The ruined capital was a labyrinth of melted marble and drifting toxic ash.

High Ranger Celeste led the way. She moved with absolute silent precision and her boots made no sound on the scorched earth.

She avoided the wide destroyed avenues where the Abyssal bombardment had leveled entire city blocks.

Instead, she navigated through the shattered husks of noble estates and collapsed market stalls.

Lucifer and Elara followed closely. The Warlord’s dark armor absorbed the ambient gray light, making him nearly invisible in the gloom.

The Twilight Sovereign kept her violet-flaming spear lowered and her golden eyes pierced the thick fog.

"The ambient corruption is thickening," Elara whispered and stepped over a puddle of glowing green slag. "The Abyss isn’t just occupying the city. It is terraforming it."

"It’s trying to," Lucifer corrected her smoothly. "But it hasn’t established a permanent anchor yet. The World-Eater is dead, and the Vanguard is scattered. This is residual rot."

He kept his void-swirling eyes focused on the massive glowing green crater of the Royal Palace looming in the distance.

Celeste suddenly threw her hand up and signaled a halt.

She crouched low behind a jagged half-melted stone wall. Lucifer and Elara moved silently to join her.

"Movement ahead," Celeste whispered and pointed her silver dagger toward a ruined open courtyard fifty yards away. "A large cluster. But they aren’t patrolling. They are... gathering."

Lucifer looked over the wall.

The courtyard was originally the training grounds for the Royal Vanguard. Now, it was a blasted crater filled with twisted iron training dummies and shattered weapon racks.

Standing in the center of the courtyard were nearly five hundred Abyssal Husks.

They were heavily mutated. Their flesh was fused with dented silver plate armor and scorched tabards. They were the elite knights who had died defending the city walls.

But they were not moving erratically. They were standing perfectly still and arranged in tight concentric circles around a massive glowing purple rune carved violently into the melted cobblestones.

[System Warning: High-Density Abyssal Ritual Detected.]

[Entity Group: Abyssal Husks (Level 45 - Mutated Infantry)]

[Status: Channelling ambient death magic to stabilize a localized rift.]

"They are trying to open a door," Elara noted quietly. "A minor tear to pull reinforcements through."

"They are using their own corrupted souls as batteries to power the rune," Celeste added and her scarred face was tight with disgust.

Celeste drew her bow and notched a heavy aether-tipped arrow.

"It’s an emotional tactic," Celeste said bitterly. "The Abyss knows humans hesitate when they see their former allies. They expect us to pause."

"We don’t pause," Lucifer stated coldly.

He did not draw his longsword. He stood up from behind the wall and completely exposed himself to the courtyard!

The five hundred Abyssal Husks reacted instantly. The moment Lucifer’s Warlord aura breached their ritual perimeter, the glowing purple rune on the ground flickered and died.

The Husks turned in perfect terrifying unison with their mindless purple eyes locking onto the dark armor.

They shrieked, a wet gurgling chorus of corrupted vocal cords, and charged!

"Commander!" Celeste yelled as she tracked the massive rushing wave of twisted metal and rotting flesh. "There are too many for a choke point!"

"I am not making a choke point," Lucifer said smoothly.

He raised his right hand. The Gauntlet of the Void King crackled with violent pitch-black lightning.

He channeled his Archmage-level mana directly into the Mythic artifact.

He did not cast a standard Gravity Crush. He used his Void Arcanist core, fueled by the Apex Multiplier, to push the spell to its absolute catastrophic limit!

"System," Lucifer commanded. "Apply the Apex Multiplier to Event Horizon. Localize the radius. Ten meters."

[Divine Talent: Apex Multiplier Activated!]

[Spell Overcharged: Event Horizon (Localized)]

[Warning: Spatial Collapse Imminent within designated radius.]

Lucifer clenched his iron-clad fist.

Directly in the center of the charging horde of five hundred Abyssal Husks, the air did not just warp. It shattered!

A perfectly spherical pitch-black singularity materialized. It was exactly ten meters wide. It absorbed all light, all sound, and all magic!

The gravitational pull was apocalyptic but perfectly contained.

The charging Husks did not even have time to scream. The massive wave of mutated knights was violently and instantly yanked off their feet.

They flew through the air, their heavy iron armor crumpling like tin foil before they even touched the black sphere.

The moment they crossed the ten-meter threshold of the Event Horizon, they were erased!

There was no blood. There was no explosion of purple ash. The Husks were simply compressed into absolute infinite density and annihilated from existence!

The singularity devoured the front line. Then the second line. Then the flanks.

The black hole acted like a massive silent vacuum cleaner. It dragged the entire five-hundred-strong horde of Level 45 mutated infantry into its core in less than three seconds!

It ripped the glowing purple ritual rune right off the cobblestones and consumed the ambient dark magic.

The courtyard was completely empty.

Lucifer opened his hand.

The Event Horizon collapsed. It vanished with a sharp deafening pop! It left a perfectly smooth hemispherical crater carved fifty feet deep into the solid bedrock of the training grounds.

[System: Hostile Swarm Eradicated.]

[Experience Gain Suspended: Mortal Level Cap Reached.]

Lucifer lowered his arm. The black lightning on his gauntlet faded.

He did not look tired. He did not even look winded. He had just erased an entire battalion of elite corrupted knights with a single controlled gesture.

