Chapter 35: Legacy of the Grace

"Come then, mighty God of Darkness," Vora taunted, her stance rigid, her sword humming with unstable energy. "Show me what you’ve got!"

Nyx shifted his bare feet across the broken stones of the hilltop, the hem of his dark, crystalline-lined cloak brushing against the dirt without leaving a trace of dust. His vacant purple eyes remained hollow, locked onto Vora as he began to spin the massive ’S’-orb scythe in a slow, hypnotic rhythm. Pitch-black mana coiled around his forearms, pulsing like black blood beneath his skin.

Opposite him, Vora’s heels clicked sharply against the bedrock. Her off-shoulder black gown fluttered in the gale, the dark fabric clinging to her figure as she adjusted her grip on her translucent violet longsword.

With a joint burst of kinetic force, both figures lunged toward the sunken crater at the center of the plateau—the shattered ground left behind from the previous carnage.

CLANG—!

The dark scythe and the violet longsword collided in mid-air. A shockwave of pure spectral force blasted outward, sending jagged ripples of violet lightning dancing across the soil.

Vora drove her weight forward, her sword sliding along the curved spine of Nyx’s blade with a screeching metallic hiss. She pivoted on her heel, executing a sharp, three-hit combination aimed at his throat, heart, and flank.

Nyx didn’t retreat. He casually adjusted his grip, letting the dual curved heads of his ’S’-shaped weapon catch each strike with minimal effort. Sparks rained down onto the shattered rocks between them.

SWISH!

Vora’s left hand shot out, her fingers curling as a localized gravitational pull exploded from her palm. The force dragged Nyx’s upper torso toward her descending blade.

Nyx merely tilted his chin half an inch to the left.

The glowing edge of Vora’s sword whistled past his neck, severing a single strand of dark hair. Before she could reset her stance, Nyx drove his knee straight into her abdomen, utilizing the momentum of her own gravitational magic against her.

THUD!

Vora gasped, her breath catching as she skidded ten paces backward, her heels carving deep grooves into the gravel.

She let out a sharp, breathless laugh, her eyes burning with dark excitement. "Still as arrogant as ever!"

She charged again.

What followed was a ruthless exchange of martial blade-work. Vora pressed the offensive with terrifying speed, sweeping her longsword in fluid, lethal arcs that tore vertical trenches into the earth. Nyx matched her tempo effortlessly, stepping through her attack zones like a shadow.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

The rhythmic ringing of metal echoed across the valley, punctuated by flashes of blinding purple light every time their weapons locked. They moved like lightning across the hill, shifting from the crater floor to the rocky ridges, leaving a trail of shattered stone in their wake.

As their blades bound once more, Vora leaned in close, a mocking smirk on her lips. "Admit it... you remember me, don’t you? Velista’s shadow reaches everywhere!"

"You talk too much," Nyx murmured.

He flicked his wrist, altering the angle of his scythe’s lower blade. With a violent upward twist, he hooked the guard of Vora’s longsword.

CRACK—CLANG!

The shockwave sheared through Vora’s grip. The violet longsword flew out of her hand, tumbling through the air before embedding itself deep into a rock face thirty yards away.

Nyx brought his scythe to a rest at his side, his vacant eyes looking down at her with cold indifference.

"You’re not bad..." Nyx stated, his tone flat and empty. "It makes sense why Velista kept you as a lapdog. But unfortunately... I’m barely using a hundredth of my power."

Vora didn’t panic. She straightened her posture, a dark smile lingering on her lips as she dropped into a low, open-palm martial stance.

Nyx’s eyes flickered. With a wave of his hand, the colossal ’S’-orb scythe dissolved into a haze of black mist, vanishing into the thin air.

He raised both hands, inviting the hand-to-hand clash.

Vora struck first.

She surged forward, driving a sharp, spear-hand thrust toward his windpipe, immediately transitioning into a sweeping low kick aimed at his lead ankle.

Nyx deflected the palm strike with the heel of his hand and hopped over the low kick, delivering a precise palm strike to her shoulder mid-air.

