"Prismatic Impact."
Those words reached his ears only after Evan's fists had already pummelled his face—blinding him in one eye, and shattering the bones in the arms he had raised to block.
Evan's left hand shot forward, clamping around his throat, but instead of continuing his attack barrage, he spoke.
"Hey bastard, do you realize we're outside your 'territory' now?"
The god Lord's remaining eye widened in horror.
In a downward motion, Evan slammed him down into the ground, the impact shaking the entire battlefield.
Simultaneously, Evan's right hand extended into the distance, and he spoke one word.
"Vanquisher."
Far away, thousands of kilometres across the war-torn field, a lone black blade embedded in the ground trembled. Then it ripped free, spinning into the air.
The sword's path was not a straight one. It whirled through the battlefield, its edges cutting clean through the necks of gods in its way.
Heads flew. Golden blood splattered.
By the time it reached Evan's outstretched hand, it had already slain dozens.
As Evan caught the sword, he hoisted the god Lord up and swung, slicing clean through his neck.
Golden blood sprayed in an arc, but Evan paid it no mind.
He flicked the golden blood off his blade before raising his head to gaze at the structure before him.
The reason why he had dragged the god Lord this far was because this was a place he couldn't claim as his 'Territory'.
It belonged to his masters, after all.
This was the Zenith Bastion.
And there, waiting for him, were the eight god Kings of the Kyrexi—trapped in this dimension for the sole purpose of this attack.
A slow smile spread across Evan's face as he opened his arms and declared.
|Kyrexi! Your loyal servant has returned—and I bring you the flames of death.|
Evan's grin stretched wide—a stark contrast to the deep frowns etched onto their faces.
Even those among them who usually maintained unshakable composure couldn't help but furrow their brows.
The Kyrexi numbered eight—six men and two women.
Standing before Evan, they were clad in their battle attire, each wielding the weapons they reserved for wars of intergalactic scale.
That alone spoke to the level of threat they believed he posed.
After all, if anyone knew his power best, it was them—he had served under them for the past 3,850 years.
|You mere hunting dog—you dare bite the hand of your masters?!|
Leor's voice rang with fury, golden divinity crackling around his spear as he glared down at Evan.
|You are nothing but a blade in the dark, a tool, yet you now think yourself our equal?| Miresi spat, her bow thrumming with arcs of violet lightning.
|A mongrel doesn't rebel—it's put down!|
Malrik's voice was cold as death itself, the edge of his blackened scythe gleaming under the dim light of the fractured sky.
Yet, through their fury, Evan simply poked his ear with a finger, his expression as nonchalant as ever.
|Yeah, yeah, yeah—talk is overrated.|
Evan sighed, rolling his shoulders.
|Let's get to the part where we start trying to kill each other, shall we?|
The moment those words left his mouth, his aura exploded, waves of heat and destructive energy rolling outward like a pressure wave.
The Kyrexi immediately shot into the sky, and seeing this Evan raised an eyebrow in confusion.
|Trying to run? You do remember you're sealed in this dimension, right?|
As he spoke, the Kyrexi moved in perfect unison, forming a circular formation high above him.
Once Evan noticed the pattern of their movement, his flippant smile vanished.
"Oh, shit."
A colossal nine-ringed magic circle blazed into existence above him, each ring inscribed with intricate runes that shimmered with pure magic power.
It was a spell without a lick of divinity—which they knew was at least 25% less effective against him.
And in a single, unified voice, the eight god Kings spoke.
||Disintegration.||
Light descended.
A beam of apocalyptic destruction tore through the sky at the speed of light, warping the surrounding space on its way down.
Entire planets across the star system trembled as the unfathomable power of the strike itself made it known.
From distant planets to moons, every living being felt the terror of the beam as it crashed downward.
But against this strike, Evan didn't flinch.
Flames of every hue swirled together around his sword in a radiant vortex.
|Prismatic Vortex!|
With a single thrust of his sword, a spiralling mass of rainbow flames erupted upward, colliding with the descending beam of destruction.
The sheer force of the collision ruptured the fabric of space, shattering the universal laws that held it together. The energy screamed as it was pulled into the fissure, twisted and compressed into an infinitely dense point—until space itself could endure no more.
The fractured space imploded, triggering a blinding explosion of power. The detonation was so immense that entire moons were torn from their orbits, flung out of the star system by the sheer force of the omnidirectional shockwave.
From above the ruptured space, the Kyrexi glared at Evan, their combined attack thwarted.
'Are they testing me?'
Evan narrowed his eyes as he asked himself this, his aura expanding outward in a silent wave, searching for hidden traps, distortions in space, anything that might hint at a secondary attack.
But there was nothing. No sudden shift, no lurking presence waiting to strike from the shadows.
That only deepened his confusion.
The Kyrexi weren't fools. A single Tier 9 spell wasn't nearly enough to take him down, and they knew that.
Yet they had still gone through with it.
