Chapter 1000: Goddess of Death (Revised)

Chapter 1000: Goddess of Death (Revised)

"Beyond Grade A?!"

Tolain's countenance shifted in stark dismay!

Every newly ascended Beyond Grade A in recent years had been cataloged by the advanced civilizations, each name familiar to him, yet Hela was absent from those records, instantly throwing his calculations into disarray!

Hela had only just crossed that threshold, revealing her power before mortal eyes for the very first time; naturally, the higher civilizations possessed no dossier on her.

Only on this day did the Goddess of Death truly step into the world!

Nilo trembled from head to toe, overwhelmed by sudden joy.

"Sister Hela has actually reached Beyond Grade A!"

Though years had passed since their last meeting, Nilo had never forgotten the grace of the death mark she had bestowed upon him; witnessing her finally take that monumental step filled him with genuine elation, and he could scarcely restrain himself from shouting the news to the legion's officers.

"Is she the Hela you always speak of..." Mia whispered, her face etched with astonishment as she tugged at Nilo's sleeve.

Mia had joined the legion long after Hela's departure, yet the captain's name echoed constantly from Nilo and the other high-ranking officers, painting a portrait of an elusive, enigmatic commander of the royal guard in her mind.

Though the lady had long vanished from the martial world, her legend lingered in every tavern and hall; today, Mia's long-held wish was finally granted, and beholding Hela in the flesh proved that reality far surpassed rumor, delivering a profound and delightful shock.

Gazing upon the aura of supreme might that radiated from Hela's very being, Mia was instantly captivated, for the woman before her embodied every ideal she had ever harbored of a female sovereign of power.

In a past life, she had been Hela's devoted follower, and now, in this first encounter, their spirits aligned instantly, a perfect match recognized at a single glance.

Han Xiao felt the weight of Hela's presence wash over him, and a deep, sincere warmth blossomed in his chest.

—The Goddess of Death I once knew has finally returned!

You have not disappointed me!

Austin paused for a breath, then a genuine smile curved his lips, the unmistakable grin of a spectator settling in for a magnificent spectacle.

"The Shattered Star Ring's sixth Beyond Grade A? Well, the stage is about to get crowded..."

While the crowd marveled in stunned silence, Tolain's expression darkened, his features twisting into a grimace.

The situation had veered sharply from his expectations; he had prepared to face Aemos, not a sudden, unrecorded Beyond Grade A, leaving him thoroughly cornered.

Though Aemos was a veteran of that rank and likely possessed greater raw power, her abilities were meticulously documented—a crucial advantage—whereas this new adversary was an enigma, making her, in his eyes, a far more perilous foe.

He had reviewed Hela's files, but they were relics from over two decades past; now that she had ascended, who knew what new arts she commanded? With outdated intelligence, Tolain could not guarantee victory, and hesitation crept into his stance.

"You..."

"Stop wasting my time. Do you dare to fight or not?" Hela's eyes blazed with frigid crimson light, her form wreathed in surging energy, her presence suffocating.

She paid no heed to the astonishment rippling through the onlookers, her focus locked solely on her quarry; she had always been a woman of decisive action, despising idle words, preferring steel over speech.

"Fine!" Tolain cast his doubts aside and accepted the challenge.

A Beyond Grade A was a Beyond Grade A; defeating any of them would cement his legacy, and since fate had dealt him Hela, he would no longer pick and choose.

At that moment, Han Xiao, standing nearby with arms crossed, spoke in a calm, measured tone:

"If you must fight, take it far from Planet Aquamarine. Should a single blade of grass or petal on my homeworld be scorched... Tolain, you will not be leaving this system alive today."

"Hmph, I wouldn't dare," Tolain snorted, his bravado masking a prudent caution.

He possessed enough sense not to provoke Han Xiao's cradle world; otherwise, even if he were minced to pieces on the spot, the Ethereal Sect would have no grounds to raise an outcry.

...

With a tacit agreement reached, the crowd swiftly dispersed, selecting a stretch of void farther from Aquamarine to serve as their arena.

Only Hela and Tolain remained in the center, standing far apart as their auras climbed to dizzying heights.

Every eye fixed upon the pair, breaths held in rapt anticipation.

In the next heartbeat, both figures exploded into motion!

Tolain's frame swelled violently, cords of muscle rippling as jagged bone spurs tore through his flesh; curled demonic horns sprouted from his brow, two pairs of leathery wings unfurled from his back, and his spine elongated, splitting into three barbed, skeletal tails.

