Chapter 70 — Suppression
The sky above the Kingdom of Wind had ceased to be a sky anymore.
What was unfolding above the floating cities had completely surpassed the limits of a normal battle. The clouds had long since vanished, blown away by the successive shockwaves created by the clash between Rhea and Zero. The heavens themselves seemed to tear apart beneath the monstrous pressure of the two powers.
Magical storms covered the entire horizon.
Space itself cracked at times.
And amidst this chaos…
Rhea continued fighting.
Her black armor of the God of War released torrents of mana capable of crushing mountains, while her gigantic wings pulverized the celestial currents of the entire kingdom. Every flap produced explosions that crossed the atmosphere for hundreds of kilometers.
She was terrifyingly magnificent.
Facing her…
Zero simply floated within the void.
Motionless.
With horrifying calm.
Like an anomaly impossible to comprehend.
Then suddenly—
Rhea vanished.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
Space exploded in front of Zero.
The Valkyrie had already appeared above him, her spear covered in gigantic violet light.
— "RAGNAROK BREAKER!!! WORLD SLASH!"
The strike descended.
And the entire sky split apart.
A wave of destruction pierced directly through the planet's atmosphere before continuing into outer space. Entire continents felt the pressure of the impact despite being thousands of kilometers away from the Kingdom of Wind.
But—
CLACK.
Zero had stopped the attack with his bare hand.
Silence froze the world for a fraction of a second.
Then—
Rhea screamed.
Her mana exploded violently.
And a new transformation began.
Her armor changed again.
Then again.
Then again.
Dozens of magical layers appeared around her.
Each new armor radiated a different power.
Some were made of flames.
Others of pure light.
Some possessed six arms.
Others had gigantic mechanical wings.
Then the sky literally filled with armors.
Hundreds of different Valkyries appeared behind her like incarnations of war.
— "Hundred Valkyrie System."
The surviving soldiers remained frozen in shock.
So this was Valkyrie magic.
Because they finally understood why Rhea was called the Queen of Valkyries… and why she was ranked Class S.
She did not possess a single armor.
She possessed hundreds.
Then the massacre of the heavens began.
BOOOOOOOOOOM.
Rhea crossed the kingdom at monstrous speed.
Every time an armor was destroyed…
another immediately replaced it.
— "VALKYRIE: BERSERKER FORM!"
A gigantic crimson armor enveloped her body as she struck Zero with monstrous force.
Mountains exploded apart.
Then—
BOOM.
Zero simply raised his eyes.
And time around the attack shattered.
Rhea's entire armor suddenly aged several thousand years before disintegrating into dust.
But already—
— "VALKYRIE: DIVINE JUDGMENT!"
A new white armor instantly appeared.
Billions of luminous blades descended from the sky, surpassing light itself countless times over.
Dodging them was practically impossible.
Zero then simply raised one finger.
And immediately—
the physical laws around him began to distort.
Space violently trembled.
Then gravity…
reversed.
Not only around his body.
Across the entire aerial zone.
The thousands of projectiles summoned by Rhea instantly changed trajectory.
Toward the sky itself.
The world had lost its orientation in that moment.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
The attacks crashed against the upper atmosphere in a series of cataclysmic explosions that illuminated the entire planet. Entire fragments of the heavens seemed to fracture beneath the violence of the impacts while clouds hundreds of kilometers away were blown apart like grains of dust.
But amidst this chaos…
Zero still did not move.
His coat slowly floated within the void.
His gaze remained empty.
His mask remained intact.
Absolutely nothing here was capable of reaching him.
After that—
Rhea slowly raised her blood-covered hand.
It was clear she was beginning to tire.
And another armor appeared.
— "VALKYRIE: ABYSS EMPRESS."
BOOOOOOOOOOM.
She hurled Zero through the void for hundreds of kilometers.
A gigantic black armor covered in living red eyes enveloped her body while an immense dark crown appeared above her head. The eyes upon the armor truly moved.
They observed every direction.
And each one seemed filled with monstrous hatred.
Gravitational singularities began appearing around Zero.
One.
Then ten.
Then hundreds.
Miniature black holes.
Space immediately began collapsing around him. Even light itself started disappearing while nearby dimensions became unstable.
The soldiers of the Kingdom of Wind immediately felt their breathing stop.
They could not believe Rhea's true power.
Because they finally believed—
they were certain of her victory.
Then all the black holes collapsed simultaneously toward Zero.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
A massive explosion.
An immense black sphere literally swallowed a portion of the sky.
The entire kingdom momentarily plunged into total darkness.
And—
Zero lightly sighed.
And the singularities simply ceased to exist.
Not destroyed…
Nor repelled…
They disappeared.
He had rewound time to an instant where they had never been created.
Even Rhea slightly trembled.
He was the strongest being she had ever faced.
She felt something horrifying.
Zero did not destroy phenomena.
He erased their existence itself.
Then again.
And again.
The transformations began chaining together at a speed that became completely uncontrollable.
The entire sky filled with different lights.
Red.
White.
Golden.
Black.
Blue.
Hundreds of armors successively appeared around Rhea's body while her mana became increasingly violent.
— "VALKYRIE: HEAVEN EXECUTIONER!"
Billions of celestial swords fell from the heavens.
— "VALKYRIE: COSMOS TYRANT!"
