Building My SSS-Rank Universal Empire: From Trash to Cosmic Overlord-Chapter 176: Fallen

The stone spikes rammed into the curtains and pierced through, but nothing touched Sevrix. The man was using the darkness created by the curtain to jump from one place to another, performing shadow steps at an extremely fast pace.

Takoda watched him for a while, then calmly finished the chant he was reciting. The ground shook, and any stone or rock he wasn’t standing on floated up and began to blend together, merging to form a pillar that shrunk to the size of a staff.

He ignored Sevrix’s rapid movements and gripped the staff. With his hand tightly clamped around it and his muscles twitching slightly, he heaved the pillar up and then swung.

As the staff came down, its upper side lengthened and grew gigantic, as if it were a pillar holding up the mountains. The place where Sevrix had been jumping, along with all his dark curtains, was wiped away as the pillar passed through.

Boom!

The pillar continued its downward arc, smashing into what remained of the fortress. At the same time, it absorbed more chunks of stone, growing even larger.

Sevrix flickered to the side, floating atop a torn curtain of darkness. "Ah! You’ve finally learned how to use this spell of yours. The last time you tried, you nearly died. Remember?" 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Takoda reached out, and the pillar shrunk, turning into a stone staff once again. But this time, he didn’t seem to struggle as he held it with one hand.

He replied coolly, "I remember that the enemy fighting me then perished. We’ve dragged this thing out for too long, Sevrix. Be the Master Knight you are and fight me."

Sevrix smirked. "You can’t bait me. But what I really want to know is—why do you put your neck out for that boy? You want your land back, right? I can give that to you."

The chief shook his head, lifted his stone staff, and pointed. "You can’t understand, Sevrix. It is the lord’s will."

The tip of the staff grew rapidly and shot forward, piercing through the air like a sword.

Sevrix watched this calmly without moving. Only his eyes gleamed with a yellow luster, but in the blink of an eye, his figure flickered—and now, there wasn’t just one of him standing there anymore.

There were now dozens of Sevrix, all floating in the air. The stone staff pierced through its original target, but the figure collapsed into a puff of shadows.

Before the stone staff could return to its original shape, the faces of all the Sevrix lit up as if they carried a portion of the sun. The whole area briefly brightened, as though daylight had come. Beams of golden light shot down from their faces.

The pillar shattered and expanded into chunks of stone, forming a natural shield around Takoda—a dome that covered him like layers of a collapsed mountain.

The golden beams rained down, shattering stones and eating through the rocks, but they couldn’t break through all of them.

The figures of Sevrix merged back into one, and as he watched his stone-covered opponent, he smiled. "Got you."

The shield around the chief trembled as if struck from the inside, and the stones fell to the ground one by one.

Even the platform Takoda was standing on shook before he fell along with it.

Chief Takoda grunted, struggling to stay upright. A shadow coiled around him—from his waist, straight up his back to his chest.

It was a thick, solid shadow of a man.

Takoda tried to rip it away, but it was like touching darkness itself—his hands simply passed through. Yet, he felt its weight, and it was draining his essence at an alarming rate! Worse, it was growing larger with each passing moment.

Sevrix laughed with glee. "Ah! This is one of the most difficult techniques I’ve ever stolen. Be happy you didn’t fall into the hands of the monster I took it from.

"A technique that requires near-absolute darkness to activate. It’s been on you since the fight started, but only now has it hatched, so to speak." Sevrix floated closer.

"It’s going to suck you dry of essence and then explode—but I’m going to kill you before that happens."

The shadows around Takoda deepened, and the ground beneath him shifted into what looked like a dark sea. From within, skeletal hands reached out, gripping his legs, dragging him down into the depths while simultaneously trying to strangle him.

Takoda struggled. With his essence being drained by the shadow weighing him down, he could no longer maintain his Blightfur mode and reverted to his human form. The shadow had grown so large that he was now carrying a boulder on his back.

The veins on his head thickened, and his nose began to drip with blood from the overwhelming force choking him. The black pool beneath him was so cold he could no longer feel his legs.

But still, he held on. The small amount of stone he could still control tried to ram into the shadow constricting him, but it was ineffective. Then he tried attacking Sevrix, hurling stones and chunks of rock at him, but the man only laughed as he dodged them with ease.

Inch by inch, Chief Takoda was being dragged into the black pool, the life being squeezed out of him. Combined with the crushing weight on his back, his eyes showed helplessness even as he glared at Sevrix.

"Honestly, you should have joined me when I asked you to. Now, I don’t want you anymore. You can keep your loyalty to that boy who’s already dead. Oh? You don’t know? I sent Frexon after him immediately." Sevrix sneered.

The light in Chief Takoda’s eyes dimmed, and blood dripped from his clenched mouth. He wished he could reply to Sevrix, to tell him that their new Commander wouldn’t be defeated so easily.

That the blessed of the Crimson Lord wouldn’t fall so easily.

But the pool had dragged him past his chest, and it felt as if his chest would freeze and his blood would turn to stone.

Suddenly, the water shield that had been covering them began to fall.

Takoda couldn’t believe his eyes. To think the last thing he would see before his death was that Pomora had fallen too!