[222] Against the Heavens, Against an Old Sweetheart
<span style="font-weight:400">Chapter 221:And the Monarch of the Brightest Night Swings His Sword
<span style="font-weight:400">—
<span style="font-weight:400">The Phoenix and the Heavenly Demoness shed punches. The air exploded, and the sky split in two. Clouds cleared to reveal the dark blue sky, three moons shining down at them like chandeliers.
<span style="font-weight:400">“What the hell are you?!” The Phoenix demanded as his wings deflected the long, heavy Blood Sword of the Demoness. His own fists mmed against her face, and although she tried to dodge, she was too slow.
<span style="font-weight:400">The demoness was sent flying backward, spinning in the air, twirling with a peal ofughter.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Imbecile!” The Phoenix shouted. His attacksnded, and they did damage, but the woman did not seem dispirited a bit. <i><span style="font-weight:400">Crazy bitch.</i>
<span style="font-weight:400">She came to a stop in midair, wiping her lips, and then crackling at him. “You''re stronger than me now.”
<span style="font-weight:400">At least she knew to admit it. “You’re going to meet your end, you crazy devil.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Demonic Human,” she raised a finger to correct him. “Not really a devil or a demon. Although my demonic cult does indeed worship the Demon God Mara, who is a reflection of myself.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I did not inquire about your theology,” he raised a hand in the air and said. His hand began to brighten up with a dark light, ck mes condensed on the tip of his finger. “Be quiet and just die.”
<span style="font-weight:400">The Phoenix''s hand, glowing with ominous energy, thrust forward in a swift and precise manner, aiming to end the confrontation with a single blow. The Heavenly Demoness merely crackled up at that, a flicker of dark amusement in her eyes. She twisted in the air, her form blurring into a streak of shadow.
<span style="font-weight:400">With a derisive snort, she evaded the deadly touch of the ck mes, herughter echoing through the sh of their powers. “Predictable, Phoenix! Is that the best your newfound strength can muster?” Her taunt sliced through the roaring wind as she countered with a swift, sweeping arc of her Blood Sword.
<span style="font-weight:400">The de was drenched in the essence of countless battles that Ai had never fought, but this character had, and now it shimmered with a lethal crimson hue as it sliced toward the Phoenix. He didn’t bother to dodge and instead chose to block it. His wings unfurled to a majestic span, feathers like des of night slicing through the bloodied gleam of her attack.
<span style="font-weight:400">Their forces met with a cataclysmic sh, sending ripples of distorted energy cascading across the sky. ck feathers mingled with droplets of blood in a dance as old as time, painting a macabre picture on the celestial canvas above.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Enough of this charade!” the Phoenix roared, his voice carrying the weight of his age. He clenched his strength, the dark aura around his fists intensifying as he prepared for a counterstrike that’d end her. He shot forward, a blur of darkness, aiming directly at the heart of the Demoness. “[<b>Talons of Night and Darkness</b><span style="font-weight:400">]<b>!</b><span style="font-weight:400">”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Enough? Sure, enough,” she met his charge with a devilish grin, her body shifting with unnatural grace. As they closed the distance, her hand shot out, not with a de, but with a bare, wed grip aimed to catch his next attack. “[<b>True Demon Fist Art, Scarlet Annihtion Fist</b><span style="font-weight:400">]<b>.</b><span style="font-weight:400">”
<span style="font-weight:400">The moment their powers collided, the air itself seemed to scream in agony. A shockwave of mixed auras burst outward, the dark against the demonic, shattering the stillness of the night and shaking the very foundation of the skies.
<span style="font-weight:400">The Phoenix with his ck Demonic mes, and the Demoness, with her Demonic Blood Arts, were entwined in a duel not just of strength but of willpower and divinity. They sought to dominate each other and beg for victory.
