Chapter 730: Demon Blood Barrels
Chapter 730: Demon Blood Barrels
Demon blood barrels.
They emerged from the portals with momentum, the heavy containers rolling across the cratered earth and forming concentric circles around Jack.
The barrels themselves were fabricated from materials that surpassed conventional metallurgical standards. Their surfaces exhibited intricate, arcane patterns, specifically engineered to maintain certain liquids at precise temperatures.
Because inside each barrel was demon blood. Pure, concentrated demon blood that Jack had spent time collecting and storing.
Jack’s registered each barrel as it materialized.
Over a hundred barrels came out of the portals. The containers kept emerging from the portals, each one positioning itself in the pre-calculated geometric pattern that Jack had envisioned.
The arrangement was something far more sophisticated than random placement.
This was a ritual grid. A preparation for something catastrophic.
Hundreds of demon blood barrels now surrounded Jack in concentric circles.
The Herald’s charging reached its absolute apex.
The dragon’s consciousness registered the approach of completion. One hundred and eighty seconds had elapsed.
The power that had been accumulated in the creature’s gullet had compressed to a density that space itself was beginning to reject, as the concentration of magical force grew.
This was it.
The Herald’s entire consciousness was now singularly focused on execution. Everything else had become irrelevant. All of it faded away as the Herald concentrated entirely on the release of the ultimate power.
The fireball launched.
"I can’t wait to step on the ashes of your corpse. Typhoon was wrong, you are no anomaly! You are nothing more than trash, a stain on this world!"
It wasn’t a projectile in any conventional sense. It was a sphere of pure destructive force, approximately the size of a large city.
Easily five miles in diameter. The moment it left the Herald’s maw, it began to accelerate downward toward Jack’s position with the velocity of a continental meteor.
The thermal radiation that radiated from the attack was so intense that the very air beneath the fireball was ignited.
The sky behind the fireball turned white-hot.
Everything in the attack’s path was vaporized.
Clouds turned to vapor instantly, air itself began to combust, and the very concept of conventional physics seemed to fragment under the weight of so much concentrated destructive energy.
The Herald had poured nearly ninety percent of his total mana into this single attack.
If it connected, Jack would be obliterated.
No shield in existence could withstand this much concentrated power. No armor could withstand this level of assault. There was no tactical framework that could allow survival against what the Herald had just unleashed.
The Herald’s golden eyes blazed with absolute certainty.
The dragon watched the fireball descend, completely confident that when it reached Jack’s position, the human would cease to exist.
The dragon had just performed the single most powerful attack it had ever executed. The Herald was absolutely certain that the outcome was predetermined.
[Alert! Incoming Fireball. Damage calculating.... 5,000,000 Damage incoming!]
It accelerated as it fell, burning through the atmosphere, creating shock waves that made the very ground begin to tremble from the approaching impact.
The heat was so intense now that stones within a thousand feet were beginning to crack from the thermal differential.
The sky had turned from white-hot to something that transcended conventional color nomenclature.
Jack’s hand rose slowly.
Completely unbothered by the magnitude of the attack that was descending toward him.
His posture communicated absolute certainty.
This was not the movement of someone attempting to shield themselves from annihilation.
This was the movement of someone who had already calculated the outcome.
His palm oriented upward, positioning itself directly into the path of the incoming nuke.
And as his hand ascended, a dark aura began to pertrude from his palm. The darkness emanating from his hand seemed to consume space, radiating pure darkness.
[Antimagic Nullification ability had activated.]
The Herald’s ultimate skill made contact with Jack’s open palm.
For a single, eternal moment, the entire battlefield seemed to hold its breath.
A massive, world-ending Fireball containing enough destructive force to obliterate everything within fifty miles. Jack’s hand was there, steady, unflinching, and absolutely certain in what
The point of contact between the fireball and Jack’s palm produced a visual phenomenon that transcended conventional physics.
The attack began to fracture.
The entire structure of the fireball lost cohesion. The concentrated magical force, unified into a singular, devastating whole, began to splinter.
The attack’s structural integrity collapsed as Jack’s nullification power propagated through every molecule of the fire.
The fracturing accelerated.
Cracks appeared in the fireball’s surface.
Breaks in the magical structure that was holding the attack together. The cracks spread with incredible velocity, reaching deeper and deeper into the heart of the assault.
The magnificent, world-ending power that the Herald had just unleashed began to fragment into smaller and smaller components.
....
The massive fireball disintegrated into nothingness. A dissipation, as if the entire world-ending attack had been nothing more than a thought that someone had decided to forget. The sphere of destruction became dust.
The sky, which had turned white-hot, began to cool almost immediately, the thermal radiation that had been so intense just microseconds before ceasing as the attack was completely nullified.
The pressure waves that had been building around the fireball’s descent simply vanished, leaving only a perfectly calm, perfectly still moment in the atmosphere above the crater.
...
Silence.
...
For a full second, the entire battlefield fell into absolute silence.
The moment stretched. Time felt like a construct, a possibility. Reality itself was pausing to process what had just occurred.
The superheated air began to cool back to ambient temperature. The sky, which had turned white-hot, began to return to its normal color.
The Herald watched and wondered.
The dragon’s golden eyes locked on the space where his ultimate attack had been.
The dragon’s consciousness was processing information that transcended his capacity to understand. The pinnacle of power, this technique has been honed through centuries of combat. It represents the ultimate manifestation of draconic supremacy.
Obliterated by the literal touch of a human’s hand.
Comprehension hit the Herald like when Caligo slapped him around like a rag doll.
The dragon’s consciousness registered what had just occurred with the same instant of realization that a creature recognizes it has become prey.
The Herald’s entire framework of understanding, built across centuries of dominance, reinforced through countless victories, and absolutely certain of its accuracy, was shattered in a single moment.
The [Phobia] ability started to cascade.
The Herald experienced an overwhelming and debilitating sense of dread. The dragon’s consciousness registered the single word that defined his absolute deepest fear as it transformed.
[Power] [Demon] [Jack]
Not just any power.
Absolute power.
The kind of power that transcended categories, that rendered conventional strength irrelevant, that existed at a level where other creatures had no framework to comprehend it.
The kind of power that the ancients had spoken of in whispered tones. The kind of power that the Soul Warden possessed.
The Herald’s frame convulsed.
His claws trembled, not from physical damage, but from the raw, primal recognition that something fundamentally beyond his capacity had just manifested in direct contact with him.
The trembling accelerated, his claws visibly shaking as his consciousness rejected the reality of what he was witnessing.
His scales began to dim.
The radiance that had characterized them throughout the entire engagement suddenly faded as his consciousness fragmented under the weight of pure terror.
The previously intense illumination diminished, reflecting the fundamental eradication of the dragon’s dominant intent.
Jack’s voice cut across the battlefield.
"Who decided that?"