His human guise vanished, replaced by a crimson, fiendish monstrosity, knotted with muscle and studded with bone, his skin etched with arcane sigils that radiated pure savagery.

"Is he a martial artist?"

Witnessing the transformation, Aemos arched a delicate brow.

"No, he is a mage."

A voice chimed in from the side as Han Xiao's avatar drifted closer, reciting Tolain's dossier in a steady cadence:

"He carries demonic lineage, which underwent sublimation during his ascension. What you just witnessed is the demon clan's True Name Unleashing. This crimson form is his true body, the origin of his 'Red Fiend' moniker. He is a close-combat caster specializing in transformation and amplification. His racial gifts grant him extraordinary resilience and potent regeneration, making him a rare spell-tank. By comparison, his combat style somewhat mirrors the Empire's Milizaus."

"I see."

Aemos nodded, turning her gaze toward him with a faint, teasing smile. "It has been a while. Are you well?"

"Never better," Han Xiao replied with a nod, his tone light. "Did you miss me?"

"Why would I waste my thoughts on you without cause?"

Aemos chuckled, turning her head away to fix her eyes once more upon the battlefield.

In the void, Tolain's metamorphosis complete, he launched a ferocious charge straight at Hela; thick plumes of deep azure mana erupted from his core, weaving into successive amplification spells that clad his form. His physique continued to swell as multicolored magical circuits ignited across his skin, ceaselessly elevating his parameters.

Ignorant of Hela's newfound arts, he relied on the principle that an esper's core nature rarely shifted; according to two-decade-old records, she was a mid-range combatant wielding a specific energy, prompting him to deploy his signature tactic: a brutal, point-blank assault.

The demon clan's True Name Unleashing granted him formidable damage resistance and rapid regeneration, bolstered by an arsenal of magical barriers befitting a spell-tank, forging an impenetrable defense that could, if needed, pivot into a long-range artillery battery.

Aemos's force-field esper ability leaned heavily toward control rather than raw devastation; in his assessment, his combat style naturally countered hers, granting him favorable odds, which was precisely why Tolain had possessed the audacity to challenge her in the first place.

Yet as her foe bore down with terrifying momentum, Hela did not yield an inch; instead, she surged forward, cloaked in crimson death energy that trailed behind her like a comet's fiery tail.

Boom!

The impact resonated not in the air, but within the very souls of the onlookers as the two figures collided with devastating force, erupting a concentric ring of dark red energy from the epicenter!

In a contest of raw might, Tolain, bolstered by his amplification spells, held the undeniable upper hand, sending Hela tumbling backward through the void.

Yet, despite the opening, Tolain did not press his advantage; instead, he froze mid-motion, as though struck by a sudden, unsettling realization.

Hela offered no respite; instantly righting herself, she thrust a finger forward. Her death energy detonated outward, blooming into a crimson sea of light that unleashed a torrent of countless energy lances, blotting out the stars as they rained down upon Tolain.

"Shields!" Tolain snapped back to reality, his hands weaving frantic sigils as he layered himself in tortoise-shell barriers of pure mana.

Countless arrows of death energy slammed into the defenses, shattering each layered barrier in an instant, reducing them to glittering dust!

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Every impact against the shields unleashed a psychic shockwave that rattled every spectator; the detonations required no medium, echoing directly within their minds until their very brains trembled.

Hela's death energy carried a multifaceted lethality, weaving together physical and spiritual attributes, now laced with a fraction of true damage that rendered conventional defense nearly futile.

Tolain refused to remain a stationary target, continuously driving forward to close the distance; though Hela excelled at mid-range combat, she disdained evasive skirmishing, meeting his advance with unyielding, head-on brutality.

Their silhouettes blurred and clashed, only to be thrown apart and collide again, exchanging over a hundred blows in rapid succession, locked in a deadlocked dance of violence.

Hela had never known the meaning of restraint, pouring her entire being into every strike, and the ferocity of the duel swiftly transcended the bounds of a mere spar.

"Godfather, does it not seem that Sister Hela is at a disadvantage?"

Han Xiao was deeply engrossed in the spectacle when Nilo suddenly approached with Mia in tow, his voice laced with concern.

"You are overthinking it," Han Xiao replied, a quiet laugh escaping his lips.

Is it not so? Sister Hela is sent flying time and again, her close-quarters prowess clearly inferior to his, yet she refuses to adopt a hit-and-run tactic. Is that not rather... Nilo ventured with cautious hesitation.

