Meanwhile, in the center of the empire

The Golden Palace was eerily silent. The grand throne room, once the vibrant, opulent heart of the Dragon Kingdom, now resembled a slaughterhouse.

Blood pooled across the polished marble, staining the golden serpentine banners torn from the walls.

At the base of the dais lay the Dragon Kingdom Emperor. His heavy platinum crown rested discarded in a puddle of his own blood, his legendary armor ruptured and ruined. Beside him rested the broken, mutilated bodies of his two remaining sons.

The royal bloodline had been extinguished in a matter of minutes. The elite imperial guards sworn to protect them were scattered in pieces across the hall.

A nightmare occupied the Emperor’s throne.

The creature existed as a shifting, unstable mass of dark, putrid flesh. Dozens of yellowed eyes blinked erratically across its surface, looking in every direction simultaneously.

Jagged mouths filled with needle-like teeth opened and closed across its torso, whispering overlapping curses in a dead, guttural language. This was a High Envoy of the Abyss.

Hundreds of Void demons knelt in the blood of the fallen royals.

They came in terrifying variations hulking brutes wielding massive jagged weapons and spindly, multi-limbed horrors twitching with nervous energy. None dared to lift their gaze toward the throne.

"The mortal vessel is broken," one of the mouths on the throne spoke, producing a wet, grating sound that vibrated the stained-glass windows.

"The human rulers have served their purpose. Their despair has thoroughly saturated the leylines of the capital."

A Void Priest wearing tattered, shadow-woven robes stepped forward and bowed his head to the floor.

"High Envoy, the preparations for the Grand Summoning are nearly complete."

" The blood spilled today anchors the ritual circle in the courtyard. We require only the final catalyst to tear the boundary permanently."

"The world is fragile," another mouth hissed from the throne.

"The Void Demon God stirs in the deep. When He crosses the threshold, this continent will be unmade. The sky will shatter, and the era of light will end forever." 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

The kneeling demons chattered in low, eager tones, vibrating with anticipation.

For decades, the Void Cult had manipulated the royal family’s greed from the shadows. Now, the deception was over, and the Dragon Kingdom was entirely hollowed out from the inside.

*Flap. Flap. Flap.*

Heavy leathery wings echoed through the massive chamber. A grotesque bat demon dropped from the vaulted ceiling.

It was the size of a grown man, covered in patchy, rotting fur and possessing four glowing red eyes.

Landing heavily near the Void Priest, it scraped its snout against the marble in a deep, subservient bow.

"Speak, scout," the Envoy commanded as several yellow eyes fixed on the winged demon.

"My Lord," the bat chattered frantically.

"I bring urgent news from the outer borders. The southern supply routes are completely annihilated. The eastern armory cities are burning to ash. Our forward observation posts and transit hubs have been wiped out."

A murmur of confusion rippled through the gathered demons.

"The Alliance Vanguard?" the Void Priest asked, gripping his staff.

"Did their army march faster than anticipated?"

"No army marches with such speed," the bat trembled, its four red eyes wide with genuine terror.

"A single target is responsible. Zero."

The throne shifted. The grotesque mass leaned forward, splintering the ancient wood under its unnatural weight.

"Zero," the Envoy whispered through five mouths simultaneously.

"Yes, My Lord," the bat confirmed.

"He is bypassing our blockades entirely. He slaughters our commanders and vanishes before reinforcements can even assemble."

"He is systematically blinding our outer defenses and aiming to take over the capital. At his current pace, he will reach the palace gates by nightfall."

The throne room fell silent. Zero was the anomaly that had disrupted their grand designs time and time again.

He had slaughtered their generals, ruined their shrines, and continuously defied the laws of the Abyss.

The Void Priest stood up, visibly anxious.

"High Envoy, if Zero reaches the capital before the ritual is complete, he might disrupt the summoning."

"We must dispatch the remaining elite guard and the Titans to intercept him immediately."

"You will do no such thing," the Envoy commanded.

Harsh, overlapping laughter erupted from the entity on the throne. The deafening sound shook dust from the high rafters.

"Zero believes he is the hunter," the creature mocked.

"He believes he is dismantling our empire. He remains completely blind to the truth of the Void."

The entity raised a shapeless, shadowy appendage, pointing toward the massive shattered doors of the throne room.

"The ritual requires a catalyst of unimaginable power. A soul dense enough to bridge the gap between our world and the Void Demon God. We intended to use the combined souls of the capital’s population."

The yellow eyes on the creature dilated with a hungry light.

"Zero possesses a strange power His soul is practically a singularity."

The Void demons slowly raised their heads, dark understanding dawning upon them.

"Pull back the outer guards," the Envoy ordered. "Open the city gates. Let the anomaly march directly into the heart of our ritual."

The creature settled back onto the ruined throne, eyes closing in satisfaction.

"We will trap him. We will strip his power and use his soul as the very key to open the door for our God. He is delivering our ultimate victory to us."

***

[Location: The Dragon Kingdom – Eastern Armory City

Two hundred miles away, the air shattered.

Space folded inward, tearing a jagged hole in the crisp morning sky above an Imperial supply depot. Damien stepped out of the spatial tear, his black combat coat snapping violently in the wind.

He hovered fifty feet above the sprawling military compound, looking down at the thousands of Imperial soldiers scrambling in panic.

