"It's an honor to meet the renowned Deathbringer Cabourn," Leylin said lightly, his voice carrying an effortless grace, as if the previous high-intensity clash of spiritual force hadn't even occurred.
"It's a shame we met in such an inappropriate setting; otherwise, I would have truly enjoyed a great chat with you."
Cabourn narrowed his neon-green eyes, his gaze flicking cautiously over Lancey, the two heavily armored guards standing like monoliths, and then right back to Leylin. The young Warlock stood there with a calm, predatory smile.
After that brief, crushing spiritual exchange, Cabourn had sensed a tremendous, bottomless reservoir of energy radiating from the youth. He quickly deduced that Leylin was an opponent far more formidable than even the late Chairman Reynold.
Currently, Cabourn was badly fatigued, injured and drained from his previous battle; he simply did not possess the tactical ability to fight a fresh, monstrous Rank 2 entity.
He stared hard at Leylin, his voice dropping into a raspy growl. "So... you must be the Eternal Nightmare?"
Leylin let out a soft, amused laugh. "Eternal Nightmare? To be honest, I kind of enjoy that nickname."
The moniker 'Eternal Nightmare' was a terrifying title branded onto him by the various ruling Magi organizations of the South Coast. Whenever the hidden operations of the Astral Requiem required overwhelming, absolute force, Leylin took matters into his own hands.
Every single time he acted, he left behind no clues, no survivors, and not a single shred of leaked intelligence. Through the frantic, failed investigations of rival factions, he became known simply as a ghost of pure devastation, an unstoppable Rank 2 menace whose true limits could not be accurately gauged.
Seeing Leylin in the flesh, Cabourn realized the rumors were an understatement. The youth was a powerful, top-tier Rank 2 expert.
Worse still, Cabourn could sense an incredibly dense, surging life force bursting from Leylin's physical frame, throwing the old dark Magus into absolute shock.
'He is so incredibly young, yet his energy density is suffocating,' Cabourn thought frantically, sweat trickling down his neck.
'Is he at the Elemental Obedience Stage or already cultivating a Domain Seed? I can't even accurately gauge his depth...'
Suppressing his panic, Cabourn spoke coldly, "It seems the Astral Requiem has finally decided to side with the Light Magi organizations."
"I don't care what it 'seems' like to you," Leylin explained calmly, dusting an imaginary speck of ash from his cuff. "Destroying a secret plane gateway goes directly against the financial and territorial interests of everyone involved, except for the desperate dark Magi. Tell me, Cabourn, who do you think would be the next inevitable target when the number of gates held between the Light and Dark factions becomes completely unequal?"
He took a step forward, his voice dropping an octave as a suffocating, threatening pressure exploded from his body as a silhouette of Giant Kemoyin Serpent appeared behind him.
"I protect the interests of the Requiem. If you have any problem with our methodology, you are more than welcome to ask Lord Requiem himself to give a formal explanation to your Dark Magi Alliance."
Cabourn's face twisted into a mask of pure hatred and suppressed fear. Throughout the South Coast, no one dared to speak to him in such a dismissive, threatening tone. Yet, looking at the abyss of Leylin's ruby eyes, he knew he was utterly powerless to retaliate.
"Regardless, my strategic work here is done," Cabourn said stiffly, stepping on Reynold's bloody, severed head as proof of his victory. "It was an honor to meet the Lord Eternal Nightmare. I shall take my leave now. I don't think that should pose a problem for you."
"Of course not," Leylin nodded smoothly, making a polite gesture to the side. "You are entirely free to go."
Cabourn exhaled in slight relief but remained guarded. He manipulated his silver spiritual force, condensing it into a massive, shimmering hand that reached down toward the frozen pit to grab the mutilated bodies of Caesar and Giant, intending to carry his split-soul sons away with him.
Boom!
Out of nowhere, a bolt of pitch-black energy violently slammed into the silver hand, shattering Cabourn's spiritual construct into thousands of sparkling pieces.
Cabourn whirled around, his face flushed with rage as he roared at Leylin, "Why are you attacking me!? You said I was free to go! This shouldn't be any of the Astral Requiem's business!"
"You are indeed free to go," Leylin replied, his voice entirely unbothered. "But Giant and Caesar cannot leave. They currently hold a bloody grudge against a prominent Six-Wings member of our organization. It is only fitting that they stay behind to end their duel."
Leylin smiled, resting his hands behind his back. "I promise that I will not personally interfere. I ask that you, as a revered elder, step back and let them settle their private matters."
Cabourn's green eyes flared. Allow that? His sons were already heavily mutilated and drained of all magic; leaving them behind meant absolute execution.
Driven by desperation and ancestral instinct, Cabourn launched a sudden, violent assault, wishing to force Leylin back just long enough to grab his kin and flee into the swamp.
But the moment his mana flared, the shadows behind his sons erupted. The Vanguard of the Requiem materialized silently behind Giant, its blade glinting with a spectral light, while the massive form of the Black Horrall Snake coiled tightly around Caesar's bleeding torso, pinning them both instantly to the frozen earth.
"Withering Breath!" Cabourn bellowed.
