My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger Chapter 1251 - 1252: Fate [12]

Aetherus’ titanic form collapsed onto the ground, his enormous body shaking with massive tremors. Golden blood poured from his wounds, yet he smiled nonetheless because he had accomplished what he wanted. He had managed to free the Tomb of the Lesser Gods from where his brother had hung it over the Abyss.

He knew he could not tamper with the Abyss itself. What he had been reaching for was actually the tomb suspended above it, but even attempting to strike the tomb had cost him an entire continent.

Aetherus was lucky to have survived.

Even so, he was severely weakened now, and the final step of taking control of the tomb and opening it was something he could no longer accomplish alone. The catalyst had been his brother’s Divine Spark, which had allowed him to create a lance capable of touching the Abyss, but even that had come at a price far greater than he had expected.

He collapsed, golden blood spilling from his mouth, before his enormous body began to shrink. His titanic form gradually transformed back into that of a human, but the moment his transformation was complete, Aetherus raised both hands toward his own eyes and dug his fingers into his flesh.

A cold, visceral scream escaped him.

His body rolled across the ground as he screamed in agony, the sound so bloodcurdling that everyone around him instinctively went silent. Whatever pain Aetherus was experiencing was beyond anything they had imagined a being like him could feel.

Damon was shaken by what was happening. He raised his hand, signaling for everyone to attack, but no one responded. They were all staring at Aetherus with horror.

"The Sky Continent is gone," Cassian muttered.

Just like that, one of the nine continents had been completely eradicated.

This was something none of them had thought anyone would ever do. The destruction of an entire continent was beyond the scale of any battle they had witnessed, and yet Aetherus had done it merely by attempting to reach the tomb above the Abyss.

Only a few floating islands remained where the continent had once existed.

Damon coughed up blood before looking down and realizing that he was injured as well. Before he could say anything, a spear was launched toward him, or rather, toward Amon, his alter ego.

Damon tilted his head.

The spear passed so close to his face that he felt the wind it created against his skin.

He turned around and saw the familiar face of Xander Ravenscroft staring at him.

"Do you remember me?" Xander whispered.

"You ask me that every time we meet, Xander Ravenscroft."

Damon’s unidentifiable voice echoed across the battlefield as he glanced around. He was a little outnumbered, but that was not his greatest concern. He also did not want to destroy his Shadow Clone, which limited how freely he could fight.

’What do I do?’

Without Matia’s snowstorm covering the battlefield, the entire world was partially watching. Damon sighed and prepared to escape with Teleportation, only to discover that something was wrong.

He couldn’t.

His connection to the shadows outside had been severed.

"Hmm."

Damon looked into the sky, an odd sense of danger crawling over his skin. His eyes widened.

Before anyone could react, a pillar of golden flames shot down from the heavens and slammed into the ground, creating a scorching field that stretched for miles.

The moment Damon felt that aura, his body began to tremble.

The anger.

The shame.

The hatred he thought he had buried.

All of it came rushing back in one monstrous wave.

His gaze slowly lifted toward the heavens, where a gigantic bird made entirely of golden flames hovered in the sky. Its majestic wings stretched across the heavens, while its long tail of fire burned behind it like a trail of sunlight.

"Morticai," Damon whispered coldly.

Suddenly, Xander became irrelevant.

Morticai had not come alone.

Beside him stood a man dressed in white robes, standing atop a flying sword with his hands behind his back as he casually looked down upon the world beneath him.

Not far away stood an old man wearing robes covered in stars, a staff held firmly in his hand. He seemed slightly crazed, and a dense quantity of mana surrounded his body so heavily that the air itself seemed distorted around him.

This was the old wizard who called himself Orbitus.

Then Damon heard whispering from within the trees.

His expression changed.

He knew that aura.

He had felt it during his days in the Whispering Forest. It was the madness suppressed by the fog that covered the forest, the living entity whose corpses had formed an entire death zone.

And now it had returned to battle once more.

"Ythar," Damon whispered.

He spoke its name like a curse.

The sky suddenly became black as far as the eye could see, and from that darkness came a formless sense of dread that spread through the air like a shroud.

Everyone who had ever slept knew this sensation.

It was the gripping terror that woke people in the middle of the night, the feeling that made their heads grow hot and sweaty while their hearts raced and their minds struggled beneath an irrational sense of dread.

The sensation of a nightmare.

The human mind giving birth to its own fears.

Except this time, it was not a nightmare born from someone’s mind.

This was a single nightmare.

One Damon was very familiar with.

"Ittorath."

These were the Outsiders.

At least, these were the ones who were free.

Damon did not understand why they were here. Why weren’t they in Lysithara? Most of their army had already been ordered to march there.

Why had they come here?

He closed his eyes and bit his lip.

Of course.

How could he have been so naive?

Why would their enemies fight according to their terms?

It was strategically sound to attack your enemies when they least expected it. Why would the Outsiders wait for them to gather their forces and swarm them?

Worse, it seemed Ittorath had managed to free its main body.

It had once been sealed away as a rift in the sky, bound by the moon in Lysithara by the Ascendants.

Now it was free.

Damon knew exactly what that meant.

Ittorath was not merely one nightmare.

It was a swarm.

Countless nightmares.

An entire army.

As Damon realized this, black rain began falling from the darkness.

Except it wasn’t rain.

Creatures descended from the sky, their matte-black forms almost featureless, as though their bodies had been shaped directly from darkness itself.

Damon’s expression tightened.

Nightmares.

Thousands upon thousands of them.

Orbitus and Zhang Dafei, the man standing upon the flying sword, did not seem particularly focused on the people around them. Their eyes remained fixed on Aetherus.

"The final ingredient," Orbitus said with a smile. "God of this world. Aetherus. A little minor god."

The old wizard’s smile widened.

"Little god, come quietly, and this old man won’t make things too difficult for you."

Aetherus looked at them for the first time since his awakening.

And for the first time, he felt genuine horror.

Their current power was merely a fraction of what their souls were capable of hiding. He could sense it. Their physical strength did not reflect the true depths of their existence.

At their full power, either of them could kill him with a mere thought.

Aetherus swallowed.

Then he slowly took a step backward.

"Don’t make things difficult," Zhang Dafei said calmly. "We are trapped on your body. The only reason we aren’t destroying this world is because of the barrier. Behave yourself."

Before Aetherus could even react, a claw of fire suddenly grabbed him.

He managed to smash through it and break free, but the flaming form of Morticai was already closing in again.

Aetherus gritted his teeth.

"I do not care who you are! I am Aetherus, God of this world, and I will not let you succeed!"

He rushed forward and attacked them.

At the same time, a tide of nightmares surged toward the battlefield.