"From today onwards, the world should know", Zero announced to the camera.

"Both the elves and the dwarves are covered by me, Zero!"

*Boom!*

The dust from the impact slowly drifted across the battlefield like a funeral shroud.

For a moment, there was silence.

The Alliance soldiers lowered their weapons, staring at the mushroom cloud rising from the desert floor.

A cheer began to ripple through the Dwarven and elven ranks, a ragged, hopeful sound.

"He did it!" a soldier shouted. "That bastard is down!"

However, high in the sky, Zero didn't cheer. Beneath the spectral mask, Damien's eyes instead narrowed.

'No,' Damien thought, watching the crater. 'It's not that easy.'

And sure enough, as soon as he thought about this, a strange scene suddenly occurred.

PULSE.

A heartbeat of black sludge erupted from the center of the impact zone. It sounded like a wet, heavy drum.

PULSE.

The rubble shifted. A hand clawed its way out of the earth, but it wasn't a human hand. It was a claw, swollen and armoured in black, shifting chitin.

The Second Prince rose from the grave.

But now he was no longer the handsome, arrogant royal who had challenged Zero a few seconds ago.

Instead, he was a monstrosity. His right side had ballooned, the flesh replaced by Void armor.

A singular, jagged horn protruded from his skull, dripping purple blood. From his back, ragged wings made of shadow and exposed bone tore through his royal cape.

He threw his head back and screamed.

A scream of anger and ecstasy resounded through the skies.

"BASTARDS!" the Prince roared, his voice distorted into a demonic chorus.

"You think this can stop a God?! The Void Demon God has chosen me! I will cleanse this world and rule the ashes!"

ROOAR!

The Prince's scream shifted pitch, turning into a high-frequency sonic wail that shattered glass miles away.

"AWAKEN! MY ARMY! DON'T HOLD BACK!"

On the ground, following this command, the 50,000 Imperial Soldiers froze.

They dropped their swords and grabbed their heads, clawing at their helmets.

"My head! It burns!" "Help me! MAKE IT STOP!"

Unfortunately, their screams were cut short by the wet tearing of meat.

The Flesh-Crafter Serum, the experimental biological weapon the Prince had secretly administered to his own troops under the guise of "vitamins" had activated.

Soldiers bloated and burst out of their armor.

Extra limbs sprouted from their torsos.

Their jaws unhinged, revealing rows of shark-like teeth. Their eyes melted, replaced by glowing purple pits.

In seconds, the disciplined Imperial Legion was gone. In its place stood an army of 50,000 mindless Void Beasts.

"Hold the line!" King Durin bellowed, smashing eighth order soldier who tried to bite him.

"These bastards aren't human anymore! Treat them like monsters!"

The Dwarven shield wall buckled under the sheer weight of the berserkers.

On the ground, even without Durin's command, no one held back as both Leona and Alaric were forced back, fighting back-to-back as the tide of flesh tried to drown them.

Back in the sky, high above the carnage, Zero floated with his arms crossed. His trench coat rippled in the wind of the Prince's aura.

Regardless of all these changes, he didn't look afraid instead, he looked bored.

Strengthened by all that Dp, his mentality seemed to have taken a change

Leaning forward, he channelled mana into his throat to amplify his voice over the screams of the dying.

"Why so ugly, my prince?" Zero deadpanned, his voice echoing across the canyon. "Could it be that your poses one of those things? What do they call it?"

"A face only a mother could love?"

The Prince froze, his mutated eye twitching.

Zero tilted his head, feigning realization.

"Oh... wait. I forgot. Your mother died in childbirth, didn't she?"

"Hahaha!"

Laughing for the first time during this battle, Damien felt joy as the second prince rose in anger.

It was this bastard that caused this downfall of his family, before he could return back from the abyss and deal with him himself.

Damien wanted to take some interest here.

So with that in mind, he continued to throw taunts.

However, hearing this, both sides of the battlefield seemed to hold their breath.

What he just said was a low blow. A cruel, precise strike at the Prince's deepest insecurity, the rumor that he was cursed from birth, a killer who murdered his own mother to enter the world.

Not only that, but such a thing was said on live broadcast in front of the whole continent.

At this point, the second prince's last piece of sanity began to be corrupted by anger as he couldn't wait to rip Zero in front of him in half.

However, Damien wasn't done yet. Looking at the monstrous-looking second prince, he wanted to further anger him

"Perhaps," Zero mused,

"She saw the future. She saw what you would become... and decided to leave the party early."

