Revenge: A Path of Destruction
Chapter 100: Alex vs The Earth Patriarch (20)

Chapter 100: Alex vs The Earth Patriarch (20)

Khepri’s face twisted in raw disbelief.

Not awe. Not anger. Disbelief — the kind that digs into the marrow, that screams this shouldn’t be possible.

In one heartbeat, Alex had been dozens of meters away — a glowing blur wrapped in arcs of golden lightning, crackling in the silence that followed his last attack. In the next nanosecond, that blur shattered the space between them like glass, reappearing an arm’s length away. His katana was descending like a verdict.

The kind delivered by the gods.

All around them, the battlefield — once teeming with Khepri’s summoned legion — had become a desolate graveyard. Seventy percent of his stone warriors and divine-forged weapons were obliterated. Not scattered by chaos. Not defeated by attrition but erased by a single motion.

Stone had crumbled into fine particles, transformed into grains of sand that scattered with the lightest breeze. Once mighty weapons, forged for battle, lay in shattered heaps, their shards glistening ominously as they cooled in their remnants.

A thick atmosphere enveloped the battlefield, saturated with the acrid stench of ozone mingling with the charred remnants of earth scorched by some cataclysmic event.

Khepri, caught amid the chaos, felt a rush of emotions surge through him, his eyes widening in shock and awe. His lips parted as if to utter a prayer or perhaps a name, but the words lingered unvoiced, barely escaping his mouth in the weighty silence that followed the chaos.

"That speed... that power... that’s beyond anything a Legend-rank should be capable of..."

But his body? It had no time to fear.

No time to breathe.

Only his mind moved — the last bastion of a warrior who had seen centuries of war and had outlived countless battles. His thoughts surged outward, raw instinct commanding a hidden ace — a longsword forged deep within the earth.

It responded in a heartbeat.

The blade sang as it moved, the air parting with a shriek as it intercepted Alex’s katana—not cleanly, not with parity, but desperately, like a man raising a hand against a storm.

The weapons clashed.

A crack of thunder burst from the impact, the shockwave warping the air and flattening the scorched debris around them. Yet the balance lasted only a moment.

Alex’s blade, empowered by divine lightning and sheer intent, sheared straight through the longsword. Clean. Effortless. The sacred weapon was split in two — molten edges fizzing and sparking — but that moment of resistance?

It bought Khepri a single heartbeat.

Enough.

His body surged, instincts finally syncing with survival. He twisted hard, a violent snap of muscle and mana, just enough to pull his throat from the blade’s path. Still, the katana carved into his shoulder, shredding his outer armor like parchment and drawing a deep line of blood, but he lived.

He roared, crossing both arms as if to shield his core, funneling earth mana through every fiber of his being. A wall of force erupted from within him just as the aftershock hit.

And still—

It wasn’t enough.

The heavens trembled.

The clouds were torn asunder as the sky cracked open behind him. The ground screamed and buckled, heaving upward in a quake-like surge of force. A shockwave blasted through the air like the death cry of a fallen god.

Khepri was flung backward — no control, no grace — like a divine projectile. He smashed into the earth, the impact carving a crater large enough to fit a small village. A colossal plume of dust and rock erupted skyward, blotting out the sun, and a deep, echoing boom rolled across the battlefield like a drumbeat from the end of the world.

Blood exploded from his mouth. Bones creaked. His armor cracked at the seams. The divine weave of his robe shimmered erratically, mana fraying at the edges.

And yet, through the haze of pain—

His eyes remained wide open.

Pinned to the sky.

To the golden figure slowly descending like judgment incarnate. Alex’s katana still hummed, alive with residual arcs of golden lightning, its edge singing a song meant only for execution.

Only one thought echoed in Khepri’s fractured mind.

This boy... no... this monster...

He coughed blood again, spit and iron on his tongue, his breath ragged. But there was no time to think.

Because Alex was already upon him.

The silence cracked like brittle glass — a thunderclap roared as Alex launched from a conjured lightning platform, the golden arcs coiling beneath his feet like serpents of vengeance. He rocketed downward, katana trailing trails of power that scorched the sky itself.

The distance vanished.

Alex plummeted like a falling star, a god of war and retribution, lightning howling in his wake. His katana was aimed straight for Khepri’s chest — no mercy, no hesitation, just absolute finality.

But Khepri’s survival instincts — honed from centuries of battle, sharpened by a thousand near-deaths — roared to life.

The earth beneath him rose.

Five shields erupted upward in a layered dome — thick slabs of divine rock etched with glowing glyphs, each one radiating dense mana. They weren’t meant to block. Only delay.

CRACK!

The first shield exploded like brittle clay.

BOOM!

The second split in half, lightning punching clean through.

THIRD. FOURTH. FIFTH.

Each shield shattered under the force of the descending blade, disintegrating into molten shards and glowing dust. Lightning detonated with each impact, shockwaves pulsing outward, but—

It was enough.

In the fleeting breaths bought by his defenses, Khepri had already vanished from the crater’s core. His feet slammed into solid ground meters away as his hands reached into his dimensional storage. A shimmer of light, and his khopesh appeared. In his other hand, his broad obsidian shield, pulsing with power.

He raised both—

Just in time.

Alex erupted from the crater like a wrathful phoenix, body aglow, katana wreathed in thunderous arcs that screamed with divine fury.

Their weapons met.

Steel rang against steel. Mana clashed in a cacophony of violence.

The khopesh caught the katana’s swing, its curve expertly matching Alex’s momentum. With the support of his shield and grounded stance, Khepri managed to hold and turn the impact.

Alex was hurled backward by the redirection, lightning trailing behind him like a comet’s tail. He spun mid-air with no footing, golden arcs dancing along his limbs.

But he didn’t panic.

He never intended to fall.