After Eldrin finished speaking, the four Demigod-level demons surrounding Isavel in the sky moved.
The Lava Demon’s breath poured down like a blood-colored waterfall, melting and warping the very space it touched.
The Black-robed Demon acted more like a Death God; in the gloom, invisible threads of death coiled around Isavel’s body.
With a wave of its massive hand, the Skeleton Demon summoned the Undead Legion.
They pieced together a gargantuan skeletal frame and swung a massive axe down toward her.
The final demon had already appeared behind her, its poisoned dagger poised to pierce her heart.
LV92, LV97, LV95, LV95 — these were the Magic Levels of the four demons.
The most terrifying was the Black-robed Demon, which resembled a Death God.
Its Magic Level of 97 meant it had almost touched the peak of the Demigod level, and the Abyssal Magic within its body was exceptionally powerful.
If it were to appear alive in the Aos Empire, the entire Imperial Senate might not be able to wound it even if every member were deployed.
However, at the very moment they launched their lethal assault, Isavel moved.
She did not retreat, nor did she defend. She simply took a single step forward.
Her right hand closed around empty air, and a pitch-black long blade condensed from the void into her palm.
The blade was utterly lusterless, as if it could swallow all light. It was straight as a ruler, with only a nearly invisible line of silver light flowing along the edge.
Isavel simply held the pitch-black blade upright before her.
It was not a block, nor was it a parry.
It was a declaration.
“BREAK.”
It was a single, nonchalant word.
Before the four attacks could touch Isavel, they slammed into a barrier of absolute laws.
The lava breath disintegrated, the death threads snapped one by one, the Undead Legion vanished, and the poisoned dagger could not advance another inch.
The four Demigods felt as though they had fallen into a swamp of Magic, unable to move.
Following this, Isavel moved again.
She walked toward the nearest Lava Demon with the blade in hand, her steps brimming with elegance and composure.
The long blade trailed at her side, its tip carving a thin black line through space — that line was not a scratch, but a wound in space itself that could not heal for a long time.
Filled with terror, the Lava Demon swung its fists violently at Isavel, but she evaded every strike.
Simultaneously, the earth shattered, and countless torrents of magma fell like a rainstorm.
That was until the blade gracefully sliced through its body.
There was no resistance. The blade passed through it, cutting it directly in half.
The lava solidified in mid-air and fell, eventually turning into a rain of cold obsidian that crashed into the ground.
‘Dead? It’s dead?’
In just three breaths, the Lava Demon had perished.
Although the remaining three demons were terrified, the reality that they could not truly die kept their courage afloat.
However, Isavel did not stop after killing the Lava Demon.
While the demon resembling a Death God was still weaving its death threads, she had already appeared behind it.
The pitch-black blade pierced its heart, ending its life as it stared back with an incomprehensible gaze.
The deaths of the remaining two demons were much the same. Before the pitch-black blade, everything they unleashed was annihilated, including their own lives.
The deaths of four Demigod-level demons caused a rain of blood to fall from the sky of the Abyssal Ancient Battlefield.
Seeing this from a distance, Eldrin finally looked up.
He looked at the demons and spoke softly, as if critiquing insignificant experimental subjects.
“Trash is trash. Even in the Abyssal Ancient Battlefield, they are as useless as ever.”
Then, he turned to Isavel. For the first time, a genuine emotion surfaced in his eyes — surprise.
“However, you truly surprise me, Isavel. Even in my era, there were very few mages who could reach such heights.”
His tone even carried a hint of near-appreciation.
“With strength like yours, you must be considered a commander of humanity in your era, right? Or at least a pillar-like existence.”
He slowly gripped his magic staff. Terrifying Magic swept through the surroundings, revealing a side completely different from the Grand Mage who had struggled to resist the Demon Tide earlier.
At this moment, he had also reached the peak of the Demigod level — LV99.
“If you leave the Ancient Battlefield now, I can spare your life for the sake of us both being human.”
“The waters of this battlefield are deeper than you imagine. Cutting the Root of the Evil Dragon? That is nothing but a naive delusion.”
He stared into Isavel’s deep eyes and spoke one word at a time. “Do not be so stubborn.”
Isavel did not answer immediately.
