Chapter : 931
The iron teeth closed not on flesh and bone, but on the shimmering, crimson aura of Ken’s own spiritual essence. For a single, horrifying moment, Ken froze. A flicker of something—not pain, but a profound, soul-deep violation—crossed his demonic face. He had not been wounded, he had been… tasted. Jager’s smile was triumphant. The trap had been sprung.
The battle had escalated into a maelstrom of elemental fury and mythic power, a private war waged in a forgotten clearing while the world rumbled on, oblivious. The two duels were a study in contrasts, each a masterpiece of its own brutal art form.
Habiba’s fight was a chess match played with the very earth as her board. She was a serene, unmovable center, her will a conduit for the colossal power of her Sandworm spirit. Kael, the Hornet warrior, was a creature of pure, kinetic violence, a living projectile of chitin and venom. He streaked through the rain-soaked air, his wings a high-pitched, maddening thrum, his stinger-lance a blur of silver and sickly green. He was speed incarnate, a storm of a thousand cuts against her fortress of sand and stone.
“Stand still and die, you earth-witch!” he roared, his voice a distorted, buzzing snarl. He executed a dizzying aerial maneuver, a corkscrew dive that was meant to bypass the wall of sand she had just erected.
Habiba’s response was not to reinforce her defense, but to change the very nature of the ground beneath him. With a calm, downward press of her palm, she issued a silent command. The packed earth beneath his flight path did not turn to mud; it exploded upwards into a dense cloud of fine, abrasive dust. It was a sandstorm in miniature, a blinding, choking vortex of grit and stone.
Kael, caught completely by surprise, flew directly into it. The sand scoured his wings, threatening to tear their delicate membranes. It clogged the spiracles in his chitinous armor through which he breathed, and for a terrifying moment, the terrifying Hornet warrior was reduced to a sputtering, blinded insect, batting wildly at the air.
It was the opening Habiba needed. The Sandworm, which had been a defensive bastion, now became a weapon of overwhelming force. It surged from the earth, its massive body coiling, its circular, grinding maw aimed directly at the disoriented Kael. It was a mountain rising to swallow a gnat.
But Kael, for all his brutishness, was a veteran of a hundred battles. Even blinded, his combat instincts took over. He felt the immense pressure shift, the displacement of air as the Sandworm attacked. Instead of trying to flee, he folded his wings and simply dropped, letting gravity pull him from the path of the snapping jaws. He hit the ground hard, rolling to absorb the impact, coming up on one knee just as the Sandworm’s massive head crashed into the space where he had been a second before. He was alive, but he was now grounded, his greatest advantage nullified. Habiba’s cool, strategic mind had successfully changed the terms of the engagement.
The other duel was not a chess match; it was a collision of stars. Ken and Jager were forces of a higher order, their battle warping the very fabric of the clearing. Ken, in his Demon Lord form, was the personification of absolute power. He did not fight with technique; he fought with physics. His fists were hammers that shattered reality, his movements the inexorable advance of a tectonic plate.
Jager was his perfect antithesis. He was a master of evasion, of redirection, of using his opponent’s overwhelming strength against him. His spirit, the iron alligator Kroth, was not just a shield; it was an intelligent, mobile fortress, its scales able to absorb and dissipate kinetic energy with an unnatural efficiency.
“Is that all you have, you glorified blacksmith?” Jager taunted, his voice a calm, mocking counterpoint to the thunder of their blows. He flowed around a punch that left a ten-foot crater in the ground, his movements a liquid dance of effortless grace. "Such… predictable rage. Such a waste of magnificent power."
Ken’s only response was another, faster punch. This time, Jager did not dodge. Kroth met the blow, not with its armored snout, but with its long, powerful tail. The impact sent a shudder through the alligator’s massive frame, but it held. In the same motion, Jager lunged forward, a wicked-looking dagger of black, serrated obsidian appearing in his hand. He was not aiming for Ken’s armor, but for the fractional gap at his neck.
