Mad God

"Should we send help?" Nuray asked, standing next to Keina on their balcony, looking towards the Spire of Corvux, enveloped in a red energy field.

"No. Not until Malevick makes a move." Keina shook her head.

"Maybe they won't even need to intervene. Going all alone is… suicidal."

"Not for her." Keina shook her head but explained no further, letting Nuray lose to temporary confusion, interrupted by a loud flash of lightning amongst the black clouds.

They were not the only ones standing on a balcony, watching the sealed-off Spire of Corvux, as Malevick was standing there with crossed arms and a dark look.

"Prance around while you can… Not even the current Aerthus would survive what is coming when the formation is finally ready!" He whispered, closing his eyes, finally turning around, and walking back inside, not bothering further with what was happening in Rozex.

The only Lord who completely ignored everything was Rabout, standing beside Seya, going through the previous day's earnings.

"Concentrate!" He flicked her ear from behind as she looked out the window towards the Spire of Corvux. It made her yelp with a cute voice. "Don't worry about trivial things!" Rabout said, dragging her attention back to the thick book before them.

"B-but…" she tried to look out the window once again, but Rabout knocked on her head with his knuckles, forcefully turning her head away.

"No buts! This is not something you have to bother with. Your strength is still nowhere close to being even able to stand close and watch the fight personally!"

"Hauh… o-okay…" Seya moaned, fidgeting under Rabout's grip with a disappointed look, but it was also mixed with fire, the drive to one day be strong enough to even participate in a fight like that.

"Is that all?" Ariana asked as she tilted her head, displaying a calm and unbothered expression. She was tied up in a swarm of bloody, spiky tentacles, snaking around her body, gripping into her flesh.

"He has a bondage fetish, huh?" Ren murmured as she tilted her head, too, smacking her lips. Corvux was controlling the strings of blood, emerging from the ground, immobilizing Ariana with his first move. Yet even when his attack caught its target, Ariana still only looked at him with the same cold eyes, even when some of the spikes drew blood from her exposed legs or arms.

"Your tentacles are weak." she opened her mouth, and dark, nauseating smoke rose from her wounds. Thin tendrils snaked out, tearing the blood-colored ones off her body, freeing their master. When she ultimately shrugged herself free, floating before her enemy, the tiny tendrils grew in size multiple times, and now they were heading toward him.

"Don't get so cocky!" Corvux waved his hand, slashing at the air, sending a bloody arc forward that cut through the tentacles heading for him.

"Hmm? Kinda like Uncle Boursat?" Ren crossed her arms, smiling with nostalgia, remembering the days when they challenged the ex-Blood General without knowing.

Just as they were surprised that day, now Corvux was facing something he did not expect. The moment his attack cut through Ariana's, the separated tentacles changed form, turning into dark arrows, whistling forward, still aiming right at him.

"Fuck off!" Corvux shouted while his body lit up in a bloody light, forming a dark, red armor, just like Rudrick did once before. Yet Corvux's seemed more ethereal, and it did not hinder him from forming a giant bastard sword between his hands. He had the ability to both attack and defend at the same time. As he slashed with his weapon, he aimed at Ariana. Her still-approaching tentacles tried to block it in response, but he blasted out in quick succession with an even bigger, iron-smelling, crimson energy blast, ripping them all to shreds. He was destroying the tentacles and the flying arrows just the same.

"Why is everyone in this family so obsessed with Aerthus's bloodline?" Ren murmured, watching the fight from above. "Hahaha… but I am not to talk, huh? Marrying one of them, heh…."

"How many people have you killed here? Thousands?" Ariana asked, raising her hand as a black, wide wall rose up before her, blocking Corvux's slashes "Hundreds of thousands? Millions even?"

"Who cares? Nobody counts how many ants he steps on through his life!" Corvux snorted, finding Ariana's question ridiculous.

