Sovereign of the Ashes

“Why are you spacing out, boy?” A pleasant female voice echoed in Sein’s mind.

By the time Sein emerged from that strange state of clarity, the Empress of Blades and Marduk’s Ark had already drawn dangerously close.

An unprecedented surge of power unleashed wave after wave of shockwaves that tore across the surrounding battlefield.

The two concentric rings of devastation Sein had inflicted upon the God of Blazing Fire earlier had already been vast enough.

Yet compared to the enormous sinkholes now being carved into the earth by the overlords’ clash, they seemed almost insignificant.

As Sein fully returned to his senses, he realized that the voice belonged to the Empress of Blades.

She still had her back to him. Countless sharp, bone-like appendages protruding from her body were firmly embedded in the Ark, leaving Sein with little more than the sight of a slender silhouette bristling with jagged spines and razor-sharp blades.

Even so, he recognized her at a glance.

Then the pain struck.

A crushing, tearing pressure also descended upon every inch of Sein’s body, so overwhelming that it felt as though his flesh and bones would be ripped apart at any moment.

This was the might of a clash between overlords. Even the smallest fraction of their power spilling outward was an unimaginable catastrophe for mid and low-tier beings.

The towering fortress robot was forced into a half-crouch almost instantly under the pressure emanating from the Ark.

The Ashen Flame burning across its surface was also heavily suppressed. Its once-raging blaze shrank rapidly, yet it had not been extinguished.

Although the fire seed had weakened considerably, it continued to burn with stubborn tenacity.

Even after years of relentless body-tempering experiments, Sein found that his efforts offered him little protection against the force of an overlord-level collision.

Bright red blood quickly soaked through his magical robes, even though he had already activated his demon lawful body that granted him his greatest physical resilience.

Still, all those years of body tempering had not been entirely pointless. An ordinary Rank Five mage with a weaker constitution would likely have lost consciousness the moment the overlords’ shockwaves struck.

Sein, however, gritted his teeth and continued enduring the pain.

Fermera, who had remained deeply fused with him throughout the ordeal, endured in silence as well.

In fact, she had borne the brunt of at least two-thirds of the terrifying pressure pouring down from above.

Even though the peak Rank Seven overgod had nearly exhausted his overlord soul, the power he unleashed when fighting with everything he had was still staggering.

The Empress of Blades continued pressing forward. Her razor-sharp bone-like appendages and claws nearly tore Marduk apart.

From such a close distance, Sein could clearly see the severely wounded overgod inside the Ark. Yet Marduk had not once used that mysterious power that Sein still could not comprehend to instantly restore himself.

Madness filled his eyes, but beneath it, an immense amount of death energy was gathering.

So, even an overlord could die...

“Stop spacing out, boy. Get out of that giant robot right now.”

The Empress of Blades’ pleasant voice appeared in Sein’s mind once more.

“That glow of magitech and that strange flame.... You’ve got quite a few unusual powers.Hmm... You seem to be pretty muscular too?”

This time, Sein finally snapped back to his senses.

Faced with her command, he naturally did not dare refuse.

Every part of his body was in excruciating pain, and the oppressive might of the overlords made even the slightest movement difficult. Even so, Sein forced himself to move and flew toward the ejection hatch of the giant fortress robot.

Sein could still move, but the giant robot transformed from a planetary fortress certainly could not.

Leaving it behind did not bother him in the slightest.

After all, once the war in Divine Descendants World ended, Sein would return to the main battlefield of the Magus Civilization, where he would have his own Ashen Fortress back.

Besides, he had long wanted to purchase several more space fortresses for his research and experiments in magitech and mechanical arts.

The wealth he had accumulated over the years was more than enough. Buying a few more space fortresses would not be a big problem.

The space fortresses produced by the Magus Civilization were also far superior to the secondhand planetary fortresses the Gallant Federation had sold to the God of Black Mist.

With the Empress of Blades’ help, Sein might be able to escape at the final moment.

However, there was one thing he should never have done in a situation like this—he should never have exposed the secret of his Magic Cube.

A beam of deep blue light emerged from Sein’s hand and spread throughout the massive metallic fortress around him.

Sein had only intended to help the fortress robot hold out a little longer.

He never expected that this action would directly provoke Marduk, who was already on the verge of death!

The moment the deep blue light radiated from Sein’s giant fortress robot, Marduk sensed an energy unique to the Ark.

In that instant, he understood everything!

His body was already on the verge of being torn apart.

A gray aura of death clouded Marduk’s eyes. Within them lingered not only a desperate attachment to life and the madness of a dying man, but also a trace of deep, tormented rage.

