Supreme Hunter of Beautiful Souls
Chapter 220 220: Borrowed Power

An arm made of liquid darkness and deformed bones burst forth from the center of the circle. Followed by another. The stones around it crumbled like sand before the cursed presence that now rose up. Reality itself seemed to tremble, the air grew denser, and the runes still burning on the ground went out like candles before a storm.

From the hellish hole rose a creature that should never have existed. A demon. But not just any demon. An Arch-Abyssal, shaped by the hatred of a thousand extinct civilizations.

Its eyes were bottomless pits, mouths foamed where scales should have been, and beating hearts could be seen throbbing outside its body, pulsing in incoherent rhythms. Its wings, made of bones and veins, opened with a crack that echoed throughout the temple, knocking down columns and exploding doors with the pressure of the impact.

The demon let out a scream that was heard not only with the ears, but with the body, with the blood. A roar that made Exelia take a step back, that made Liora clench her teeth until her jaw ached, that made Kael pause for a second.

"For all that is sacred..." Liora murmured.

"None of this is sacred," Kael replied. "Not anymore."

The demon took its first step.

The ground shook. The altar exploded into shards of stone and dried flesh. The runes burned in black flames. And all the remaining cultists, as if called by a deep instinct, began to laugh, scream, cry, or sing, as if they had become one with the creature.

Some fell to their knees, bleeding from their eyes. Others rose and ran toward the beast, offering themselves body and soul. And it accepted them. With a simple gesture of one of its deformed hands, it sucked them in like steam from flesh, absorbing their bodies, their souls, their stories.

Kael acted first.

He raised his arms and conjured a spiraling tornado of cutting wind. The cyclone rose noisily, lifting debris, stones, blood, and throwing them toward the creature. But everything ricocheted off its skin as if they were grains of sand against iron.

The demon turned its head slowly.

And Kael was thrown against the wall with a gesture of pure will. The impact cracked the stones. He spat blood, but rolled to the side and rose again, sword steady in his hand.

Exelia ran down the left flank, jumping over cultists who were still alive and screaming in a trance. Her sword sparkled as it was imbued with ancient magic, and she delivered a downward blow to one of the creature's legs.

The blade penetrated a few inches into the demon's flesh before stopping with a hollow sound. As if it had struck raw flesh mixed with metal.

It spun its body with a speed unthinkable for its size. One of its grotesque limbs struck Exelia with brute force.

She flew like a rag doll, crashing through a pillar. The structure collapsed on top of her, and for a moment she disappeared under the rubble.

Liora screamed in rage.

And attacked.

Unlike the other two, Liora did not try to hurt the creature's flesh.

She attacked the circle.

Her sword glowed with a golden light, her runes screaming like divine voices. Each blow cracked the ground around the circle, breaking the bonds that kept the demon tied to the summoning.

The creature screamed.

But it was not pain. It was fury.

Liora managed to destroy two of the runes before being hit by a jet of black blood that shot out of the demon's palm. The liquid burned like acid. She screamed, but resisted, plunging her sword into the ground, conjuring a shield of light that enveloped her like a protective capsule.

Kael, now recovered, leaped onto the creature's shoulder.

There, he found eyes.

Dozens of eyes. All opening and closing. All staring at him.

"Die," said Kael.

And he plunged his sword.

A flash.

A sound that could not be described.

The creature's shoulder exploded into flesh and smoke, but Kael was thrown back again, this time rolling down the stairs leading to the altar.

Exelia emerged from the rubble, coughing blood.

But alive.

And furious.

She swung her sword, conjured a duplicate blade made of blue energy, and attacked again. Each step she took was a sentence. Each blow, an ancestral cry.

Liora freed herself from the acid with a shield of spinning runes and returned to attack the circle's lines.

The demon was now surrounded.

Three swords. Three warriors. Three wills.

Kael returned with a new gust of wind, now condensed into a blade. He threw it at the creature's leg, striking a hideous joint that connected the flesh to the stone of the ritual casing. The blow cracked the connection.

Exelia leaped and cut off the other leg. Combined with Kael's blow, the creature fell to its knees with a roar of agony.

Liora shouted a final incantation. Her sword became a tower of light. And she struck the center of the circle.

The ground broke.

The energy receded.

The demon screamed. It tried to get up. It tried to escape. It tried to dissolve into smoke, into shadow, into memory.

But Kael was faster.

His sword slit the creature's throat.

And where there was no throat, he cut the air where spells were trying to create a new one.

Exelia plunged her blade into the creature's chest and said something in a language that made time stop for a second.

Liora threw her sword into the center of the broken circle.

And everything exploded.

Light. Sound. Pain. Screams.

When silence returned, the temple lay in ruins.

