CHAPTER 859: BECOMING THE SKY

Orfry’s lips curled into a slow, unnerving smile as his eyes locked on Vlad. "You could not possibly comprehend... how old I truly am."

The words were spoken without haste, yet they sank into the air like heavy stones dropped into deep, black water.

Vlad’s grip tightened on his sword. His instincts screamed that the danger emanating from Orfry was growing—not steadily, but in great, suffocating leaps. Every nerve in his body tensed as the oppressive pressure mounted. Silent and steady, his energy began to rise, condensing into his weapon until the blade thrummed with lethal purpose.

Orfry, however, seemed utterly unconcerned. The energy gathering in Vlad’s sword could have split mountains, yet the ancient being simply continued speaking, as though sharing an idle conversation.

"This new universe... its very rules stand in direct opposition to our nature," Orfry said, his tone low and almost conversational. "Revealing our true form here triggers a backlash so deep, it forces us into slumber for countless years. That is why we so often fight through proxies. Even now... I keep myself bound in this shell."

He paused. Then, his smile widened—far wider than a human face could allow. The corners of his mouth tore through the flesh of his cheeks, exposing rows of unnatural teeth, a rictus grin so grotesque that it made the air feel colder. His presence became suffocating, almost tangible.

"To sleep for ten thousand years... just to kill you all." His voice dropped into a guttural growl, reverberating like a whisper inside the mind. "Worth it."

Without warning, his entire body convulsed. A psychic shockwave erupted outward in all directions, warping the air itself. The wave slammed into the remaining Corruption Generals still locked in their own battles.

Before any of them could react, they were wrenched into the air—pulled at a speed that defied thought—and hurled toward Orfry. Their bodies collided with him in sickening impacts, bones shattering, flesh tearing. But instead of falling away, they fused into him. Blood and sinew melted into his form, merging as though they had always belonged to him.

The grotesque amalgamation pulsed and twisted. Orfry’s current form began to split apart, flesh shearing from bone, until the frame that had once been humanoid collapsed entirely.

Vlad acted instantly. He appeared before Orfry in a blink, his sword blazing with the full extent of his power. The blade descended with such overwhelming light and spatial force that it seemed to split reality itself. The strike sheared Orfry’s body in half—then quartered it—until he was torn into hundreds of bloody fragments.

It should have been the end. That attack would have slain anyone, even a True Depravita.

But horror bloomed in the hearts of all who watched.

Every fragment of Orfry’s body began to... move. The severed pieces did not fall lifeless to the earth. Instead, they writhed and pulsated, reforming into amorphous clumps of bloody tissue, each one studded with glaring, unblinking eyes. From the masses, bones jutted like jagged spines. Mouths opened where there should have been none.

Then they began to merge again—flesh folding into flesh—until the writhing lumps swelled into a single colossal entity.

The sight was beyond nightmare. It was not a monster in any familiar sense; it was an entire reality of horror made flesh. A vast, shifting sea of body parts—arms reaching from impossible angles, teeth grinding in places where there should have been skin, eyes blinking in chaotic rhythm, staring at everything and nothing at once.

And it moved.

The amorphous mass expanded at a pace that was utterly unnatural, its bulk charged toward the True Depravita of Wrath. It was too fast—too vast. Vlad felt a surge of primal dread. He could not run. He could not teleport—the very space around him was corroding, the laws of reality breaking under the corruption emanating from the thing.

It was only at the last possible moment that he escaped—vanishing and reappearing atop a mountain range, his surviving troops clustered near him. His heart pounded like a war drum, sweat slicking his palms. Had he not tapped into the raw terror of one of his soldiers to trigger his Negative Teleportation, he would have been consumed.

The mass in the sky laughed. The sound came not from one mouth, but from hundreds, layered over one another, each with a slightly different tone. The combined effect was maddening.

Its voice filled the firmament, "Hahahaha... resourceful. But it does not matter."

The writhing abomination spread its bulk wider, the darkness of its form eclipsing the battlefield. Kilometers vanished beneath it. The sky itself seemed to recoil, swallowed in a tide of roiling, mutated flesh.

Every warrior below looked up—and felt their courage falter. The sheer presence of the creature was enough to crush resolve. It didn’t even seem in a hurry. It was spreading like an inevitable tide, sealing all escape routes, as though it intended to savor the slaughter—devouring them one by one, folding their bodies and souls into its eternal nightmare.

"Attack!"

Vlad’s voice split the despair. His battle-hardened heartbeat sent out a pulse of wrathful energy that rippled through his army. Strength and determination flared anew in the warriors of the Xaos Kingdom. Eyes sharpened, jaws set, hands tightened around weapons.

Together, they turned their fury upward toward the monstrous canopy above.

Vlad unleashed a titanic cannon of lightning and spatial force, a beam so vast it seemed to bridge earth and sky. Freya swung her rusted sword, releasing an arc of light as wide as a city’s walls. Fafnir exhaled a torrent of fire hot enough to boil oceans. Ouroboros roared, vomiting a sea of annihilating energy from his maw. Overlord pressed his palms together, summoning massive golden strikes infused with divine power.

And they were not alone. Thousands of warriors fired their might into the heavens—beams, blades, arrows, spells, each unique yet all unified by the same will: to burn away the nightmare in the sky.

The scene was chaos and beauty entwined. Thousands of attacks—lightning crackling, flames roaring, shadows swirling, and holy radiance blazing—merged into a singular storm.

Then, all at once, they struck.

"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM!"

The heavens erupted in an explosion of every color imaginable. Flames of red, gold, blue, and white burned together, swirling in impossible patterns. For one heartbeat, it looked less like destruction and more like creation—a sky painted with the pure will of the Xaos Kingdom.

The brilliance was breathtaking. It was more beautiful than any sculpture, grander than any painting, for it was alive with the resolve of those who refused to yield.