Chapter 37: The Grace Seal(2)

"You think a cheap sky-blade technique is enough to bind me?"

He whirled the ornate ’S’-orb scythe beside him, the dark blade whistling violently as a massive surge of pitch-black mana erupted from its tip, rising to meet the descending rain of light.

BOOM—!

The massive, titan-sized energy blades plummeted from the sky, colliding directly with the sweeping arc of Nyx’s scythe. Sparks of concentrated mana exploded across the clearing, carving jagged shockwaves into the soil. With a violent, twisting wrist motion, Nyx cleaved straight through the center of the first two spectral titans, splitting their light forms in half. The twin halves plummeted past his shoulders, embedding deep into the bedrock with a heavy rumble before dissolving into blue particles.

High above, Evelyn’s piercing gaze didn’t waver. Her slender fingers shifted rapidly, locking into a precise dual-hand seal.

SWISH-SWISH-SWISH—!

Dozens of standard-sized energy swords rained down from the floating golden array in a relentless barrage.

Nyx clicked his tongue in mild annoyance, retreating across the broken plateau with fluid, acrobatic spins. He vaulted backward, twisting his body mid-air to dodge a volley of blades that spewed gravel where his feet had been a fraction of a second prior. His scythe blurred into a dark wheel, deflecting the incoming volley with precise, rhythmic clangs.

"Hahaha! So the modern descendants of the Grace house still inherit the Skyblade array!" Nyx laughed, his deep voice carrying over the whistling wind as he swatted another three energy constructs into dust. "To think your fragile bloodline managed to preserve its arts across generations!"

Evelyn offered no reply. Her focus was absolute. She adjusted her hand seal, driving her index and middle fingers upward toward the blood-red moon.

A radiant, golden-blue light flared from her core. The dark hair cascading down her back vibrated, the black roots instantly washing over into a brilliant, pure azure hue. The magic circle behind her expanded, its runic rings shifting into a denser, ancient script.

From the swirling cloud layer above, six colossal, titan-sized blades descended—not aimed at Nyx’s body, but encircling the perimeter of the hilltop.

THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!

The giant spectral broadswords slammed vertically into the earth, forming a tight hexagonal barrier around Nyx. Streams of dense violet and blue mana arced between the embedded hilts, linking the massive weapons together to construct a towering, translucent sealing cage.

Nyx came to a halt mid-strike, his pupils contracting slightly as he scanned the radiant pillars locking him in place.

"A Sealing Formation...?" Nyx muttered, a flick of irritation crossing his pale face.

Evelyn’s azure aura burned hotter. "You’re not leaving this hill."

"How does a wretched child of Grace still command the ancient binding script?!" Nyx snarled.

Ignited by sudden fury, Nyx exploded forward in a blur of black lightning, driving his scythe directly into the wall of linked energy.

BANG—!

The kinetic backlash was instant. The hexagonal barrier flared violently, repelling his strike and throwing Nyx backward. He tumbled twice across the rough gravel before catching his balance on one knee, his chest heaving as he stared at the glowing runes.

Above them, the bruised sky groaned again. The translucent fractures spread further, dark void-cracks creeping toward the horizon like spiderwebs across glass.

"Dammit... To think I’d be pressed by a Grace twice in one lifetime!" Nyx spat, throwing his head back as he thrust his right palm toward the sky.

Evelyn’s eyes narrowed. *He’s opening a singularity.*

Knowing the devastating scale of his gravitational blackhole magic, she couldn’t afford to let him complete the incantation. Diving straight through the upper aperture of her own sealing cage, Evelyn descended like a blue meteor, her hand drawing a clear, physical longsword of light from the array.

CLANG—!

She struck just as Nyx raised his scythe to meet her. The collision generated a violent burst of wind that swept the loose stones clean off the hilltop.

What followed was an intense, high-speed melee contained entirely within the hex-barrier. Evelyn swept her sword in tight, lethal arcs, pressing her speed to disrupt his spellcasting. Nyx parried every strike with ruthless efficiency, his double-headed scythe spinning in tight defensive loops that repelled her light blade.

"You came inside my cage willingly?" Nyx sneered, deflecting a sharp thrust aimed at his sternum. "Close-quarters combat is my domain, little girl. You just walked into your own grave!"

Evelyn’s face remained stone-cold. "You won’t survive long enough to see it."

She pivoted on her heel, executing an acrobatic backflip to evade a sweeping low leg-cleave, her blade parrying his counter-strike mid-air.

