Round 38: Chaos

“Xyrik is truly a mad god…”
By the time Jane, Milia, and Fiona arrived at Skull Port, it was already in complete chaos. Jane clearly “saw” several burning black figures fighting fiercely not far ahead, while others were fleeing rapidly—each figure radiating violent and chaotic divine power, shining brightly in her perception like black suns.
“To bestow divine power so recklessly, elevating worshippers to electors at will?”
Fiona was equally shocked by what she saw. Even as daughters of the gods, the incarnations of the Dawn Goddess who had arrived at the Glorious Temple not long ago had only guided them with holy light, conveying the will of the Glorious Lord—to find Kaylo, the girl possessed by the Lady of Mist, and prevent the resurrection of the Goddess of Lies.
But it seemed now that Dark Day was distributing its seeds of divine power at a massive discount!
What was he trying to achieve?
Amidst the stormy battle, at least three black energy bolts struck Forty-Seven at once. The spells infused with Xyrik’s power not only caused violent explosions but also ignited raging fires. Though these flames weren’t intensely hot, their light was dim, resembling mere wisps of steam, yet they corroded everything they touched at terrifying speed. Moreover, the deadly flames seemed intent on avoiding Xyrik’s worshippers, not even brushing against the edges of their clothes.
“Praise my lord!” one worshipper exulted upon seeing the effect of his attack. Such immense power filled him with arrogance—power enough to let him rule unchallenged in Deepstream City, no, across the entire continent!
The torrential rain, tearing through the burning mist, struck his divine energy shield. Each needle-like streak of light that hit the shield and exploded was actually a miniature rocket trailing flames. Not only him, but all Xyrik’s worshippers tasked with holding back the enemy were faltering under this deluge of destruction.
The shields of those Xyrik worshippers bearing the brunt of the attacks finally collapsed after absorbing forces beyond their limits. The next moment, they were pierced by missile-like projectiles, sending them flying backward with tremendous force before expanding, exploding, and melting—reminding everyone once again that Xyrik’s “grace” wasn’t omnipotent.
Fortunately, such attacks didn’t last forever. Standing amidst the ruins, a terrifying black figure held a massive, rugged-looking weapon in one hand—resembling a variant of a repeating crossbow crafted by some mad alchemists, with a red-hot nozzle at its long barrel aimed at the remaining Xyrik worshippers, like a third eye glowing with abyssal fire.
“Already out of bullets?” Forty-Seven examined the machine gun or rapid-fire cannon in his hands, unsure whether it was shoulder-mounted or handheld. He wasn’t entirely satisfied with this killing weapon, which was based on O’Sullivan’s magic gun “Atlas.” After all, he had long intended to use it to teach that handsome young count who dared insult him a lesson!
A fierce roar shook entire Skull Port.

Surrounded by black flames, Priest Shirek raised his hands high and shouted loudly—his voice echoed with thunderous roars, causing ripples of disturbance even in the waters beneath Skull Port. The darkness in the cave grew denser, and the roaring vibrations penetrated the minds of everyone in Skull Port. Old Ink, who had already moved to a new residence, hobbled over to the single-paneled window with his cane to peek outside, then stepped back abruptly. His small yellow eyes, set beneath his high gray brow, glowed fiercely: “Mad! Completely insane!” He paced around the room, ignoring the fact that the walls of this shelter were over ten feet thick: “I have to get out of here! Damn it, what has ‘Viper Fang’ brought me? He runs fast—just drops off people and vanishes!” “Damn! Balor the Flaming Demon!” Fiona gripped her giant sword, glaring angrily at the filthy monster that stepped out of a twisted, dark void emitting a faint red glow—Balor. Its massive body trembled as it spread its enormous wings covered in thick smoke; tiny flames splashed out like dark red scales shedding from its body, enveloping this terrifying being wielding a flaming sword in a nightmare of black smoke and fire. “Fools! Why have you called me? Do you possess offerings sufficient to calm the wrath of an Abyssal Flaming Demon?” Balor roared, its voice seeming to come from the depths of hell, resembling the screeching sound of burning coal grinding together. It swung its giant sword, which stretched and curved like a formless whip, becoming a flaming whip with at least five heads that struck the rock walls, causing a series of loud explosions. Even the priests who had summoned it to the material world stepped back involuntarily, fearing this most terrifying and evil type of demon, even in the bottomless abyss, as well as trying to avoid the rapidly spreading heat and flames around it. “I make a pact with you in the name of the Eternal Dark Sun!” Protected by the power of darkness, Priest Shirek clearly had the confidence to challenge Balor: “Lord of the Abyss! Destroy my master’s enemies, and you shall receive fair reward—” Suddenly, Balor turned its head toward the three holy warriors. The light of order and goodness coming from them was like a thorn in its eyes—no matter what pact or reward, tormenting, trampling, and destroying those who believed in justice, fairness, and compassion was the greatest pleasure! Balor suddenly spread its wings. Smoke and fire exploded like festival fireworks, and in an instant, its ugly and terrifying massive body appeared before Milia and the others. Seeing that they were three beautiful girls, Balor grew excited, its flames roaring louder—such sweet playthings, even bearing the aura of the benevolent gods— “What a great snack!” it laughed, sulfuric hot air blowing out from its filthy, yellowed, jagged teeth: “I can savor this slowly for a long time!”

