Raven was encased in a golden energy shield, her body propelled through the distant sky at incredible speed, leaving a streak of light in her wake.
As she steadied herself, she controlled her momentum, halting midair.
From afar, she looked toward the Sacred Peak, where an unimaginable force had just erupted.
Once again, the atmosphere was torn open, and the entire mountain trembled violently. Countless boulders shattered and fell. A massive shockwave burst outward, sending rolling dust clouds surging across the landscape.
At that moment, Bardi did not hesitate.
He gave Trigon no chance to speak.
In an instant, he closed the distance.
Despite his colossal size, his speed was blinding—hundreds of times faster than the speed of sound, rupturing the air itself and leaving yet another void in the atmosphere.
He drove his knee into Trigon's side, following with a devastating elbow strike, forcing the demon to his knees.
Bardi then grabbed Trigon's massive body, slamming him down onto the dark stone throne at the center of the suspended cross corridor.
With an explosive impact, Trigon's massive form sank into the sea of blood below, sending crimson waves surging across the lower peak of the Sacred Mountain.
The cross corridor—anchored to the stone throne—could not withstand the force.
The sheer impact caused massive sections of the corridor to break apart, each fragment collapsing into the hollow abyss of the Sacred Peak.
Beneath the mountain, the sea of blood churned violently, its waves rising in terrifying surges.
Bardi and Trigon battled in the depths of the blood sea.
To put it simply.
Trigon was being beaten senseless.
And despite his godlike stature, he was furious—his rage twisted with a strange, almost irrational heartache.
It was as if he were a lover betrayed, suffering at the hands of someone he cherished.
As if Bardi, his most treasured meal, was abusing him and he was both enraged and terrified that Bardi might harm himself in the process.
"Damn it! STOP!!"
Trigon's six eyes blazed with fury, his voice trembling with raw emotion.
Despite enduring a planet-destroying blow, despite being beaten down into the depths of the Sacred Peak despite being crushed beneath Bardi's foot, he was still heartbroken.
He wasn't worried about himself.
He was afraid for Bardi.
Afraid that Bardi would use too much force and damage his soul.
But Trigon's pleading, desperate fury only fueled Bardi's onslaught.
With a relentless barrage of punches and kicks, Bardi drove him deeper and deeper, smashing him into the very core of the mountain.
More than 23,000 meters down.
Their battle tore through the Sacred Peak, ripping open a path to the molten abyss below.
And in that moment.
The lava lake at the mountain's core erupted.
A geyser of 1,000-degree magma shot skyward, exploding into the sky, consuming everything in its wake.
It was a doomsday spectacle.
The Sacred Peak erupted violently, spewing forth long-buried lava. Sulfur and scorching heat filled the air as the entire planet trembled under the deafening rumble.
Thick black smoke swallowed the sky, while blazing red magma burst through the clouds like fire raining from the heavens. The landscape was consumed by an unrelenting storm of molten rock.
Amidst this apocalyptic chaos, Bardi and Trigon fought with planet-shattering force.
Finally, Trigon lost his patience—and retaliated with sheer rage.
Because just as his fury-filled yet oddly tender gaze revealed his twisted concern for Bardi's soul.
Bardi ruthlessly, mercilessly drove his fingers straight into Trigon's eyes.
Two of them burst instantly in the searing heat of the lava and flames, sending a shock of unimaginable agony through the demon's body.
Trigon was beyond furious.
I cherished your soul. I protected your life. And you—
You did THIS to me?!
He had treasured Bardi, desperate to keep him intact and Bardi had blinded him without hesitation.
It was as if he had poured the warmth of an entire spring river into Bardi's hands only to have his kindness met with unforgivable cruelty.
Trigon erupted in rage.
His remaining four crimson eyes burned with blinding hatred, veins pulsing red with fury.
Scarlet beams of hellfire shot from his pupils, igniting the molten battlefield.
Then—
All four beams struck Bardi's chest at once.
The force was overwhelming.
