The abyssal demons and zerg continued their relentless assaults on the coalition's defensive lines, wave after wave.
"Contract the formation!"
"Third and Seventh Legions, move toward the central axis! Arcane Armored Corps—push forward! Fill the gap on the left flank!"
The Sword of Judgement in Elizabeth's hands blazed with holy radiance.
Every swing of her blade cleared vast swathes of the battlefield.
She had long lost count of how many times she'd repelled the enemy's charge.
The demons and zerg around her seemed endless, an unceasing tide of nightmares.
"Marshal Elizabeth! The Forest Alliance's right-wing fleet is requesting reinforcements!"
"Report! The Void Zerg 'Devourer' has breached the Seventh Arcane Defense Array!"
"..."
Bad news came one after another.
Bwoooom——!!
A deep, majestic horn resounded across the void.
Then, from the most violently besieged sector of the front, the entire starry expanse began to tremble—as though an army of steel behemoths was galloping through space!
And in the next instant—under the disbelieving gaze of the calamity legion—a new force entered the battlefield.
Their numbers: only a hundred thousand.
But each and every figure radiated an aura of at least Astral Archmage rank.
They rode uniformly on starflame beasts, clad in heavy armor, each holding a Lance of Dawn.
At the tip of every lance gathered a singular point of pure darkness—sharp enough to pierce all defenses, all laws.
The very aura of that killing intent made nearby lesser calamities instinctively recoil.
"It's Lord Aragis' Knight Legion!"
"They're here!!"
"That's… Dalton's ultimate weapon!"
Intelligence about the Dalton Army had long circulated among the major powers.
Especially after Dalton's repeated annihilation of hidden cosmic cults and fallen factions, no one could ignore them.
Yet the more they learned, the more their disbelief grew—the Dalton Army's strength and rate of ascension were both astronomical.
And above all, the most terrifying of them—the Dalton Knights.
Almost every powerful bastion civilization destroyed in recent years had fallen beneath this very cavalry's charge.
"Unstoppable"—that was the single evaluation given by every major power.
Even Calvin, Marshal of the Luminous Empire, had once stood amid a devastated ruin and sighed:
"The Dalton Knights… are invincible."
Now, the coalition forces erupted in a roar of salvation and awe.
Dalton soldiers wept openly, for they knew—when the Knights appeared, the tide of battle would turn.
At the spearhead rode Aragis.
A terrifying aura rolled off him as his cold gaze swept across the endless black ocean of demons and zerg.
He slowly raised his lance, pointing it toward the densest heart of the calamity legion.
"Knights!"
His voice reverberated across the entire battlefield.
"CHARGE!"
"For Dalton! Purge the calamity!"
"Kill! Kill! Kill!"
The roar of a hundred thousand knights condensed into a tangible shockwave, instantly pulverizing swaths of low-tier calamities ahead.
BOOOOM——!!!
A hundred thousand starflame beasts charged at once.Demons and zerg alike were obliterated the instant they made contact—swept away by the annihilating energy and the nightmare aura beneath those burning hooves.
Countless Lord-rank demons and zerg commanders exploded into ash under a single thrust from Aragis.
It was a judgment of steel upon flesh and blood.
The hundred-thousand-strong cavalry plunged forward like a blazing spear, slicing through the enemy ranks as effortlessly as a hot blade through butter.
Their momentum alone was enough to tear entire formations apart.
Demon molten shields, zerg bio-barriers, chaotic arcane wards—Before the Knights' collective charge, they shattered like bubbles under the sun.
The coalition soldiers stood dumbfounded.
They watched as powerful demons—beings that normally required immense sacrifice to slay—were crushed like paper before the Knights' advance.
They saw the endless swarm of zerg torn apart, leaving gaping holes that could not be filled.
They saw the entire calamity legion's offensive collapsing before their very eyes—a sweeping, unstoppable force of devastation.
Unstoppable.
Unrivaled.
Absolute.
For the first time, the calamity legion showed fear—true, primal fear.
ROAR—!SSSsshhhhh—!!
"There's a Void Emissary-level being here?!"
"Don't let him disrupt the feeding of the broods…"
The demon lords and zerg praetorians roared in outrage, sensing Aragis' terrifying presence.
"Useless filth!" The zerg praetorian unleashed a piercing psychic shriek.
"Let these lesser creatures witness… what true despair is!"
Then—it was as if the curtain of the universe itself was torn open by invisible hands, revealing the abyss beyond, brimming with pure, malignant hatred.
Wooooom—BZZZZZZ!!
A low, maddening hum filled the void, carrying chaotic whispers that clawed at sanity.
