Immortal Kingdoms

"What is that technique?!"

Asmodian and the other two felt shocked and alarmed.

"It's already locked on our auras, we have no choice but to take this attack head-on!"

Elyos stepped forward, holding the group of revolving, compressed asteroids as though he held a miniature solar system in the palm of his hands, muttering something to himself with a stern expression.

Uranus had a stoic expression as well. He took a deep breath, slanting the broadsword on his right shoulder as he shouted toward Asmodian and Elyos, "Augment my sword, your attack range is too widespread to target the core of this weird formation!"

Elyos and Asmodian both paused. Then, after exchanging a look, they both nodded at one another before flashing to appear on either side of Uranus, tossing their miniature solar system and the fleet of flat black holes to dance and spin around the blade's edge.

Uranus clenched the massive hilt of his sword, connecting to the core of his original celestial body directly, tossing all reservations aside.

As he did so, back on his celestial body, tsunamis raged and volcanoes erupted, one natural disaster after the next killing the people in the millions indiscriminately. Everyone thought that their God Uranus was furious with them, hurriedly dropping to their knees and praying to the sky.

Alas, the raging disasters only got worse, and proportionally, the pressure emitted from the massive sword began to condense and increase.

"What can a crippled core possibly do at this point in time? Just die you, vile outsider!" Uranus yelled out.

"Idiot," Wendy was unphased nonetheless, as no matter how much energy they would draw from their cores, it would prove useless as the carriers to their incarnations are simply too fragile.

In a sense, when you're looking for a material to function as a conduit for energy, you have to find the purist grade for better and smoother conductivity. This follows the same principles in the power transfer theorem in electrical conductivity.

In this sense, if one was to compare core energy to electrical currents, then the carriers of Asmodian, Uranus, and Elyos could be considered aluminum, while Wendy's tempered body could be considered gold.

The interval lagging when transferring energy from the core to the carrier and further to the attack will cause both the quality and power of the attack to drop considerably.

In a direct confrontation, this little discrepancy may not prove fatal. However, in this situation where they plan to use their attacks to disturb the channeling of Wendy's core energy while wholly oblivious to the aspects of her physical body, they're in for one rude awakening.

"Will this be alright?" The Human Sovereign asked worriedly. He knew firsthand how powerful a single black hole disc was, let alone tens of them working in tandem with two other attacks seemingly not one bit weaker.

If that attack was to strike a planet, even dust wouldn't be left behind.

"They're not trying to win, they're trying to survive," commented Eternus lightly, a flash of pity in his eyes. Indeed, although the quality and stability of their attack are on a much worse level than Wendy's, its destructive might shouldn't be too far behind.

If they simply ignored the fifth-tier spell, instead attacking the caster, they might have had a higher chance of survival. However, Eternus wouldn't blame them as he could somewhat sympathize with those lacking experience fighting against casters and magicians.

To cultivators, when they successfully materialize their attacks, it could be considered a done deal; either you die or I die. However, magicians and casters are different.

To compensate for their ridiculously overpowered attacks in terms of casting speed, range, and power, a caster can't simply pull out after the spell was initiated lest it wouldn't only break the spell, but it could also cause a backlash that would damage their core in accordance with the grade of the spell in question.

Hence, Wendy called the group of three as a pack of idiots.

"Rest in peace," Eternus muttered silently as Uranus launched his attack.

"Die!"

With a shout, his broadsword hacked up at the heavens, unleashing a stream of destructive sword energy that slashed the void silently.

There were no stray fluctuations or ripples to speak of as the sword aura, much like an elongated black hole in the shape of a sword, swallowed energy, light, and asteroids in its path while advancing at incomparable speeds.

It left behind nothing but a wide crack that stretched like a bottomless rift, the world energy struggling to mend it back into a stable space-time fabric.

On planet Arcadia, everyone looked up to see a massive crack that resembled the maw of a massive beast as a roar that shook the mountains and rivers washed over the planet.

"Die…"

"Die…"

"Die…"

"Die…"

This shout that carried the will of an entire celestial body instantly killed off millions of the non-cultivators on the planet, as some cracks in the atmospheric membrane couldn't block them from invading.

Unrest spread across the planet, everyone mistaking it to be the anger of some divine being coming to deliver judgment on the sinners.

