It was a climax devoid of sound.The war axe descended. With the head alone being almost as large as the entire Fetch homestead, it looked like Belic were wielding a hammer to smash a birthday cake as the ground cracked open forming a hole so deep the bottom could not be seen.
A shockwave was created from the attack that drove forward and crashed into three hills, turning them into three flatlands instead.
Despite the Sun Lord managing to move away from the edge of the war axe"s strike, he groaned soundlessly in agony as the surrounding force from the blow still caused his entire mind to waver, nearly wiping out his divine conscient on the spot. However, at the critical moment, the rays of the sun suspended behind him let out jarring CRACK sounds as all twelve burst into embers while the four shards of the Truthstone up above shattered into microscopic fragments.
The destruction of these sun rays and the Truthstone fragments seemed to alleviate the strain on the Sun Lord as he managed to gather himself and ignite the flames in his body to counter the force on his body. Nonetheless, he was still sent flying deep into the ground, helpless to resist the shocking combined force of distortion and divinity released by the fallen war angel.
At the same time, the twelve tongues of sun fire engulfed Belic"s entire body. The light of the flames burned so large and so bright that even a satellite in orbit three planets away would be able to see the spot of light. However, the treant endlessly threw out more and more vines, roots, bark, sprouts, leaves, tendrils – anything at all to counteract the devouring might of the solar flames.
The flames started out golden, the turned white to blue and then back to white and then golden and red again as the oxygen in the vicinity was instantly consumed.
In that moment, sight as well as sound were stripped of anyone nearby – though, they would have likely lost their lives first before they thought about their senses.
The energies of distortion, divinity and solar flames collided fiercely before mixing together and beginning to swirl around in a rising spiral shape. If there were still rocks, trees or buildings remaining, all would have been sucked up and fragmented or disintegrated in the chaotic forces at play.
The swirling energies did not spread out, but continued to fight against one another wildly, Belic and the Sun Lord somewhere within the conflagration. The energies began to compress tighter and tighter into a spinning ball of purple, gold and red and what had started as a small mountain of energy shrunk into a super-compressed ball.
And then it exploded into sparkles of light.
A sonic boom occurred as the movements that exceeded the speed of sound many times over were finally heard, causing a whirlwind in the epicentre and a typhoon for a hundred kilometres around.
In the middle of this storm, the form of Belic Wildwood"s Terra Root body still remained standing tall and strong, charred black and carbonised. The body was no longer that of a beautiful angelic being but an abomination of tendrils, vines and roots, some parts too burned to recognise while others were overgrown with vines.
On the other hand, rising up from the cavernous hole in the ground, the Sun Lord"s divine conscient looked painfully mortal as he was now devoid of any golden light. He looked like a normal wounded human male, bare chested and clad in torn white pants.
However, he had a calm look of victory on his face while the treant ceased moving as the final wisps of purple mist dissipated from it"s body. Above it floated a tiny incorporeal image of Belic about the size of a palm. Belic"s face was twisted in frustration and she grinded her teeth.
"...…." She was speechless. This was not the outcome she expected. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes momentarily, before reopening them, cool and in control now.
Then she folded the arms of her tiny self and asked, "Sun Lord… I admit you deserve this victory... But tell me one thing. When I saw the sun rays and the Truthstone shards, I already knew you would redirect the force of my attack away from yourself to those external objects. I knew this and imposed a distortion effect along with a holy light G.o.dslaying aura to counteract the redirection… And this should have worked perfectly to make this an equal exchange of conscients…"
The Sun Lord continued to look at Belic calmly as he nodded for her to continue.
"So tell me… How did you counteract the laws of distortion…?" She asked this question as she felt the last of her conscient"s powers dissipate – time was up for this conscient and her soul and will would have to return momentarily.
"Ha… Hahaha… Hahahaha! What do you mean, how did I counteract the laws of distortion…? You mean, Aerol didn"t tell you…?"
"W-what, what are you laughing about?!? Lord Aerol is impeccable! There"s nothing he would hide from us!" Belic frowned at the sudden outburst of laughter from the Sun Lord. His sudden change of countenance surprised her and she couldn"t help but blurt out her response.
The Sun Lord was bent over and holding his stomach as he laughed. Then he raised up a hand and waved it around as if he had heard a bunch of nonsense.
"Really! I haven" heard such a good joke for a long while now!" Wiping away the tears from his eyes, the Sun Lord raised his gaze to look at Belic again.
"You see, child… Aerol, too, is just a child before me, for…" A complicated look mixed with gentleness, a desire to kill and sinister plans crossed the Sun Lord"s face before he completed his sentence.
"For… I am the founder of the laws of distortion who taught him all he knows."
Belic"s soul fragment began to dissipate further, turning into flows of air as her mouth gaped open and her gaze turned vapid. Her mouth opened and closed as her lips trembled and a confused, disbelieving expression covered her face.
"Impo… Impossible… No… That can"t be... Lord Aerol… Sun Lord… No…" Subconsciously, Belic mumbled out loud the doubts in her heart as she turned into dust, leaving an empty sh.e.l.l of the Terra Root.
Ignoring his defeated foe, the Sun Lord"s conscient closed his eyes to stabilise this vessel.
He was relieved that he could retain this conscient as he was sorely lacking p.a.w.ns to work, and he needed to share the information about the Child of Light with his main body and other conscients quick.
After all, though it might take decades before the Child of Light was ready, what was that to a divine being who lived millennia like him…? It would pa.s.s in the blink of an eye…
For now, his top priority was to recover this conscient"s strength and protect the Child of Light"s growth until, like a fruit, he was ripe and ready to be plucked.
The Sun Lord smiled with satisfaction as he closed his eyes to repair his body.
* * * * *
Belic"s soul was shaken to it"s very core. Not from the damage taken – as conscients were meant to be expendable anyway – but from the shaking of her beliefs in distortion and Lord Aerol.
Was not distortion in opposition to the Divine Light…? Wasn"t their existence meant to oppose the tyranny of the Sun Lord and his evil designs…?
However, she felt doubly shaken when she realised that she herself had all along been proof that the laws of distortion and Divine Light were not opposites, as she had always wielded them in fusion and unity as her ultimate killing technique.
Sighing, Belic decided to enter secluded meditation to consider the conflicting information. She resolved herself not to emerge until she could regain her convictions and restore her soul"s beliefs.
And so she began to fade away, her conscient"s lifespan done and the soul fragment about to return to her main body with her memories. However, she could not shake off the confusion that seized her from that one sentence of the Sun Lord"s conscient.
Her consciousness faded and was about to ascend… When she realised she could not.
She was blocked by an invisible, undetectable formation that covered the sky like a net.
"What is this—"
But before she could finish her sentence, a crimson door emerged, one covered with veins and arteries that were concentrated and gathered at 7 large nodes, one that pulsated as if though with blood, as if it were a living organism.
The door opened outwards and a gigantic mouth that was more than 5 times larger emerged to snap her up, devouring her in an instant.