(Planet Ilyon Reach, Leo’s POV)
It took Leo another twenty four hours to reach Ilyon Reach from Omega, however, the moment he arrived, the situation unfolded with far more convenience than he expected, as the planet’s Monarch came out to confront him in under two minutes, saving him the trouble of hunting for the strongest defender later.
Du Cairo of the Du Clan stood before him, saber raised, aura sharp, eyes steady with the kind of confidence only a lifetime of victories could forge.
Yet while formidable, he was still no match for Leo, who cut him down in under a hundred moves, his daggers slipping past the Monarch’s final guard as naturally as drawing breath.
*Thud*
Once Du Cairo died, the planet began collapsing in on itself.
The chain of command broke instantly, as every surviving officer tried to seize control at the same time, their overlapping orders turning the three major continental clusters into fields of confusion long before Leo even reached them.
From that moment onward, the entire invasion became little more than a systematic cleanup, as Leo moved across the planet with the singular purpose of eliminating soldiers and wasting nothing on unnecessary theatrics.
He erased the first continental cluster in a few hours, moving through fortresses and armored lines as though he were dismantling a structure he had built himself.
While the second cluster fell even faster, its battalions crushed under the weight of their own disarray while Leo carved through them with cold, deliberate efficiency.
Lastly, the third cluster offered a brief attempt at combined resistance, with fleets gathering overhead and fortress cities activating every shield they possessed, yet none of it mattered once Leo broke their formation and severed their leadership in one sweep.
Every region he stepped into was emptied.
Every stronghold he struck, destroyed.
And every soldier who he came against, killed.
By the time thirty hours passed, Ilyon Reach had no army left to speak of, as silence overtook the planet in a way that felt almost unnatural, like a world devoid of life, rather than a world with a once booming population.
*Drip*
*Drip*
Leo stood at the edge of the final cluster, blood drying slowly on his sleeves, as he opened the [Emperor Suppression Manual] and watched the numbers shift into place.
[Progress: 2,006,045,070 / 2,000,000,000]
The manual confirmed as he finally let out a large breath of relief.
*Sigh*
"It’s done...."
He mused, as he felt extremely relieved at the fact that he had completed the manual’s insane requirement of claiming 2 billion lives in a timeline that still left room for him to save Veyr.
While also not having compromised on his morals of killing innocent civilians for no reason whatsoever.
—-----------
(Meanwhile on Granada, Mauriss’s POV )
*Thunder*
*Rain*
Water trickled down Mauriss’s bare chest, as he stared at the dark clouds over Granada with an almost aimless stare.
’Why.....Why must you die?’
He wondered, as for once there was no feral grin on his face, nor any mischief in his eyes.
A mood like this was rare for him, painfully rare, for out of the three hundred and sixty five days in a year..... he spent three hundred and sixty four in high spirits : laughing, killing, indulging in every sadistic pleasure he could get his hands on—
Which was precisely why this quiet, hollow downturn that he was experiencing today felt strangely out of place.
"What happens after I kill you, Soron...?"
He muttered, his voice low, almost contemplative, as though he were asking the clouds themselves instead of the man who had occupied his mind for two thousand uninterrupted years.
For centuries he had lived with a singular purpose, a singular thrill, a singular chase that spanned eras, as almost every night when he closed his eyes for a moment’s rest.... The same blistering thought echoed from his soul.
A thought that said, ’I will kill you someday.’
And although he never realised it.
It was this very promise that had kept him entertained and occupied through the rough times.
"The universe will definitely be an extremely boring place without the Cult and Soron.
I never realised it.
But perhaps I need you more than I thought."
Mauriss muttered, as now, with Soron’s demise drawing closer, he felt a strange emptiness open within him.
An emptiness that made him wonder as to what was next?
"What will I even do after that?"
He wondered softly, as lightning illuminated the faint crease on his brow — a crease no one would ever believe existed on the Great Deceivers face unless they witnessed it themselves.
*Sigh*
Sighing deeply, Mauriss tried to picture the universe beyond Soron.
Tried to summon the image of another rivalry.
Tried to imagine any other hunt that could raise his pulse even half as much.
But every imagined opponent felt dull, colorless, unbearably mundane.
As compared to Soron, no-one else stirred him quite the same.
"I would need a new source of entertainment," he whispered, the words slipping out with a strange mixture of honesty and boredom.
"And to be fair... the only one even mildly interesting enough after you... is your brother."
He admitted, as his lips twitched faintly, though the smile that attempted to form carried no weight, for he knew that even Kaelith was not as interesting to him as Soron.
"Haaah—"
A long, unhurried sigh escaped him, lost instantly to the crashing waves below.
"Well... I suppose it is a problem for another day," he murmured at last, rolling his shoulders back as the familiar aura of careless amusement slowly bled back into his stance, washing away the crack of melancholy that had surfaced moments before.
"And problems meant for another day," he added, his tone drifting toward its usual playful sharpness, "are meant to be handled another day."
He said, as with that, the last trace of gloom vanished from his face, replaced by the unmistakable, dangerous smile that had terrorized the universe for millennia — a smile that promised storms, chaos, and whatever calamity he decided to create next.