CLANG! CLANG! SLASH!

Nyx pressed his advantage. The scythe’s lower curve grazed Evelyn’s left shoulder, tearing the fabric of her gown and drawing a thin line of crimson. Evelyn barely flinched. She reset her footing on the hard earth, her fingers flickering as she summoned twenty smaller energy blades to float directly behind her shoulders.

With a sharp thrust of her hands, the blades shot forward in a dense pattern, crowding Nyx’s evasion angles.

Nyx whirled his heavy weapon, swatting the projectiles away in quick succession. "Futility!"

He focused his gaze entirely on Evelyn, anticipating her next physical sword strike. As she leaped forward, Nyx drove his scythe in a brutal horizontal arc, intending to cut her down mid-flight.

Evelyn’s eyes flashed blue.

Instead of clashing, she dropped her physical blade, twisting her torso sideways in mid-air to slip beneath the sweep of his massive scythe.

Nyx’s eyes widened as he realized his error—his full commitment to stopping her direct attack had left his chest wide open, and the remaining hovering light blades he had ignored plunged straight into his shoulders and thighs, pinning his limbs in place for a split second!

Before he could pull away, Evelyn landed cleanly before him. She extended her right hand, slamming her open palm directly onto Nyx’s forehead!

The purple ’X’ seal burned brightly on her skin.

BOOM—!

A blinding, holy radiance erupted from the point of contact. The six titan swords surrounding the crater hummed in unison, their linked mana surging inward like liquid lightning, pouring straight into Nyx’s skull through Evelyn’s palm!

"AGHHH! DAMN YOU, YOU ACCURSED BITCH! LET ME GO!" Nyx roared, his voice echoing with dual reverberations as his black-and-purple mantle violently flickered.

Evelyn planted her feet into the dirt, her jaws clenched tight as the explosive shockwaves threatened to hurl her backward. She pushed through the searing heat, driving her palm deeper against his forehead, forcing the dark entity back into the depths of the host’s soul.

"Return to the darkness!" Evelyn shouted.

The terrifying pressure reached its peak before abruptly collapsing inward.

The dark crystalline robe melted away into wisps of black smoke. The towering aura vanished, and the vacant, terrifying purple light in his eyes faded out entirely.

Ren’s body went limp. He collapsed forward, tumbling face-first into the dirt, entirely motionless.

Evelyn dropped to both knees, her chest heaving as her breath came in ragged, painful gasps.

"It’s... over..." she whispered.

The giant spectral broadswords dissolved into faint blue dust, drifting away on the wind. Evelyn’s hair shifted back to its natural dark-to-blue gradient as the golden array vanished from the sky.

CRACK—BANG!

With a sound like shattering glass, the artificial dimensional space fractured completely. The illusion of the dark realm dissolved in a flash of blinding light, giving way to an open, grassy hill beneath the bright afternoon sun. Clear blue skies stretched across the horizon, the warm sunlight bathing the quiet plateau.

Reika, Miku, the elderly woman, and the young maiden rushed out from the nearby treeline, their eyes widening in shock at the absolute devastation scattered across the hill.

Across the clearing, Ryu’s fingers twitched against the grass. With a low groan, he pushed himself up onto one elbow, his bloodied frame trembling as he squinted against the sudden sunlight.

Evelyn looked toward the surviving teenagers crying over Liora’s motionless form. Her vision blurred, dark static creeping into the edges of her sight as the extreme strain of the ancestral seal finally caught up to her core.

"Liora...!" the teenagers sobbed, their desperate cries echoing down the peaceful valley.

Evelyn’s eyelids grew impossibly heavy.

"I made it..." she murmured softly.

Her strength failed her, and she slumped sideways onto the soft grass beside Ren’s unconscious body, slipping into complete darkness.

A short distance away, beneath the dense canopy of the surrounding forest, shadow dappled the grass.

Vora leaned her back against a wide oak tree, clutching her bleeding left forearm where Nyx’s scythe had grazed her flesh. Her breathing was uneven, her face pale beneath the filtered sunlight.

She peered through the leaves, watching the survivors gather around the fallen forms on the hill.

"Dammit..." Vora hissed under her breath, her fingers digging into the rough bark. "That bastard Nyx drained every drop of my reserves..."

She straightened up slowly, her dark eyes burning with raw, venomous hatred as she glanced one last time at the sunlit plateau.

"Enjoy your little victory..." she rasped softly, her voice dripping with malice. "The real nightmare hasn’t even begun."