Han Xiao shook his head with a faint smile. Look closely at Tolaine's frame. His condition is far from as pristine as you imagine.

At these words, Nilo hastily strained his eyes. The speed of Beyond Grade A combatants was too swift for him to track clearly, and only after a long while did he barely discern the anomaly upon Tolaine's person, his spirits instantly lifting.

Unbeknownst to all, Tolaine's body had become swathed in dark crimson death energy, brimming with corrosive malice like a canker clinging to bone, ceaselessly gnawing at his mana and flesh, utterly impervious to purification.

Though they ascended to Beyond Grade A several years apart, for entities of that tier, a mere handful of years yields little progress. Thus, their raw power resides on the very same plane... Do not look at me; I am an exception.

Han Xiao patted Nilo's shoulder, assuming the role of a commentator. And within this stratum, Hela's supernatural gift holds an absolute advantage.

He remained utterly unperturbed, harboring not a shred of worry for Hela, for among all present, he alone knew... precisely how terrifying a Beyond Grade A Hela truly was!

To command death itself—this was an ability etched upon the registry of ultra-high-risk powers!

He knew with absolute certainty that upon reaching Beyond Grade A, Hela's power would undergo a fundamental metamorphosis!

In his past life, intelligence regarding Hela's capabilities had been abundant, all bought with players' piled corpses through relentless trial and error, and Han Xiao could recite every detail as if counting family heirlooms.

First, upon ascending to Beyond Grade A, Hela possessed an exclusive passive trait: each time her death energy struck a target's true form, it would layer upon them a peculiar affliction known as Death Erosion.

Death Erosion comprised fifteen stacks in total. The first layer diminished the efficacy of all the enemy's restorative arts by twenty percent, while whittling their defenses down by fifteen.

Upon reaching five stacks, restoration fell by forty percent, defense by twenty-five, and every ten seconds, a random beneficial enchantment would be stripped from the foe.

At ten layers, healing was crippled by sixty percent, armor by thirty-five, all attributes drained by ten percent, blessings continued to vanish at random, and cellular collapse began, bleeding away zero point eight percent of their vitality every twenty seconds.

At the fifteenth peak, recovery was stifled by eighty percent, protection shattered by forty-five, all faculties reduced by twenty percent, every boon utterly erased, and one percent of their lifeblood drained away every twelve seconds.

Once the fifteenth stack was secured, Hela could unleash a special technique devoid of any cooldown—detonating all accumulated Death Erosion to instantly trigger a judgment of immediate demise!

The conditions for this verdict were exceedingly harsh, rarely taking effect on targets whose tier surpassed her own, yet even upon failure, a grim consequence remained: it could instantly vaporize twenty to thirty percent of the enemy's vitality, while temporarily shaving eight to twelve percent from their maximum life capacity.

Following the detonation, after but a brief respite, she could begin layering a fresh cycle of Death Erosion upon the very same target—a truly harrowing prospect.

To halt the accumulation of Death Erosion, one had to purge the death energy dwelling within; lacking such arts, a combatant could only rely on their innate resistance to endure the onslaught.

The duration of Death Erosion hinged upon the target's resilience; the higher the stacks, the longer it clung. The first layer lingered for a mere three seconds, the second might stretch to five, the third to eight. Moreover, brute endurance could only force the stacks to recede gradually; should one outlast the third layer's eight seconds, the affliction would not vanish entirely, but rather fall back to the second tier, resetting its duration, peeling away layer by layer in a manner exceedingly difficult to eradicate completely.

Beyond this core mechanism, Hela's deathly gift bore a passive life-drain quality; each strike against a living foe would transmute ten to twenty percent of the inflicted harm into her own vitality, effectively plundering biological life force. In melees, she was a nightmare—the more enemies that surrounded her, the swifter her wounds knitted shut.

Furthermore, every time the death energy struck an opponent, it left behind a lingering torment lasting three seconds, its magnitude equal to fifty to seventy percent of the initial blow.

And yet, following her metamorphosis, Hela wielded another peculiar authority, one that held little sway over players, yet brimmed with dread for all others...

Namely, she could employ her deathly arts to strip the cellular vitality from the living, reducing the upper limit of cellular division, thereby shortening the very lifespan of her foes!

It was precisely because of this power that the vast majority of Beyond Grade A entities across the cosmos shunned her like venomous serpents; few dared to cross blades with her... Strike me once, and I lose a second of my life. Who in their right mind would dare toy with you?