Was it just a distraction, meant to set up a follow-up strike? If so, then why hadn't they attacked?
What Evan didn't know was that they had intended to.
The plan had been to take advantage of the moment he was occupied blocking their attack—but one of them, Dorian, the Everchanging, had stopped them.
Dorian held his title due to his mastery over the laws of Transformation, Morphogenesis, and Evolution.
He was also the current 'god of Evolution' a Main Entity of the Valmone Universe on par with Gozon's 'Demon King of Destruction.'
Background aside, the reason he halted the attack wasn't calculated strategy—it was instinct.
The Beast Instinct, inherited from the countless creatures he had assimilated into his transformations, had just warned him of something.
Had they rushed in, at least one of them would have been taken out of the fight.
He didn't know how. He couldn't explain it. But whatever Evan was hiding, it carried an undeniable, immediate danger. And that instinct—more reliable than any reasoning or calculation—had been enough to stop him.
The others noticed instantly. They had fought alongside each other for so long that Dorian's hesitation spoke volumes. And when he shared what his instincts had told him via telepathy, they were left in stunned silence.
The Kyrexi were god Kings, the strongest beings in the known universe aside from the 'Supremes'—entities whose names alone shook entire intergalactic civilizations.
They knew their own power better than anyone.
The mere thought that one of them could be taken out in seconds was nothing but an absurd joke.
But if Dorian's instincts screamed that something was wrong, then they couldn't afford to ignore it.
Evan wasn't emanating the kind of overwhelming power that should have made such a thing possible. His sword, while powerful, wasn't an artifact of immeasurable strength, nor did he hold some visible trump card that explained it.
This meant that whatever Evan was hiding… was something beyond their perception. And that made them wary.
While they hesitated, Evan's gaze flicked over them as he slowly walked to the side, taking stock of each in turn.
Leor, the Luminous Spear.
A tall, statuesque man with radiant golden hair and piercing silver eyes. His golden armour radiated a soft, ever-present glow, and in his grip was Luminaris, his divine spear.
His notable Authorities were over the laws of Light, Spears, and Momentum.
Miresi, the Stormbow Phantom.
A lean yet athletic woman with short, dark blue hair streaked with white. She wore lightweight, yet sturdy leather-like armour, and her treasured bow, Arclight Eclipse was nocked and ready.
Her notable Authorities were over the laws of Lightning, Tenebrosity and Alacrity.
Malrik, the Endbringer.
A gaunt figure with black hair, pale skin and piercing crimson eyes. He wore dark robes lined with skeletal motifs and his fingers flexed around the haft of his scythe, Requiem.
His mastery extended over the Laws of Death, Darkness, Decay, and the Soul itself.
Varok, the Ironsoul.
A muscular man with short brown hair, tanned skin, and molten-gold eyes. He wore segmented metallic armour, and his twin blades—Duskfang and Dawnbreaker—floated in the air beside him.
A smith as much as he was a warrior, he was proficient in the laws of Metal, Earth, Fire and Reinforcement.
But of course, he wasn't stupid enough to use fire against Evan.
Orothis, the Cursed Warden.
A gaunt man with deep violet eyes and long, stringy hair. His robes appear to shift like mist, and his staff, Maledictus dripped with toxic liquid.
If it wasn't obvious, then Curses, Poison, Withering and Pestilence were his most powerful Authorities.
Sylvara, the Shackled Sorceress.
An objectively beautiful woman with flowing ash hair and mismatched eyes—one bright gold, the other deep blue. Around her wrists, her catalyst bracelets, the Shackles, pulsed with strong magic.
A master of both binding magic and elemental devastation, she wielded Authorities over Light, Fire, Ice, and Restriction.
Kael, the Impermanent Blade.
A lean man with spiky crimson hair and a perpetually shifting aura. His blade, the Unseen Fang, was tightly held in his grasp.
Evan considered him the most troublesome, due to his nasty combination of Authorities over Impermanence, Disharmony and Destruction.
Dorian, the Everchanging.
A buff man with a mane of reddish-brown hair and slit pupils. He was the only one without anything remotely resembling a weapon—his body was the weapon.
As stated earlier, Transformations were his strong suit, and supporting that were his Authorities over Morphogenesis, Evolution, and Adaptation. He was the kind to avoid drawn-out fights against.
'Eight against one.'
Evan flexed his grip around Vanquisher.
'Not as bad as it sounds.'
There was a limit to how many could attack at once. Even the strongest warriors had to be careful in a fight like this—because if their attacks weren't timed properly, they could interfere with each other.
If Leor and Malrik attacked at the same time, for example, their powers would cancel each other out—light consuming darkness before it could even reach their target.
But the Kyrexi weren't just any fighters. They had battled together for millennia. Their coordination was near-perfect. They wouldn't make a simple mistake like that.
And that was why Evan's first priority was to reduce their numbers and break a little bit of that coordination.