A massive, swirling ring of silver-gray current generated between his outstretched palms. The stream compressed into a violent, howling tornado that blasted directly toward Leylin. The necrotic energy carried an immense corrosive effect, instantly melting the stone floor and carving long, deep troughs into the earth as it traveled.
"Latent Fireball," Leylin whispered.
He casually extended a single hand, releasing a dense, compressed sphere of pitch-black flames. The moment the black fireball collided with the silver-gray steam tornado, it didn't just clash it transformed.
The black fire opened up like a localized black hole, generating a terrifying gravitational vacuum that devoured the entirety of Cabourn's corrosive attack, swallowing the silver fog until nothing remained.
"Shadow Spikes!"
Without missing a beat, Leylin gestured forward. Dozens of dark, armor-clad shadow warriors wielding jagged spears erupted from the shadows, charging toward the dark Magus.
"Repulsive!" Cabourn shrieked, his eyelids blinking rapidly in panic.
He thrust his arms outward, shooting two twin silver-gray tornadoes from his palms to intercept the charge. The shadow spears and the tornadoes smashed into each other, violently negating one another in a brilliant flash of dark and silver sparks.
Puchi!
The residual kinetic shockwave slammed heavily into Cabourn's chest. He stumbled backward, coughing up a mouthful of dark blood, his old injuries flaring up. His heart froze with fear.
He realized Leylin wasn't even actively trying to kill him, the Warlock was simply playing with him, testing his defensive limits like a cat tracking a crippled mouse.
"Ahhhhhh!"
A miserable, blood-curdling shriek shattered the silence of the clearing. Cabourn whirled his head around just in time to see the Vanguard's dark broadsword pierce cleanly through Giant's chest, destroying his heart.
Simultaneously, the Black Horrall Snake bared its massive fangs, sinking them deep into the flesh of Caesar's neck, the deadly venom beginning to sizzle against his skin.
"Father! Save me! Please, Father, save me!" Caesar wept, thrashing frantically against the serpent's heavy coils.
"Stop! Let him go!" Cabourn begged, completely abandoning his pride as a revered Rank 2 Magus. "I will pay any price! I know your Astral Requiem is desperately wishing to recruit powerful Magi to expand your territory! Stop your beasts, and I will bring the entire elite force of the Thousand Meddling Hands to join your ranks! We will swear an absolute soul oath by the Trial Eye!"
Leylin let out a loud, mocking laugh that echoed through the ruined plains.
"An oath by the Trial Eye?" Leylin shook his head, his ruby eyes glinting with cold amusement. "Cabourn, I am well aware that the formula for your organization's specialized Nefarious Filthbird Solution was personally provided by the Rank 3 Magus pulling your strings from the shadows. Tell me, why would I ever risk hiring a den of bloody, treacherous snakes who are already hardwired to bite my heel the moment their true master commands it?"
Cabourn's face drained of all color, his last bargaining chip utterly dismantled. "Then... what is it you want!?"
Leylin smiled, a polite, terrifying expression. "I want a Rank 2 Magus to work for me. Completely at my beck and call, without any internal resistance."
Cabourn's expression darkened into pure outrage. "How would you ever trust my compliance if you don't believe in a Trial Eye contract? Do you dare suggest that a revered, noble Rank 2 Magus like myself would ever willingly open his sea of consciousness for a slave-tier spirit branding!?"
Leylin shook his head gently, his tone incredibly soft. "No, of course not. I would never ask you to undergo a humiliating spiritual branding."
Hearing those words, Cabourn's tense shoulders dropped slightly, a fraction of his defensive caution slipping away. "Then what—"
"I would much rather have a Rank 2 Magus as a summon," Leylin clarified.
"A summon!?" Cabourn quiered.
Before the words could fully form in his throat, Cabourn's vision suddenly turned glassy. His knees buckled, his spiritual force plunging into absolute chaos as a cold, paralytic numbness locked his muscles down.
"You... you poisoned me... When did you—"
Shua!
Leylin vanished from his position, reappearing instantly directly behind Cabourn's rigid back. His right hand turned blood-red as he drove his fingers straight through Cabourn's chest, bypassing the ribs.
With a sickening squelch, Leylin's fingers clamped around the dark Magus's spine. With a single, brutal heave, he ripped the entire spinal column cleanly out of the old man's back.
Splat!
Blood and fragments of marrow sprayed across the snow. Due to the monstrous vitality inherent to a Rank 2 Magus, Cabourn did not die instantly.
His torso twitching violently, Leylin grabbed the old man's skull with both hands, lifting the gasping, bleeding head high into the air.
"Stare closely, Deathbringer," Leylin commanded, forcing Cabourn's fading green eyes to align with his remaining son. "Watch the end of your bloodline."
Leylin turned his gaze toward Lancey. "Kill him."
Lancey let out a gleeful, melodic laugh. Shifting her weight, she hopped over the frozen mud, arriving directly before the pinned, weeping Caesar.
Under Cabourn's intense, muffled screams of agony and hateful, bleeding glare, she began her execution.
