Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 167: Interlude 1-4: On That Day, Twelve Thousand Years Ago IV
The orb of condensed gas exploded with such brilliance that it was momentarily brighter than the sun going supernova in the distance.
Jamie flew into the explosion and caught Yuliv’s body, dragging it out to a distant rogue planet and slamming his back down on it.
He then raised his foot and stomped Yuliv’s chest. The force behind his foot caused the man’s chest to cave in, and Yuliv screamed in pain.
"ARRRGH!"
Jamie raised his foot once more and stomped on Yuliv’s head, completely squashing it and spilling blood and brain matter.
**SPLAT!
This showed that Jamie could have ended things from the beginning, but was indeed just playing around.
"And now...He arrives."
When Jamie said that, there was an explosion of energy that rippled outward with enough force that Jamie was knocked back over a dozen metres.
"Yep...completely expected."
As he had killed the host, the Demon Sword ’Slaifdein’ finally revealed itself.
"I see. So that’s why your host avoided using you. You just devoured someone and were still absorbing that power..."
Jamie had been curious about Yuliv’s resistance to using the powerful weapon he had in his possession, but now the reason was apparent.
In the end, Yuliv was just a tool for Slaifdein to buy time.
The man’s corpse was even consumed by the sword, and the matter that made up his body was repurposed to create a new humanoid body for the Sword.
Its form appeared as a humanoid mass of fiery darkness, adorned with glowing red eyes where normal eyes would be, and a jagged aperture on its lower face mimicking a mouth.
[You...you’re familiar...]
Those were Slaifdein’s first words as it took on its humanoid form. It was not bothered about the fact that Jamie did not let it absorb 100% of the power but was instead more curious about Jamie’s identity.
[Ah...I see. The one I devoured had memories of you. He hated you.
Jamie Franklin Westley...the Perfect Hybrid...]
"..."
Jamie silently narrowed his eyes when he heard Slaifdein’s words. Not many people called Jamie the ’Perfect’ Hybrid.
After all, what most people knew was that he was one of the ’Complete’ Hybrids.
[This one...He envied you...he wanted to be in your position...he wanted to be the Success.]
"?!"
With that last word, Jamie instantly understood just who Slaifdein had devoured.
Someone who envied, Jamie, because they wanted to be the Success. There was only one group of people who fit that bill.
Slaifdein’s face glitched and transformed into someone, and seeing the familiar appearance confirmed Jamie’s conjecture.
No wonder the Demon Sword took so long to absorb all the power it devoured. No wonder it had the power to bypass Jamie’s durability.
It had devoured a survivor of Angela’s experiments.
An Incomplete Hybrid.
Even if they were Incomplete, all the survivors of Angela’s Hybrid project had emerged with great power. However, their powers all had drawbacks, and they still had many weaknesses.
Another thing of note is that none of them were immortals. They all had a limited lifespan and usually put themselves in cryostasis to slow down their ageing.
[With this...I no longer need an external ’Host’. I am now capable of ’Self-Hosting’.]
Slaifdein spoke as it fully assumed the appearance of the nameless Incomplete Hybrid. With a gesture, it conjured a sword of darkness, similar to the one Yuliv had used to destroy Jamie’s black hole earlier.
However, this sword was far more intimidating, its blade forged from shadowy flames that flickered and danced along its edge, radiating an intense, malevolent heat that seemed to warp the very air around it.
[Even you—Perfect Hybrid, would fall.]
’Not that I need to kill you to absorb your power. That misconception is what made this one lower his guard and allowed me to devour his power, using it against him and overpowering him.’
Slaifdein kept that thought to itself as it looked at Jamie with its dark eyes, and the Hybrid’s expression changed.
"You’re getting real cocky for a mere piece of iron."
Jamie was a bit annoyed now.
He wasn’t particularly close with all the incomplete Hybrids, but having endured Angela’s bloodline modifications alongside them, Jamie harboured a little sense of empathy for them.
It was precisely why he felt irritated that one of them had met an end in this manner.
He held up his hand and conjured another scythe construct with spatial power, spinning it around before charging straight to the Demon Sword who grinned and met his charge.
Their weapons clashed with such ferocity that the exoplanet beneath them shattered into cosmic debris in an instant.
Jamie hurled the floating fragments of the planetary ruins at Slaifdein, but it cut through every single piece at light speed, not taking a single scratch.
It grabbed what was left of the planet’s core and infused dark energy into it, swirling it around to create a bomb that It threw at Jamie.
[Dark Nova.]
In the face of this incoming mass of power, Jamie swung his scythe and used his Basic Attack Sequence #3: Carve.
The fabric of space-time was carved out in a flash and everything within that space, including the ’Dark Nova’ was neatly eliminated from existence.
Not fearing such a power, Slaifdein boldly charged at Jamie and the Hybrid met its attack with a slash of his Scythe.
One slash became ten, and ten became ten thousand.
The two moved at light speed, zipping through the chaotic void of space as they relentlessly swung their weapons against one another, exchanging attacks charged with enough power to snuff planets out just by grazing them.
Despite all this power, the most that was happening was space breaking and a few unfortunate planets hit by their weapons being destroyed.
The reason for this was simple: Power Control.
