Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 391: The Angel’s Defiant Stand

’First off, do NOT deactivate your Concretization under any circumstances!’

Salenor warned Ronric, who instinctively poured cosmic energy into the white armour cladding his body, just as the heat in Miranda’s domain spiked, the ground beginning to melt and collapse into rising seas of lava.

’Her Domain has a similar effect to mine. I was a second late to activating my Aspect Armament, and this is the result.’

Salenor gestured to his left arm as he spoke, and Ronric’s eyes widened when he saw the flesh from the midpoint of Salenor’s upper arm down to his lower arm completely charred black, showing no signs of healing.

That had happened in the second between Miranda declaring her Ashen Crucible and Salenor activating his Third Concretization to coat his body in a skin-tight layer of cosmic energy.

"Where is—?"

’He’s dead! She killed him right before I got here!’

Salenor cut him off before he could even say the name of the now-deceased Devil Supreme, and at that moment, the sound of metal scraping across the ground reached their ears.

Both turned their gazes to the side and saw Miranda walking toward them, dragging a spear with purple flames licking its double edges as she moved, her gait seemingly unhurried as her narrowed eyes swept over them.

Ronric tightened his grip on his sword, infusing it with powerful light as he silently sent a telepathic message to Salenor.

’What are her abilities? How do we kill her?’

’We can’t,’ Salenor replied.

"What?!"

Ronric reflexively turned to Salenor in shock, but in the instant he did, Salenor dashed in front of him, his daggers crossing to block the spear that shot toward Ronric’s forehead.

At the other end of the spear, Miranda, avoiding Salenor’s eyes, stomped her foot on the ground and triggered volcanic eruptions of lava that forced the two Supremes to leap back, and as they moved through the air to avoid the meteors of purple flames that followed, Salenor scolded Ronric.

’Are you crazy?! Why would you look away?!

Also, use your brain for a second! She’s a Quasi-Supreme odd-eyed werewolf with purple flames, who instantly regenerated from the backlash of a broken Domain, and has a ridiculous Third Concretization powerful enough to match the strength of my Dictums and deal with my Mystic Eyes Curse!

Who the hell do you think that is?!’

’!!’

With those pieces of information laid out for him, Ronric immediately understood the grim reality, raising his shield to block the purple laser beam Miranda fired from the tip of her spear as his gaze met her odd eyes.

"...Hybrid!"

’There’s no doubt about it! She’s one of the Zanerth Hybrids. Violet Inferno.’

Salenor zapped off the ground, arcing around Miranda to strike from behind while Ronric charged at her from the front, but Miranda erupted into a pillar of flames and vanished, reappearing behind Ronric as she thrust her spear toward his head. The angel quickly coated his wings in cosmic energy to block the attack, then flapped them to unleash a whirlwind of energy that pushed Miranda back. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

’Salenor, if she’s really the Violet Inferno, then we can’t kill her! She’s immortal!’

’Yes, we can’t,’ Salenor admitted, then continued right after. ’But Deryn might.’

’!’

Ronric’s eyes widened as the realisation sank in, understanding what Salenor meant.

’If we get an opportunity, I want you to buy me time to charge up my Dictum’s Burst Mode. We’ll immobilise her, then combine our powers to break out of this domain and get Deryn!’

’Don’t worry,’ Ronric responded. ’I told Deryn something was wrong before I came here.’

The angel hadn’t rushed over without informing his other allies why he was leaving his post, which meant the one Supreme Miranda saw as an even greater threat than Salenor already knew something had gone wrong.

He just hadn’t left his station because he was occupied with stabilising the damaged Proelium Tower in Luabos, where the situation was even worse since 6 of the 12 universes were now vacant and had no one manning their Towers.

’That’s good to he—!’

Salenor couldn’t finish the thought as he ducked under Miranda’s spear thrust, quickly countering with a thrust of his left dagger, but Miranda slipped past it by the thinnest margin, her body erupting in flames as she vanished and appeared behind Ronric, switching her spear for a sword which she swung toward his neck.

Ronric spun around and met her slash with his shield, parrying it while lifting his sword in his right hand and charging it with cosmic light before bringing it down on her.

Miranda sidestepped the descending blade that split the floor of her domain, instantly spinning to deliver an upward diagonal slash at Ronric’s neck, but he managed to pull his blade back in time to block her strike.

’She’s only aiming for vitals!’

Just as Ronric thought this, Miranda’s arms bulged slightly, her silvery purple fur spreading from her clawed wrists up to her elbows, amplifying her strength, which she used to push Ronric back.

Salenor vaulted over him and dove at her, but Miranda, expecting him, was already swinging her sword to intercept his incoming strike.

The man pulled back at the last moment and darted behind her in a flash, thrusting his daggers toward her back, but before they connected, Miranda’s wolf ears twitched, and she twisted her upper body to the side, causing his blades to only graze her back.

