Chapter : 1135

There was no sound of impact. There was only a silent, brilliant flash of pure, holy light as the conceptual force of Kyle’s unyielding will, forged into the iron lance, met the creature of despair. The Weeping Executioner’s form was not just pierced; it was unmade. Its sorrowful wail was cut short as its spectral form was torn apart from the inside out, dissolving into a cloud of grey, harmless dust that was scattered by the wind.

One of the Kings was dead.

The Lion of Ironwood had struck his first, defiant blow against the apocalypse. But as the dust settled, the two remaining kings, the Silent Judge and the Crimson General, began to advance, their own terrible, silent power beginning to coalesce for an attack that would make the Executioner's charge look like a child's tantrum. The battle was far from over.

The silent, beautiful dissolution of the Weeping Executioner was a moment of profound, impossible triumph. For a single, glorious instant, the suffocating aura of despair that had blanketed the square was pierced by a ray of defiant hope. Lord Kyle Ferrum, his face grim and sweat-soaked, stood at the heart of his iron fortress, his power blazing. He had proven that these gods of ruin could bleed. They could die.

But the victory was a costly one. The single, focused attack had consumed a massive portion of his spiritual reserves. He felt the drain, a deep, hollow ache in his core. His spirit, Ferros, the Iron-Maned King, flickered for a fraction of a second, its solid form becoming momentarily translucent. Holding the line against an army while simultaneously delivering a King-killing blow was a feat that bordered on the suicidal.

And the two remaining kings had not been idle.

The Silent Judge, which had been standing as a still, silent monument of authority, finally moved. It raised one of its bony hands, its index finger pointed directly at Kyle’s fortress. It did not chant. It did not gather energy. It simply… judged.

A new and terrible pressure descended. It was not a physical or spiritual attack. It was a conceptual one. It was the weight of absolute, unyielding law. The flowing, liquid nature of Kyle’s Iron Blood power suddenly became sluggish, heavy, and difficult to control. The serpents of iron that had been wreaking havoc on the skeletal legion slowed, their movements becoming stiff and clumsy. The very metal of his fortress seemed to groan under a new, invisible burden, as if its own weight had been multiplied a thousand times. The Judge had not attacked his body or his spirit; it had attacked the fundamental properties of his power, imposing a new, crippling law upon it.

At the same time, the Crimson General made its move. It did not charge. It raised its black, elegant longsword, and the infernal runes on its crimson armor blazed to life. A sphere of pure, swirling crimson energy, a miniature sun of pure malevolent power, formed at the tip of its blade. It grew in size, from a marble, to a fist, to a sphere the size of a man's head, all in the space of three heartbeats. The sphere did not radiate heat; it radiated a conceptual force of dominion, a power designed to overwhelm and conquer all other forms of energy.

Kyle was trapped. The Judge was pinning his power down, and the General was preparing a blow that would shatter his compromised defenses completely. It was a perfect, coordinated, and inescapable checkmate.

He had two choices: attempt to reinforce his fortress and be annihilated by the General’s attack, or abandon his fortress and face the Judge’s conceptual lockdown in the open, where he would be torn apart by the legion. Both were death sentences.

But the Lion of Ironwood had a third option. He was a Ferrum. And the core of their power was not just defense; it was brutal, unforgiving, and absolute offense. If he was going to die, he would die on the attack.

"Ferros!" he roared. "Shatterclaw!"

His spirit, the colossal iron lion, responded. It gathered its remaining power, not into a defensive aura, but into its right forepaw. The five massive iron claws on its paw began to glow, each one becoming a blade of pure, condensed kinetic force. The lion reared back and then slammed its paw into the floor of the fortress.

The attack was not aimed at an enemy. It was aimed at the ground beneath them.

Chapter : 1136

The entire square of Ashworth screamed as Kyle channeled his own power into the blow. The ground did not just crack; it liquefied. A massive, fifty-foot-wide section of the cobblestones and the earth beneath it erupted upwards, not as a wave, but as a solid, cohesive plate of earth and stone, a makeshift shield launched into the air by a force of pure, tectonic power.

The plate of earth, a flying island of debris, rose to meet the Crimson General’s descending sphere of energy.

The impact was a silent, blinding apocalypse. The crimson sun and the slab of earth met and annihilated each other in a flash of light that turned the world white. The sound came a second later, a deafening, soul-shattering CRACK-BOOM that shattered every window in the city and sent a shockwave of force and dust blasting outwards.

The skeletal legion was decimated, hundreds of them blown apart like dry leaves in a hurricane. The Dread Commanders were thrown back, their black armor scarred and smoking. The Crimson General itself was forced to take a step back, its own attack negated by a move of such brute, insane, and unexpected force.

But the gambit had cost Kyle everything. His iron fortress, its power diverted to the attack, dissolved into a pool of inert metal. His spirit, Ferros, its energy completely spent, let out a final, pained roar before dissolving into motes of silver light. His men, their last protection gone, were consumed by the shockwave.

Kyle himself was on one knee in the center of the now-blasted, cratered square. He was bleeding from his nose and ears, his armor was cracked, and his vision was blurry. His spirit was gone. His men were gone. His power was a flickering ember.

He had won the exchange. He had survived the checkmate. But he was now alone, disarmed, and all but broken. And the two kings were still standing.

The dust began to settle, revealing a scene of absolute devastation. The square was a cratered, smoking ruin, littered with the shattered bones of the unholy legion. Lord Kyle Ferrum pushed himself to his feet, his body a symphony of agonizing pain. He swayed, using his greatsword as a crutch to keep himself upright. His King-Level aura was a pathetic flicker, a candle flame about to be snuffed out.

Across the ruin, the two remaining kings regarded him. The Crimson General, its crimson armor now scorched and dulled by the explosion, seemed to be observing him with a new, analytical interest. The Silent Judge, its smooth, featureless skull completely unharmed, simply stood, its aura of absolute law once again beginning to descend upon the battlefield.

Kyle knew he had seconds, not minutes. He had one final, desperate move left. It was not a grand technique or a secret art. It was the simple, brutal, and final act of a cornered Ferrum warrior. He was going to make his last stand a charge.

He took a ragged, bloody breath, pouring the last dregs of his spiritual and physical strength into his limbs. He was about to launch himself forward in a final, suicidal assault against the Crimson General when a new, chilling sound reached his ears.

A slow, agonizing scrape of metal on stone, accompanied by a low, heartbreaking sob that seemed to emanate from the air itself.

The General and the Judge, as if sensing the arrival of their peer, parted to allow the new figure to pass.

From the shadows behind them, a familiar form of swirling grey mist began to coalesce. It was The Weeping Executioner, the very king he had so costly unmade. Its spectral form was still faint, flickering at the edges as if not yet fully re-formed, but the colossal, rust-pitted executioner’s axe it dragged was solid and real, carving a fresh groove in the blasted stone. It had regenerated. Or, more accurately, it had been re-summoned.

Kyle’s heart, which had been pounding with the adrenaline of a final charge, sank into a cold, black pit of absolute despair.

He could kill them. He had proven that. But he couldn't keep them dead. As long as their master, Raghav, or perhaps Rubel himself, held the power, they could simply be brought back. His glorious, costly victory had been utterly, completely, and pathetically pointless. He had been a child throwing rocks at a tidal wave, celebrating each splash while the ocean itself rose to consume him.

The game was over. He had played his hand magnificently. And he had lost.