"I do… and they also do!" She clapped, and the black wall before her trembled at her words. Yellow, sickly-looking eyes lit up in the complete blackness of her spell. It only took a second for the first horned, twisted demonic figure to step through, followed by another, then a third, and fourth, and it did not stop at that.

"What?" Corvux flinched, trying to get a feeling of the newly appeared enemies, yet he could not even detect their presence. His eyes saw them, yet his other senses were utterly blinded to their presence. "Illusion?" He asked himself, tightening the grip around the hilt of his sword.

"Don't worry, they are real." Ariana's voice came from high up, "But I do not expect someone who is oblivious to others' feelings and basic human emotions to recognize them. You can't sense them because you never felt anything towards anyone other than yourself." She pointed at him at the other side of the wall. Her finger's movement was followed by a bone-shaking shriek, echoing throughout the whole city. Dozens of demonic specters, releasing black smoke wherever they flew, rushed directly at Corvux.

"Yeah, sure!" Corvux flew forward, meeting them head-on. With only one slash, he cut three into two, recovering his confidence, deciding to go for it and finish it quickly by killing Ariana and making mincemeat out of her in front of Ren.

What he did not count on was that the black wall was still spewing out demonic shades one after another. They were relentlessly throwing themselves against Corvux, ignoring everything else.

"How awful…" Ariana sighed, fighting back her tears, not even looking at Corvux. She only focused on the black wall before her that barely required any energy to maintain. Almost at the exact moment it appeared, it fell into a self-sustaining feedback loop with the dense negative emotions present in the Spire of Corvux.

Even though no souls were left here, the previously butchered, murdered people left an irreversible mark on the courtyard with their feelings of pain, hatred, and despair. Only those like Ariana could tap into this underlying energy, experiencing countless tragic endings and giving them an outlet. That was what the black wall before Corvux was. A door for those dark emotions to escape, gaining a somewhat animalistic instinct and an otherworldly feature by Ariana's powers, flooding forward, searching for their source… Corvux.

What he failed to realize was very simple. The 'monsters' he was fighting against relentlessly would not go away. They had hundreds of years to accumulate, and fighting against that would be challenging for anyone in the Harmony realm. No matter at what stage. More importantly, the source for every one of them was no other than himself. The pain and torture he inflicted on others now sought to return to the origin, no matter what. Only after a few minutes from when the horde of black, demonic shades appeared they cracked Corvux's armor, and from that, it only took a few more attacks to shatter it completely.

Even when his armor broke into pieces, he was still wielding his sword, swinging widely, trying to get rid of the endless stream of shades. It was evident that the tricks he used and perfected on Elinus were applied to himself because when the first attack landed on his body, it just bounced off, throwing sparks everywhere. Yet it did not matter. Even if one attack was deflected by the sheer firmness of his body, he could not fight back against millions, as even the mightiest boulder gets eroded in a river.

"Ugh!" The first attack that got through, in the end, left a deep wound alongside his upper arm. "This is still nothing!" He snorted as it started to close up with a visible speed. He did not heal as fast as Aerthus or even Leinor, yet it was evident he did possess some of their famous ability of regeneration.

"Physical wounds are not what you should fear." Ariana shook her head, took a deep breath, closing her eyes with a sad expression. "You ruined countless families' lives inside Rozex and outside in the multiple kingdoms… unforgivable! It is time to awaken to the feelings you have never experienced before!" She commanded him as her aura started to climb higher and higher. Corvux could only look on with fear in his eyes for the first time in his life. From the black wall, so many eyes looked at him, like hungry wolves staring at a wounded prey, that even he felt like he was in great danger.

"Don't fuck with me! Attack her!" He roared, ordering everyone in the courtyard while his eyes lit up like a lighthouse. Anybody who was inside the red barrier felt the compelling order taking over their minds, coming from their only Lord. Their bodies, be it maids, slaves, or the so-called purebloods, were already in motion, unable to resist his words, flying forward, aiming at Ariana.

