The pitch-black sword pierced straight through the King's skull, splattering blood in its wake.
However, the King didn't die on the spot.
Even as his bodily functions began to shut down, his consciousness lingered for a few more seconds.
The Chimera Ant's vitality is indeed monstrous...
Or more specifically, the vitality of the Chimera Ant King.
Seeing the King on the brink of death, Youpi and Pouf broke down completely.
Just a minutes ago, they had been elated by the sheer might of their King...
'How had it come to this?'
Youpi and Pouf couldn't accept this fact.
Their anguished screams echoed through the palace like a death knell, delivering a message that plunged all Chimera Ants into despair.
'The King-'
'Something had gone wrong. He might've even been slain by the humans.'
That was the immediate thought that crossed the minds of Leol and the others upon hearing Youpi and Pouf's cries.
Even Knov and Netero, who weren't too close to the battlefield, also heard the desperate cries of the two Royal Guards and understood what had likely happened.
'Had Moses really taken down the King…?'
The thought stirred waves of emotion in both Knov and Netero.
…
On the ruins of the palace.
Moses pulled his black sword back out, and another spray of blood came out from the King's forehead.
The King's body shook slightly, and the light in his eyes dimmed.
He could feel the 'life force' in his body rapidly draining away.
Soon, he will die.
At the last moment of his life, the King stared straight at Moses, the man holding the sword.
His defeat was absolute.
If only…
But there were no 'ifs'.
The last glimmer in the King's eyes quietly vanished, and he died under Moses's knife.
But even though he had lost his breath, his armless body remained standing.
"King!!!"
Just then, Youpi arrived.
On his way over, he was already prepared to offer his own life to the King, which would not only allow the King to recover his arms, but also allow the King to gain greater power.
But it was too late.
Youpi came to a sudden halt and looked at King's lifeless body. His eyes were so red that they seemed to be dripping with blood.
A storm of indescribable emotions clashed violently in his head, and in the end, only anger towards Moses remained.
"Aaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!"
The rage was so intense that it could even deform the soul, causing Youpi's Aura to become extremely violent.
Then-
Under this Aura containing surging emotions, Youpi's body expanded like an overinflated balloon, transforming into a massive crimson monster.
"Aaaaahhhhhh, I'll kill you…!!!"
Youpi, who had completely lost his reason, first jumped low in the air, then raised his over-inflated arms high and smashed them towards Moses with great ferocity.
Moses lifted his eyes slightly and looked at Youpi, who was emitting powerful killing intent.
The giant red fists came hurtling down, distorting the air with their sheer momentum.
Facing Youpi's angry attack, Moses's figure flashed. He avoided the huge fist carrying terrifying power, and appeared not far behind Youpi.
Boom!
Youpi's monstrous fists smashed into the shattered ground, unleashing a deafening shockwave.
The powerful impact force that came with it blasted away the surrounding building debris and directly created a massive crater on the ground.
Moses turned his back to Youpi, who was in the crater. Instead of turning around to attack, he lightly tapped his foot and vanished once more.
The next moment,
Moses appeared out of nowhere next to the unguarded Pouf.
At that moment,
Pouf, who was only the size of a bee, did not react at all. His full attention had been on Youpi's failed attack, and his gaze was still locked on the spot where Moses had stood just seconds ago.
"Huh?!"
By the time he reacted, he suddenly saw a vast shadow loomed overhead, blotting out the light.
Moses casually reached out and pinched the flying Pouf between his thumb and index finger.
Compared to Youpi, who radiated a powerful Aura, Moses chose to get rid of Pouf, whose Aura has become very weak.
After all, he was certain that Youpi would fight to the death, but he could not guarantee whether Pouf would choose to escape.
In order to eliminate this possibility, killing Pouf first became Moses's top priority.
"You…"
With his frail and tiny body restrained, Pouf had completely lost his composure at this moment, with a strong vicious look in his eyes, completely different from his usual calm and composed self-possession that always revealed wisdom.
Moses didn't give Pouf the chance to speak, and suddenly exerted force with the thumb and index finger that were pinching Pouf's body.
Squelch!
Thick, viscous blood sprayed from between Moses's fingers.
And just like that, Pouf was mashed into a bloody pulp… like a mosquito crushed by a human's casual swat.
In this situation, even his Beelzebub cannot save him.
"One more left…"
Moses rubbed his thumb and index finger together at high speed, producing a small burst of flame that incinerated the gory remnants, reducing them to ash.
Once the 'cleanup' was done, Moses turned around and looked back to where he came from.
He saw Youpi face on the edge of the pit, his face twisted and grotesque, like a demon that had just come out of hell.
He must have witnessed Moses crushing Pouf to death with his own eyes.
"Oh, wait…"
Completely unconcerned about Youpi's expression at the moment, Moses's eyebrows moved and he said to himself: "Besides you, there is also a group of little ants still crawling around here."
Just as he finished speaking, a heavy thud sounded from up ahead.
It was Youpi who had stomped the ground with tremendous force, propelling his bloated, unbalanced body straight at Moses like a cannonball.
Indescribable anger occupied the mind of this Chimera Ant Royal Guard.
So much so that his attack had no technique or structure, just a bloodthirsty charge, like a maddened bull seeing red.
Moses looked calmly at Youpi, who was coming at him with violent momentum. He raised his arm, held the black swprd horizontally, and a wave of Aura surged from it.
Whoosh-
Dust and debris around him whipped into the air, as if pulled by some unseen force. Driven by swirling currents, they formed a storm around the black blade.
[Super Speed: Gun]
In an instant, all that overwhelming Aura condensed sharply, and the sand, dust and gravel swirling around also gathered towards the black sword in an instant.
However,
before the sand, dust and gravel could even touch the blade, the black sword suddenly disappeared out of thin air, leaving behind a series of solid white spirals of Aura in its place.
At the same time,
Youpi's instincts flared with danger.
The primal intuition embedded in his magical beast genes forced his body to shift slightly.
Shk!
The next moment, the black sword pierced through Youpi's left chest. As if it had ignited and burned through his flesh in one blinding instant, it carved a massive hole through two-thirds of his grotesquely enlarged upper body.
"Gaahh…"
Blood gushed from his mouth as Youpi crumpled to the ground, staggering from the devastating blow.
Not far away-
Leol and other Chimera Ants, who rushed to the scene to check the situation, happened to see this scene.
They also saw the miserable appearance of the King.
No,
his corpse!
"I made a stupid decision...!"
Leol looked at Moses in the center of the battle zone in a daze, as if he was looking at a terrifying God of Death.