Forty-seven was disappointed. He raised the strange gun in his hand and aimed it at the back of the Balor Fiend, but when he pulled the trigger, all that came was the sound of metal gears turning and a burst of scorching steam. It seemed either there were no bullets left or the cooling time hadn’t passed yet. The Shirek believers seemed determined to fight to the death. Amid their high-pitched, distorted shouts, divine power once again distorted the boundaries of space, and another burning, terrifying shadow began to take shape. “Comrades, dear brothers…” Such words might have been more convincing if the gun on Forty-seven’s right arm hadn’t been undergoing another round of transformation, showing no sign of being retracted. “Don’t waste time on these people!” Morriel floated in midair, protected by various magical shields: “Let’s chase O’Sullivan! This is the Main Material Realm—knights blessed by the Dawn Knights surely can handle two Balor Fiends that aren’t in perfect condition!” O’Sullivan continued his tradition of running away whenever he saw Morriel and Forty-seven, but this time he didn’t have any magic crystals to throw them into the deep sea—nor did Morriel make him disappear from her mental image. “O’Sullivan,” Forty-seven thought for a moment. “You’re right. I’m truly tired of this annoying guy who never dies.” The Balor Fiend roared as it stepped forward, slashing its sword at the holy light shield of the holy warrior Zhen. White flames clashed violently with the flames of the abyss—order and chaos, goodness and evil—annihilating each other in the collision and returning to their original primal energy. “Milia! Go after the red-robed female mage!” After blocking the Fiend’s flaming sword, Zhen, along with Fiona, shot blinding beams of holy light, forcing the Balor Fiend to retreat with its giant claws over its face, letting out a thunderous roar. She stood there with her sword raised, her body surrounded by brilliant silver flames that gradually split into two streams. One stream traced intricate, strange magic circles on the ground as she moved, while the other rose to her back, transforming into a pair of pure white wings. The Balor Fiend swung its whip violently; the dozens-of-feet-long flaming whip swept through the air like a thunderclap, but it couldn’t pull Zhen out of the range of the holy light circle. So both Fiends flew into the air, aiming to gain an advantage with their innate spell-like abilities. “Yes, Sister Milia! Go and fulfill the commands of the Glorious Lord! I and Sister Zhen can handle this!” Fiona swung her giant sword, creating a white barrier that blocked the barrage of flames from the two Balor Fiends. “The glorious sunlight cannot tolerate the existence of such evil creatures—scram back to the abyss!” Milia hesitated for a moment before running in the direction where Forty-seven and Morriel had gone. A Shirek assassin, imbued with spells such as “Divine Power,” “Giantization,” and “Blade Barrier,” rushed at the red-robed female mage like a black bolt through the dim air of the cave, only to be engulfed in a violent explosion caused by a series of fireballs cast using order magic.