Chapter : 932
It was a brilliant, opportunistic strike. But Ken’s combat awareness was absolute. As Jager lunged, Ken’s other hand, which had been held in reserve, shot out. He did not try to block the dagger. He caught Jager’s wrist in a grip of impossible, crushing force.
There was a sickening crunch of bone.
Jager’s calm, arrogant mask finally broke. A sharp, high-pitched gasp of pain escaped his lips. His wrist was shattered. The obsidian dagger clattered to the ground.
Ken, his crimson eyes burning with cold, silent fury, began to squeeze. He was not just holding Jager; he was intending to pulp his arm, to unmake him from the hand up.
It was then that Jager, his face pale with pain and desperation, played his trump card. It was the feigned retreat, the move that lured Ken into the true trap. As Ken’s attention was focused on crushing his arm, Jager gave a silent, desperate command to his spirit.
Kroth, the iron alligator, ignored the duel. It lunged forward with a speed that defied its immense bulk. Its jaws, lined with teeth like black, iron spikes, opened wide. But it was not aiming for Ken’s physical body. It was aiming for the very essence of his power. The jaws snapped shut on the shimmering, crimson aura of Ken’s spiritual pressure, the manifested soul of his King-Level power.
The effect was instantaneous and profound. Ken’s crushing grip faltered. A visible tremor ran through his demonic form. It was not a physical wound, but a spiritual one, a violation of the deepest and most fundamental level. Jager had not just found a way to defend against him; he had found a way to feed on him. The alligator’s eyes began to glow brighter, its own power being nourished by the life force it was draining from Ken. The tide of the battle had just, in a single, horrific moment, turned.
Inside the carriage, Lloyd witnessed the entire exchange with a cold, detached clarity. His hand, which had been resting on the hilt of his own sword, tightened. His guardians were magnificent. They were titans. But they were facing an enemy who was not just powerful, but cunning and utterly without honor. He saw Habiba’s tactical victory, but also her draining reserves. He saw Ken’s overwhelming power, but also the insidious, soul-draining trap he had just fallen into.
His time as an observer was coming to an end. The moment for intervention was rapidly approaching.
Jager ripped his shattered wrist free from Ken’s momentarily loosened grip, a triumphant, pain-laced snarl on his face. "You see, monster?" he hissed, cradling his ruined arm. "Power is not about the size of the hammer. It is about where you choose to strike."
Ken stared at him, his crimson eyes burning with a new, more dangerous intensity. He could feel it—the subtle, constant drain on his spiritual core. Kroth’s jaws were a parasitic anchor, a metaphysical siphon that was slowly but surely bleeding him dry. His overwhelming advantage in raw power was being negated by this single, insidious technique.
He roared, a sound of pure, untamed fury, and launched himself at the alligator, intending to shatter its skull and break the connection. But Jager was a master of interference. He moved to intercept, his own movements now hampered by his injury but still preternaturally swift. He was no longer trying to win; he was trying to stall, to buy his spirit enough time to weaken Ken to the point of collapse. The duel devolved into a desperate, brutal brawl, with Ken trying to reach the spirit and Jager and Kroth working in perfect, agonizing tandem to keep him engaged and draining.
On the other side of the clearing, Habiba’s duel had also reached a critical phase. Having grounded Kael, she now pressed her advantage relentlessly. The Sandworm was a force of nature, its every movement reshaping the battlefield. It sent out waves of crushing sand, erupted pillars of rock to hem him in, and used its massive body as a living battering ram.
Kael, stripped of his aerial superiority, was forced into a desperate, defensive fight. He was incredibly fast on his feet, his insectoid legs propelling him in short, sharp bursts, but he was constantly reacting, constantly on the back foot. His stinger-lance, so deadly in the air, was now a clumsy defensive tool against the Sandworm’s overwhelming mass.