CHAPTER 932: BREAKING THE LAST CHAIN

Two of the gargantuan tentacles lashed against the gates, halting their closure with brute force, while a third swung straight toward the True Depriavta of Wrath. Vlad raised his sword into a defensive stance just before the blow landed.

It was only a tentacle—just one appendage of the imprisoned monstrosity—yet the strike carried such unearthly force that it sent Vlad tumbling across the ground, rolling violently until he finally skidded to a halt. Blood erupted from his lips in ragged coughs. His arms trembled from the impact, bones aching as though they had been crushed.

"What in all creation is that power?" Vlad, who had faced horrors beyond count, could not still the tremor that ran through him.

The entity remained shackled by countless chains, yet even in its fetters it had stopped the titanic gates from closing and struck him down with a single movement. Despite the wound he had inflicted earlier, despite the psychic brand seared into its soul, the entity’s strength remained terrifying—still enough to shake heaven and hell alike.

And with each echoing crack, more chains splintered. One after another they shattered beneath the weight of the Dream of Madness. With each restraint broken, the creature’s might grew, its tendrils slamming into the gates not only to hold them open but to anchor itself, forcing its colossal bulk closer to freedom.

Vlad knew he could not allow it to escape. He braced himself, but before he could act again, the others moved.

Metatron, Orous, and Hajack unleashed their fury as one. Their energies exploded outward in a blinding storm—the righteous light of Heaven, the infernal blaze of Hell, and the demonic might of the Abyss. All three struck at the tentacles anchoring the gates, their eyes burning not with unity, but with raw survival.

They had been deceived, used as pawns, their blood twisted into an unholy key. Their very souls had nearly been sacrificed to the Dream of Madness. Now there was no alliance, no trust, no honor in their blows—only the desperate will to endure.

For an instant, it was a scene that defied all history: Heaven, Hell, and the Abyss fighting side by side. Not for a cause, not for triumph, but because annihilation left no other choice. It was a vision so rare it might never be repeated in all the long eternity to come.

Vlad did not care why it was happening. He cared only that they fought together. Alone, even with the power of every True Depriavta fused into his soul, he could not have repelled the monster. With them, there was hope.

Wasting no time, he teleported to the left gate, appearing beside Orous. Still cloaked in the guise of a Devil, Vlad earned only a curt nod from the Master of Sector Three. No words were exchanged—none were needed. Their combined fury answered all.

Orous’s flames rose like a supernova, burning with a heat that could consume stars. Vlad summoned the storm within his soul, a cosmic maelstrom capable of sundering celestial bodies. Together, they unleashed their powers in a single devastating strike. The tendrils clutching the left gate shrieked and writhed as they were seared, mangled, and torn apart.

On the right gate, Hajack bared his fanged maw. Abyssal fire poured forth in an unending flood, engulfing his massive form as he transformed into a tornado of destruction. With a roar, he hurled himself into the thrashing tentacles, abyssal flames devouring their twisted flesh.

The Dream of Madness screamed. A sound of such fury and pain it quaked through the dimension. Tentacles blackened, split, and burned beneath the Lords of Hell and Abyss.

Enraged, the entity released more limbs, whipping them outward to strike at the three who defied it. The air warped as the colossal appendages rose, ready to smash them into the ground.

But before they could fall, Metatron appeared before the gates. His eyes glowed with divine vengeance. The Archangel who considered himself the pinnacle of creation, the Voice of Heaven itself, had been tricked and used like a pawn. The humiliation burned in his soul hotter than holy fire.

His aura erupted, climbing higher and higher until it split the dark skies. Tens of thousands of golden portals materialized behind him in a vast, blinding array. From them poured a storm of god-weapons, radiant spears and blades forged from the prayers of ages.

The tentacles crashed against the barrage, shattering hundreds, then thousands, but for every weapon destroyed ten more replaced it. The onslaught would not end. For the first time, the monstrosity’s limbs faltered, unable to break free of its tomb, unable to stop the trio from mangling its extremities, unable to prevent the gates from grinding slowly shut.

As the window to the outside world dwindled, the crimson eyes of the entity burned with something new. Rage, yes—but also fear.

That fear exploded into power.

The creature roared, its voice so deep it rattled the marrow of existence. Every chain still clinging to its body shattered in unison. The sound was deafening, like the death knell of the cosmos. Freed, it began to rise, manifesting its true form.

What emerged within the tomb was no longer just a horror of shadows and eyes. It was something far worse.

A Primordial Angelic Horror, a paradox born of both divinity and chaos.

Its body was colossal, sculpted from stone-pale flesh that seemed carved from mountains, yet alive with veins of writhing tendrils like roots of some ancient, forbidden tree. From its back unfurled wings—not the graceful, radiant wings of angels, but vast, alien appendages feathered in shadow, stretching too far, too immense to belong to anything mortal or divine.

Above its head floated a halo, but warped, darkened, flickering like an eclipse—a symbol of divinity twisted into incomprehensibility. Its face was no face at all, but a nest of writhing tentacles, each moving with a life of its own, groping hungrily at unseen truths. From them radiated madness, as though each appendage was a window to knowledge no mind could withstand.

At the center of its chest burned a heart of molten red light, pulsing with the fury of a star and the chaos of the abyss. It beat like a war-drum, its glow casting shadows that seemed to whisper blasphemies. The ember of its core contrasted sharply with its corpse-like flesh, making the creature appear both alive and dead, holy and profane.

The air grew heavy, suffocating beneath its presence. Its aura was a paradox—at once divine reverence and abominable terror. It could have been worshipped as a god, yet its very existence inspired despair. This was no fall into sin, no rebellion of pride. This was something else: a divinity that had descended into a madness so deep it became something alien, unknowable, and eternal.

Its aura stank of two legacies bound into one: the grandeur of a Primordial God fused with the corruption of the Nightmare Universe’s kin.