"You got the idea from Rudrick, or did he get it from you?" Ren asked without expecting an answer as she shook her head. She waved one hand, not holding back anything as a bolt of thick, purple lightning struck the barrier around the courtyard. It went through it without effort, blasting it into pieces with a loud bang echoing throughout Rozex.

Surprisingly, the flash of lightning did not kill anyone who followed Corvux's order. Still, it whipped all of them back to the ground. They were screaming out in pain while the electricity invaded their minds, eroding Corvux's control, freeing them all, but none died in the process.

"Those who are still loyal to this piece of shit can attack! I'll send you into reincarnation myself." Ren sneered as she looked down at them. Her voice weighed on them like a mountain while her silver hair flapped behind her like a cape. She was standing amongst the falling, sparkling shards of the destroyed, red barrier, looking like a God to the weaker cultivators present.

While her Master was keeping the others at bay, Ariana slowly opened her eyes. They already turned utterly black, looking through the wall before her, through the rampaging sea of shades, right into the struggling Corvux's eyes. He was slowly overwhelmed, looking like a complete simpleton. He was trying to fight against a tsunami with a stick, believing he would win.

"What?!" Corvux flinched while the multiple small scars on his body were still trying to regenerate. He felt something or someone looking at him. Something worse than death was approaching... Even if he did not see Ariana's gaze, he could feel something was off, but before he could close his eyes, he felt his mind being invaded. "You dare?!" Corvux screamed, but everything he tried to do was already ineffective. It was the first time someone from the Naulin bloodline fell to a technique like this. Usually, they were those who controlled others' minds and thoughts, not vice versa.

"Don't worry… I'm not like you…." He heard Ariana's voice inside his mind, and it was followed by an ear-shattering cacophony of voices. Hundreds of thousands of different youngsters, old people, and male and female voices assaulted his mind, all blaming him and cursing him relentlessly.

Never before had he felt anything like this. An ocean of feelings drowned his personality, mind, and thoughts. It pushed him into a black abyss where nothing reached him, just the never-ending curses and blame accompanied by the worst pain imaginable. The pain that only the soul could feel. As long as Ariana looked at him, her gaze bridged all the negative feelings in the land and his mind, funneling them straight into Corvux. No matter how hardly reinforced it was, it soon broke down and crumbled under the continuous barrage.

When Ariana blinked her eyes once again, everything disappeared immediately and what everybody could see was her standing in the air, watching the twitching body of Corvux. The previous Spire Lord's eyes were completely unfocused; his body swayed a few times before plummeting to the ground with a loud crash.

"Death would be an easy escape for you. So suffer for the rest of your natural life." Ariana spoke with a strong voice, looking at the defeated Naulin, letting out a long breath. When she looked up at her smiling Master, she was already in the second stage of Harmony. "Thank you, Master!" She cupped her hands while Ren flashed before her, hugging her closely.

"Good job~ Fufufu, that was even better than I anticipated! I was expecting a brawl, but how you dealt with it was marvelous! I wouldn't want to be your enemy~."

"Ehehe… that would also be impossible, Master!" She giggled like an innocent child. "I would never be your enemy!"

"Lucky me~" Ren pecked her face, giggling, before looking over the courtyard. "What do you plan to do with him and the rest?"

"Um… I thought you would tell me, Master…."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk! Nope! You do it!" She stepped behind her, pushing her forward.

"Ugh… o-okay!" Ariana gulped, recollecting herself finding Yavik with her eyes. He was kneeling on the ground, completely gobsmacked. "You!" she pointed at him, but as soon as she did, Yavik's eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he started foaming from his mouth, spurting a little blood before collapsing to the side. "Eh?" Ariana trembled, looking back at Ren with a twitching mouth.

"Well… someone… did suffer a stroke… huh…" Ren murmured with the same amazement as her disciple at the unexpected death of his.