She flowed from that motion into a full turn, swinging at him and forcing him to retreat.

Ronric lunged at her from behind, but Miranda spun to face him, her sword switching for a massive warhammer with a spiked edge, purple flames coursing along its opposite side as it collided with his shield.

|Wh—!

**KRAKOOM!!!

The impact rang out like thunder, sending a harsh tremor down Ronric’s spine while cracks splintered across the surface of his shield, and the sheer force of the blow hurled him backwards through the air.

Salenor darted in before Ronric could even hit the ground, arcing around Miranda as his daggers carved streaks of black lightning, then leaping up to deliver another slash before diving back down.

Just as his feet hit the ground and he swept a strike toward Miranda’s face, which she blocked, black chains suddenly wrapped around her body, locking her in place for a brief instant and giving Salenor the chance to retreat and open a path for Ronric’s next strike.

|Templar!|

Ronric dropped his cracked shield and raised his sword high, the blade glowing with cosmic energy as he called out.

|Disintegration Fall!|

He brought the sword down in a simple yet devastating slash, releasing a pillar of disintegrating light that tore through space as it shot toward Miranda like a cosmic guillotine, searing a path of annihilation in its wake.

Miranda burned through the binds restraining her in an instant, flames melting the black chains away as she conjured a spear with her Second Concretization.

Pulling it back, she infused it with energy drawn from her Cosmic Hearth, lighting up the weapon with her purple flames, before hurling it with all her might.

It near-instantly collided head-on with the descending pillar of disintegrating light with an impact that shook not just the galactic filament-sized Domain but the universe outside it.

When the light and shockwaves finally faded, Miranda’s domain had become an even greater wasteland than it had been before, the space thick and sparking with residual cosmic energy.

The blast had barely faded when a pillar of cosmic energy shot into the air, its pressure pressing down on every corner of the wasteland of Miranda’s domain.

Her eyes snapped upward, immediately catching sight of Salenor crouched low in a runner’s stance, black and white lightning crackling violently around him.

His Aspect Armament morphed before her eyes, encasing his legs in armoured boots etched with lightning motifs while his arms were covered in gauntlets reaching up to his elbows, from where black circuit-like marks spread up to his shoulders.

The snake tattoo on his forehead glowed like a brand, all clear signs he was preparing something big, and Miranda wasn’t about to stand by and let him finish.

She twisted her grip on her sword, and instantly, purple flames erupted along the blade in a violent storm, the eruption shaking the domain as the flames climbed up the weapon in a wild torrent.

The sword itself transformed further, releasing a second and third set of jagged spikes from its hilt, each piercing her palm to draw more of her blood. Crimson light mingled with the purple glow erupting from her blade as she channelled energy directly from her Cosmic Hearth into the weapon.

Miranda lifted her sword into a side stance, raising it high with the clear intent to bring it down.

At the same moment, Ronric tossed his sword aside and extended his hand, summoning his shield back into his grip as he dashed straight into the path of her descending blade.

He reinforced the shield, mending the cracks and channelling more of his cosmic energy into its structure, then stomped his foot on the floor and slammed the shield down.

|Guardian Angel!|

|Bloodfire Descent.|

Calmly muttered, Miranda’s declaration starkly contrasted with Ronric’s loud bellow as his cosmic energy poured into the shield, his five pairs of wings spreading outward, enlarging and glowing with brilliant white light.

Energy from his heart flowed through the wings, amplifying as it poured into the shield, forming a multi-layered fortress wall.

The first layer was instantly met by the torrential wave of dark red and purple flames from Miranda’s sword, obliterated in an instant. The wave pushed into the second layer, breaking it within seconds before colliding with the third layer with immense force.

The ground ruptured, fissures spreading through the shield as the third layer began to break apart.

Sweat beading on his brow, Ronric poured more cosmic energy into the shield to generate a fourth and fifth layer, the two new layers rising just as the third collapsed and the fourth took the full brunt of Miranda’s attack.

The collision of Miranda’s flames with the fourth layer hit Ronric with feedback so strong he felt as though he’d been struck directly by the inferno.

He staggered backwards, his feet dragging through the fractured ground as he struggled to remain upright, muscles contracting and veins bulging as he pushed against the overwhelming wave of cosmic energy cracking the fourth layer of his shield.

A sixth pair of wings spread from his back, glowing brighter than the others, blood dripping from the corners of his eyes as he reinforced his shield’s fifth layer, angling the shield to a pointed tip just as the fourth layer collapsed and the flames slammed into the fifth.

The tip of the shield split the torrent, dividing the wave into two and forcing it to rush along either side of him, while Salenor, behind him, remained unharmed as he charged his cosmic energy.