Chapter 524: Saving Face
BOOM…!!!
An involuntary scream escaped Cassandra and Julia. Although the women screamed in fright and disbelief at the instantaneousness of the explosive assault, all three had instinctively closed their eyes.
'Huh?'
BOOM…! BOOM…! BOOM…!
Ross and his companions were left confused and shocked when they felt nothing; no pain, no shockwaves tearing their bodies apart, no nothing. But the energy explosions continued to rage on with almost no time elapsing between each eruption.
Opening their eyes and lowering their defensive poses, the two were welcomed to a sight that left them utterly dumbfounded.
The Chief Enforcers were nowhere to be seen, the void creatures that had surrounded them were gone, and energy explosions continued to rage on.
The Enforcers were battling the god tier void creatures at speeds and power that sent shivers down their spines. They could not follow the battle, nor could they see a thing.
More than energy explosions as a result of their clashes, the eruptions sounded more like a continuous stream of booming sounds. They looked around cautiously, discovering an empty void where an army used to be.
'Haha… We should have known!' Julia's voice echoed through their connection, drawing Ross and Cassandra's baffled and shaken expressions. 'Alex's Nexis protected us from those monsters!'
Julia looked at her left hand, specifically her engagement ring, as it emitted a strong and comfortable radiance around her body. Through the radiance, she could feel Alexander's presence. The feeling helped her calm her frightened soul while putting a smile on her face.
Farther away from the two, Cassandra shifted her gaze from trying to follow the explosive battles to her immediate surroundings, where an almost invisible sphere protected her from the energy shockwaves.
The sphere was barely three meters in diameter, but the catwoman had never felt so safe and relieved. Despite the forceful impacts against the sphere, it showed no signs of cracking or even shaking!
A slight chuckle of disbelief was the only thing that helped her push down the existential fear plaguing her mind and core — to an extent, at least.
Her core throbbed so loudly that she could hear it in her ears. She had never been so shaken, not even when she lost her universe. 'Was this what he meant when he said we have nothing to worry about? He didn't even have to make an appearance.'
'Hehe, that's my husband, alright.' Cassandra turned her head over to Julia and Ross, who were making their way over to her through the violent shockwaves. She had been so lost in thought that she hadn't realised she had left the connection open.
'But what happened to the void creatures?' Ross regained enough of his composure to ask. 'They couldn't have simply abandoned their attacks on us to join their companions in battling the Enforcers, could they?'
'Don't know, don't care.' The Knight princess scoffed. 'Those Enforcers have been standing around for too long. It's time they did the rest of the work.'
It was unfortunate that they could not follow the fight, as the Enforcers and void creatures moved too fast. They did, however, hear the roars and cries of the Enforcers. Whether they had taken their bestial forms or not, the three could not tell.
It made them realise that the Chief Enforcers were not weak at all. In fact, they were extremely powerful; more powerful than they had ever seen Alexander.
Perhaps it was because Alex had never needed to move at such extreme speeds, or they had not seen him at his strongest. Whatever it was, this was the first time they had seen the power of high-end Veilwalkers.
But Ross had a point.
The void creatures that had attacked them did not simply abandon their attacks when they failed to kill them in that lunge. Alexander had put a condition on the protective spheres protecting his friends and fiancée.
"I would have said you guys sure have balls of steel… Sadly, you don't." Alexander expressed calmly, momentarily looking over his shoulder.
Most of the universe had been cleansed already, leaving just the corrupted oceans. As such, he had his other bodies focus on the purification process while he watched. Naturally, a part of his conscience observed and kept an eye on the fight outside.
Behind him in the heart of the ruined universe and the white void of his making, six void creatures were letting out predatory clicks as they struggled against the tyrannical pressure weighing on their shoulders.
The creatures were on one knee, using every ounce of their power to resist the purifying nature of the radiance around them. Visually, it was like they were being cooked under extreme heat, as dark essence burned off their slimy bodies, seemingly evaporating under the light.
After a moment of listening to their predatory clicking sounds while making no sense of their meaning, Alex shook his head disappointedly. He turned around to give his attention to the kneeling creatures, silently watching them struggle to no avail.
The void creatures were a lot weaker compared to the ones he fought when he conversed with the Supreme One. After all, the Supreme One's barrier wasn't so easily broken.
"You six will be keeping me company until I finish dealing with this mess…" Alex directed his gaze in the direction of his companions, smiling softly. "No one messes with my people."
He averted his gaze, directing it at the battling Enforcers and their opponents. The Enforcers proved every bit of why they were Chiefs, the direct subordinates of the Supreme One.
