Chapter 233: The Offer

There was one thing many people never fully understood about battles between beings of vastly different ranks.

Those at lower ranks used everything at their disposal to defeat their opponents, and the same was true for those at higher ranks. But while lower-ranked battles could drag on for extended periods, with both sides analyzing their opponent's abilities and devising tactics to counter and repel their attacks, battles between high-ranking beings operated on a completely different level.

Not only did their power far exceed anything ordinary people could imagine, but so did the scale of time involved.

Their battles could last for months or even years.

Or they could end in a matter of seconds.

The speed and lethality of their abilities had reached a point where a single mistake, a tiny opening, or the slightest advantage could completely turn the tide and decide the outcome.

And that was exactly what was happening inside Evangeline's Domain.

The moment she stopped holding back, the fate of the 10 DemiGods was already sealed, and they understood that almost immediately, because the instant one of them finished speaking, it was torn to pieces by Evangeline's attack and then completely devoured by her darkness.

The entire exchange took no more than two seconds. Two seconds in which she erased one of them and was already moving on to the next.

That put every remaining DemiGod on high alert, and none of them dared try to run anymore. Not that it mattered, nothing could stop Evangeline now, not while she remained within her own Domain. A battle involving that many DemiGods, one that under normal circumstances should have shaken the world to its foundations, had begun only minutes ago and was already drawing to a close.

It was at that exact moment, just as she prepared to finish off the colossal DemiGod that looked like some grotesque hybrid of a giant and pieces of various known and unknown creatures, that Evangeline's Domain shuddered.

The tremor lasted only an instant. In the next, the Domain collapsed entirely.

A voice rang out the moment Evangeline and the remaining DemiGod were pulled back into the skies above Ashwick.

A twisted voice, but clear enough to understand.

"For a mere inferior being, you've certainly managed to cause more trouble than we expected."

Evangeline, still in her transformed form, raised her head.

There, she saw a strange being standing beside the remaining Demigod.

It was roughly two meters tall, and at first glance, it looked almost insignificant compared to Evangeline's massive dragon form and the colossal Demigod beside it.

But its presence was anything but insignificant.

It was clearly stronger than the other Demigods.

Much stronger.

Yet that wasn't the only thing that caught her attention.

Its shape was strange too. Not humanoid, not a beast, not a plant. Something entirely different.

'A fetus?'

Evangeline's gaze fell upon the strange, pulsating mass floating beside the being.

But no matter how bizarre the scene was, she did not underestimate her opponent.

The mere fact that it had shattered her Domain so effortlessly said more than enough about how terrifying it truly was.

For the first time since this whole affair began, Evangeline took the fight somewhat seriously. Her eyes shifted from the small floating shape to the massive Demi-God beside it, and without hesitation, she opened her enormous, terrifying jaws, gathering a dark reddish glow charged with dense violet black energy.

It took her a second to charge the attack, and another to release it.

BOOOM!

The attack launched, a concentrated sphere of energy, and reached the Abyss Demi God in an instant, striking it dead center.

The moment it connected, the attack exploded with blinding force.

The terrifying energy swallowed the colossal Abyssal Demigod in less than a second and continued expanding outward.

Just as it seemed the explosion was about to engulf the city below as well, the expansion suddenly stopped. It hung there for a few seconds before collapsing back in on itself instantly, as though someone had rewound the last few seconds like a tape, except this time, the explosion vanished, and so did the DemiGod along with it.

Only the fetus remained, floating nearby, seemingly untouched despite having been caught in the blast.

"Impressive power," the fetus said, its distorted voice as emotionless as before. "But if this is all you have, then you can stop resisting. You are too weak to defeat me, and too weak to resist the Abyss."

"This world will be purified. If you do not wish to become part of that purification, you may choose to accept my offer."

Evangeline seemed to sneer at those words, but she didn't answer.

The fetus continued.

"Swear your loyalty to the Abyss and join us in eliminating this anomaly. Do so, and your sins will be erased. You may then join our ranks and fight for the greater good." the fetus said, its voice now carrying a faint touch of emotion, as though reciting some sacred truth.

Evangeline listened to those words, her eyes gleaming faintly, not because she was considering the offer, but as though she were already preparing to unleash another attack.

"Quite a lot of words for a mere Abyss God."

Her voice was filled with disdain.

"My Master has defeated you before, and he'll do it again this time. So make yourself comfortable and wait for your end."

With those words, the brief conversation came to an end.

She wasted no more time and immediately charged another attack, this one stronger than the last. But the fetus didn't just stand there watching. It seemed to process the dragon woman's words for a moment before finally reacting.

"If that is your decision, so be it," it said, and instantly the reality around it began to tremble. Threads of dark red energy began spilling out from it, striking various points below, throughout the city and the surrounding forest alike.

At first it wasn't clear what it was doing, but it didn't take long to find out, because moments after those energy threads appeared, something bizarre began to unfold.

From every corner, both within the city and throughout the forest, the dead began to rise.

Soldiers, beasts, whole corpses and unrecognizable remains, all tore themselves from the ground at the same time, surging toward the fetus in a single unstoppable tide.

The moment they reached it, their bodies exploded into chunks of flesh, merging into its form and becoming part of it.

More and more corpses continued to gather.

The mass grew higher and higher until it surpassed ten meters in height.

Where, moments before, the small pulsing fetus had floated, something else now stood, a twisted humanoid figure, stitched together from thousands of disparate pieces, with the fetus itself embedded in its abdomen, now three times its original size, still pulsing, as if breathing life into the being that had just taken shape.