THE VILLAIN'S POV

Chapter 681: Under the Crimson Sky (1)

Beneath the blood-red sky, in the fallen capital of the Ultras Caelid .. the world, and humanity in particular, witnessed a turning point that would divide all of history in two.

It happened in a moment of victory .. a supposed triumph.

While the soldiers cheered, oblivious and drunk on glory, no one realized that the Devil was already among them.

Maekar was dead.

Sir Alon was dead.

Both slain swiftly, effortlessly, as if their lives were nothing more than fragile, disposable souls.

It had been Wesker all along.

He was Wesker .. from the very beginning.

The Devil had stood before them, hidden in plain sight.

None of the Imperial soldiers sensed his presence, none but two .. Frey Starlight and Snow Lionheart.

They had been watching the battlefield from the start, alert to every fluctuation in aura, every tremor of power, expecting the enemy’s strike to come at any moment.

But they never imagined it would come from behind.

In the blink of an eye, the two descended upon Wesker, unleashing everything they had.

Frey summoned the Black Hole Aura and amplified himself with Dark Ascension, while Snow took on his most powerful form .. the Anointed War State.

Together, they struck with full force, fully aware of the catastrophe that had just unfolded before their eyes.

Their final enemy wasn’t Geppetto, nor his puppet .. it was the Fourth Seat, Wesker himself, the Upper Demon who had chosen this very moment to reveal his true self.

Facing their combined assault,

Wesker only smiled .. that calm, terrifying smile .. and raised his hand toward them.

The air itself froze.

Both of their blades stopped mid-swing, suspended in the air, trapped by an unseen force.

The two were stunned, unable to comprehend what was happening. ”That’s... wave manipulation?!”

Frey shouted in disbelief.

What Wesker had just done was something beyond comprehension .. he had frozen space itself through the manipulation of waves. ”You look as though you’ve seen a ghost, Frey Starlight.”

Wesker laughed, his tone playful, cold. ”This is the first time you’ve seen me like this .. face to face .. but we’ve met hundreds of times already... don’t you remember?”

That last line hit like a hammer.

He was confirming it .. that he had been Aegon all along.

Frey’s expression hardened.

He had acted the moment he sensed Aegon’s presence vanish, replaced by something... sinister, wrong.

But he had never imagined that Aegon Valerion and Wesker were the same being.

He’d suspected the prince before, yes .. he’d always known Aegon carried dark secrets.

He’d even theorized a connection between the two, thinking Aegon might be Wesker’s subordinate or puppet.

But the truth .. the truth was far worse than anything he could have imagined.

Now he and Snow were forced to face Wesker, the Fourth among the Upper Demons .. a being of unfathomable power.

With a mere gesture of his hand,

Wesker unleashed a repulsive wave that sent both of them flying.

They were thrown back violently, crashing through everything in their path .. and didn’t regain balance until they had been hurled miles away.

All that .. from a single wave of his hand.

Gritting his teeth, Frey stood up again, his expression darkening with every passing second.

He was far stronger now than he had been during his battle with Zibar.

He wielded the Black Hole Aura, and the fused might of both his legendary blades.

He was confident that if he fought Zibar’s replica again, he could defeat it easily.

But Wesker...

Wesker was a different kind of monster.

Stronger than the replica, stronger than Zibar himself. ”What now...?”

Frey muttered, realizing the gravity of their situation.

There was no choice left.

He clenched his jaw, then blinked forward through space, reappearing before Wesker in a flash, and struck.

But each time his blade neared its target, it would stop .. halted by an unseen wall before it could touch the demon.

Frey growled, flooding his body with aura, his violet halo burning brighter and brighter.

He poured everything he had into that strike, forcing his blade closer .. closer to Wesker’s neck.

But Wesker’s expression never changed. ”Why... why now, of all times?!”

Frey shouted, his voice filled with fury.

His aura tore through the frozen air around Wesker, but the demon caught the Dark Sister effortlessly in his bare hand. ”Having trouble understanding what you’re seeing, Frey Starlight?”

Wesker asked calmly, raising his other hand toward Frey’s face. ”You’re still blind... too blind to see the truth.”

What followed those words was a cataclysmic eruption of dark aura.

Wesker released a roaring beam of power that devoured Frey completely, erasing everything behind him in one overwhelming surge.

Snow rushed in to help .. but even he, for all his might, could do little.

By then, the Imperial soldiers had begun to realize something terrible was happening behind them.

The clash between Wesker, Frey, and Snow was no longer hidden.

The sounds of cheering and celebration faded .. replaced by a heavy, suffocating silence.

They watched in awe and terror as the battlefield they thought they had conquered was torn apart by forces beyond their comprehension.

Their triumph turned to unease .. then to fear.

Under the crimson sky, they finally saw him.

The demon who hovered above them .. with a third eye carved into his forehead, his body drenched in shadow, four horns rising like a crown.

His presence couldn’t be felt .. but it could be known, in the instinctive, primal way prey recognizes a predator.

And so the soldiers raised their weapons, ready to fight again ..

But what happened next was catastrophic.

Wesker lifted his hand toward the heavens .. and the red sky itself answered his call.

In that instant, everyone understood.

The sky had not turned crimson by chance.

The crimson sky wasn’t a natural omen.

It was Wesker ... who had filled it with his countless celestial orbs, a swarm of blood-red stars so vast they blotted out the heavens entirely.

There were so many that the sky itself seemed to have turned scarlet.

And then .. with a single motion of Wesker’s hand .. the cataclysm began.

The orbs descended.

Thousands of aura projectiles rained from above like a downpour of blood, leaving no path for escape, no place to hide.

It was annihilation.

Swift, merciless, absolute.

Explosions echoed through Caelid, flesh and stone alike were torn apart, and amid it all ..

Wesker’s laughter rolled across the battlefield like thunder.

No one understood how everything had turned so suddenly.

No one could grasp how victory had become slaughter in an instant.

And then .. things grew even worse.

From the opposite side came monstrous howls .. and with them, despair.

For when the Imperial army marched into Caelid believing they had won, when they thought the war had ended,

Wesker had appeared behind them...

But in front, another calamity emerged.

Across the horizon, a new army advanced .. a tide of darkness unlike anything they had faced before.

At its forefront stood Beatrice, the demonic witch who had vanished until now, accompanied by Belith, the war demon, and others .. terrifying figures such as Simon Manus, the Hollow, and countless more monstrosities.

That overwhelming force struck the Imperials head-on, while Wesker bombarded them from behind.

A perfect siege.

The Imperial army was trapped like rats in a cage, crushed between two walls of death.

Every passing second claimed hundreds of lives.

In that hour of extinction, the strongest warriors of the Empire fought with everything they had.

The Elite Class descended into the chaos, desperate to save whoever they could.

But it was hopeless.

The scene was beyond salvation.

The only reason they still drew breath was because Wesker’s attention was divided .. focused on Frey and Snow, who had barely managed to keep him occupied.

Had they failed to restrain him, everyone on the battlefield would have perished within the first minute.