A roar filled the air as if the world were being torn apart from within.

It was not a common sound. It was no sound at all.

It was the very negation of existence—a scream made of emptiness, of absence, of anti-nature.

The already cracked floor split open in new fissures. The columns still standing exploded. The temple's rubble shook as if something greater than everything there was about to rise. And it did rise.

From the ashes and smoke, the demon returned.

Intact.

As if nothing had happened.

The flesh recomposed itself as if death itself were a suggestion. The eyes multiplied. The wings beat even harder, sweeping Exelia against the wall. Kael barely managed to protect Liora with a wind barrier before the two were thrown against a half-melted statue of a forgotten god.

"No..." whispered Liora, her face covered in soot, her body wounded.

Kael staggered to his feet, blood dripping from his forehead. His eyes fixed on the creature that now watched them with the cruel calmness of one who knows he has won.

"It was useless," said Exelia, spitting blood. "All of it."

The creature took a step. A single step. And everything seemed to bow before it—the light, the air, logic itself.

Kael planted his feet firmly on the ground. "Then we'll find another way."

"You saw what we just did. We used light, wind. Nothing worked!" Exelia shouted, frustration boiling in her throat.

Kael looked at his own sword. It was cracked. The blade that had cut through abyssal entities in ancient wars now seemed... ordinary. Powerless.

He closed his eyes. "Ahri..."

Silence.

The world seemed to spin more slowly. The creature's roar turned into a low, continuous hum. Kael searched within himself for the thread connecting him to the entity that had accompanied him since childhood.

The nine-tailed fox.

The goddess disguised as a spirit.

The one who whispered truths in dreams.

"Ahri... I need you. Or we'll die here. All of us."

Still nothing.

Until, like the touch of a warm breath on his soul, he felt it.

A tail wrapped around his heart.

Not physically.

But spiritually.

Ahri's voice echoed, soft and distant, like the sound of leaves in a forgotten temple.

"I cannot come, too many eyes watching this battle. But I can give you a fragment of my power. Just for a while. Be careful, Kael. Divine power does not forgive doubt."

Kael opened his eyes. They were golden. Literally. Liquid irises of pure gold pulsed with energy.

Liora, still fallen, widened her eyes. "What is that?"

"Don't worry," he said, barely recognizing his own voice. "I'm just going to finish that thing off..."

He took a step forward.

The ground burned beneath his feet. Not like fire. But like truth.

The demon turned completely toward him.

For a moment, it seemed to hesitate.

Kael raised his sword.

It regenerated.

The blade, once cracked, now shone like the sun under water. Engravings of fox tails and eyes formed across the metal.

Kael pointed at the monster. "You shouldn't exist."

And he ran.

The first blow cut through the air and time.

The second struck one of the creature's eyes, which finally retreated.

The third made the monster bleed. A thick, white blood that evaporated upon touching the ground.

Liora took advantage.

Even exhausted, she began to conjure seals around the circle. But this time, not with ancient runes.

With the words she heard in the demon's whispers.

She was using his own language. Corrupted, yes, but functional. To force him to anchor himself, to limit himself to one form.

Exelia leaped over a pillar and struck the creature's right wing with her double energy sword. This time, there were splinters. The bone broke.

Kael shouted something in a language he didn't even know he knew.

Ahri's tails, invisible to others, danced behind him.

And he summoned fire.

But not ordinary fire.

Divine fire.

White and blue flames enveloped his body, swirling in spirals, creating a symbol on the ground: a circle of protection, of containment, of justice.

The demon tried to flee.

But something held it back.

Liora.

She was bleeding from her eyes, but she continued to chant.

Kael leaped and plunged his sword into the left leg.

The veins exploded in smoke. The scream that followed was not just sound. It was an implant of despair in all the hearts that heard it.

Exelia ran and plunged her double blade into the creature's beating heart—the one outside its body.

It exploded in light.

But it still wasn't enough.

The monster still stood, its bones regenerating.

Kael looked at Liora.

She couldn't hold out much longer.

He closed his eyes.

"Ahri... lend me everything."

The answer was immediate.

"You may not be able to handle it."

"I don't care."

The energy filled him like a broken dam.

His eyes shone more brightly.

The nine tails—now visible—exploded behind him like a living halo.

He rose.

The ground sank under the weight of his presence.

The sword was no longer a blade.

It was a fragment of the sun.

Kael turned to the demon.

"Goodbye."

And he descended.

The impact was absolute.

The entire temple shook.

The sky opened for a moment, revealing a flash above the clouds.

The light engulfed the creature.

Silence reigned.

For the first time, real silence.

No wailing, no screaming, no whispering shadows.

Kael fell to his knees.

The tails disappeared.

The sword went out.