With their power so perfectly controlled and kept in their weapons, no residuals were leaking out to wantonly destroy their surroundings. This was the main cause for environmental destruction during fights, after all.
But of course, regardless of how much power control they had, some attacks still veered off course or were dodged.
For example, some slashes from Jamie which Slaifdein was not dumb enough to take head on ended up hitting a few celestial bodies behind it.
The end result; some parts of the galaxy turned dark.
Miranda had her ’assistants’ move every planet with life on it out of the way, so the ones which were destroyed were all uninhabited.
As for dealing with the new positions of these planets and finding suitable stars for them, that was the job of the Race Kings.
All she did was use a little bit of Time Magic to halt the time flow for these planets, to give the Race Kings time to handle the rest.
Meanwhile, Jamie and Slaifdein entered a nearby nebula, a stellar nursery with millions of young still forming stars within its colourful clouds of gas and dust.
Of course, Jamie did not forget to toss a few of these burgeoning stellar bodies at Slaifdein who sliced them in two with its sword of flaming darkness.
The two clashed blades and the collision of power released energy waves that created a giant hole in the centre of the Nebula, but by the time that hole formed, the two of them were already long gone.
Another nebula was unfortunate enough to host the next stage of their fight, and it was one which saw its end pretty quickly at Jamie’s hands.
The Hybrid let go of his scythe and teleported out of the Nebula, before slamming his palms together and creating a gravitational well. He harnessed this force to draw the hundreds of thousands of young stars towards a single focal point—Slaifdein’s body.
Twisting his clasped palms, the entire nebula was crunched onto Slaifdein’s form, the gravitational forces compressing everything into a singular, overwhelming point of extreme density.
The sheer pressure bore down on Slaifdein, crushing and contorting the very fabric of space around it. Stars that were once budding with life were now fused into a chaotic fusion of energy and matter.
Slaifdein struggled against the immense gravitational pull, its sword of flaming darkness crackling with dark energy as it attempted to counter the crushing force. Yet, against Jamie’s mastery of spatial and gravitational manipulation, it was a futile effort.
The nebula’s collapse reached its climax in a blinding eruption of energy, releasing a shockwave that tore through the fabric of space for light years. The explosion cascaded outward in all directions, illuminating the void with a brilliant display of cosmic destruction.
When the blinding light finally subsided, Slaifdein’s form emerged from the centre of the once-vibrant nebula’s ruins.
Its form wreathed in the residual energies of the cataclysm, with cracks and wounds all over its body, blurred through space at a speed superseding light itself—defying the laws of physics.
In the blink of an eye, Slaifdein was already in front of Jamie, swinging down its sword of flaming darkness with ferocity.
The first slash was aimed at Jamie, who leaned his upper body backwards in a fluid motion, narrowly evading the deadly arc of the blade.
Undeterred, Slaifdein continued its assault with relentless precision, launching five more successive attacks in rapid succession.
Each swing of the flaming dark sword cut through the fabric of space, leaving trails of destructive energy in its wake. Yet, Jamie’s reflexes and spatial awareness were equally unmatched.
With a dancer’s grace, he dodged each strike with hairbreadth precision, his eyes analysing the true state of the Demon Sword.
’I see...I used cosmic energy so I could deal more damage, and yet, it emerged with only minor wounds.’
Considering Jamie had crushed an entire nebula on it, Slaifdein emerging with minor wounds spoke volumes of its durability.
Just as Jamie thought that, Slaifdein intensified its attacks.
The flaming darkness sword descended with immense force, aimed directly at Jamie’s exposed flank. On closer observation, the Hybrid noticed streams of cosmic energy gathering around the blade and he raised his brow in surprise.
|I see. No wonder you are so durable. You’re on the cusp of achieving Cosmic Superiority.
I suppose this is not too surprising considering you devoured entire galaxies. |
The Hybrid’s True voice rang out as he conjured a scythe of spatial energy and swung it to block Slaifdein’s attack.
The clash between the two weapons unleashed a cataclysmic wave of energy, rupturing the very fabric of reality around them.
Spacetime contorted and fractured as the collision of powers reverberated through the void.
Slaifdein felt a small sense of discomfort, but it quickly ignored it in favour of attacking Jamie while the Hybrid simply dodged his attack and used cosmic energy to pull them out of the strange timeless dimension they were about to fall into due to the destroyed spacetime fabric.
The recoil from their forceful expulsion from this dimension blew both of them away, and with this distance, Slaifdein raised its sword and infused an astonishing amount of energy inside it, enlarging its size to cosmic proportions.
The giant blade of flaming darkness surged upwards, growing thousands of light years long in length—a spectacle visible even beyond the boundaries of the galaxy.
This naturally drew the attention of other Deity Realm Existences in nearby Galaxies, as they were curious about what sort of battle was going on in the Calesius galaxy.
|Demon Blade Form: Darkstar. |
With the gargantuan sword poised overhead, Slaifdein unleashed its devastating blow with all its might.
Facing this immense sword which could split the galaxy in two, Jamie calmly constructed another scythe with his spatial power and swung it upward.
As usual, the clash between the two weapons unleashed a shockwave of imperceptible cosmic energy.
Jamie’s scythe deflected Slaifdein’s blade, causing it to veer off course, with the sheer force and spatial disruption of the impact erasing a vast swath of stars from existence within the galaxy.