<span style="font-weight:400">The Phoenix growled. He closed his eyes for a moment, red eyes closing, before he reopened them. His entire body overflowed with dark mana, demonic divinity, as he channeled them into his wings. The energy exploded to expand his pair of ck wings, covering half the sky. The feathers lit up, charging with demonic divinity. His feathery lips, shaped like beaks, whispered the name of the technique. “[<b>Shower of ck Heaven</b><span style="font-weight:400">]!”
<span style="font-weight:400">All three of his Icons lit up, they all affected this technique.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Oh, we''re showing off ultimates?” She put her arms behind her. The world lit up. Stronger did not mean victor, she wouldn''t stop replying with her attacks. “Sure, let''s have a go.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“[<b>True Demon God Art, God ying Order</b><span style="font-weight:400">].” Her expression lost its humor and spoke in chilly majesty. The air around her grew dense with the metallic scent of blood. From behind her, countless droplets of blood coalesced and spiraled outward in a mesmerizing dance of crimson.
<span style="font-weight:400">In an instant, the sky transformed; where once there were stars, now there emerged a dome of swords, spanning kilometers across the heavens. Each sword was forged from the essence of blood and divine will each shimmered with an ominous glow. They arranged themselves in a perfect, massive hemisphere, where the demoness stood at the epicenter.
<span style="font-weight:400">The Dark Phoenix''s scowl deepened as the colossal wings at his back gathered a sinister aura. Each feather, infused with his dark mana, began to emit an ominous glow, casting shadows that danced like specters in the twilight. With a tense flutter, the feathers zed to life, bursting into a brilliant disy of destructive energy.
<span style="font-weight:400">He unleashed his fury, and the feathers burst forward like a swarm ofets, each one trailing a zing path of dark fire across the sky, sting forward.
<span style="font-weight:400">The thousand-blood swords hurled ahead too, and the two oppositions collided against one another. The sky exploded with colors of ck and red. Liquid blood sshed all over, and ck fire vaporized it.
<span style="font-weight:400">ck mes spread across the air, while liquid red dampened it. The sky was a canvas, two artists painted itsndscape. Luminous darkness and red smoke filled the clear sky, and the lights of the North Pole looked like hell incarnate once again.
<span style="font-weight:400">However, the Phoenix didn’t stop there. The feathers of his titanic wings lit up for another time, charging with demonic divinity. “[<b>Shower of ck Heaven</b><span style="font-weight:400">]!”
<span style="font-weight:400">He fired the technique again, while the Demoness didn’t have enough Authority to spam it. She grumbled as the technique joined his earlier one, and pushed back hers. It began to rush toward her, a thousand sharp little knives intending to riddle her with charred holes.
<span style="font-weight:400">Due to the speed it all happened, the Demoness could only cross her arms. She didn’t have enough time to prepare a counterattack, so she chose defense. However, she was sure just crossing her arms like this wouldn’t save the day. <i><span style="font-weight:400">Well, this is bad.</i>
<span style="font-weight:400">That’s when a trail of light shot from the ground and stopped before her. The sword swung forward, and the Phoenix’s technique evaporated.
<span style="font-weight:400">The Phoenix and the Demoness waited for the dust to clear before them, preparing another attack just in case. Yet, when the dust did clear, both of them stepped back in surprise. A third party had just intervened in their battle, they both had noticed, but the identity of the party took them aback.
<span style="font-weight:400">A man in gold stood where the explosion had taken ce, a zing sword at hand. Two Icons shone overhead, the [<b>Crown Icon</b><span style="font-weight:400">] and the [<b>Sword Icon</b><span style="font-weight:400">] glittered over the world.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Oh my, it''s…” the Heavenly Demon blinked, grinning widely. “It''s the disgusting little Emperor?!” She grinned at him, and Aqua scowled.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Seems like you two are together,” the Phoenix grumbled. “Then die!” his feet exploded and he rushed toward Aqua. Aqua turned to him slowly, sword moving through the air currents.