She tilted her head slightly, her black hair brushing over her shoulder. Her gaze moved past Eldrin, looking toward the Rose Knights who were still bravely slaying demons in Derose.
Every one of them was covered in blood and filth, and some had sustained significant injuries. Yet, to protect the people of Derose, not a single one of them chose to retreat.
She pulled her gaze back, her voice calm but resolute.
“The stubborn one is you, Eldrin.”
She took a step forward, and the long blade in her hand erupted with a sharp aura capable of slicing skin.
“If the Root of the Abyssal Evil Dragon is not severed, the Abyssal Dragon will eventually fully revive. When that happens, all of humanity in the real world will face a true doomsday.”
“Therefore, until my goal is achieved, I will not return under any circumstances.”
Her gaze locked onto Eldrin again. There was no anger in her eyes, only an unwavering determination.
She paused for a moment before asking a rare question in a questioning tone:
“And you, as a sage of humanity, shouldn’t you stand on the side of humans and think of future generations?”
“A sage of humanity? Think of future generations?”
Eldrin repeated those words and suddenly started laughing.
The laughter was soft at first, but it gradually became raspy and desolate, eventually bordering on madness.
The laughter stopped abruptly.
All the gentle persuasion and even the obsessive fanaticism faded from his face, leaving behind only naked selfishness.
“When I was alive, I did enough for humanity. I guarded cities, taught apprentices, and fought demons. I even chose to die on this battlefield at the final moment… I burned everything I had.”
He glanced down at the ruins of Derose.
“Now, in this frozen pocket of time, I only want to live for myself once. What is wrong with maintaining this ‘present’ that I choose to believe in?”
His gaze became as sharp as a knife. “As for the future, for those humans I have never met and who have nothing to do with me… what do they have to do with me?”
Exhaling softly, Isavel knew that Eldrin was beyond saving.
Or rather, the person before her was not the Eldrin who could sacrifice himself for humanity.
This was merely another person who possessed Eldrin’s memories.
Seeing that Isavel had given up on the conversation, Eldrin moved.
He waved his staff. There was no incantation, but every speck of dust in the ruins atop the tower began to vibrate, emitting a low-frequency hum.
Simultaneously, seven bone spears the size of fists condensed in the air.
“Go!”
Accompanying his command, the seven bone spears instantly shot toward Isavel.
However, Isavel did not even swing her blade. She raised her left hand, palm facing outward, and curled her five fingers slightly.
The seven bone spears froze three meters away from her. Then, as if seized by an invisible giant hand, they shattered simultaneously and dispersed into powder.
Eldrin’s offensive did not stop. Nine giant snakes with distinct scales burst from the earth, snapping at Isavel from all directions.
Each of these snakes emitted an aura no weaker than the previous Demigod-level demons.
This time, Isavel moved her blade, drawing a circle around herself.
Wherever the blade passed, it left a faint black fissure. The nine snakes slammed into those fissures as if hitting the boundary of the world.
Their bodies exploded simultaneously, and the crimson blood was swallowed by the fissures before it could even splatter.
Eldrin’s expression remained unchanged, but the last trace of hope in his eyes vanished completely.
He took a deep breath. His voice became hollow, as if coming from a great distance.
“It seems ordinary methods won’t work on you. In that case — “
He dropped his staff and suddenly ripped his hands apart toward both sides!
“FORBIDDEN CURSE! GATE OF THE GHOST REALM!”
The sky directly above Derose split open.
It was not a rift in space, but the ghostly image of a giant gate a hundred feet tall slowly emerging.
The doors were constructed from countless distorted, wailing human faces.
Absolute-zero death energy leaked from the gaps, and a despairing whisper capable of freezing the soul began to permeate the area.
Before the gate was even fully open, just from the manifestation of its shadow, every living being in the ruins of Derose began to be uncontrollably sucked toward it.
This was a forbidden gate that truly connected to the source of death — the legendary Ultimate Banishment Spell.
Eldrin’s figure became almost transparent beneath the shadow of the gate.
He laughed. “Anyone pulled into this will surely die! It is still not too late to retreat!”
Isavel looked up at the giant gate, a serious expression appearing on her face for the first time.
She gripped the handle of the pitch-black blade with both hands and held it vertically before her brow.