First, she drove her fingers directly into Caesar's forehead, brutally ripping his prized vertical third eye out of its socket. Caesar shrieked, blood pouring down his face as Lancey casually shoved the severed, twitching eye directly into his open mouth, forcing him to swallow his own bloodline trait.
Then, she began a low, dark incantation. Her azure mana flared, invading Caesar's open wounds.
"Internal Frost Sieve!"
The spell took hold instantly. Using the rich, high-grade Magus blood inside Caesar's own veins as a conduit, the magic forcibly froze his internal fluids, transforming his blood into thousands of microscopic, razor-sharp ice spikes.
Puchi! Puchi! Puchi!
Thousands of blood-red ice needles erupted outward from inside his body, tearing through his organs, muscles, and skin from the inside out.
Caesar's body was completely sieved, transformed into a macabre, frozen porcupine of red ice before he finally went still, his life force entirely extinguished.
Leylin made sure Cabourn's glassy eyes observed every single second of his son's gruesome death. Once the final shriek died down, Leylin's hands tightened around Cabourn's skull.
CRUNCH!
With a brutal application of raw physical force, Leylin crushed Cabourn's head between his palms like a ripe watermelon. Dark blood and gray cerebrospinal fluid gushed out from between his fingers, splashing heavily onto the frozen earth below.
Leylin tossed the ruined remains into the dirt, turning his calm, unbothered gaze back toward the burning horizon of the Four Seasons Garden.
"Another one.."
At this moment, the platinum gate to the secret plane suddenly rumbled. The energy waves produced were very distinct, to the point that Leylin could feel them from his current location.
Afterwards, an unknown existence that must have been at least a rank 2 Magus passed through the gate of the secret plane and approached them.
"You darn dark bastards! Receive the judgement of lightning!"
This voice was full of anger, seemingly full of raging flames.
*Hualala!*
The newly arrived magus had a blue robe draped over his sturdy body, which proudly displayed his chest and bulging muscles. Under his blonde fringe, there was a blue lightning mark on the forehead.
What garnered the majority of attention was his eyes. Every time they blinked, slight electric currents flickered.
"My Lord the strike team has evacuated the Four Seasons Garden." Lancey stated.
Leylin nodded, "We are leaving too but before that..."
The shattered fragments of Cabourn's skull lay smoking in the crimson-stained ice, but the soul of a Rank 2 Magus does not dissipate easily.
Leylin's ruby eyes flashed with a cold, predatory light. "Soulbound Devourer, activate."
An abyssal, pitch-black vortex opened directly within the center of his palm, generating a violent spiritual suction that warped the very fabric of the surrounding air.
The silver phantom screamed as an invisible, spectral chain latched onto its core, dragging it backward against its will. With a final, echoing wail, Cabourn's soul was swallowed whole, pulled directly into the depths of Leylin's internal soulbound space.
Inside the crimson-tinted void of the soulbound domain, the true battle began. Cabourn's Rank 2 soul was a cornered beast, and it refused to submit to the slavery of a binding contract.
Realizing the terrifying fate that awaited him, the silver phantom went into a frantic, homicidal frenzy.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Cabourn unleashed a wild, unrestricted tempest of silver spiritual force. The energy lashed out like jagged bolts of lightning, violently battering the boundaries of the soulbound space. The localized dimension shook catastrophically, its ethereal walls cracking and buckling under the sheer, chaotic output of the dying Magus's mind.
The entire domain was being trashed, the silver shockwaves threatening to disrupt Leylin's own sea of consciousness as Cabourn desperately fought to shatter the cage.
"Foolish resistance," Leylin's detached voice echoed throughout the mental expanse like thunder from the heavens.
He ceased his passive observation and completely threw off all remaining restraints, unleashing his full, unmitigated Rank 2 power directly into the internal space. The phantasmal projection of a colossal Giant Kemoyin Serpent materialized within the crimson void, its ancient, vertical amber pupils locking onto the thrashing silver phantom.
A suffocating, blood-red spiritual pressure descended like a physical hammer, instantly suffocating the silver tempest. Leylin's mental energy surged forward in waves, systematically grinding Cabourn's resistance into absolute nothingness. After a few agonizing moments of supreme, crushing suppression, the silver phantom's light finally fractured.
It was forced onto its knees, completely broken, as the dark, binding runes of the Soulbound Devourer swarmed over its body, permanently branding its core.
The rebellious silver light finally dimmed, transforming into a dull, perfectly obedient gray as the soulbound contract finalized, locking the spirit into eternal servitude.
In Leylin's mind, the cold, familiar mechanical chime of the A.I. Chip broke the silence:
[Beep! Soulbound contract finalized. Target soul successfully suppressed and anchored as an undead summon.]
[New summon — Rank 2 Magus. Strength: 21.6. Agility: 14.3. Vitality: 21.9. Spiritual Force: 104.3. Magic Power: 104 (Magic power is in synchronization with spiritual force.]
Leylin opened his eyes back in the physical clearing, a small satisfied smirk playing on his lips.
____
Hello everyone, with our Chapter total almost reaching till 100 i would request all readers to please give out their reviews for the book for the new readers.
You can review however you feel, and hope you enjoy.
Thanking you
KEETARP