Evolution of the Ruined Heir

Slash!

The sound of blade slicing flesh echoed, followed by a severed head and body plummeting down to the ground.

But the one who had severed the head, Malakai, had no joy on his face. His eyes swept across tens of kilometers, narrowing on his target. The summoner.

It went without saying, it had been the most slippery of the three.

Like the summoner he'd met back in the trial of the life essence, this creature could also switch its position between its summons. It had done this the moment Malakai had been about to sever its neck.

The summoner appeared kilometers away from him, in the midst of an endless swarm of darkness creatures that had suddenly appeared.

Their numbers were so much that they bloated the horizon.

The explosive bangs of the titans of wood and darkness colliding rampaged the earth.

The whole of Murkroot Hollow was in ruins. The forest flattened, no trees in sight. The once green forest had turned into a wasteland. Each collision sent a storm of wind and debris shooting out.

But in the midst of the chaos, Malakai maintained a calm that bordered on unreal. A giant fist made from twisted roots and splintered trees hovered behind him.

His eyes swept the gathered darkness army. He raised his arm, and the wooden fist splintered and separated into incalculable spikes coated with thick vita.

Their numbers blotted the sky, plunging the forest bathed in moonlight into darkness.

As Rhett and the others took in the sheer number of spikes and the vita coating them, their bodies shuddered. The next moment Malakai's arm dropped and the spikes fell like a rain of devastation.

Each spike found a target, roaring through the darkness army. The darkness creatures were shredded into bits, their remains scattering across the ruined forest.

Through the chaos, Malakai caught sight of the summoner surging through the air.

He blurred, his movement akin to teleportation. He appeared above the summoner, scythe plummeting towards it.

But before it could land, Malakai narrowed his eyes as it switched its position once more. He ignored the sight of his scythe carving a deep trench through the ground and scanned his surroundings.

His eyes landed on the summoner shooting off in the distance.

Malakai's eyes narrowed.

'Trying to escape?'

It was very unusual. He had never heard of a darkness creature escaping before.

'No. That's not it.'

Malakai blurred again, appearing above the summoner. His scythe blurred, and like before, the summoner switched.

'It's not escaping.'

Malakai narrowed his eyes, now noticing the direction the summoner was heading.

'The darkness pillars.'

The moment he had that thought, a massive pillar of darkness, dwarfing the earlier ones, rose from the ground and pierced the heavens.

'It's still there?'

Malakai had thought his sudden power up had handled the situation with the spawning darkness.

He had broken through it, and his pillar of vita shredded the darkness. But to think it simply reformed.

'Why is it trying to reach it?'

He couldn't understand why the summoner was trying to reach it. But no matter the assumption Malakai came up with, he always ended up with the same conclusion; it couldn't be good.

Malakai vanished, appearing above the surging summoner. In the next moment, his eyes blazed green and his vita flared.

A wave of green erupted from him, turning into a dome of vita that encompassed the entire area.

'Now it can't leave the dome.'

With the vita dome, Malakai had blocked out all contact with the outside world. Which meant that the summoner wouldn't be able to teleport out of the dome.

His scythe hissed through the air as he swept it to the side. Locked on the summoner, Malakai exploded with sudden speed.

His scythe was about to cut the summoner's neck when it switched once more. However, it was within the dome, close.

Malakai blurred, and he was upon the summoner once more.

Another switch. Malakai blurred again.

Rhett and the others watched with narrowed eyes as he turned into a streak of green light, raging within the vita dome like a caged beast.

'It's over.' Rhett could already feel the summoner's end. Regardless, he couldn't stop the worry surging through him. He glanced at the darkness pillar just outside the green dome.

More darkness creatures were coming, this time more than three.

Rhett had counted more than six pillars when they got here. And from the rigid silence of Nyx beside him, he could tell she had the same thoughts.

A flash, and Malakai appeared above the summoner once more, blade descending. But this time around, Malakai instantly noticed a difference.

His blade was inches away from severing its neck, but it was still here.

'No more summons.' Malakai's eyes glinted. He could finally kill it and deal with the remaining pillars.

The summoner turned to him the moment his blade reached its neck. Its eyes were fierce, but Malakai could see the fear in them. He could feel it.

"Filth!" It spat. "Every spawn of life shall end up swallowed by the darkness. By death. You have no hope."

Malakai's blade severed its neck the next moment, black ichor splashing across the skies. He heaved a sigh of relief, sweeping his scythe to get rid of the ichor.

With focus, vita surged from Malakai, about to swallow the plummeting corpse when a titanic force crashed into the dome.

Malakai's head snapped to the side, to see a massive fist of the titanic darkness creature whirling towards him. Its momentum was so powerful that intense gusts of wind howled around it.

Malakai narrowed his eyes on the wooden titan he'd created running towards them.

'It won't make it.' But his thoughts were eerily calm. He raised his arm and vita surged towards him in a flood, solidifying into a shield.

The arm hit, birthing a shockwave of unimaginable proportions that tore through the sky. The vita dome around them shattered under the force, and the wave blasted out, reaching Rhett and the group.

It slammed against the vita dome around them, but it held.

They each looked forward as the thick haze that engulfed the area vanished, revealing the aftermath.