SNAP.

The last thread of the Prince's sanity broke.

"KILL HIM!" the Prince shrieked, frothing at the mouth. "RIP THEM ALL TO SHREDS!"

And as if to take the lead, he launched himself into the sky.

BANG!

They clashed in mid-air.

BOOM!

The impact shattered the clouds.

The Prince fought like a rabid animal. He swung his massive, mutated Void arm, smashing the space where Zero stood. The air cracked like glass.

Unfortunately, Zero wasn't there.

[Phantom Speed], [Space teleportation].

Using Lyra's body, Damien weaved through the attacks, leaving afterimages that the Prince swung at wildly.

A combination of both Lyra and Alfred's abilities allowing him to move at incredible speeds.

"Fuck! I have to end this as soon as possible!" cursing angrily, Damien side-stepped another punch, the prince's giant arm barely brushing against his face

"Ant! Is that the only thing you can do!? if all you can do is run, then prepare to be buried here today!" roaring angrily, the prince continued to launch his attacks at Damien

And Damien, dodging these attacks, was currently lost in thought

'Lyra's body is at the limit,' Damien realized, feeling a sharp pain in his chest.

'Her muscles are tearing under the strain of multiple abilities. I can't sustain this output for long.'

He had to end it.

The Prince roared, swinging a backhand meant to decapitate him.

Zero ducked. He grabbed the Prince's wrist with Lyra's small, gloved hand.

'Isabelle, I guess its your turn now.'

Through the Trans-Dimensional Link, Damien channelled Isabelle's power.

[Gravity Magic: Crush].

Zero spun in the air, using the Prince's own momentum against him. He slammed the mutated monstrosity downward.

CRASH.

The Prince hit the desert floor again, bouncing like a skipped stone before crashing through a limestone ridge.

*Cough* *Cough*

"Is that all, Zero! With the power of the Void, you cannot beat me!"

"As long as the Demon God exists, then, I, the prince of the Void, am effectively immortal!"

"hahaha!"

Laughing like a lunatic, Prince rose from the rubble. Purple blood streamed from his nose. His wings were broken.

Yet if one looked closely, one would notice that these wounds, despite their severity, were slowly healing

It seemed there was some truth to his words.

He looked at Zero, who was hovering above him, adjusting his cuffs.

He knew Physical force wasn't working, and the gap in technique was too wide.

But so what? All the planning for so many years, he could not afford to lose

With this in mind, the Prince began to laugh. A low, gurgling sound came from his mouth.

"You are strong, Zero," the Prince rasped, wiping the blood from his chin. "But you are still mortal. You exist within the laws of this world."

He brought his hands together. It was a twisted mockery of a prayer, palms pressed flat, fingers intertwined backwards.

"However, from this moment, I will stand above the world."

The Prince's aura exploded. The black mud around his feet rose up, swirling like a tornado.

"Domain Expansion..."

The sky turned pitch black. The setting red sun vanished. The screams of the battlefield were silenced.

"...Void Shrine."

RUMBLE.

Reality shattered.

Behind the Prince, the earth split open. A massive construct rose from the Abyss.

It was a statue. A colossal, corrupted Buddha made of rotting flesh and black iron.

It sat cross-legged on a throne of skulls, from its body a thousand arms, fanning out like a peacock's tail, each hand holding a rusted instrument of torture.

Its eyes wept constant streams of black mud.

PRESSURE.

The moment the Shrine fully manifested, the gravity in the area increased by a thousand times.

CRUNCH.

King Durin, Queen Aelinor, and every soldier on the ground were slammed flat into the dirt. The Ironclad Mechs groaned as their hydraulics failed.

Even the Magitech Camera Drones broadcasting the fight sparked and exploded, their lenses cracking under the spiritual weight.

The screen went black for the world.

Only Zero remained floating.

His coat whipped violently around him. Blood trickled from Lyra's nose beneath the mask. The pressure was trying to crush her bones to dust.

The Prince floated up, framed by the horrific, weeping Buddha.

"This is my world now, Zero," the Prince whispered, his voice resonating from every direction.

"In the Shrine, I am the Law. Kneel... and die."

The Buddha's thousand arms began to move, preparing to squash the gnat that defied it.

However, Zero looked at the Shrine. He looked at the thousand weapons aimed at his heart.

Then he wiped the blood from his mask.

"A Domain, huh?"

Zero smirked.

"Cute."

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