Chapter 949: The end of the Alien Lord
Even as blood streamed from his eyes — the price of releasing Heaven’s Gate at full power — Overlord’s gaze remained razor-sharp. Not a flicker of doubt, not even the brief tremor of a heartbeat, broke his focus as he continued to unleash a relentless storm of god-weapons upon his foe. Each blast roared like a dying star, hammering the Alien Lord, refusing to grant it even the smallest chance to rise from the scorched and broken earth beneath it.
"AARGHHHHHHHH!" The Alien Lord’s scream tore across the sky like the howl of a dying universe. Its voice was a thunder of agony and rage. Gram’s solar flames already burned deep into its flesh, and each strike of Overlord’s barrage opened new holes across the monstrosity’s form.
The air stank of scorched tissue and burning ether. At last, something changed — the endless regeneration that had made the Alien Lord seemingly invincible faltered. Wounds no longer closed. The cancerous cells that endlessly spawned to repair the creature’s vast body ceased their work.
After enough power to crumble a small world into dust had been poured into the attack, the Alien Lord’s vitality and energy were reaching their limits. Its immortal constitution was beginning to collapse. Though it lacked true wisdom, it possessed instincts, and those instincts shrieked of imminent annihilation.
Faced with oblivion, the Alien Lord reacted the only way it knew, with madness.
Another scream rose from its maw, equal parts rage and despair, shattering the ozone-laced air above the battlefield. In a final act of desperation, the Alien Lord burned its very essence, feeding its soul into a pyre of power. Its monstrous frame blazed with unnatural light as it tanked the god-weapons’ volley, forcing its mangled body upright.
With a single, thunderous leap, it launched itself skyward toward the Archangel’s hovering figure. The jagged bone spear pulsing with cataclysmic force. It aimed straight for the Archangel’s heart.
But before the blow could land, a figure interposed itself.
Altharion stood between the spear and its target. His eyes burned with ironclad determination as he gathered the last of his strength. The glaive in his hands trembled with power, glowing with the light of his soul as he condensed everything he had left into this one, final stand.
The bone spear and the glaive collided. The clash was a thunderclap of annihilation. Reality itself seemed to splinter — the ground cracked, the sky roared, and a great shockwave obliterated the ruins below. Then came the explosion.
Altharion’s body was hurled away like a meteor, blood spraying from every wound. His glaive shattered into a thousand pieces, glowing fragments falling like dying stars. Yet the young prince had succeeded. The Alien Lord’s charge had been halted for a single, precious instant — enough time for Overlord to prepare his final strike.
"Gungnir."
The Archangel’s voice was calm, almost reverent, as he spoke the weapon’s name. His eyes locked on the Alien Lord’s skull. With a flash like a newborn star, Gungnir streaked forward, trailing a radiant wake of cosmic energy.
The Alien Lord’s instincts screamed once more. Its claws rose to intercept, each talon a monolith of living void, but one after another they were pierced, shorn, and cast aside. When Gungnir was unleashed, nothing could halt its momentum until it reached its destined mark.
Shock filled the Alien Lord’s eyes as the spear drove through its skull, bursting out the back and leaving a vast, gaping hole. Its colossal frame went rigid, its energy faltering, its will flickering like a candle in a storm. That was all Overlord needed.
A stream of the Nightmare Universe flowed within the Alien Lord’s wounds. The dark essence poured inside like an ocean of shadows, devouring everything in its path.
The hundreds of holes torn open by the god-weapons’ barrage, the burning scars left by Gram’s solar fire, the great void punched through its head by Gungnir — all became gateways for the nightmare’s tide. The Alien Lord convulsed, its scream breaking into silence as the devouring force consumed its flesh, its energy, its very concept of being.
At last, its massive body crashed to the ground with a tremor that rippled through the battlefield. Dust and ash rose like a funeral shroud. Even then, even after such annihilation, the creature still clung to a flicker of life — a testament to the power of entities from the dark dimension. Left unchecked, it might recover. But the Nightmare Universe ensured that would never happen. It consumed without mercy. It left nothing to rise again.
Only after confirming the Alien Lord’s final defeat did Overlord descend to the ground. Exhaustion was etched into every line of his face, but his expression remained calm, distant. Around him the war still raged at the heart of the Zanis Homeworld, but he did not intervene. This crucible would forge new warriors, and he desperately needed to recover.
He reached inward, verifying that the Nightmare Universe continued its assault on the remains of the Alien Lord and the Master’s Hand. Only then did he close his eyes, focusing on restoration.
Though Overlord offered no aid to the soldiers still fighting, his victory over the Alien Lord spread like wildfire through their ranks. Morale surged. Men and women who had been on the brink of collapse pushed away exhaustion, finding in themselves a renewed ferocity. Their blades rose higher, their war cries louder, as they carved through the monstrous tide.
On the periphery of the battlefield, the White Death allowed himself the faintest of smiles. Yet his mind was not on the victory, but on his son.
Altharion lay gravely wounded. It would take time — and power — to heal such injuries. But during his duel with the Alien Lord, the prince had surpassed his limits again and again, breaking through the walls of body and soul. Even at the edge of death, he had reached a higher realm than before the battle began.
Of course, Alexandro did not lower his guard. His eyes remained fixed on Pompeyo. The duel between them had raged even while Overlord fought the Alien Lord. If anything, it had grown fiercer, reaching its climax as Alexandro prepared to end things once and for all.
He drew a deep breath. Entropy gathered around his spear, a white sun rising in his hands. His energy soared higher and higher, a tide of annihilation that made the air itself shudder.
Pompeyo’s heart trembled. He was badly wounded, his left arm was gone, and there was a huge hole in his abdomen, which was covered by white flames that refused to extinguish. Now, as he had watched the fall of the Alien Lord and saw Alexandro’s power rising beyond reckoning, preparing to deliver the final strike. Horror flooded his soul, breaking whatever remained of his composure.
"No... no... no... no... no..." The Patriarch of the Zanis Family screamed in terror, turning, fleeing. "I cannot die. This can not be the end. I must live forever!"
Escape was impossible, but the Patriarch’s fear had already drowned out reason. He had sacrificed everything to achieve eternal life, and now, on the ashes of his world, he faced the truth he had denied. This world would become his grave.