Beyond the Apocalypse
Chapter 724: The pain of victory (I)

Chapter 724: The pain of victory (I)

Jormungandr had become a colossus, a serpentine deity stretched across the skies above the Voidheart Fortress.

His vast body coiled through the clouds in chaotic grace, forming arcs that resembled mountains made of living water. Each movement sent gusts of hurricane winds howling across the battlefield. His deep blue-black scales shimmered with streaks of crackling, lightning-like energy, as though he had consumed the very breath of a storm.

He was a being born from hunger, reborn through battle, and forged in power.

The skin of the True Depravita of Gluttony was etched with glowing runes—bioluminescent sigils that pulsed like the beat of a cosmic heart. These markings weren’t simply magical—they resonated with a force equal to the fundamental Laws of the Universe, but alien in form and function. They twisted in patterns beyond comprehension, beautiful and terrible.

Only one other being in all creation possessed an aura that could stand beside it: the dark, void-forged wrathful skin of the True Depravita of Wrath.

"ROOOOOOAAARRRRRR!"

Jormungandr’s massive draconic head towered above the clouds. With his mouth stretched wide in a roar that shook both ground and sky, he sent shockwaves crashing against the broken building below, making many shatter to pieces. Inside his abyssal maw, jagged coral-like fangs shimmered with raw magical energy—teeth meant to shred even Legendary beings like parchment.

His eyes glowed a piercing, electric blue—vast, unblinking, eternal. In them swirled the essence of Gluttony’s Core Sin and the boundless, consuming power of the Law of Life, twisted into a force that devoured instead of nurtured.

Awe and terror seized the hearts of all who bore witness. Both allies and enemies stood frozen in place as they beheld the transformation. The small yellow cat they had dismissed as a curiosity had become a divine serpent spanning thousands of meters in the sky. His body cast a massive shadow over the entire city, plunging it into eerie twilight.

And then, everything escalated.

Jormungandr opened his gargantuan jaws and pointed them skyward. A consuming force unlike anything the world had ever known surged forth. But this energy didn’t draw from the battlefield—it pulled from beyond the veil.

He was consuming energy from the void between worlds.

The chaotic realm between realities was a place of instability, entropy, and madness. Its power was untamable—raw chaos unshaped by law or thought. It was never meant to be touched, let alone consumed.

But the True Depravita of Gluttony was doing the impossible—condensing that chaos into a singularity, forming a black sphere of catastrophic potential within his throat.

"STOP HIM!"

The cry came from Kutun, the Supreme Leader of the Voidheart Fortress.

His voice trembled with panic, fury, and desperation. His eyes, usually sharp and calculating, were now wide with horror. He couldn’t comprehend how a mere feline had become a celestial juggernaut. But the how didn’t matter.

Only the what.

He could feel the chaos coalescing. He could feel its hunger, its promise of annihilation. If released, that energy would reduce the central tower to ash—and with it, the stronghold’s last chance for victory.

"PROTECT THE DEPRAVITA!"

Marshal Maximo responded immediately, his voice resonating like a war horn across the skies.

He saw what Jormungandr intended. And it filled him not with dread, but with thrill.

The True Depravita of Gluttony would end the stalemate. He would break the heart of the fortress. Maximo would willingly die to give him that chance as victory in this place would save billions of lives in the future.

The battlefield erupted.

The Legends of Graecia clashed with the Vorometallicae with renewed fury. The enemy, desperate to stop the looming destruction, began burning their own life force to rush Jormungandr. The battlefield became a furnace of exploding spells, collapsing towers, and soul-rending cries.

The Graecian forces stood their ground, transforming into an unbreakable wall of willpower and blood. They would not allow a single enemy past.

In the streets, Vlad fought a battle of his own. Three High-Legend Automatons, monstrous and mechanical faced the True Depravita of Wrath. Forged from platinum and enchanted alloy, they moved like thunder, moving toward the World Snake.

Vlad fought like a storm incarnate. His fists clashed against steel with explosive shockwaves. He roared with the fury of Wrath itself, sending one Automaton crashing back, collapsing the buildings around them. He blocked a strike from another with all four arms, then twisted its arm free and hurled it like a cannonball into its twin.