Each one of them was battling at least two void creatures, with Drakmor and Vornarax battling one additional creature to the two they battled. Despite the disadvantage in numbers, the Enforcers had the upper hand.
With every blow and strike they exchanged with the creatures, the void trembled, void energy violently exploded, and had there been universes in the surroundings, they would have been obliterated. The Enforcers moved twice as fast to engage the creatures; no more, no less.
The creatures had black cores with their own corrosive power against Veilwalkers, but the Enforcers had been battling them for thousands of years. Compared to the kind of corrupted essence they now dealt with, those from the black cores were insignificant.
They had more than one trick up their sleeves for dealing with the corrosive power of the void creatures' attacks. Moreover, the Enforcers made sure that every strike they dealt was a killing strike.
Unfortunately for them, the creatures were relentless, sticking to them wherever they took the fight. The Enforcers would blow holes in their bodies, but would fail to finish them off when another drew their attention.
Sure, they could create clones of themselves, but those extra bodies won't be as strong as their main bodies; they would be useless against void creatures of this calibre.
They were not Alexander, and certainly did not have his Nexis Radiant with its cheat uses. Void creatures used void energy just as much as they did, making it twice as hard to kill them in one strike.
For the first milliseconds of the fight, Drakmor had been troubled, worried about what might have happened to Alexander's companions.
However, when his senses detected them after the first strike, he heaved a heavy sigh. For a split moment, he imagined what Alexander would have done to them had they failed to protect his friends.
Alexander had not asked anything of them, but Drakmor was a dragon with a strong sense of duty. He could not just stand by. Fortunately for him, Alexander had prepared for everything, allowing him to focus on his fight.
'Tsk, these cocky creatures think too highly of themselves!' Nyssa let out a mighty phoenix cry as she hurled a powerful stream of phoenix flames at the void creatures. 'I'm finishing this!'
None of them had gone all out since they began battling to god tier void creatures, and they did not need to go all out either. They could still afford to fight the way they were, with a few more void creatures added to the mix.
'Agreed. The boy doesn't seem interested in making an appearance.' Calyndra's annoyed growl echoed in her mind. 'And those weaklings had nothing to worry about. Though…'
Nyssa and her companions knew what Calyndra was referring to. The void creatures that had attacked Ross and his companions disappeared without a trace.
They had questions, but those were going to have to wait. They were not satisfied with Alexander's earlier display of might and wanted another chance.
The Enforcers didn't want to admit it, but they were ashamed of themselves. After all, they had run away when they barely understood the situation. For now, however, Nyssa and her friends were putting an end to their fights.
The two void creatures she had hurled her immortal flames at had completely ignored the power of the flames, pushing through with relentless viciousness. They ignored the undying flames and extreme burns on their bodies, their insane regeneration and essence fighting back the effects.
With black essence burning at their clawed hands, the two void creatures lunged at her from opposite sides of her. But Nyssa had not been idle while they closed in on her.
Channelling her abilities, she combined her immortal flames with the law of disintegration, condensing the essence in her hands. Abruptly, she charged at the creature coming from her left, seemingly ignoring the one coming from her right.
From behind her, the second creature lunged its clawed hand at her back. But that was easier said than done. Nyssa had not turned her back for no reason.
As she moved towards the creature before her, her speed left afterimages in the void. These afterimages, however, were not simple. The images came alive, condensing from energy into living tissue.
Nyssa met the clawed lunge head-on, the impact exploding the surrounding energy in a violent eruption. In that split second of delay, Nyssa capitalised on her greater speed, closing further in on the creature's chest.
With a defiant cry only a phoenix could let out, her right hand drove into the creature's chest, tearing through absurdly dense void flesh to the massive black core, ripping it out with extreme viciousness.
BOOM…!
The void creature exploded in a gory display of flesh and blood that quickly began turning into motes of void energy and black essence.
Simultaneously, the second void creature's attack tore through the afterimage clones, the bodies acting as cushion barriers that slowed down the void creature.
It gave the phoenix all the time she needed to shift and appear behind the creature and plunge her other hand into the creature's back, repaying it in kind.
BOOM…!
With the brutal explosion of the creature, her defence clones disintegrated and disappeared. Her fight was over, allowing her to relax a bit.
Nyssa tossed the black cores away, their black essence attempting to breach her defences. She looked around, seeing her colleagues bringing their battles to a close.
'Our display might not be as visually impactful as what he did… but this should save us a bit of face.' Nyssa thought to herself, looking over to the white void that had not diminished in radiance. 'You can't afford to look down on us, Alexander. This is but a fraction of what we can do.'