Global Gods : Skill-Resonance Awakened Chapter 379 379: Ch 279 : A Three-Way Battle

While Sunny dedicated years to being an unseen architect, intertwining the very essence of the bubble with his soul and seeking the rebirth of the ancient deities, the Demonic Realm plunged into widespread disarray.

The tranquility of the Demon Lords shattered, replaced by a soul-crushing, psychological war of attrition. They, the apex predators, suddenly found themselves the hunted, stalked by an unseen, unsmellable, and untouchable threat.

For countless decades, the Seven Lords had striven to decipher Lom's attack methodologies. Every tactical maneuver, every meticulously laid trap, and every divinatory ritual ended in hollow, abject failure.

The toll of their pride was immense: upwards of a hundred thousand Demon Gods, the very elite vanguard of the Abyss, had been spirited away by Lom.

These were no common grunts; they constituted the core military strength of the demons, and their disappearance left a gaping void in the realm's power hierarchy.

In a desperate attempt to halt these disappearances, Deimos, the Lord of Discord, initiated the Black Mandate. All remaining Demon Gods were commanded to return to the Capital city.

Deimos's logic was that by consolidating their power within the realm's core, an area under the direct protection of the Seven Lords' divine auras, Lom would be compelled to reveal himself. Any disturbance in the dimensions, any faint trace of a spatial tear, would be immediately detected by the Lords.

However, Lom was no mere gambler; he was a strategist of unparalleled adaptability.

The instant the Demon Gods retreated, Lom redirected his offensive. He disregarded the high-value targets and turned his predatory focus toward the foundational elements: the demon prodigies, the ascending demigods, and gifted mortals.

One by one, the future generations of the demonic race began to vanish. A prodigious sword prodigy in the East disappeared over breakfast; a gifted ritualist in the West dematerialized amidst a throng of thousands.

Within the imposing obsidian citadels of the Capital, the air was thick with the metallic tang of blood and the suffocating, stagnant dread emanating from the Lords' collective fury, their colossal forms casting distorted silhouettes against the dark walls.

"Our prior evaluation was critically flawed," Maladictus spat, her eyes burning with a sickly, ashen luminescence. She stalked the chamber, each step seeming to gouge curses into the very stone.

"Lom and that so-called Cosmos are not merely allied; they operate as one cohesive unit. Lom possesses the Pearl to contain the abducted, but it is Cosmos who provides the astonishing speed. He's employing those reality-rending portals to traverse the realm."

She struck the ornate table with a clawed fist, the obsidian surface groaning and fracturing under the impact.

"Otherwise, it's a physical impossibility! How can Lom be sighted in the Eastern highlands one moment, and mere heartbeats later, abduct a prodigy in the Western swamps? That velocity isn't mere spatial transit; it's Cosmos orchestrating the movements."

"You attribute too much influence to this Cosmos fellow," Ichor, the Demon Lord of Corrosion, rumbled with disdain.

"He's merely a mortal who stumbled upon fortune with a few laws. Allow me to venture forth. I shall obliterate his portals and flay the very skin from Lom's being."

"Be seated, Ichor," Deimos commanded, his voice a resonant wave of pure authority.

"Belial returned from his encounter, his pride shattered and his Law rendered inert. Do you fancy your corrosive abilities superior to the Law of Deception? If we fracture our ranks, we perish. That is precisely their objective."

"So we simply remain immobile?" Belial bellowed, his voice trembling. He had been the most vocal since his personal defeat, his paranoia escalating to critical levels. "We sit idle while our legacy is plucked like ripened fruit? Every prodigy lost is a warrior gained for their cause! We are being culled!"

"We bide our time," Maladictus reprimanded, her tone frigid enough to freeze the very air. "A predator that plunges blindly into the darkness becomes prey. Lom is arrogant. He will eventually overreach. He will create a disturbance so monumental that even his portals cannot conceal it. And when that moment arrives, we shall crush the heavens upon him."

The dread of Cosmos had silently become an unspoken eighth member of their war council.

They understood that Deimos needed to remain in the Capital to safeguard the Demon Gods residing within the city.

Should the remaining Lords disperse to hunt Lom, they risked being systematically eliminated one by one.

Belial's account of his humiliating encounter had grown with each repetition; the notion of a being capable of subverting a Lord's fundamental Law instilled profound apprehension.

They were the absolute rulers of the Abyss, yet they felt like terrified children huddled beneath a blanket.

While the Demon Lords grappled with their collective mental anguish, the architect of their suffering reclined upon a throne of swirling shadows within a dimension that existed between the very seams of reality.

Beneath him, assembled in silent, disciplined formations, stood the most formidable beings under his command: The Calamity Heralds.

Lom gazed down at a map unfurled across his lap. To a mortal observer, it would have appeared as nothing more than a fragment of crimson parchment adorned with arbitrary ink splotches.

But for Lom, it was the Abyssal Cartograph, a tool that granted him the ability to survey any location within the Demonic Realm by concentrating his will.