Each impact shattered streets. Each scream shook buildings. The air was scorched with chaotic power, and yet Vlad stood firm, a titan holding the line.

Jormungandr continued to channel.

The pressure in his body was immense—bone-crushing, soul-straining, world-breaking. His scales began to split. Blood, thick and glowing, dripped through the gaps.

He felt like he would explode.

But he didn’t stop.

The dark sphere of energy within his mouth grew larger, the power denser, the hunger deeper.

"BOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!"

A colossal explosion rocked the entire city.

Kutun had broken through. He struck Marshal Maximo with such force that the Graecian commander was hurled into the ground like a meteor, carving a massive crater into the city.

But Kutun paid dearly for that strike. A gaping hole now yawned in his abdomen, leaking energy and gore.

He didn’t care.

With murderous intent, he launched toward Jormungandr like a falling star of death.

"DAMMIT!" Maximo snarled, forcing himself out of the crater and sprinting forward.

But he was too slow.

All the Graecian Legends saw it. The unstoppable Kutun was closing in. They screamed, cast spells, hurled weapons—but nothing reached him in time.

Jormungandr’s eyes widened.

He could see Kutun, but his body was locked. He was casting. He was vulnerable.

And then—light.

A blinding flash bathed the battlefield.

A figure stood between Kutun and the World Snake.

Elder Damian.

The ancient mage stood radiant in robes of fire.

The power radiating from Elder Damian stunned the battlefield. His body pulsed with raw, ancient magic, golden runes spiraling across his flesh like threads of light unraveling from eternity itself. And yet, despite this awe-inspiring power, the dread among the Graecian Legends remained.

Damian was mighty—revered, legendary—but he was still a Mage. A sorcerer, not a warrior. He was not built to withstand the direct charge of Kutun, the Supreme Leader of the Voidheart Fortress.

Kutun was a monstrous force of physical power, a juggernaut of war and violence, whose blows could level cities and whose will had broken nations.

But while the Graecians trembled in fear, Kutun himself—at the very moment of collision—felt more terror than ever before in his life.

The Vorometallic warlord had expected to crush Damian in a single strike. One blow. One scream. One death. But as he neared, as his attack locked onto the old man’s form, he saw Damian’s eyes—bright, steady, unwavering.

And he realized something was wrong.

His instincts screamed, flooding his body with warning, a primal surge of panic that rose too fast for reason to catch up.

Elder Damian’s smile widened—the broadest it had ever been in his long, battle-scarred life.

And then, with perfect calm, he spoke a single word.

"Boom."

"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM!"

A blinding explosion of golden fire erupted from Damian’s body, engulfing everything in a sphere of radiant destruction. The ground trembled. The sky bent. The space between cracked and screamed. It was not merely fire—it was divine detonation, a sun born and dying in an instant, forged from a soul that had burned for centuries.

Kutun was engulfed in the blast.

For a moment, time halted. The battlefield froze in silent reverence and horror.

The warriors of Graecia stood paralyzed, devastated by the sacrifice of their elder. The Vorometallicae halted mid-charge, stunned and uncertain—unsure whether their Supreme Leader had survived the incinerating firestorm.

And then came a voice.

Ancient. Final.

It shook the sky.

"DIE."

It belonged to Jormungandr.

The True Depravita of Gluttony had finished his spell.

The enormous sphere of void-forged energy, swirling inside his open jaws, had reached critical mass. It pulsed like a miniature world collapsing in on itself—dark matter coiled with bioluminescent runes, raw entropy compressed into a weapon.

He released it.

A colossal beam of chaotic energy erupted from his maw, tearing through the sky like a lance of annihilation. It moved faster than thought, a streak of swirling black and violet, trailing spirals of elemental distortion. The very fabric of the world bent around it as it flew.

It aimed for the core tower at the center of the Voidheart Fortress.

In a last desperate act, a shimmering force field snapped into place around the tower. Ancient, intricate runes spun into view, forming a lattice of pure defensive energy. For a fleeting moment, it held.

And then—

"CRACK."

The shield shattered with the sound of a planet dying.

The void beam struck the tower.

In an instant, the structure exploded in all directions. Walls crumbled, floors disintegrated, and magical defenses were vaporized in an instant. The core of the Voidheart Fortress was reduced to glowing dust.