Celeste lowered her bow slowly. She stared at the perfectly smooth crater, then looked at the Warlord.

"You didn’t fight them," Celeste whispered and her voice was laced with profound awe. "You just... threw them away."

"They were dead men walking," Lucifer said coldly. "I gave them a clean exit. The Abyss doesn’t get to use them anymore."

Elara stepped up beside him. Her golden eyes tracked the settling ash.

"The ritual is broken," Elara noted. "But the resonance in the city is rising. They know we are here now."

"Good," Lucifer said smoothly. He walked past the smooth crater and headed toward the distant glowing green ruins of the Royal Palace.

"Let them pull their forces to the center. It will save us the trouble of hunting them down."

They moved rapidly through the ruined city.

The landscape grew progressively worse. The melted marble buildings gave way to massive jagged ravines carved by the Abyssal bombardment.

Rivers of slow-moving corrosive green lava blocked the main streets. This forced Celeste to navigate a complex vertical path across the shattered rooftops.

Lucifer and Elara followed her effortlessly. Their high-tier physical stats allowed them to leap across the wide gaps between the burning buildings.

They reached the edge of the Noble Ward.

In his past life, this district was a sprawling expanse of immaculate mansions, pristine gardens, and high iron gates. It was where the wealthiest most powerful families in the kingdom hoarded their gold while the peasants starved.

Now, it was a graveyard of twisted metal and glass.

Celeste landed lightly on the scorched roof of a ruined mansion. She froze.

Lucifer landed a second later. He noticed her sudden rigid posture.

The High Ranger was staring down at the courtyard of the specific ruined estate below them. The heavy iron gates were melted into slag. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

The beautiful gardens were reduced to black ash. The main house was entirely collapsed and crushed by a massive piece of debris.

But it was not the destruction that paralyzed the seasoned mercenary.

It was the crest carved into the cracked stone archway over the gate. A silver hawk clutching a broken arrow.

"Celeste?" Elara asked softly and stepped up beside the Ranger.

Celeste did not answer. Her dark eyes were wide and fixed entirely on the ruined estate. Her hands, usually perfectly steady, trembled slightly as she gripped her bow.

"This is my family’s estate," Celeste whispered with her voice cracking. "House Vane. This is where I grew up... before Lord Vorian slaughtered my Ranger corps and branded me a traitor."

Lucifer’s void-swirling eyes narrowed. He looked down into the courtyard.

The estate was not empty.

A massive grotesque shape shifted in the shadows of the collapsed main house.

It was an Abyssal Husk, but it was not a standard mutated guard. It was an amalgamation.

A horrifying towering creature forged from the fused bodies of dozens of people. Twisted melted silver armor mixed with expensive burned silk and crushed bone.

Multiple faces, stretched and warped by necrotic magic, protruded from the beast’s massive chest.

[System Warning: Elite Mutated Entity Detected!]

[Name: The Amalgamation of Vane (Level 50 - Abyssal Horror)]

[Status: Guarding localized territory.]

The monster dragged a massive rusted iron gate behind it like a club. It lumbered into the faint light of the courtyard with its multiple burning purple eyes scanning the ruins.

Celeste gasped.

She stared at the faces fused into the creature’s chest. They were heavily mutated and covered in green rot and Abyssal burns.

The monster looked up. Its purple eyes locked onto the three figures standing on the roof.

It let out a horrifying multi-layered screech! It was the combined agonizing scream of a dozen familiar voices.

"No..." Celeste choked and took a step backward. Her bow dropped slightly. The cold ruthless mercenary commander completely broke.

She could not raise her weapon. She could not aim at the faces of her peers.

The Amalgamation did not hesitate.

It swung the massive rusted iron gate. The sheer physical strength of the Level 50 horror ripped the heavy metal through the air with terrifying speed.

It aimed the colossal improvised club directly at Celeste and intended to smash her off the roof.

Celeste stood paralyzed with her eyes locked on her peers twisted face. She did not dodge. She did not block.

Before the heavy iron gate could touch her, a blur of dark motion stepped in front of her!

CRASH!

The massive iron gate slammed directly into Lucifer.

The impact was deafening. The rusted metal shattered upon hitting the Warlord!

Lucifer did not activate Gravity Crush to stop the blow. He did not use Void Step to dodge. He simply stood there and planted his boots firmly on the stone roof.

He took the full unmitigated kinetic force of the Level 50 strike directly against his dark leather armor and raised iron gauntlet!

The Warlord did not even flinch. He did not take a single step backward.

The massive iron gate splintered into pieces and rained rusted shards down into the courtyard.

Celeste blinked and snapped out of her paralysis as the metal crashed around them. She looked at Lucifer’s broad unmoving back. He had stepped directly into the kill zone to shield her.

Lucifer did not turn around. He kept his void-swirling eyes locked on the shrieking mutated horror below.

"You don’t have to look at the past anymore, Celeste," Lucifer stated smoothly with his voice a low absolute rumble that carried no pity, only undeniable command.

He drew his ruby-red longsword. The Blade of Ruin flared and cast a bloody light over his dark armor.

"Look at me," Lucifer ordered.

He did not wait for her response. He vaulted off the roof and dropped directly toward the massive screaming amalgamation of her dead peers.

The execution was going to be clean, absolute, and entirely devoid of hesitation.