"Hah... I would gladly forfeit a million souls just to witness Deimos's current expression," Lom jested, his voice reverberating through the immense, silent chamber. "Can you picture it? The esteemed Lord of Discord, confined to a dim chamber, startled by every fleeting shadow? It's a scene worthy of a poem."

"My Lord," a voice emanated from the assembled subordinates. This belonged to Vax, the commander of Team 23, a being whose form was a peculiar mosaic of void-matter and reptilian scales.

"The Lords have utterly forsaken the outer territories. Our reaping proceeds with unexpected ease. However, the Demon Gods themselves are now beyond our grasp, all concealed behind the formidable shield of the Capital."

"Let them remain there," Lom commanded with a dismissive flick of his wrist. "The Gods are merely the branches, Vax. The true lifeblood lies in the prodigies and the mortals, the roots. If I sever the roots, the entire tree will wither and die. Tell me, how many have we claimed this week?"

"Six thousand prodigies, my Lord," Vax reported. "And the entirety of three sub-realms teeming with mortal demonic potential."

"Excellent. Dispatch Team 23 to the Eastern quadrant," Lom ordered. "Integrate them with Teams 12 and 6. Commence a widespread harvest of the bloodline prodigies concentrated there. I desire the very air to be thick with the scent of their absence. Let us provoke the Lords until their patience finally snaps and they are compelled to emerge from that fortress wailing."

Vax stepped forward, grasping a dark, swirling orb. It was an exact replica of the Pearl of Calamity.

At present, Lom held command over a million such teams, each composed of one hundred elite Demon Gods.

These forces had been strategically dispersed throughout the entire dimensional bubble, tasked with locating the reincarnated forms of ancient Gods and harvesting nascent multiverses.

Only a select thousand of these teams, designated as Heralds, were actively engaged in sowing chaos within the Demonic Realm.

Due to the synchronized operations occurring at these thousand distinct points, Lom experienced an illusion of being everywhere at once.

In truth, he was merely the maestro orchestrating a global symphony of destruction, seated serenely upon his throne while his legions executed the arduous tasks.

His objective was straightforward: compel the Demon Lords to abandon the Capital. He required unobstructed access to the spire's basement. He needed to commune once more with the Hidden Entity dwelling in the Real Void, unobserved by any prying eyes.

"Should I direct the Heralds towards the sector where the Multiverse of Gods disappeared?" Lom pondered aloud, his finger hovering above a shadowed region on his grand map. A moment's hesitation, then he abruptly withdrew his hand as if seared.

"No. That formidable entity remains at large within the bubble. Should any of our teams stray too close, they would be annihilated before they could even register its formidable aura."

A peculiar, silent equilibrium existed. Just as the Demon Lords maintained their forces concentrated within the Capital to evade Lom, Lom deliberately kept his Stalkers at a distance from Sunny's established territory.

Initially, Lom shared the Demon Lords' bewilderment regarding the multiverses' sudden vanishing.

However, subsequent discussions with Edgar illuminated the horrifying reality. He gained knowledge of the Nihilium Bloodline, the revered ancestral lineage of the Real Void, and their inherent capacity to cultivate entire multiverses within their internal spiritual landscapes.

"He is assimilating them," Lom whispered, a genuine tremor of dread coursing through his being. "He is consuming the very fabric of multiverses to fuel his own prodigious expansion."

Vax looked up, detecting a shift in his master's demeanor. "Lord? Should we not attempt to reclaim the territories that Cosmos has commandeered? They were abundant with diverse lifeforms... We could have subdued them, turning them into our livestock."

"Are you seeking a suicidal end, Vax?" Lom retorted sharply, his gaze instantly fixing upon his commander.

"If you perceive even a flicker of violet starlight, you disengage. Engagement is forbidden. Retreat without hesitation. To Cosmos, we are not adversaries... we are merely sustenance."

"He is a chosen scion of the Real Void. You lack comprehension of what that truly entails... It signifies that, in his eyes, our established Laws are no more significant than mere seasonings for a meal." Lom's thoughts raced inwardly, his complexion paling as he contemplated the escalating power of Sunny.

Lom redirected his focus towards the Demonic Capital depicted on his map. A profound sense of frustration washed over him. His meticulously crafted scheme to lure the Lords out was faltering, progressing far slower than anticipated, primarily because they harbored a greater dread of the Third Participant than they did of him.

"The bubble is diminishing," Lom murmured, his expression darkening ominously. "Caught between the stagnation of the Lords and the insatiable hunger of Cosmos, my options for strategic maneuvering are rapidly dwindling. We must reach that basement. We require the Entity's counsel before Cosmos surpasses our ability to influence him."

"Team 23! Advance!" Vax bellowed, sensing the urgency radiating from his lord. "The prodigies of the East shall cease to exist within the span of a month!"

As the Heralds dissolved into the obsidian depths of the Pearl of Calamity, Lom reclined, his gaze locked upon the two contrasting maps laid out before him.

He was engaged in a perilous game against two colossal forces, fervently hoping they would annihilate each other before they ever took notice of the insignificant pest lurking within their defenses.However, observing the violet region on the celestial map expand daily, a stark realization dawned upon him: hope was a pathetically fragile defense against the all-consuming maw of the Cosmos.