Moriel’s spells scorched everything, even the icy seawater beneath their feet began to boil.
“If your god truly intends to protect you, he should have given you fireproof, bulletproof, radiation-proof power armor!” Forty-Seven carried this guy out of the raging heat. The charred remains of the Xyrik cultist were hung like a frog on a bayonet or simply wrapped around Forty-Seven’s cannon-like gun barrel on his right arm.
As the gear components forming the giant spear were reassembled and ground, this terrifying weapon also took on the function of a meat grinder. Amidst the cold mechanical roar, burnt flesh kept being stuffed into the gaps of the weapon—Forty-Seven picked it up as if he’d discovered something interesting: “Interesting.”
“You can’t escape, O’Sullivan!” Moriel landed beside Forty-Seven. She raised her hand, with surging magical energy flowing between her fingers. “Or do you want to continue this meaningless resistance?”
The shadows deep in the cave trembled, as if a layer of their darkest essence had been suddenly stripped away.
Two figures slowly stepped forward—the one in front was O’Sullivan.
“Should I praise your courage or your stupidity?” A hissing laugh came from Black Horn behind him as he placed his fingers with black nails against his blood-red lips. “A mere mortal daring to defy the Eternal Dark Day and interfere in the war between gods?”
His eyes now resembled O’Sullivan’s, taking on a blurred state between the abyss and nebulae, pitch-black and terrifying. If this could be considered a sign, it seemed the two of them had reaped the most benefits from the ritual to absorb Xyrik’s divine power. But against the heavily armed Forty-Seven, who radiated destruction from every part of his being and was already in combat mode, bringing up the God of Murder now seemed like a bluff born of cowardice.
“That’s not fair.” To everyone’s surprise, O’Sullivan chose such an opening line: “You’re fully armed, indestructible, more powerful than an entire army equipped with Agus’s latest exoskeletal weapons. And I’m just a displaced noble who’s lost everything… Wait, I can sense that your spear is also centered around my ‘Atlas,’ right?”
“Don’t get delusional. I call it ‘Seraion.’ This world is inherently unfair—you need to learn to adapt.” Forty-Seven pulled the bolt, and the clanging sound of metal made Black Horn tremble involuntarily, as if hearing the grin of death: “Nobles still have the right to their first night!”
“Miss Moriel, I must say… we’re fated.” O’Sullivan stopped discussing whether people are born equal and looked at Moriel with his pitch-black eyes. “But I thought all the misunderstandings between us had been resolved… Why are you being so aggressive?”
Moriel didn’t know what she looked like in O’Sullivan’s eyes at this moment, because the female mage could even glimpse through his eyes a scene that didn’t belong to this world: chaos, slaughter, desolation, endlessness—a shrill cry made of all the pain and madness in the world—that was Xyrik’s dark realm.

“Tell me where Kayro is.” Moriel cautiously covered herself with her body of forty-seven, knowing that any voter endowed with divine power could not be underestimated. “I’ve said it before—I have no intention of getting involved in the conflict between Eternal Darkness and Lady Mist. I just want to ensure my friend Kayro isn’t harmed because of it… Now that you’re Hryk’s favorite, Count O’Sullivan, how about we both step back? Help me find Kayro, and as long as I’m sure what you plan to do won’t harm her, I’ll assist you… As for whether Hryk of Darkness wants to take Lady Mist as his bride, I really don’t care.”

“Stubborn, ignorant mortal!” Blackhorn screamed. “Do you think a mere mortal can retain anything after serving as a vessel for the resurrection of a god? Assimilation, consumption, eternal, complete destruction! Even if you swim through the River of Souls, you won’t find a single fragment of her soul! Your foolish choice has not only angered Eternal Darkness but also displeased that bitch of Mist!”

“Blackhorn!” O’Sullivan tried to stop his mockery, but it was too late.

Moriel’s voice was as cold as ice: “Stubbornness and ignorance are women’s traits. As for choices… yes, for us mortals, every choice we make is merely to comfort ourselves.”

Then the female mage launched her attack.

The destructive magic field released by “Advanced Magic Dispelment” surged in a fan shape toward O’Sullivan and Blackhorn under the precise control of the archmage, without deliberately avoiding forty-seven—whatever energy kept her moving around all day certainly wasn’t something “Magic Dispelment” could dispel.

Even more threatening than the destructive magic field was the destruction unleashed from forty-seven’s guns, possibly more dangerous than many offensive spells. The flesh forced into her guns as ammunition turned into burning plasma, rushing at enemies with unstoppable hunger, tearing apart their bodies, shattering their souls, and melting them into a mess of indistinguishable flesh, blood, and internal organs.

The two Hryk voters, stripped of their divine protections, dared not use their god-given bodies to test the power of this plasma cannon—just as no powerful mage would be foolish enough to resist an avalanche head-on.

Hryk’s divine power altered their bodily structure, allowing them to shift forms as easily as waving their arms. O’Sullivan and Blackhorn turned into denser, darker mist in the dark cave, scattering to avoid the impending disaster.

The explosions caused by the plasma fireballs were enough to shock any observer, not even the drifting mist escaping unscathed.

Chaos-filled air currents surged through the vast cave, forming two whirlwinds that trapped the dissipating mist. O’Sullivan and Blackhorn reappeared on either side, seemingly unharmed.

