1000 A Pillar Of Faith

Facing the sturdy, eight-foot-tall Sin King who's morphing into his hybrid form, Varian felt both lucky and unlucky.

If Julius gave a fuck, he would've noticed Sin King hadn't died from his punch and ended him.

Even though Varian hated the traitor deeply, he would've been happy if Julius killed Sin King.

But no. Not only Julius happened to be arrogant enough to leave Sin King, but the abyss ruler was also lucky enough to have such a miraculous healing potion to heal him back from the clutches of death.

Still, the situation was so bad that Sin King had to wait for ten minutes just to heal enough for a normal space flight back to his Sin Abyss.

If he did return and recuperated to his peak, it'd have been a disaster for humanity.

Luckily, despite everything that went wrong prior, Varian was able to track down and intercept Sin King halfway from the Sin Abyss.

The reason for even catching up was less on Ghost ship's speed and more on Sin King's slowness.

"Varian." Sin King punched out with his larger black-scaled arms.

Boo twirled like a spinning top and dodged the punch. Still, the scaled arms managed to graze the underside of the spaceship and left long marks.

The two Archdukes of Sin Abyss transformed into a Lava-breathing Bull and a Lightning Horse.

The space lit up from the red and golden lights as the two Archdukes attacked the ghost ship with lava columns and lightning phantoms.

Despite its high speed, Boo was having trouble dodging the attacks. It was meant to be high in speed, not agility.

Varian and the girls jumped out and faced the attacks.

"Fuck off."

Sarah's light swords, accelerated in time flow, reached the twelve lightning phantom horses.

When it looked like Sarah would finish off the phantoms without resistance, the Lightning Horse raised its front legs and neighed.

The twelve phantoms moved almost instantly and merged into three. Nine of Sarah's light swords just passed through empty space while three hit the integrated phantoms.

Given the phantoms' initial resilience, Sarah's swords should've easily ended them. But thanks to the integration, the lighting phantoms only took minor damage from Sarah's attacks before neighing and rushing at her.

Sarah concentrated her light mana and threw three swords at the phantoms.

This time, the phantoms split into a hundred. The three swords took down their targets, but ninety-seven phantoms remained intact and quickly merged back into three.

Again, there was only a minor additional injury on them.

This was the special ability of the Archduke's Lightning Horse morpher form: Fusion and Fission.

"I hate morphers." Sarah grumbled and continued the fight.

Even though the damn horse was sneaky and managed heavy damage every time, Sarah was able to deal a small bit of damage every time.

But if things went on like this, Sarah would be too exhausted before the Lightning Horse succumbed to its injuries.

Sia's situation wasn't great either.

She rained down arrows of darkness on the Lava Snake. At the same time, psychic energy attacked the creature's brain and made it harder for it to respond properly. As if it wasn't enough, the gravity on the creature rose and stagnated its movements.

It's Sia's standard tactic for winning a battle against a strong opponent.

But it didn't work.

The Lava Snake which was supposed to be hit by at least thirty darkness arrows shrank in the last minute!

Then, it expanded to a size ten times larger than before and exhaled a column of lava. The hot molten substance reached Sia in just a blink, and even though she wasn't hit yet, Sia's head grew dizzy and blood leaked from her eyes.

This wasn't just lava, it had some dangerous poison! She was confident of blocking the lava, but with the poison in the picture, she was no longer sure.

"Damn it!"

Sia teleported behind the Lava Snake and raised her hand to attack. But as if it anticipated her teleportation, the Snake swung its tail at her.

The snake's skin seemed to be lava in itself and when the tail reached Sia, the temperature around her spiked, and her head grew dizzier.

Sia threw a spear at the tail and teleported. The snake shrank once again, but the spear was aimed at very the center of its body. So, it still hit the snake. Except for a little damage, however, it didn't do much damage.

The Lava Snake had an incredible defense!

Far away from these two battles, Varian stared at the Sin King with a grim expression.

Even though his focus remained on his enemy, he was shocked at the strength displayed by the two Archdukes.

Varian was confident of defeating one, but to kill two, even he'd need to take time.

'Mercury is infamous after all.' He sighed.

Sovereign Albert was the oldest Sovereign. So was his archenemy Sin King. It seemed that his subordinates might also be very old to be this strong.

'Wait, what happened to the peak level 9s of Mercury? Why aren't they coming?' Varian kept his gaze locked onto Sin King while he asked Boo.

"Albert was a great guy." Sin King spoke before Boo responded. Rubbing his shoulders which still weren't healed properly, he said with a nostalgic smile. "I wish he was born as an abyssal. He'd have been a great asset to our Empire."

Varian channeled his aura and prepared for the battle.

"But even I don't completely agree with his methods." The Abyss Ruler shook his head and pointed to his two archdukes. "Once they showed Albert's corpse to Mercury's best fighters, they collapsed and were killed before they could recover."

Varian swallowed his saliva as he realized the mistake Albert inadvertently made. The mistake directly led to the death of the peak level 9s that otherwise would've fought the archdukes.

"In decades of his ruling, Albert became the pillar of their belief. He's the reason Mercury's army is so hard to defeat. They're like fanatics…more than any of their peers. But the same fanatics became sheep when their pillar crumbled."

Boo displayed a visual of the same in front of him.

The moment Albert's corpse was displayed publicly, they didn't believe it at first. But when the tremendous aura in him spread out like a tide, they had no choice but to believe their hero died. And when they did, something in them broke.

Using this chance, the Archdukes fought with their nemeses that they couldn't defeat for decades. But now they got a perfect chance.

Even though they had decades of experience, these peak level 9s couldn't focus properly.

What's more, to deliberately distract them, the abyssals started burning Sovereign Albert's corpse.

That really triggered the Mercury army. They abandoned their battle and rushed to their Sovereign's corpse recklessly. This included even the two peak level 9s.

The abyssals made perfect use of this opportunity and dealt severe blows to their enemies.

Mercury's army managed to rescue the half-burnt Albert's corpse. But the cost it paid was the death of two peak level 9s and countless others.

Varian's eyes grew cold as the screen vanished, leaving only the Sin King in his sight. "Die."