Entering Apocalypse in Easy-Mode
Chapter 403: Absorbing

Chapter 403: Absorbing

Zeus could only stare in shock, his jaw clenched. He watched as the soldiers who were supposed to assist Hades and Gabriel were now being struck down by attacks from yet another unknown enemy. And worse, this enemy was powerful.

Zeus saw his soldiers getting hit and dying. He couldn’t let this continue. He had to act.

Even though that woman now seemed quite strong, Zeus was certain she wasn’t as powerful as the abominations above. From where he stood, he couldn’t sense any trace of Angelic, Demonic, or Celestial power from her. She must only possess the power of that dark mist.

"Fall back! Take cover!" Zeus shouted his order to the army. Scattered, confused, and terrified, the soldiers immediately obeyed his command. Without hesitation, they raised their shields and began retreating.

Meanwhile, Zeus floated into the sky. The moment he saw Asqa, he raised his right hand. A bolt of lightning, glowing bright blue and white, formed in his grip, and he hurled it at her.

Asqa looked up, sensing danger. Then she saw the lightning bolt speeding toward her.

She raised her wand and conjured a protective dome.

BOOM!

The lightning bolt smashed into the barrier, and a crack formed instantly. Asqa realized that even with the power granted by the Ancient One, she still wasn’t as strong as Clyde. She couldn’t match the strength of a high-level Celestial.

So she chose to retreat and stall for time. She couldn’t possibly defeat Zeus, but at the very least, she had to draw him away from Clyde.

She leapt backward, activated [Flight], and let her shield collapse. The lightning bolt struck the ground where she had just been standing, scorching the earth and leaving a crater.

Seeing his attack fail and Asqa soaring away, Zeus decided he couldn’t let another abomination escape. They had to deal with every threat as quickly as possible. Later, when he had time, he would make sure to kill that woman.

With a flash of fury, Zeus shot toward Asqa, crackling lightning trailing behind him like a storm.

The sight of Zeus approaching made Asqa tremble. She was being hunted by Zeus himself—someone even the Archangels hesitated to challenge.

But she pushed the fear aside and clenched her teeth. No hesitation now, or she’d only weaken herself.

Tapping into the Ancient One’s power within her, Asqa activated her skill, [Venombloom Fang], and fired a dozen green, poisonous arrows at Zeus from her wand.

"This level of attack won’t even scratch me!" Zeus scoffed, waving his hand as a surge of lightning swept away the green arrows.

Asqa then snapped her fingers. Of course, those arrows had been imbued with the Ancient One’s power. That power didn’t just enhance the attack—it corrupted anything it touched.

In an instant, the arrows exploded around Zeus, flooding his vision with black and green smoke.

Zeus widened his eyes, realizing this might actually be dangerous.

The dark green smoke expanded rapidly—growing wider, thicker, denser with each passing second.

Zeus’s eyes narrowing in alarm and he unleashed a surge of lightning from his entire body in an attempt to vaporize the encroaching cloud. But it was too late.

Tendrils of the corrupted mist had already made contact with his skin, seeping into his pores like living poison.

Zeus instantly felt it—an unnatural sensation crawling beneath his flesh, as if something foreign now stirred within him. He shot upward, away from the smoke, lightning crackling violently in his wake.

"What is this?" he thought, the question laced with a rare edge of panic.

He turned his gaze toward Asqa, who now floated at a distance, her wand lowered but her eyes calm. There was no arrogance in her expression, only quiet resolve.

Zeus hated what he was feeling.

He didn’t understand her power. About its nature or its source. And that lack of understanding twisted into something he rarely experienced, fear.

It infuriated him.

For someone like Zeus, whose very presence could silence storms, who stood alongside Archangels and battled gods, fear was not something he welcomed.

It was a sign of weakness. And yet, here it was, creeping in to his heart not because of her strength alone but because of the unknown that wrapped around her just like what he felt from the abominations above.

He turned his gaze upward, toward the churning sky where Hades and Gabriel clashed with the abomination, their battle shaking the sky and this domain even more.

He had intended to support them and finish this war quickly when the abominations stupidly attacked them openly.

But now... Now he had to change course.

Regret flickered in his heart but he knew what had to be done.

He had to stop this woman before she joined forces with the abominations. Before she tipped the scales of this battle toward their direction further.

Zeus streaked through the air like a divine missile, lightning writhing around his form as he closed the distance between him and Asqa.

Asqa, floating backward with practiced precision, raised her wand again. She unleashed another volley—dozens of green-glowing arrows, each infused with dark mist. Fireballs followed in a rhythmic barrage, exploding midair and spreading more of that cursed smoke.

All the while, she kept moving, refusing to let Zeus close in, always retreating just enough to stay out of reach.

Zeus dodged the first wave, then batted aside the rest with arcs of lightning that snapped the air apart. But the fireballs that bursting into clouds of corrupted mist slowed him down. Not because they could hurt him but because he now feared what they might do to him.

Above them, the true war raged. The sky itself trembled.

Gabriel’s brilliant wings now flickered erratically, stained with black veins pulsing. His breath came in labored gasps, his sword dragging slightly in the air.

Beside him, Hades looked no better—his armor was cracked and scorched, ichor seeping from the breaks. His great bident trembled slightly in his grasp. The dark mist clung to his robes like oil to cloth.

Their breaths were ragged. Their bodies weak.

And Clyde... stood in front of them, blood pouring freely from the stump of his severed left arm, soaking the remnants of his coat. His skin had paled, and veins stood out dark and thick across his face and neck.

Yet he was grinning. Not because he had won. But because he had succeeded in one thing.

With every moment spent fighting him in the corrupted mist, they had absorbed more and more of the Ancient One’s essence.

That grin sent a chill down both Gabriel and Hades’ spines. They glanced at each other, both sensing it.

Something was wrong.

They didn’t know what but they could feel it.

Clyde tilted his head, blood dripping from his chin.

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