“Stop your steel boy, Moriel,” O’Sullivan said. A long sword seemingly made of pure shadow appeared in his hand, though it might not have been solid at all—more like a rift torn in space. “His recklessness will destroy him, just as it did in Rain City.”

Hei Jiao said nothing but spread his arms forward—instantly, his black robe expanded infinitely outward, and the priest himself seemed to turn into a gaping hole blowing cold winds. Ashes gathered into armored skeletons, and the air gave birth to twisted ghosts. Immortal monsters emerged in this cold wind, opening their dim eyes and charging at Moriel and Forty-Seven.

“Is that so? If you can summon Old Singh, I might consider changing tactics,” Forty-Seven said mockingly, raising his gun.

Before Forty-Seven could act, the female mage countered with a swirling mass of hissing, dense fog. The undead summoned by Hei Jiao were swallowed whole by the fog, vanishing into nothingness without even a scream—easier than Forty-Seven dealing with them one by one.

O’Sullivan appeared and disappeared, showing up in seven or eight different places before vanishing entirely. Moriel’s magical shield remained unaffected by any illusions or invisibility, faithfully shifting its position to stand between him and Moriel—the Shadow Sword severed all of the shield’s fingers except the thumb, and then O’Sullivan had to endure the scorching, boiling explosive flames from Forty-Seven’s Arm Cannon.

Black mist surged again, but this time it was accompanied by widespread burning. Hei Jiao roared as he vanished and reappeared, swinging a chain whip that also seemed to be made of shadow at Moriel. Forty-Seven used his still-smoldering Arm Cannon to protect the female mage, shattering the chain whip against the steel barrel, while Hei Jiao took at least twenty magical projectiles in the sparking chaos and flew back like a kite with broken strings.

Forty-Seven aimed at him, but his eyes flickered, and he didn’t fire. Hei Jiao had a dozen wounds bleeding profusely. Though the female mage’s magical projectiles were unusually sharp, almost like sword strikes or bayonet blows, it wasn’t a big deal, he thought. Divine power flowed within him, rushing to the wounds torn by Moriel’s projectiles to help heal them—just a moment longer…

A fierce slash came from behind, from shoulder to waist. Hei Jiao screamed; the agony of nearly being torn apart made his whole body tremble. The attacker’s strike carried an indescribable solemnity and firmness, and the chaotic divine power became wildly disordered under that blow, fleeing frantically and causing Hei Jiao’s wounds to reopen—like a child trying to avoid his father’s slap. It was an incomprehensible absurdity.

Milia, who had just arrived, reversed her long sword. The ordinary sword had no elaborate decorations beyond a row of inscriptions carved on its blade, and even the glow of holy power was faint. This sword carried Anton’s teachings, Anton’s will. Milia’s hesitation vanished the moment she drew it; even attacking from behind, something she would never have done before, now seemed insignificant…

Belief, methods—no matter how many doubts remained, she couldn’t do nothing. She raised the sword high, ready to sever Hei Jiao’s head.

The black mist carried Hei Jiao away, reshaping him in a corner of the cave.

O’Sullivan, who appeared from the mist, was still unharmed, though his face was even paler. Leaning on his Shadow Sword, he gasped for breath. It was obvious that his apparent integrity was just an illusion.
“If you hadn’t come to interfere, I could have dealt with this half-human monster just like Skywalker destroyed the Death Star,” said Forty-Seven to Milia.
Morriel glanced at them, then turned to O’Sullivan and Black Horn. Now she held a complete advantage: “Well, still refusing to tell me where Kaylo is?”
O’Sullivan forced a bitter smile. Though he had anticipated the strength of these two villains, he hadn’t expected them to push him to such a desperate situation. The relentless attacks left him with no time to catch his breath. He couldn’t escape, nor could he win in a fight. Could it really be…
“Eternal Darkness will bring you eternal torment!” Black Horn beside him continued to curse, “Foolish bitches who don’t know what death is!”
Forty-Seven lowered his arm cannon, causing it to stretch and transform: “Just kill them. We can figure out something about Little Red Riding Hood later…”
Morriel’s gaze suddenly sharpened. She stopped Forty-Seven, as if searching for something or listening to something.
The wind blowing into the cave grew increasingly fierce. The howling grew louder, and even O’Sullivan and Black Horn paled, with darkness swirling uneasily in their eyes.
A sweet girl’s voice, starting faint and then becoming clearer, echoed through the cave along with the wind, seeping into everyone’s ears: “Oh my… Sister Morriel, if you want to find me, how can you rely on these idiots who actually believe in a madman?”