Miniature galaxies rotated around her body, ready to strike.
— "VALKYRIE: DIVINE FUNERAL!"
Black flames capable of consuming the soul invaded space itself.
— "VALKYRIE: STAR EATER!"
A gigantic maw made of mana devoured part of the sky.
Every new armor was more monstrous than the previous one.
Every new transformation shook the kingdom even harder.
At this level…
the entire planet itself risked destruction.
And yet…
Zero destroyed them all.
With absurd ease.
Sometimes he froze time around the attacks.
The spells remained suspended in the air before crumbling into dust.
Sometimes he accelerated their future.
Certain armors instantly aged billions of years before disintegrating.
Or sometimes…
he simply looked at an attack.
And it ceased to exist.
His mastery over time was perfect.
But despite everything—
Rhea continued.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Her body was slowly destroying itself.
She was prepared to sacrifice everything to protect her nation.
Her bones cracked with every movement.
Blood constantly scattered through the air behind her.
Her mana had begun burning her own organs.
But she refused to fall in battle.
Because she knew.
If she died here…
the Kingdom of Wind would disappear in Hawk's absence.
And finally—
something changed.
The mana surrounding Rhea suddenly became unstable.
Violent.
The atmosphere itself seemed incapable of enduring such power.
Cracks appeared in the sky.
The oceans of clouds beneath the kingdom began spiraling wildly.
This time—
Zero raised his eyes.
Because for the first time since the battle began…
he felt a genuine rise in power.
Then—
billions of runes appeared across the heavens.
The entire atmosphere turned violet.
All of Rhea's armors began fusing together.
The hundreds of different Valkyries exploded into luminous particles before recomposing themselves around her.
Her body now shone like a star.
A gigantic black Valkyrie appeared behind her.
An entity so enormous…
that it surpassed the clouds and nearly reached outer space.
Its wings covered the entire horizon.
Its eyes illuminated the heavens.
Even distant continents could see that silhouette from the surface of the world.
Then Rhea slowly raised her spear.
Her breathing trembled.
Her body stood on the edge of collapse.
But her eyes…
still burned with determination.
This woman was truly admirable.
— "Alter…"
Then silence.
— "Release."
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
The attack fired.
And the sky disappeared.
The beam instantly pierced through the planet's atmosphere, pulverizing cloud layers across thousands of kilometers before continuing into space.
The moon exploded.
Completely.
Rhea had annihilated it.
The entire satellite was obliterated in an explosion so gigantic that even Zero was impressed.
Billions of lunar fragments scattered through space.
The world's oceans immediately became unstable.
Tsunamis appeared on the opposite side of the planet.
The stars themselves temporarily vanished beneath the light of the explosion.
Even the soldiers of the Kingdom of Wind fell to their knees.
Because they understood what they had just witnessed.
Rhea…
had destroyed the moon.
Total silence fell.
And within a microsecond—
Zero simply raised his hand toward the sky.
And time reversed.
The lunar fragments instantly ceased falling.
The explosions rewound.
The pieces of the moon slowly returned to their original places.
The billions of fragments gradually reformed the destroyed satellite.
Then a few seconds later—
the moon was completely restored.
Intact.
As though nothing had ever happened.
Even Rhea remained frozen in shock.
Her gaze slightly trembled.
Because at that precise moment…
she finally understood.
This monster was not merely powerful.
He played with time the way a god plays with a broken toy.
Then deep within the Kingdom of Wind—
red alarms suddenly blared.
Inside the kingdom's secret underground chambers, immense ancient structures slowly began activating. Thousands of mages ran between gigantic mechanisms covered in golden runes while absurd quantities of mana were injected into a colossal structure.
The Orion Cannon.
A weapon several kilometers long that required time to activate.
A weapon created for one purpose only—
to kill calamities.
At the center of the chamber—
the Wind King silently observed the magical projections of the battle.
His face had turned pale.
Even he…
had lost hope.
— "So even Rhea is not enough… we have no choice. We'll have to destroy him."
Silence became heavy.
Then an elderly mage spoke with a trembling voice:
— "Your Majesty… if we use this weapon… all the kingdom's magic will converge into it."
The king slowly closed his eyes.
Then whispered:
— "The Orion Cannon can reproduce the power of a supernova that releases approximately 10^44 joules of energy…"
Even the scientists present trembled.
Because they knew that value.
One single mistake…
and it would not merely erase the continent.
Then the king slowly raised his eyes.
— "Activate the Orion Cannon."
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
The kingdom began trembling.
All magical energy across the nation immediately started being absorbed.
The floating mountains slowly lost altitude.
The celestial seas became unstable.
Even the atmospheric currents of the world began changing.
And in the sky—
Rhea weakly smiled despite her shattered body and screamed:
— "FIIIIIRE!!!!!!!"
Because from the very beginning…
she had intentionally pushed Zero into the upper layers of the atmosphere.
Far away from the kingdom.
Even farther from the ground.
For this single attack.
Then suddenly—
A gigantic golden light instantly crossed the cosmos.
The Orion Cannon had fired.
The attack literally resembled the birth of a star.
Space melted around the beam.
The heat alone was already vaporizing portions of the planet's atmosphere.
And then—
the beam reached Zero.
And everything turned white.
To be continued….