"Ha!"
Olungus roared, straining against the crushing weight of Baal's presence as he hurled a massive, sky-shrouding boulder toward the Demon Lord.
The stone was colossal, and despite being on the frozen peaks of the mountain, it radiated a blistering heat. Flames surged across its surface, reflecting the molten lava left behind by the tremors of his Leap. No one would mistake those white-hot flames for anything but lethal. The power of the Earth here felt less like a manipulation of elements and more like a raw, physical manifestation of kinetic destruction.
Yet, something was slightly off.
An attack fueled by the rising tide of a Barbarian's fury shouldn't be quite this massive. For Olungus—an ancestor who specialized in this very technique—size usually indicated a lack of refinement. A boulder this large might give someone a case of silicosis from the dust, but it shouldn't have enough concentrated force to end a battle of this scale.
The surface of the rock was unnervingly smooth, unlike any natural stone. It looked as though it had been polished a thousand times over by some unseen force.
Three leaps. Olungus had already executed three consecutive Leaps.
His fury manifested on his skin as a visible aura, yet the subsequent impact of such heavy power shouldn't have looked this... flamboyant. Consequently, Baal remained unmoved. Even though the Lord of Destruction knew this attack was likely a desperate gambit tailored specifically for him, he felt no threat.
"Calga!" Baal bellowed.
Compared to the suspicious-looking boulder and the cryptic motives of these Barbarians, Calga—who had just managed to leave a serious wound on his body—was far more deserving of his attention.
To these beings, the primary sensation of this battle was boredom. The fight couldn't truly gain them anything, nor could it change the past. Even if they replayed this moment ten thousand times, the Arreat Summit, which had been reduced to cinders, would not return.
Baal grabbed Hellboy—the "Hellish Baron"—and threw him like a common projectile, intercepting the path of the giant boulder.
Fragments of the rules governing Hellboy's existence began to flake off his body like dry biscuit crumbs, drifting through the air. These shards formed a series of miniature barriers in mid-air, disrupting Baal's own Field of Destruction.
Then, under the sheer force of the collision, Hellboy's physical form disintegrated.
It looked like a freshly stuffed sausage being slammed onto the pavement by a heavy brick—he simply burst into a spray of gore.
It was a nauseating sight. Of course, there was only one "ordinary" human left to witness it: Liz Sherman. The poor woman who had sacrificed everything to strike at Baal, only to be stripped of her powers and reduced to a mundane civilian.
And now, the man she loved had been turned into a rain of blood that drenched her from head to toe.
It was just blood. Yet, through the crimson veil, Liz could feel the heat—a temperature far higher than that of a normal human. In that searing warmth, Liz finally felt the burn. Blisters began to bubble and swell across her face.
Her pupils dilated sharply, and she seemed to lose consciousness on her feet. She reached out a trembling, powerless arm, turning her head woodenly to look at Baal.
No one noticed that the spray of gore was being slowly, methodically absorbed into the giant boulder.
"You are dead," Baal said flatly.
Though "death" here lacked reality, Baal didn't care about Liz's stare. Regardless of the emotions behind a mortal's gaze, they could not harm him in the slightest.
With his hand now free, Baal lunged forward and seized Calga's calf, swinging him with violent, bone-breaking force.
A lesson was in order. For the weak, challenging the Prime Evils required a price. Even if death wasn't permanent here, something else had to be paid.
As Baal swung him, Calga's body was subjected to such immense centrifugal force that he was literally torn in half from the crotch up. His internal organs spilled into the air, only to be incinerated instantly by the ambient heat.
Even as he was being forced out of the fight, Calga sought to leave a mark. When a Barbarian fought, the enemy always paid a price. In that regard, Calga and Baal shared a similar philosophy.
Calga, the Vanguard General: Eliminated.
At that moment, the massive boulder finally made contact with Baal's head.
To Baal's surprise, he passed right through it without any resistance. The stone felt like a soft, weightless cloud, possessing no physical hardness at all. It was nothing like the solid object that had just pulverized Hellboy's body.
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