The wild winds howled and her skirt swayed. She closed her eyes.
The blade inexplicably began to grow hot. Amidst the pitch blackness, it felt as if a starry sky were appearing.
She did not retreat. Instead, she turned the blade, pointing the tip toward the giant gate.
“Forbidden Curse,” she whispered to herself before shouting clearly: “STREAMING LIGHT!”
As the name was called out, a streak of black light suddenly separated from the blade.
That darkness was the beginning and end of all light.
The moment it detached, time seemed to lose meaning, space lost its layers, and all things lost their color.
Only that single line of “black” remained as the sole existence in the world.
The pitch-black blade-light slammed into the Gate of the Ghost Realm. As before, there was no explosion and no roar.
The moment the ghostly gate touched it, the gate began to melt like snow under the sun.
After the black blade-light passed through it, it suddenly shattered, turning into countless colors that illuminated the horizon.
Under the radiance of these lights, the human faces built into the gate showed expressions of liberation.
The black blood evaporated into pure water vapor, and the death energy from the gate’s cracks was transformed by these colors into a vibrant breeze.
STREAMING LIGHT — a Forbidden Curse Isavel had mastered only after stepping into the peak of the Demigod level.
This was her first time using it, and based on the result, it was quite good.
The Gate of the Ghost Realm was annihilated by the Streaming Light, but the light’s momentum did not fade. Following the remaining connection of the gate, it surged toward Eldrin.
However, the moment the light touched Eldrin, it passed right through his body.
“Truly, truly an eye-opener… To think my Gate of the Ghost Realm could one day be directly destroyed by someone. Your strength, even in my era, would be the undisputed number one!”
Eldrin was trembling all over, as if he had witnessed something unbelievable. Excitement and fear were intertwined. Then, he gradually regained his composure.
“However, it is useless. The Gate of the Ghost Realm is not that simple. The moment I opened it, I swapped my body and soul. Now, I am a pure soul — immortal, indestructible, shadowless, and formless!”
“Even if you use every magic in the world, you can’t dream of harming me in the slightest!”
The ghost he had become darted freely through the sky, seemingly mocking Isavel. However, she watched him silently and let the long blade in her hand dissipate.
Then, she raised her right hand and spread her five fingers, aiming at the densest core of the ghost in the air.
“Is that so?”
She said only those three words.
Immediately after, her fingers slowly curled inward.
“CONVERGENCE.”
There was almost no magic fluctuation. The moment she spoke that word, Eldrin’s soul in the sky suddenly froze.
His terrified voice squeezed back from all directions, eventually converging into a single point that rang out from Isavel’s palm:
“What? How… how is this possible? What kind of magic is this? To think my soul could be… trapped?!”
He tried to break free, but in the state of Convergence, he was completely unable to use any magic.
At this moment, he felt like a toy trapped in a palm. Forget resisting; he couldn’t even turn over.
Isavel’s curled fingers tightened.
Eventually, Eldrin’s ghost was forcibly compressed, turning into a grey-white orb the size of a fist.
She held the soul orb, looking at Eldrin’s terrified and distorted face within it. Her voice was calm.
“Eldrin, the eras always move forward. The field of Soul Magic that no one delved into thousands of years ago…”
In her deep eyes, the orb was reflected, as was a more distant future.
“It does not mean that no one will delve into it or master it thousands of years later.”
Inside the light orb, Eldrin finally stopped struggling.
On his aged face, his final expression solidified into a complex mix of shock, resentment, and a trace of realization.
He had not lost to Isavel; he had lost to a new era.
“The Divine Court… do you think the Divine Court will let you destroy the Ancient Battlefield?!”
“They are just like me! They will fight to the death to protect the Ancient Battlefield! Just you wait!”
After a moment of silence, Eldrin’s voice drifted out from the orb. Isavel squeezed her hand, using magic to block out his voice.
The reason she didn’t kill him was that she wanted him to lead the way and guide them to the Divine Court.
As for the Divine Court’s opinion of her…
It wasn’t actually important.
If they were also unwilling to sever the Root of the Evil Dragon, then she would simply take action herself.
As a Villainous Saint, what she was best at was using power to bully others.
Her fists were the biggest, so everyone had to listen to her.