Chapter 395: The Slaughter Lord’s Gaze

"Great Lord of Slaughter, your most faithful servant offers the flesh and blood of these countless fallen. We beg you to descend!"

The voice spread across the battlefield.

No one could tell where it came from. It was not loud, but a strange vibration ran through every word, making the air itself tremble.

Nearly two billion Heroes and troops had fallen by now. Blood soaked the earth. Its thick smell filled the battlefield for hundreds of kilometers.

At the sound of that voice, the blood mist began to rise.

An unseen force drew it together thousands of meters above the ground. Cassian’s powerful Spirit sensed something more amid the gathering red: countless wills, screaming as they were dragged upward and torn apart.

The souls of the newly dead. They had not yet entered the River of Souls or the Nether Spring.

Before long, a blood-red vortex tens of kilometers across hung over the battlefield. Divine Nation’s Lords felt their hearts sink. Even the fighting below fell quiet.

The Crystalkin in Dragon form and the Praetorians moved above Cassian. Nine looked tense, ready to carry him away at the first sign of danger.

He raised his eyes to the vortex.

He had once faced a fragment of Gluttony’s will at close range. He knew this feeling.

"An Evil God’s will. The Lord of Slaughter... Someone from House Keldrath must be here."

Among the Black Banner’s seven Evil God families, the Keldraths were unusually secretive. They were nothing like House Velisse, whose worship of Lust went hand in hand with its control of eighty percent of the Black Banner’s film industry. Nor did they share House Morvane’s enthusiasm for eating contests and other celebrations of Gluttony.

Cassian knew little about them beyond one fact. They had built a small world called Crucible City, where they gathered the power of slaughter without cease.

As he watched, a vertical eye formed within the vortex.

It was a kilometer across. Yet there was no killing intent in its gaze. It looked calm, almost peaceful.

An immense wave of spiritual power spread from it.

"Acceptable. The quality is poor, but the quantity makes up for it. What do you desire?"

At the rear of the Black Banner army, a young Lord in blood-red armor rose into the sky. He prostrated himself in midair.

"Great Lord of Slaughter, please erase Cassian Vale of Divine Province!"

"Granted."

A beam a kilometer wide shot from the eye.

There was no warning and no further speech. Through the swift exchange between god and believer, the Slaughter Lord had already found its target tens of kilometers away.

"Cassian, move!"

"My lord!"

"Cassian!"

A god striking directly across Realms spent far more power than one bestowing a blessing. The energy behind this single attack could have temporarily created more than a dozen Mythic slaughter troops.

The Black Banner had chosen Cassian’s death instead. No price seemed too high if it could kill him.

Only seconds had passed between the eye’s appearance and the attack. Divine Province’s Lords rushed toward him, faces twisted with horror.

Nessa used Phantom Step on instinct. An afterimage remained behind as she flashed forward a kilometer, trying to put herself between Cassian and the beam.

She had been more than ten kilometers away. Before she could make a second burst, the attack descended.

Across the opposing army, Black Banner Lords stared in wild anticipation. Some had already raised their hands, ready to applaud his death.

The viewers of the live broadcasts went still. In Highcrest, Edran rose abruptly, the two projections beside him doing the same. All three stared at the descending light.

Everyone knew what Cassian meant to Divine Nation. His survival could decide the whole war.

Fortunately, he had been ready.

The moment the eye appeared, he had gone on full alert. When the young Lord began speaking, Cassian acted.

Nine rolled over in the air, putting her enormous body between him and the vortex. The eleven other Crystalkin in Dragon form and the eight Praetorians moved with her, shielding him with their bodies.

Even before the beam reached them, a terrible weight settled over Cassian. It felt as though the attack had locked onto him, leaving nowhere he could dodge.

"Dragon’s Blessing. Two hundred billion Aether. Increase my Physique and Spirit. One minute!"

"Seven-Star Release. Open the Fourth Star!"

Cloudstride wrapped him in protective cloud. He drove Warbody’s fourth foundation to its full strength.

He would not stake his life on his troops’ protection alone.

Two hundred billion Aether burned away. Compared with spending a hundred billion, that extravagant payment bought only another thirty percentage points of enhancement.

Cassian paid it without hesitation.

Just as the power building inside him was about to erupt, the beam struck.

It moved almost like a living thing. The kilometer-wide column narrowed at the last instant, concentrating every bit of its energy on Nine.

Her scream tore through the air.

Crystal scales melted. Her Mythic body began dissolving beneath the light, vanishing fast enough to see.

"I’m going to die again..."

In two seconds, Nine’s body broke apart.

The beam had lost only about forty percent of its strength.

The eleven Dragons behind her were engulfed next. The eight Praetorians followed them into death. Their bodies absorbed more of the attack, but could not stop it.

With forty percent of its original power remaining, the beam narrowed once more and struck Cassian.

At that same instant, his rising attributes burst into their full force. Golden light covered his body.

A thunderous crash seemed to sound beside every watching Lord’s ear.

He held.

The concentrated ray pressed against him, but could not destroy his body. The two forces met in the sky, pouring out light like a blood-red sun.

Everyone below had to close their eyes.

Only a few seconds passed. To those waiting, they felt like a century.

When the glare faded, faces tilted upward at once.

Silence fell across the battlefield.

Across the Homeworld, the Lords watching the war fell silent with it.

Cassian stood alone in the air. He looked down at his hands. There was not a mark on them.

He had to admit it.

"That was far more strength than I needed. Two hundred billion Aether... I may have wasted it."

His expression darkened.

Still, he did not regret the choice. As far as he was concerned, paying two hundred billion to turn a ninety-nine-percent chance of survival into certainty was a fair trade.

And now that he had paid for the strength, he might as well use it.

He looked up at the vast vertical eye. Rare anger shone in his gaze.

"So you want to bombard me from the sky? You’ve cost me enough. Now let’s see you take a punch."