The emotions once felt by the fragment of his divine consciousness had now surfaced within Marduk himself.

Suddenly, he drove the Ark downward with one final, violent burst of strength.

The already terrifying impact intensified once more!

The already battered Ark erupted with dazzling light.

It was so blinding that perhaps every living being in the world noticed it.

Billions upon billions of creatures could not help but turn their gazes in that direction.

A dazzling star, on the verge of crashing into the plane, became the final beautiful sight reflected in their eyes.

Inside the fortress, Sein’s steps toward the exit came to an abrupt halt.

He truly could not move another step.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Fermera, the eight-winged angel still fused with Sein’s body, began emitting a rapid alarm. The intelligent robot had also reached her breaking point.

“Master, you go first. I can hold on a little longer,” Fermera said as she slowly unfused herself from him.

After returning to her battered angelic form, she pulled Sein into a tight embrace before pushing him away.

It was largely thanks to Fermera that Sein had been able to unleash late-stage Rank Six combat power and endure the overflowing might of Marduk’s overlord power.

The moment they split, Sein’s strength weakened even further. Yet the pressure bearing down on him was no longer as overwhelming as before.

That was because Fermera had taken the brunt of it for him!

Crackle!

Electric sparks erupted across Fermera’s body as her once silvery-white metallic skin began to split.

In the blink of an eye, the once-beautiful intelligent robot had been reduced to a wreck.

If she stayed behind for Sein, would she still have any chance of surviving?

Although the Magic Cube could revive intelligent robots, their black boxes had to remain intact for it to work.

Sein did not believe Fermera’s black box could possibly survive being caught in a clash between overlords!

After being pushed several steps away, Sein turned back almost without thinking and grabbed Fermera’s badly damaged metal arm.

His face twisted under the excruciating pain and crushing pressure of the overlords’ power. Gritting his teeth, he growled, “You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m not leaving without you!”

Sein was no longer the young black magic initiate who had only just left the underground Mystralora City.

His experiences on the surface, the influence of his study environment at divine towers and Verdant Flame faction, and the many trials he had endured over the years had changed him. He could no longer bring himself to simply turn his back on Fermera!

At some point, Fermera had come to occupy an extremely important place in his life. She had become someone he simply could not part with.

Come to think of it, Fermera had not actually been by Sein’s side for very long. The two had only first met among the ruins of the Eiyurant Papillon Civilization.

Sein tightened his grip on her arm, and a faint smile appeared on the robot’s face.

A conspicuous metallic scratch now marred her once-flawless features, yet at that moment, Fermera looked exceptionally beautiful!

The gentle smile she gave Sein gradually hardened into one of resolve.

Just as she was about to detach her mechanical arm and force Sein to escape, the same pleasant voice from earlier rang out once more.

“Gosh, enough, you two! I can’t believe a mage and a robot are wasting time bickering. Get your asses out of there—NOW!”

The Empress of Blades’ voice seemed to come from both sides of Sein at once.

The scene around him blurred. One moment, he was still inside the massive fortress. In the next, he found himself high in the sky outside it.

His hand was still wrapped tightly around Fermera’s mechanical arm. The two of them had escaped together.

Still disoriented, Sein looked up and saw the Empress of Blades in her full combat form. One of her arms was wrapped around him. She was the one who had pulled both him and Fermera out of the fortress.

Immediately afterward, Sein saw the battered Ark and the dying Marduk hurtling downward without losing any momentum, heading straight toward the giant fortress robot below and the vast ground beneath it.

A violent explosion erupted.

A terrifying impact swept outward in every direction.

If not for the Empress of Blades, both Sein and Fermera would undoubtedly have died.

The three vanished in a blinding flash, escaping the epicenter of the overlord’s crash.

Marduk’s Ark was the first to strike the ground.

The instant its blue crystalline barrier touched Divine Descendants World, the Ark, already pushed far beyond its limit, shattered into countless fragments.

The shards scattered across the battlefield, shooting outward in every direction.

As the Empress of Blades carried him through the sky, Sein made a split-second decision. He activated the Magic Cube.

Several fragments of the Ark immediately changed direction and flew toward him as though drawn by an invisible force.

Even the core at the very center of the Ark broke apart, and one of its fragments shot toward Sein at astonishing speed.

Sein caught it firmly in his palm and lowered his gaze.

Resting in his hand was a long, diamond-shaped blue crystal with sharp points at both ends. It radiated a unique divine power, along with distinct fluctuations of mechanical laws.