Yet, save for Han Xiao, not a single soul in the entire universe was presently aware of this truth.

Tolaine, locked in combat with Hela at this very moment, was equally blind to this hidden peril.

Bang! Bang! Bang!!

The duel upon the battlefield grew increasingly brutal, surging tides of mana and biting death energy colliding time and again, erupting into successive shockwaves of raw power.

Tolaine might have initially approached this merely as a spar, but beneath Hela's ferocious onslaught, he found himself utterly unable to hold back, forced to continuously escalate his force. The situation had long slipped from his grasp, devolving from a friendly exchange into a fight to the death.

Had the onlookers not known this was their first encounter, they would surely have assumed the two harbored some blood feud, locked in a struggle where only one could walk away alive.

What a madwoman!

Tolaine's heart burned with irritation, his strikes now laced with fury, growing ever more razor-sharp.

Though his magical barriers deflected the vast majority of blows, his true form was still grazed on occasion, and as Death Erosion continued to pile up, a creeping sense of wrongness settled over him with every exchange.

Not only was his regenerative capacity stifled, but the amplification spells woven upon himself seemed to be waning, his flesh growing increasingly resistant to the reshaping touch of magical energy.

Moreover, once the stacks surpassed ten, he realized his very cells were being systematically torn apart, his wounds deepening at an alarming rate, leaving him to barely sustain his current state with his heavily suppressed healing.

Her supernatural gift is simply too overwhelming! Tolaine's heart grew heavier with dread.

Though he had managed to inflict some wounds upon Hela, they knitted shut in the blink of an eye. In stark contrast, with death energy ravaging his insides, his own condition deteriorated by the second. The comparison was stark and unforgiving—he had somehow fallen into a defensive quagmire!

Could this newly emerged Beyond Grade A truly possess such monstrous combat prowess?!

If that is how it must be...

Tolaine's gaze turned icy as mana coalesced within his palm, followed swiftly by gouts of blood welling from his fingertips. The two forces merged, birthing a bizarre, violet blood-flame.

Austin, watching from the sidelines, suddenly narrowed his eyes. As a grand master of the arcane, he instantly recognized the nature of this spell.

A high-tier forbidden art unique to the Demon race—Degraded Filthblood!

This is bad. Austin's heart sank with a heavy thud.

This magic was a forbidden technique, altering demonic blood through esoteric means into a foul, invasive genetic blight designed to corrupt another's lineage, inflicting irreversible damage at the genetic level. Its raw destructive power was modest, but its insidious nature was profoundly vile, a signature cruelty of the Demon race.

He knew full well that Tolaine's deployment of this forbidden art would do nothing to sway the immediate tide of battle, yet it could irrevocably taint Hela's genetics. The intent was deeply malicious—a covert strike meant to cripple her future!

Hela's instincts likewise screamed of impending peril, prompting her to hastily retreat. Tolaine gave chase with the violet flame held aloft, his speed a fraction superior, the gap between them steadily closing.

Do not blame me...

Tolaine's expression turned savage.

Because Hela was an executive of the Black Star Army, he had initially hesitated, fearing Han Xiao's wrath, but now that true killing intent had been ignited, he cast aside all mercy. He resolved to employ underhanded tactics; as a former fugitive who had slaughtered entire surface civilizations for mere amusement, moral scruples were entirely foreign to him.

Realizing she could not shake him, Hela narrowed her eyes, abruptly pivoting on her heel to unleash a whip-like strike. A highly concentrated bolt of death energy pierced straight through his magical barrier and slammed into his chest.

In that instant, Tolaine's body violently expelled a massive surge of spell energy. His cells, ravaged by severe death erosion, could no longer sustain any amplification, causing every beneficial enchantment to shatter and vanish into nothingness!

Wha—

Tolaine's complexion shifted drastically.

Yet before he could even process the shock, Hela thrust her hand forward, aiming squarely at him from afar, and clenched her five fingers into a fist.

Reaper's Harvest!

The full fifteen layers of Death Erosion detonated without hesitation!

Tolaine's heart seized violently, a primal instinct screaming of mortal danger within his mind. He felt every ounce of death energy inside him stir into a frenzy, like a bomb with its fuse lit, rapidly detonating throughout his very frame!

The next moment, agonizing pain tore through his flesh and soul in a single, blinding instant!

Boom!

Before the eyes of all, before his strike could even graze Hela, his body violently ruptured, erupting into a massive crimson mist!