From the rift erupted a beam of pure abyssal law—a spear of darkness—firing straight toward the coalition's heart!
Wherever it passed, space itself crumbled.
Even light was devoured.
Ancient Guardians and elite coalition champions caught in its path were instantly erased, their very existence unmade.
"Not good! Move—now!!" The faces of every powerhouse turned pale.
BOOOOOOM!!!
A cataclysmic explosion followed.Elizabeth grunted as she was hurled back, blood spilling from her lips.
Even Aragis staggered back more than ten paces, his expression grave.
The entire battlefield fell into stunned silence.
"That's… the Demon Sovereign…" One Ancient Guardian's voice trembled.
"The very being that legends say brings extinction to all life…"
At the edge of the rift, two colossal phantoms took shape—manifestations of the abyss and the zerg hive's will.
Their eyes looked down upon the battlefield with cold indifference, as though gazing upon mere insects awaiting slaughter.
Despair.
Fear.
Madness.
These emotions flooded every soul present.
"Your pathetic struggle ends here, insects."
The Demon Sovereign's psychic voice dripped with cruel amusement.
Before anyone could react, annihilation descended.
Countless tendrils of black abyssal energy spread silently, wrapping around the foremost coalition leaders.
Elder Green Leaf of the Forest Alliance withered instantly—no scream, no resistance—his body shriveled into dust.
The mechanical civilization's consciousness core, overloaded and burst apart in a storm of data fragments.
A Guardian from the Radiant Heir tribe raised a psychic barrier in desperation—only to dissolve into nothingness upon contact.
One after another, ancient guardians, civilization leaders, and coalition fleets were shredded to pieces in the void.
A one-sided massacre.
"No!!"
Emperor Soladin's eyes went blood-red as he watched his Empire's guardians vanish.
He raised his flaming holy blade, cleaving at the tendrils—but his strike sparked harmlessly.
The tendrils lashed back, smashing him through several warships.His fate—unknown.
"Damn demons! Burn in hell!!" Reize roared, eyes crimson, swinging his massive blade to intercept a tendril aimed at Elizabeth.
"Marshal! Get out of here!!" he shouted back.
But a split second later—another tendril struck from the flank, impaling his armored chest.Reize froze.
He looked down at the spreading corruption consuming his body, his face twisted with unwillingness.
Then, a resolute smile.
"President… I didn't shame you, did I?"
BOOM!!
He self-detonated.
An Astral Envoy's self-destruction tore open a brief pocket of light amid the darkness, buying Elizabeth a moment to breathe.
"REIZE!!"
Elizabeth's scream tore through the void.Tears and fury burned together in her violet eyes.
She pushed the Judgement Sword Intent to its utmost limit, turning into a golden meteor that slashed toward the Demon Sovereign.
"Face divine judgment, demon!"
"How brave… yet how foolish."
The Demon Sovereign's voice echoed mockingly.
A tiny mote of black light met her descending blade.
Shhhh!That speck of darkness spread like venom, devouring her golden sword in an instant—then exploded.
PUFF!!Elizabeth was struck as if by lightning.Her body fell from the sky like a broken-winged angel, her aura fading rapidly.
Meanwhile, Aragis' situation grew desperate.
The Zerg Queen had yet to act personally, but her psychic will commanded legions of advanced zerg—Plunderers, Devourers, Lurkers—all swarming toward him.
Each thrust of Aragis' lance took countless zerg lives, but their numbers were infinite.
He was a lone wolf trapped in a sea of corpses.
The ground around him was piled high with zerg remains.
All around, his knights were being torn apart and devoured alive.
His field of annihilation shrank under the sheer weight of suicidal zerg bodies.
Death was no longer a possibility—it was an inevitability.
"Pointless resistance."
The cold, mental voice of Shub-Niggurath echoed across the battlefield.
"Devour him. Evolve."
More zerg poured in, surrounding Aragis completely.
Despair spread through what remained of the coalition.
The mightiest heroes were dead or dying.
Dalton's shield and spear—broken.Warship wreckage floated like tombstones across the void.
The surviving soldiers had lost all will to fight; many stood hollow-eyed, waiting for the end.
Some weaker-willed races succumbed to the abyssal whispers, turning on their comrades in madness.
The demons' laughter and zerg screeches mingled with the coalition's cries, echoing through the shattered starfield.
Marshal Calvin, his body mangled, lay upon a cold asteroid.
His fading eyes stared at the sky being swallowed by darkness.
Despair filled his final breath.
Aragis dropped to one knee, surrounded by an ocean of zerg.
He lifted his gaze toward the distant Dalton fleet.Regret flickered in his eyes.
"Is this… how it ends?"
A tide of despair swept across the remnants of the allied army.