"So, how does this end?"

The Deputy Commander's voice cut through the tension, cold and detached, like a coroner asking for a time of death. "Do you want them to live, or do you want them dead?"

The mockery in Pyre Julius's laughter died in his throat.

Orion could feel the weight of the gaze from his four brothers—Edward, Leonidas, Arthas, and Alexander. They were watching him, waiting.

This was Orion's war. He had set the stage. The brothers were here as muscle, as support, but the moral burden of the execution lay solely on Orion's shoulders.

"Dead."

Orion's face was a mask of granite. He didn't shout. He didn't hesitate. After a few heavy heartbeats, he simply exhaled the word that sealed the fate of five Demigods.

"Hah! Now that is what I wanted to hear!" Leonidas roared, his laughter booming with savage delight. He loved a man who didn't flinch.

"Good," Alexander rumbled, pouring more Divine Power into the grid. Decisiveness was the only currency that mattered in war.

"I knew I picked the right ally." Arthas's skeletal Phantom flickered, growing slightly transparent as he committed his energy. He needed partners who weren't afraid to burn the world down to survive.

The Deputy Commander didn't speak. He simply closed his eyes.

Using the Divine Fire in the center of his forehead as a catalyst, he fully unlocked the safety on the Divine Fire Extinction Formation.

In an instant, the pocket dimension became a kiln. The void itself seemed to ignite. Inside the barrier, it looked as if stars were exploding, their brilliance turning into a consuming heat that devoured all light.

The "cave" of Eternal Flame that Pyre Julius had conjured—that symbol of their house's endurance—didn't stand a chance. Under the tsunami of true Divine Fire, it melted like wax in a furnace, then evaporated into nothingness.

The fire was scrubbing the world clean.

"The Eternal Flame... it's gone!"

"Damn you! How dare you... how dare you?!"

"It's over."

"These maniacs actually did it!"

Pyre Julius, Cima Julius, and Orion's two opportunistic neighbors were the first to go. Since they had descended as Demigod Phantoms, they had no physical anchor. The Divine Fire ate through their projections instantly, incinerating their consciousnesses into silence.

The sealed space filled with a terrifying sensation—the distinct, heavy scent of gods dying.

Within moments, the void was dark and empty, choked by thick, swirling currents of Divine Fire.

The only thing left was Hino Julius.

Because he had been arrogant enough to descend in his True Form, his physical body bought him a few precious seconds of agony. But even he was failing. Under the ravaging fire, his aura plummeted. The laws of Divine Power protecting his skin were peeling away layer by layer.

"This... this is Lord Julius's domain..." Hino gasped, his voice a mix of horror and disbelief. "You... you people... how could you..."

He sounded like a man waking up from a dream only to find himself in a nightmare. He had never imagined, not even once, that he could actually perish here in the Sixth Layer.

"This is my Territory," Orion said. His voice pierced through the roar of the flames, cold and absolute. "And invaders die."

It wasn't a threat. It was a statement of fact. It struck Hino like a physical blow, severing the last thread of his hope.

"Invaders die... invaders die..." Hino muttered, his mind fracturing. Then, a twisted realization washed over him. "Good. Very good. You talk like a real Abyss Lord."

"But if I'm going, Orion... we're going together!"

"Heh... hehehe..."

Hino let out a strangled, broken laugh. He stopped fighting the flames that were eating his flesh. Resistance was just a waste of energy now.

"Orion! Even if I die, you can't run! You can't run from this!"

Inside the burning seal, Hino began to chant like a madman.

He knew who Orion was. He had read the intelligence reports—a low-born upstart fighting his way up from the lower dimensions. A bug.

But the reports were wrong. The bug had teeth.

In his final moment, Hino Julius ignited his own core. Like a collapsing star, his Divine Power flared with a blinding, white-hot intensity.

But the light lasted only a second.

BOOM!

The sealed space shattered. The explosion tore outward, a shockwave roaring across the Sixth Layer like a tsunami.

In truth, Hino's self-destruction wasn't tactically effective; the Deputy Commander's barrier absorbed the brunt of the kinetic force. But the explosion wasn't meant to kill Orion.

It was a scream.

A piercing, chaotic wail of a dying Chaos Demon's will, amplified by sacrifice, shot straight into the deep earth, aiming for the slumbering consciousness of the Abyssal Ruler.

"AVENGE ME!"

Hino's final psychic scream thunderclapped through the mental plane, echoing relentlessly in Julius's ears.

Deep within the world's core, a pair of colossal eyes snapped open.

They were the scarlet eyes of a Demon, vast as lakes. At first, there was confusion. Then, the pupils narrowed. Julius listened.

A moment later, clarity returned. He opened his mouth and inhaled, swallowing the fragment of will Hino had transmitted via the House Julius secret technique.

"In my world... those who kill my kin... are unforgivable."

The voice was low, but it vibrated through the bedrock of the entire layer. By the time the last syllable faded, Julius's massive form had vanished from his resting place.

Back on the surface, the complete annihilation of Hino Julius left a vacuum of silence.

Orion, Edward, Arthas, Leonidas, and Alexander instinctively clustered together, back-to-back.

They knew what was coming. Hino had made too much noise. There was no way the Abyssal Ruler, Julius, had slept through that.

Solidarity was their only shield now.

"Outsiders. You slaughter my people. You will pay."

It was a scene Orion would never forget.

The sky above them didn't just darken; it twisted. A massive vortex, spanning the entire horizon, churned into existence. From the center of the swirling clouds, a gigantic, demonic face pushed through, looking down at them like a man looking at ants.

The voice boomed from that face.

It wasn't just sound; it was authority. It carried the weight of the world itself. Julius didn't just speak; he commanded the environment. The atmosphere grew heavy, pressing down on Orion, rejecting his existence.

Edward and the brothers felt it too—the crushing pressure of a hostile reality.

And then the sky opened up.

Wind, rain, and lightning coalesced into a focused beam of destruction, hammering down on their position.

"Shields up!"

The Deputy Commander reacted instantly, throwing up a protective barrier that shimmered with complex geometric light. The strikes hammered against it, sending shockwaves through the ground, but it held.

The brothers didn't idle. They poured their own Divine Power into the Deputy Commander's construct, reinforcing the dome.

"Holy shit," Leonidas grunted, straining against the pressure. "So this is an Abyssal Ruler boosted by the World Force? That is... terrifying."

Leonidas's complaint was actually a compliment. He recognized true power when he felt it.

But Julius wasn't finished.

The territory belonging to the Foundry Citadel suddenly faced an apocalypse.

It was a meteor shower, but of unnatural origin. Countless massive fireballs, seemingly summoned from the void, began to rain down on Orion's lands.

CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

In the blink of an eye, the earth fractured. Forests were incinerated.

The wilderness was razed, and the bombardment began to creep toward the city itself. The Foundry Citadel was bathed in the hellish glow of falling stars, plunging its inhabitants into chaos and despair.

"Incoming!"

At the critical moment, Vex, the Standard-bearer, slammed his staff into the ground.

The Foundry Citadel's guardian ward flared to life, a translucent dome expanding just in time to catch the first wave of the orbital bombardment.

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