The instant Malek's insult left his lips, the hunt ended. The playful, predatory energy that had filled the cavern vanished, replaced by a cold, absolute silence that was more terrifying than any roar. Khaos, who had been a fluid, graceful combatant, became utterly still. His eyes, which had held a flicker of amusement, were now cold, bottomless pits of primordial darkness, burning with a pure, regal fury.
Malek felt the shift instantly. The air grew heavy, thick with a pressure that dwarfed anything he had felt before. The demonic power he had gained by burning his own life force, which had made him feel invincible moments ago, now felt like a flickering candle in a hurricane.
His instincts, honed by his new, demonic nature, screamed at him. Not with a warning of a lost fight, but with the absolute, primal certainty of imminent and total annihilation. He had made a fatal mistake.
He tried to retreat, to put distance between himself and the suddenly terrifying figure before him. But it was too late. Khaos vanished. He didn't move fast; he was simply there one moment and gone the next, leaving no afterimage, no ripple in the air. He had utilized his control over the Void, a power of law that made simple movement-based techniques look like a child's clumsy sprint.
By this point, the wider battle in the valley had all but concluded. With Khaos and Malek's duel creating a zone of absolute terror that no sane person would enter, Li Yu had become an unstoppable force on the periphery. His relentless, efficient attacks had broken the back of the remaining Hegemony forces.
The Radiant Dawn disciples, freed from their pitched battles and inspired by his power, had rallied. The last of the Hegemony cultists were being cut down or were fleeing in terror, only to be picked off by the vengeful disciples. The evacuation was complete; the last of the massive cages had been moved to the relative safety of the cavern entrance, where a perimeter was being formed.
The prisoners were all safe now. Li Yu stood on the valley floor, his staff resting on his shoulder, his breathing steady. He had cleared his section of the battlefield and now turned his full attention to the main event.
Cyra had flown down from the high ledge, landing silently beside him, her own face pale with awe. Nearby, the surviving Forest disciples had all gathered behind the wounded Grand Elder Theron, forming a silent, stunned audience.
Before Malek could even process Khaos's disappearance, Khaos reappeared directly behind him, his presence a cold whisper of death against the demon's back. Malek's massive, monstrous body, which had been a vessel of incredible power, was now a liability, its senses too slow to react to a being that did not move through space, but simply was. He felt a hand, impossibly strong, grip his left shoulder. He felt another hand seize his left arm just below the elbow.
"You dared," Khaos's voice was a low, chilling whisper, devoid of all emotion save for a profound, lethal anger, "to insult this King."
Then, he pulled. There was a wet, sickening tear, a sound of sinew snapping, muscle being ripped from bone, and a torrent of hot, black-green demonic blood. Malek let out a scream of pure, unadulterated agony, a sound that cut through the cavern and echoed in the souls of all who heard it. Khaos had ripped his arm from its socket.
He held the massive, severed limb in his hand, looking at it with a detached, clinical disgust. It was a crude, ugly thing. Then, he looked at the screaming Malek, and his expression turned to one of pure, contemptuous fury. He did not discard the arm. Instead, he swung it.
The massive, severed limb, still dripping with demonic blood, became his weapon. He brought it down on Malek's head in a brutal, bludgeoning arc. The impact was a sickening, wet crunch.
The demon, still screaming in pain from his dismemberment, was silenced as his head was slammed into the stone floor, the rock cracking beneath the force of the blow. Khaos swung it again, a vicious, horizontal strike that caught Malek in the ribs, sending the hulking demon stumbling sideways, his body already battered and broken.
"You made a fatal mistake, you ugly thing" Khaos stated, his voice a low, menacing growl as he continued his relentless assault, each swing of the arm a punctuation mark to his words. "You presumed your borrowed power gave you the right to speak to a King as an equal. You thought this was a battle. It was a hunt. And now, it is an execution."
Everyone in the cavern, friend and foe alike, watched in stunned, horrified awe. The Radiant Dawn disciples, who had just finished their own life-and-death struggles, now stood frozen, their mouths agape.
This… this was something else entirely. It was a display of such absolute, merciless dominance that it transcended the concept of a fight. It was now a god punishing a mortal, with his own limbs no less.
The few remaining members from the Hegemony went through a roller coaster of emotions. First they were dejected by their leader being beaten, then he made a comeback and they cheered, now it was only soul crushing despair as they saw their leader in ruins.
Li Yu watched, his own shock warring with a grim understanding. He had seen Khaos's power before, but this was different. This was not the casual, overwhelming force he used against lesser beings. This was his rage, similar to the time back at the RipTide Legion but it seemed to be much worse this time. He noticed that Khaos rage, when it did appear, was getting more and more intense over time.
This was the decisive, absolute power of a king who had been offended. He was amazed, once again, by Khaos's strength, his decisiveness, and his overall demeanor. There was no hesitation, no mercy, only a swift and terrible judgment. He wanted to have some of those traits himself, he saw how effective they were, but Khaos was Khaos and he was Li Yu.
Grand Elder Theron, who was being tended to by a healer disciple and pills, stood frozen, his jaw slack with disbelief. He had lived for centuries, had seen countless battles, and had fought against other Soul Formation experts.
But he had never seen anything like this. The sheer, brutal humiliation of it was as shocking as the power on display. The apocalyptic demon that had brought him and his best commander to their knees was now being treated as little more than a disobedient dog.
The brutalization continued. Malek, his mind a haze of pain and terror, tried to fight back, to raise his one remaining arm in a desperate defense. Khaos, seeing the movement, let out a snort of contempt. He dropped the first arm, letting it fall to the ground with a wet slap. Then, in a blur of motion, he vanished and reappeared on Malek's other side. He grabbed the demon's right arm.
Another wet, tearing sound echoed through the silent cavern, accompanied by another agonized, gurgling scream from Malek. Now both of his arms had been ripped from their sockets. Khaos now held a massive, demonic limb in each of his hands. He looked down at the now-armless, screaming demon, and with a look of utter disgust, he began to beat him with both of his own severed arms, a relentless, percussive rain of brutal, humiliating blows.
The sight was too much for many. Some of the younger Radiant Dawn disciples turned away, their faces green. The few remaining Hegemony cultists who had not yet been killed simply fell to their knees, their minds broken by the sheer, unholy terror of the scene.
Malek's body was now a battered, ruined wreck. His demonic armor was shattered, his wings long ripped out, his monstrous form dented and broken, black-green blood pouring from a dozen wounds. He was no longer a threat. He was just a victim.
Khaos's bare torso, now spattered with the demon's dark blood, was a divine sculpture of power, looking like it had been carved from some ancient, flawless marble. The women and men below, both from the Radiant Dawn and even the recently freed prisoners, could not help but admire his looks and his absolute, terrifying strength, a bizarre mix of attraction and mortal fear.
He looked like he had stepped out of an ancient portrait, a depiction of how the founding sect leaders of old were portrayed: impossibly handsome, divinely powerful. But there was one thing off. His eyes held no warmth, no righteousness, no mercy. He cared for no one around him, a fact proven by how he did not care about the prisoner at all when he started his fight and now the sheer, brutal joy he was taking in the utter destruction of his foe.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Khaos stopped. He tossed the two mangled, useless arms aside. Malek's body, now little more than a broken puppet, collapsed to the ground, twitching, his life force fading rapidly. He was utterly, completely, and humiliatingly defeated.