It was like being struck head-on by an entire planet, a force so catastrophic that it tore Bardi from the core of the Sacred Peak and blasted him through layers of solid rock.
The sky split apart.
A colossal red beam, formed from the convergence of the four hellish rays, pierced through the planet's crust.
It tore across most of the continent, leaving a searing scar in the atmosphere. The sheer devastation was terrifying beyond words.
Bardi was blasted out of the atmosphere, hurled into the vacuum of space.
His body crashed into a massive moon-sized satellite orbiting Azarath.
The impact was cataclysmic.
A massive crater formed on the moon's surface, its entire structure shaking violently.
For a brief moment, the moon paused in space.
Then, under the force of the impact, it broke away from Azarath's gravity.
It veered off its orbital path, drifting toward deep space.
The consequences were immediate.
With no satellite to stabilize its gravity, Azarath's oceans began shifting uncontrollably.
Massive tidal tsunamis formed, sweeping across the planet at devastating speeds.
Entire landmasses, particularly those at lower elevations, faced imminent obliteration as the oceans surged.
At least one-tenth of the planet's landmass would be swallowed by the sea.
Azarath's entire planetary balance had been shattered.
Without the satellite's gravitational pull, the planet would spin faster, its days potentially reduced to three hours.
Temperatures would skyrocket, exceeding 100 degrees Celsius, turning the world into a burning wasteland.
It would take hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of years for the ecosystem to stabilize again.
Bardi lay in the massive crater, his face hardened, his cold gaze flashing with pain.
A gaping hole was burned through his chest.
Beneath the scorched flesh, his white bone spine was fully exposed.
Compared to the soul-rending agony he had endured, this physical destruction was nothing.
But even so—
The instantaneous evaporation of his body had sent waves of pain through every nerve, his cells screaming in agony.
His entire nervous system burned, a pain so unbearable that, for the briefest moment, his vision blurred.
His internal organs had been completely destroyed.
Only his unbreakable spine had withstood the hellfire blast.
But it had taken everything to endure it.
Now, his spinal marrow activated, surging with unparalleled regeneration.
Blood began to ooze out, interwoven granulation tissue rapidly rebuilding his body.
Within seconds, his internal organs reformed, his ribcage closed, and his flesh knit itself back together.
In the blink of an eye, his body was fully restored.
He stood within the crater, his gaze piercing through the starry void.
From across the cosmos, he locked eyes with Trigon, who was crawling out from the smoldering ruins of the Sacred Peak.
Black smoke and magma flames coiled around Trigon's colossal frame.
His four eyes burned with rage but the two at the bottom remained ruined, still bleeding, still unhealed.
The damage Bardi had inflicted was permanent.
Because Bardi had not just blinded him.
He had used the radiant energy of the Lost Armor, a power fueled by pure faith and divine will.
A power that could wound even an unholy demon lord.
Bardi's expression was cold and unwavering.
In the vacuum of deep space, he stood firm, his gaze meeting Trigon's across the vast distance.
For a moment.
The entire cosmos held its breath.
The raw hatred between them ignited the void itself, as if the very fabric of space had caught fire.
Then.
Bardi bent his knees.
And kicked off the moon's surface.
The entire satellite trembled under the force.
The impact accelerated its drift, sending it hurtling deeper into space forever severed from Azarath's orbit.
That moon was now a wandering celestial body, drifting aimlessly through the endless void.
Until the day it was captured by another planet—or shattered into a meteor storm.
But Bardi was already gone.
His body blazed like a falling star, the brightest light in the void.
His eyes.
Glowing with rage and unstoppable will.
Were etched with searing red veins, burning with energy.
BOOM!
A blazing heat ray pierced the starry abyss.
Like a celestial pillar of fire, it ripped through space, cutting through the atmosphere in a blinding beam of destruction.
It shot straight toward Trigon.
Who was still climbing out of the wreckage of Azarath's Sacred Peak.
(To be continued.)
***
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