Vora ducked beneath the strike, letting out a sharp gasp of exertion as she unleashed a barrage of rapid-fire strikes—elbow thrusts, high roundhouse kicks, and palm strikes aimed at his pressure points.

Nyx parried every blow with terrifying economy of movement. His hands blurred, catching her wrists and sliding past her elbows with surgical precision.

"Is this the extent of a Celestial general?" Nyx mocked quietly, his tone devoid of mock excitement—just pure, cold evaluation.

Reading the gap in her defense as she overextended a right hook, Nyx stepped inside her guard.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

He delivered three rapid, heavy strikes—a palm to her sternum, a short-range elbow to her ribs, and an open-palm strike directly to her chin.

Vora stumbled backward, her breath hitching painfully as she dropped to one knee. A thin trickling line of crimson spilled from her lower lip, dripping onto the collar of her off-shoulder gown.

"Damn you..." she spat through gritted teeth.

Before Nyx could close the distance, a swirl of dark purple energy tore open behind Vora—a jagged spatial portal humming with unstable rift magic.

Vora gritted her teeth, throwing her body backward into the swirling threshold to escape.

Nyx extended his right hand, a thick black chain bursting from his palm to snag her ankle. But Vora was faster; the spatial rift collapsed the moment her torso passed through, severing the connection and leaving only empty air behind.

CRACK—!

The moment the portal closed, the dark sky above the hill splintered. Jagged, translucent cracks expanded across the firmament like breaking glass, spreading rapidly from the peak of the sky down toward the horizon.

The dimensional space, stripped of Vora’s stabilizing presence, had begun its final structural collapse.

Nyx didn’t care.

His eyes slowly turned toward the surviving refugees huddled in the dirt.

His gaze landed on the terrified teenagers kneeling around Liora’s motionless form, their tears streaming down their pale faces as they clung to one another in utter helplessness.

There was no warmth in Nyx’s chest. No mercy. No human hesitation. To an ancient deity of darkness, mortal existence was merely noise to be silenced.

He took a slow step forward. As he walked, dark purple mana flared around his right hand, solidifying once more into the ornate ’S’-orb scythe. He spun the colossal weapon beside him, the blade whistling ominously through the wind.

The teenagers shrieked, pulling Liora closer to their chests, closing their eyes as they waited for the end.

Nyx stopped three paces away. He raised the scythe high above his shoulder, the razor-sharp edge glowing with absolute, destructive intent.

"Die."

He brought the blade down.

CLANG—!

A brilliant beam of concentrated blue light struck the flat of Nyx’s scythe with thunderous kinetic force!

The sheer impact knocked the dark weapon out of alignment, sending the blade spinning from Nyx’s hand to embed itself deeply into the bedrock nearby.

Nyx didn’t flinch. Slowly, he turned his head upward to scan the sky.

Floating in the center of the shattered dark sky was Evelyn Grace.

Her off-shoulder blue gown billowed gracefully in the gale, her dark-to-blue gradient hair fanning out around her shoulders. Behind her back glowed a massive, intricate golden magic circle that illuminated the dark landscape. Surrounding her in mid-air were hundreds of glowing blue energy swords, hovering like a lethal constellation ready to rain down upon the earth.

Evelyn held her right hand forward, her slender fingers locked in a complex magical seal that controlled the floating array above her. Her piercing blue eyes locked directly onto Nyx with absolute, unyielding intensity.

Nyx stared up at her, his vacant expression slowly shifting into a cold, dark smirk.

"Well, well..." Nyx’s deep voice echoed over the quiet hill. "It’s been a very long time since I last saw a survivor of the Grace bloodline."

Evelyn’s gaze didn’t waver. "God of Darkness, Nyx... To think you were hiding inside Ren all along."

Nyx let out a low, chilling laugh that vibrated through the stones.

"How convenient," Nyx whispered, his pupils narrowing into sharp, predatory slits as he squared his shoulders toward her. "Save me the trouble of hunting down the rest of your kin to settle our ancient debt."

Above the collapsing realm, their eyes met in silence—a deity of dark destruction and the last master of the Grace blade.