<b>[Grand Chariot, 7th Form.]</b>
<b>[Vagabond Style, Third Form.]</b>
<span style="font-weight:400">He waved his sword, the air exploded around him, his forearms bled, and he continued moving his sword. The destructive power of a star st out of the tip of his de, exploding into the face of the phoenix.
<span style="font-weight:400">The Phoenix crossed his arms, attempting to block the nuke that exploded on his nose. He was sent flying across the sky, spinning across mid-air.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Cancel the transformation,” Aqua turned back to his deformed mother and said.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Oh my~ someone sounds angry,” she covered her face with a hand and said. “Why, don’t I look pretty like this, <i><span style="font-weight:400">my son</i><span style="font-weight:400">? I don''t want to cancel this.”
<span style="font-weight:400">Aqua sighed.
<span style="font-weight:400">Then, he blitzed behind her, kicking her in the waist.
<span style="font-weight:400">The Demoness twisted midair, evading his kick and grinning at him like a maniac. His punch came flying at her teeth, and her form vanished before the impact could be made.
<span style="font-weight:400">“You''re not fast enough, little Emperor,” she taunted him, crackling up a few dozen meters away.
<span style="font-weight:400">Aqua didn’t reply. His eyes fell in the distance, where the Phoenix stopped when he saw that he and the demoness were fighting. When he saw that, he didn’t dive into the battle, he rather decided to spectate in the hope that his enemies would take each other out. That did not happen, both of his enemies locked eyes with him.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Mhm, how about we take care of him first, then? It''ll be unfair if he took advantage of the situation and killed me,” the Heavenly Demoness said, putting a hand on her waist. “Not that I''m unable to defeat him on my own, of course.”
<span style="font-weight:400">From what Aqua sensed, she <i><span style="font-weight:400">was</i><span style="font-weight:400"> unable to defeat this guy. The Venerable One was a character he gave to Ai with the intention of ultimate survivability. It wasn''t the ultimate victory. She wouldn''t have to win against all enemies to survive, she could always flee.
<span style="font-weight:400">And if it was about fleeing, Ai could do it against this enemy. However, she''d have been unable to win against him. He''s too powerful, although he couldn''t use all of that properly yet since he only recently gained that much power.
<span style="font-weight:400">However, if the fight elongated and he got more used to his powers, then even Ai and Aqua together wouldn''t be enough to defeat him.
<span style="font-weight:400">Hopefully it wasn''t toote. Nheless, they had to defeat him right now.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Fine with me,” he raised his sword, “I''ll deal with you after fucking him up.”
<span style="font-weight:400">****
<b>[First Person Point of View]</b>
<span style="font-weight:400">How annoying it must be for everyone else to deal with the Venerable One, now I had a gist of it. As a matter of fact, this wasn’t even the Venerable in his ultimate form, the Heavenly Demon was a tamer variation of the Venerable as he was from a very early stage of my 9<span style="font-weight:400">th<span style="font-weight:400"> life, while the Venerable One was thest stage of my life.
<span style="font-weight:400">I had purposefully only allowed that much information to Ai so that she wouldn’t tap into something she couldn’t handle. But it seems I’ve underestimated the Heavenly Demon, as he himself was troublesome enough that Ai couldn’t keep her sanity.
<span style="font-weight:400">Regardless, I’ll have to deal with herter. The enemy at hand needed to be taken care of first.
<span style="font-weight:400">I sted toward the Phoenix, sword at hand, while my demonified mother followed right beside. I didn’t take the risk of flying faster than her, what if she attacked from behind?
<span style="font-weight:400">“[<b>True Demon God Art, Broken Wheel of the Demon Kind</b><span style="font-weight:400">].” Ai shouted from behind, as a titanic wheel of red Qi formed in the air above us. It spun, and as it did, her speed exploded exponentially. She flew faster than me, and toward the Phoenix.