"Help me…"

In his meditation, Leonardo heard the immature voice of a little girl in his head, startling him.

"Mama said, you help, please…"

The voice echoed again, disturbing Leonardo from his calm attempt of sorting out his fragmented memories. All this while, the only thing he could figure out was the scene of a massive black throne overseeing a black river, and in the black river were countless little specks of light rushing along the stream.

However, these specks of light, astonishingly, resembled the artificial photographs of a 'universe' based on modern astronomy back on Earth.

Then, that was it.

The memory ends there.

Just as he was confused about what 'Mama' and what 'Help' this voice was talking about, countless scenes all across Arcadia were transmitted to Leonardo's mind, including the cause.

Alarmed, he didn't have any time to think of what was going on as he had assumed this voice belonged to the immature will of this planet.

He could tell it was immature since back then during their confrontation in the Crouching Dragon Province massacre, but he hadn't expected it to be this young.

Although he wasn't clear on things, he was worried that the volume of this attack would increase enough to endanger Leona and Kieran, hence why he transmitted his simple thoughts to this immature will, asking it to redirect the attack into his sea of consciousness instead.

After what seemed like a moment of doubt and hesitation, the voice echoed again.

"Okay…"

Taking a deep breath, Leonardo concentrated the entirety of his spiritual strength into a pair of illusory hands in front of the old, massive black gate in his sea of consciousness.

Aria, who seemed to have noticed the peculiarity, raised her eyebrows and looked into Leonardo's sea of consciousness while maintaining a safe distance from the gate.

She could guess that Leonardo wanted to artificially stage a situation that would allow the seal to passively react, but she wanted to see if this seal could handle something on the level of a celestial body's incarnation.

Up in outer space, the sword strike simply dove right into the massive complex diagram, seemingly disintegrating on contact as though it was a delicate nourishment for the attack, stunning everyone except for Wendy and Eternus who saw this outcome coming from a mile away.

Although the attack was powerful, it was far too brittle to shake the solid and dense formation, not to mention it was a spell with anti-matter as its core foundation.

"IMPOSSIBLE!" Uranus roared in rage and confusion, truly unreconciled.

This roar was a hundred-fold in volume to his previous war cry, starting even Eternus who looked in Arcadia's direction, shocked and angry, actually on the verge of shouting out for his children.

More than that, he was worried that these shockwaves might crack the ice barrier on his wife, forcing her to awaken prematurely.

However, just as he was about to shout, he felt an overwhelming, oppressive aura erupt from Arcadia, startling him into shutting his mouth.

Not just Eternus, but everyone else on the battlefield froze, space-time was locked, and the massive spell in the sky began to dim and fade away.

If anyone paid attention though, it was Wendy who took the initiative to cancel her spell.

Somewhere thousands of light years away, in an Interstellar Supreme Court temple that floated in the void, a middle-aged man who was isolated from the world sat in meditation.

Then, his sharp eyes opened, revealing a black void with billions and billions of stars revolving within.

Looking closely into his eyes, one star in particular suddenly grew dim and disappeared, causing him to frown.

"One of the star fields simply disappeared? No, that can't be…"

He muttered, confused. Then, he decided he might go and pay that corner of the middle realms a visit to investigate personally.

Back in Arcadia's outer space, Wendy had a faint smile on her otherwise cold face as she transmitted to Arcadia's will.

"Good girl, now you're safe."

A faint voice soaked in fear responded, "Mama…"

"Don't worry, he's on our side."

While everyone was confused, someone was locked in place as the terror that transcended time and space enveloped him. Then, he heard a soft heartbeat that seemed to travel from billions of years in the past and cross billions of years to the future.

Then, his body simply exploded into chunks of flesh.

Then, the world returned to peace once more, allowing everyone to gasp the air they'd held for what seemed like an eternity.

Unbeknownst to them all, planet Uranus which was wrought in one disaster after the next had silently disintegrated into specks of black dust that scattered in space.

…

Back in Grace Imperial Palace, Leonardo was unaware of the changes, he simply assumed that all the heart did was dispose of the annoying will, breathing a sigh of relief.

It was Aria on the side who didn't know how to put her current feelings into words after what she had witnessed…