NOVEL NEXT Chapter 70: THE REAPER TOOK HIS TIME
The nobles' response was to attack in coordinated waves, their tactical training evident as mages provided covering fire while combatants moved to engage. It was a textbook assault designed to overwhelm individual opponents through superior numbers and strategic positioning.
What followed was less a battle than a systematic demonstration of the gulf between academic competence and genuine lethality.
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Yomi moved through their assault like death given form, his techniques characterized not by flashy displays of power but by clinical, terrifying efficiency that reduced combat to its most fundamental elements.
Mephina Voidcaster raised her hands, void magic crackling around her fingers as she began to partially distort reality itself. The air shimmered with dark energy that seemed to eat light, warping the space around her into something that hurt to look at directly.
Yomi walked toward her with leisurely steps, his hand beginning to burn with demonic fire that cast crimson shadows despite the evening light. As her void magic reached its crescendo, reality bending around her like broken glass, he raised his hand and made a casual slicing motion.
The demonic flames cut through her distortion like a blade through silk, severing her connection to the void with such violence that she screamed as magical feedback tore through her circuits. Before she could recover, his other hand closed on her shoulder and twisted. Bone and sinew parted with wet sounds as he tore the joint apart, her blood painting his face in crimson streaks while her agonized shrieks echoed across the training ground.
Daemon Will sneered as he stepped forward, earth magic erupting across his limbs like living armour, jagged and pulsing with power. Stones cracked beneath each footfall, his muscles bulging with enchanted density.
"You think I fear you?" he barked, voice loud, trying to drown out the creeping unease crawling up his spine. "You're just a shadow with a title! I'm Daemon Will, warrior-mage of the High Thorne Circle!"
With a roar, he lunged.
The ground trembled with the force of his charge.
And then, stopped.
Yomi hadn't moved. Only his hand had.
Fingers closed around Daemon's throat with unnatural precision, halting him mid-air like a puppet caught on a string. The charge died with a gasp.
Yomi's eyes glinted, not with rage, but with judgment.
"How dare you challenge the will of Heaven?" he asked, voice low, yet it rippled through the clearing like a bell tolling for the dead.
His fist crashed into Daemon's face.
The earthen armour flared, glowing gold and brown, absorbing the impact. Daemon grinned behind the strain, until...
CRACK.
The second blow came faster. Sharper. The armour didn't just break, it disintegrated, shattering like rotted bark.
Daemon's eyes widened.
"No....."
The third strike collapsed his cheekbone.The fourth shattered his jaw.
A spray of blood arced through the air as cartilage and pride gave way. His body jerked in Yomi's grip, spasming with each blow, feet no longer touching the ground.
Whatever magic still clung to him flickered, then died.
Daemon tried to speak, but only wet, choking sounds escaped.
Realization dawned in his eyes, not fear of death.But the understanding that he'd never mattered at all, as Yomi let his limp body crash to the ground.
Theron Bloodaxe's legendary weapon work, honed through generations of military tradition, lasted exactly three exchanges before Yomi disarmed him with contemptuous ease. The ancestral axe spun through the air to land in Yomi's grip, its weight and balance perfectly suited to his purposes.
A casual kick sent Theron to the ground, where he lay gasping. Yomi reversed the weapon, driving the handle through his opponent's leg with surgical precision. The point emerged bloody from the other side, pinning him to the earth while Theron's screams added to the symphony of suffering.
Lysander Shadowweave moved fast, but fear moved faster.
His illusions, once flawless masterpieces of deception that had fooled even high mages, shattered into mist with the simple snap of Yomi's fingers. Not dispelled, rejected by reality itself.
"No…" Lysander whispered, voice cracking. "No, no, no..."
He turned to flee, desperation clawing through him.
And stopped cold.
Yomi stood in his path.
Again.
As if space itself bent to keep him close.
"You call those illusions?" Yomi asked, voice as calm as the sky before a storm. "Let me show you what truth feels like."
His hand clamped around Lysander's skull, fingers digging into flesh with casual force. The mage screamed, but it was cut short as thick, black smoke spilled from Yomi's mouth, coiling down into his throat like a living curse.
Lysander gagged, eyes bulging.
Then he convulsed.
The smoke wasn't just choking him, it was dragging him under. Into something deeper. Into a realm of nightmares where time unraveled and reality wept.
Visions poured in, endless, unrelenting. Faces of loved ones rotting. His own flesh melting off bone. A thousand deaths in a thousand ways. Over. And over.
He thrashed, but Yomi held him firm, letting the madness seep into every corner of his soul.
By the time Yomi let go, Lysander was twitching on the ground, eyes wide and unfocused, mouth frozen in a silent scream.
He would live.
But his mind would never leave the horrors it had seen.
Morgana Thornspell screamed her defiance into spell after spell, each arcane blast laced with deadly intent, explosions that should have leveled stone, bolts of force that could tear through armored battalions.
They struck Yomi's body.
And dissolved.
No recoil. No damage. Not even a flicker of resistance. The raw power of her magic simply..... vanished on contact, as if the universe itself refused to harm him.
Her confidence shattered faster than her incantations.
"No....no, stay back—!" she cried, stumbling as he kept advancing. Each step was deliberate. Measured. The kind of walk a reaper took toward someone already marked.
He stopped before her.
Took her hand.
Gently.
Almost tenderly.
Then the first finger snapped sideways with a wet crack.
Morgana shrieked.
The second bent backward, ligaments tearing.The third twisted with unnatural resistance before it gave way.
Each break was precise. Controlled. A calculated destruction of everything she'd spent her life perfecting.
By the fifth finger, she was begging.
By the tenth, she was barely conscious, choking on sobs, drooling through clenched teeth, her right hand a mangled ruin of bone and blood.