<span style="font-weight:400">“…!” The Phoenix shouted some technique name, but who the fuck cared about that? I withdrew my sword in preparation for absolute anarchy, while Ai and the Phoenix’s attacks shed. His wings caught fire, flowing like liquid mes, as they shed with the fists of the Demoness. The sky exploded, and reality cracked like ss.
<span style="font-weight:400">“[<b>Grand Chariot, 7th Form</b><span style="font-weight:400">],” I shouted, my Sage’s Authority amplifying my sword with divine willpower. “[<b>Vagabond Style, Third Form</b><span style="font-weight:400">]!”
<span style="font-weight:400">“[<b>Malevolent Maelstrom of Magnificent Destruction</b><span style="font-weight:400">]!” the Phoenix shouted in return, the three Icons over his head shimmering bright to amplify his technique. His entire body exploded, his form evaporated, and a massive phoenix bird of ck mes reced him.
<span style="font-weight:400">That must be his true form.
<span style="font-weight:400">My sword techniqueyered one above the other, shed against the talons of the true dark phoenix. Reality <i><span style="font-weight:400">actually</i><span style="font-weight:400"> shattered this time, shards of the sky falling away to reveal a colorful flow of cosmic energy in the inneryers of this dimension.
<span style="font-weight:400">The sh between Gods caused all the snow to melt, and a tsunami to rise from therge amount of boiling water. Ai crackled like a maniac beside me, as she leaped toward the Phoenix’s head. Her hands lit up with a True Demon God Art, and she went right for his throat. We shed against the harbinger of the apocalypse with all our might, and he stumbled in the air, getting pushed back.
<span style="font-weight:400">Truly, he’d have been a difficult foe if he had the chance to get more used to his newly earned power.
<span style="font-weight:400">Unfortunately for him, I wouldn’t allow that.
<span style="font-weight:400">“[<b>Grand Chariot, 7th Form</b><span style="font-weight:400">] – [<b>Vagabond Style, Third Form</b><span style="font-weight:400">]!” I allowed my Sage’s Authority over my sword. Then, my sword lit up with brilliant illuminating sparks of the sulfur sun. “[<b>The Monarch of the Brightest Night:</b> <b>Chaos ying sh.</b><span style="font-weight:400">]”
<span style="font-weight:400">The de of the Emperor that Illuminates the Dark Worlds, the thin de of my sword, Caliburn, grew with the solid holograph of a heavy de. The Emperor’s sword descended into this mortal world. I, the Monarch of the Brightest Night, waved my sword toward the chaos bringer.
<span style="font-weight:400">The world went too bright for anyone to see.
<span style="font-weight:400">Sounds of explosion so loud that human ear failed to pick it filled the clouds. The clouds solidified from this immense pressure, and the solid cloud detonated into chunks of soft wool. Pangeal screamed as reality healed, rather than being destroyed, while all chaos burned at the tip of my de.
<span style="font-weight:400">The ck phoenix was nowhere to be seen when the light faded and the world regained its color. What remained was an inverted bird of white, eliminated from the flow of time and space, as its frozen white body remained in the sky. A momentter, the body sliced into a million pieces, feathers raining down in the world. Each feather healed what once had been destroyed in Pangeal.
<span style="font-weight:400">I reached out a hand to grab something from the sliced apart body, gently depositing it in my Void Storage. It’lle into use soon.
<span style="font-weight:400">Not yet, but soon.
<span style="font-weight:400">Because right now, I still have someone else to take care of.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Woo-hoo~ You truly have things that I can’t pull off since some of your techniques are really lethal toward evil. Unlike mine.” Said my demonified mother, the Heavenly Demon, who stared at me with a grin. “Is it my turn now?”
<span style="font-weight:400">This world wasn''t quite free yet. All the demonic energy in the area surrounded her instead of the Dark Phoenix now. The blood tower still stood ominously because it still had an anchor to cling to.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yes.” It was her turn.
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