CHAPTER 70: SERA IS BULLIED -2

The System offered no comment, its silence a testament to its utter exasperation. The Celestial Behemoth, now fully awake and incandescent with rage, let out another roar. Its massive head, now missing its central gem, turned towards the small, crying child who had violated its ancient slumber.

It was at that moment that Rhys arrived. He moved like a thunderclap, a blur of motion that shot past the front lines of his own army.

He didn’t slow, swooping down and scooping the crying Sera from the ground, pulling her into a protective embrace.

He knew she was acting. He could feel the triumphant glee radiating from her through their soul bond, a mischievous satisfaction at having successfully poked the giant, stellar puppy.

But seeing her feigned tears and hearing her fake cries for help ignited a primal rage within him that overshadowed all logic.

This was his daughter, and something had dared to make her cry. The fact that the tears were a fabrication was irrelevant.

[...]

He cradled her in one arm, turning to face the colossal, star-forged monster. His pitch-black eyes burned with a cold, murderous fury that seemed to chill the very air.

"You dare to bully my daughter?" he said, his voice low and seething with a power that made the very fabric of the Sanctum tremble.

The Celestial Behemoth responded with a roar of its own, a wave of pure gravitational force that flattened the crystal ruins for miles around.

The battle had begun.

This was not like the fight with the Elites. The Behemoth was stronger, faster, and its rage made it more terrifying. It stomped its massive foot, a hoof made of solidified nebula, and the very fabric of the floating island buckled.

Jagged spikes of white crystal, each the size of a siege tower, erupted from the ground, aimed at impaling Rhys and his entire legion.

"Scatter!" Rhys commanded.

His Vindicators moved with swift obedience, flowing around the erupting spikes like a river of grey ash.

He used his Tempest Weaver profession, creating powerful updrafts that lifted him and Sera high into the air, effortlessly dodging the initial, devastating assault.

"Papa, let me fight!" Sera shouted, her tears miraculously gone. She squirmed in his arms, pointing a small, accusatory finger at the Behemoth with a vengeful glare.

The act was dropped; now she was genuinely furious that this ’big ugly’ had dared to attack her Papa.

"Stay behind me!" Rhys ordered, his voice an unbreakable command.

He set her down gently behind the relative safety of his five Ashen Crusader Knights, who immediately formed a shield wall around her.

He met the Behemoth’s charge. It was like a living meteor, a mountain of starlight descending upon him.

Rhys activated his Voidheart Flame, his hands becoming twin vortexes of black and silver annihilation. He didn’t try to meet the Behemoth’s overwhelming physical strength head-on. That would be suicide.

Instead, he became a phantom, a ghost on the battlefield. Using Shadowed Dive and a rapid series of low-distance jumps, he flickered in and out of existence around the massive creature, a feat impossible for a monster of its immense size.

His Vindicators swarmed the Behemoth, a tide of grey death crashing against a shore of living starlight. They fired their shadow lances, but the bolts of void energy struck the creature’s stellar hide with dull thuds, barely scratching its surface.

The Behemoth was too powerful. With a sweep of its tail, a literal comet’s tail of destructive energy, it wiped out a hundred of his Vindicators, their ashen forms dissolving into nothing before they even hit the ground.

Rhys burned his lifespan without a second thought, resurrecting them instantly from the scattered ash. He wanted to see how long it could swipe its tail.

But he knew a Boss wasn’t something he could win by a war of attrition. He couldn’t keep this up forever; the Behemoth was simply too strong, its defences too absolute.

Each of its movements carried the weight of a celestial body, and each of its roars warped the space around them.

Sera watched from the back lines, her small fists clenched so tightly her knuckles were white.

She saw Rhys taking heavy hits, his body being torn apart by waves of stellar energy only for his flawless regeneration to knit him back together.

She saw her Vindicator escorts being vaporized by the dozens. The playful glint in her eyes was gone, replaced by a cold, hard fury.

This monster was hurting her Papa. It had to die.

She held up the gem she had stolen by pure spiritual force, the Eye of the Behemoth. It pulsed with a deep, gravitational power that resonated with the very core of the island.

She focused her will, pouring her own nascent energy into it. The gem flared with a brilliant, purple light.

The Behemoth, which had been about to crush Rhys with its massive claw, suddenly stumbled. The gravity around it warped violently, its own immense weight suddenly doubling, then tripling, then increasing tenfold.

It roared in confusion and pain, its powerful legs, which could support the weight of a moon, buckling under the impossible strain. It crashed to its knees with a ground-shattering impact that sent fissures racing across the island.

Rhys turned to look at Sera in confusion.

[Well, what your daughter stole from the boss was its own heart.]

".."

[That’s why it’s this angry. Its only purpose was to stabilize these floating islands; it was never programmed to hurt anyone.]

’You are telling me my daughter is in the wrong here?’

[No. I am saying killing it will destroy all the floating islands.]

’..’

A cold dread washed over Rhys, far more terrifying than the Behemoth’s rage.

’So killing it will kill us in return? What a joke.’

[But... you have forty seconds before the structural collapse becomes irreversible. So just summon it after it dies. Better let Sera eat it; after all, its heart is a living organ and perfect biomass for her evolution.]

The System’s logic was insane. A forty-second window to kill a Boss, let Sera consume its heart, and then resurrect it before the islands collapsed with them.

It was a plan born of pure madness. But it was perfect.

Rhys saw his chance. "Sera, now!"

Sera’s form dissolved into a dark puddle of liquid, flowing over and enveloping the heart of the Behemoth on the ground beneath her.

When she returned to her previous form with a slightly bulging belly, the gem was gone.

The behemoth let out a heart-wrenching roar as the floating islands began to tremble violently.

This was the opening. The Behemoth was blind and flailing, its defences compromised. Rhys saw its weakness—the empty, bleeding socket in its forehead was now a gaping wound leaking pure stellar energy.

He poured a massive amount of his Qi into a single, concentrated Spark Fist attack. The sky lit up with the colour of red sparks.

From afar, Joric Ashton and his group stared at the scene, wide-eyed.

"Isn’t that our Spark Fist?" one of the disciples cried out. How could they not recognize the famous skill of their own family? There was no mistaking it.

Then, a flash of light blinded the world for a second, followed by a huge shockwave that destroyed everything in its path.

"Boom."