdain, radiating an aura so holy, yet so filled with boundless slaughter, that all the beasts in the ancient forest dropped to the ground, shivering in utter submission.

Suspended in the center of the blinding red light, the gaping hole in Lyra’s chest vanished as if it never existed, leaving behind perfectly flawless, snow-white skin.

Slowly, the blinding red light surrounding Lyra began to recede, drawing back into her skin.

She hovered gracefully in the air, her crimson hair flowing like a river of blood. 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

Her long eyelashes fluttered.

And then, she opened her eyes.

A pair of deep, mesmerizingly beautiful crimson eyes flashed with an unearthly, peerless light.