Tapping into the golden thread connecting his soul to his butler, Damien commanded Alfred’s [Spatial Manipulation] with flawless precision.

He had transcended the physical limitations of a mortal vessel. He was a walking natural disaster, dismantling the Dragon Kingdom’s military infrastructure with absolute ruthlessness.

Damien drew the Pantheon Sword. The white crystal blade ignited, humming with a starved, predatory vibration. Channeling his 8th-Order Eclipse Core, he sent a pulse of pitch-black Hollow King mana down his arm.

He pointed the blade downward and swung.

[Eclipse Sever.]

A horizontal crescent of twilight-purple energy dropped onto the supply depot like a falling moon.

The Imperial mages manning the watchtowers raised their barriers, but the energy hit the ground before their spells could fully form.

The entire compound was cleanly bisected. The volatile shadow mana devoured the warehouses, armories, and reinforced carriages, turning stone and steel into fine grey ash.

Locking onto his next mental coordinate, Damien pulled the fabric of space around himself.

[Space Art: Long-Range Warp].

He vanished from the sky, leaving behind a crater of absolute silence.

His slaughter became a terrifying rhythm. Bouncing across the continent, he materialized above a canyon pass where five Imperial Airships were mobilizing.

Infusing his Golden Dragon Aura into the Pantheon Sword, he transformed his body into a projectile of pure light, tearing through the flagship’s hull and detonating its core. The chain reaction brought all five airships crashing down into the mountains below.

He warped into a subterranean facility producing enchanted steel. Releasing his [Greedy King’s Intent], he crushed the minds of the overseeing guards and destroyed the central furnace with a flick of his wrist.

By mid-afternoon, the Dragon Kingdom’s logistical network was a bleeding, severed artery.

Damien arrived at the fortress city of Oakhaven—the final lock before the open plains leading to the Imperial Capital.

Inside the highest chamber of the command spire, the Imperial Knight Commander slammed his gauntleted fist onto a tactical map. Clad in heavy platinum armor, the 6th-Order powerhouse roared at his terrified communications officer.

"Raise the anti-air wards to maximum! If this ghost steps foot in my city, I will personally mount his head on the gates!"

Space folded outward behind the Commander, accompanied by the sharp smell of ozone.

"I wouldn’t recommend that," Damien said, resting the Pantheon Sword casually over his shoulder.

The Commander spun around, bringing his flaming broadsword up in a defensive arc. His 6th-Order aura exploded, filling the command room with blinding light. Lunging forward, he swung the broadsword with enough kinetic force to split the tower in half.

Standing perfectly still, Damien locked his twilight-purple eyes on the charging knight.

[Will Art: King’s Pressure].

The atmosphere in the room collapsed. The crushing, tyrannical weight of an 8th-Order existence slammed into the Commander.

The fire on the broadsword extinguished instantly. The heavy platinum armor groaned and buckled under the localized gravity. Forced to his knees, the Commander gasped as the marble floor shattered beneath him.

Damien walked slowly toward the struggling man.

"For the Kingdom..." the Commander wheezed, defiance burning in his eyes.

"This again, why don’t you all shut up" Damien replied.

He swung the sword. A single, frictionless arc of white light passed through the Commander’s thick platinum neck guard. The 6th-Order life force was extinguished in a microsecond. The Commander’s head hit the floor with a dull thud.

Flicking his blade clean, Damien sheathed the Pantheon Sword. He stepped over the corpse and walked toward the massive glass window overlooking the city. Below him, Oakhaven was in absolute chaos. Without their Commander, the Imperial soldiers were running aimlessly, their morale completely shattered.

Ignoring the panicked scrambling below, Damien fixed his gaze past the fortress walls, out across the rolling plains toward the distant horizon. There lay the heart of the enemy. The Imperial Capital.

A sudden, piercing chill ran down Damien’s spine.

The sensation was so sharp it physically halted his movements. The hair on his arms stood on end, and the ambient mana around his Eclipse Core spiked in defensive agitation.

Damien frowned, his mismatched eyes narrowing into dangerous slits.

At the 8th Order, a hunch was never just a fleeting feeling. It was a tangible connection to the threads of fate, a localized warning from the universe itself.

His highly evolved [Sensory Intent] was screaming that an unseen predator was currently speaking his name.

Someone was watching. Someone was waiting.

"A trap," Damien whispered to the empty command room.

He looked at the distant spires of the capital. The logical, cautious move would be to fall back, regroup with the Alliance vanguard, and wait for Theron and Elizabeth to arrive with the main army.

Rushing headlong into a prepared ambush set by unknown entities was a fool’s errand.

Damien felt this chest pulse warmly in his chest. It rejected hesitation.

It demanded absolute, uncompromising ownership of the board.

A slow, calculating smirk spread across his face.

"Let them set their traps," Damien murmured, tapping his foot as spatial energy gathered around his boots.

"I’ll just crush the trap and the hunter together."

He folded space and vanished, heading straight for the throne.

Author here: a thanks for reading, my exams end tomorrow so expect new character art then, also I’m so close to make the income goal to be able to complete to be able writing going forth

I need about 5450 coins worth of surpprt left, for any amount of support no matter what I’ll give 5 extra Chapters and even prepare ten if possible

I’ll also in produce characters of your choose and name and make sure to thank you in the authors note for the next ten Chapters🙏

Hope you continue to enjoy reading and thanks!