"The human territory isn't some place where you can come and go as you please."
"Since you dared to come, you might as well stay."
A loud and sonorous voice filled with unquestionable authority and dignity echoed in everyone's ears.
"By my authority as the Sun Sage, I declare that no demons are allowed to disturb the sanctity of space and time anywhere within the Azure Terra Continent!"
BOOM!!
A loud thunderclap shook everybody to the reality. The humans didn't feel anything, but the demons sure did. They could feel something innate about them being taken away by an unknown force, and they're powerless to resist.
The Undead Bone Dragon felt this the best, as its gigantic body seemingly lost strength, causing it to fall down like a toppled building. It turns out that its flight was done through spatial travel too, and losing the ability to manipulate space makes it unable to soar to the skies, which makes sense given its size.
Anything that's huge shouldn't be able to fly, no matter how large its wings were to begin with.
The bone dragon was the most obvious one affected by that declaration, but every demon within Azure Terra was surely affected as well; the effect just varies depending on their innate abilities.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" The Undead Bone Dragon snarled hatefully. "HOW CAN A MERE HUMAN EXERT SOVEREIGNITY OVER PLANAR LAWS!? WHO THE HELL ARE YOU? SHOW YOURSELF!!"
"I grew tired of your incessant yapping," the same voice replied coldly.
Then, under everyone's awestruck gaze, the formation protecting human territory unfolded, and a brilliant illumination was released.
Everybody saw a rising sun releasing an unrivaled radiance that washed away the cold and dark skies above. All humans felt its comforting warmth, and all demons felt its hateful glare that singed their skin.
Witnessing the vibrant radiance of the sun and feeling its domineering energy that burned all demonic corruption away, the Undead Bone Dragon's pupils shrank in fear. That sun brought an existential dread to it, something that it had never felt before in its entire life.
The rising sun then instantly doubled in size and power. It then fired a concentrated beam of sunlight towards the Undead Bone Dragon, who's unable to escape in time.
"AARRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!"
Unprecendented agony drowned the bone dragon's entire being. This was worse than any pain it ever felt before or in its entire life. It was being burned alive by an element that's inherently harmful to it, and its passive regeneration wasn't helping at all, especially because of Chrissy's brew.
The most important part is that the insignia of wrath on its chest was disappearing under the direct torching of pure sunlight. This was the worst outcome for the demon king because its strength mostly comes from tapping into the well of power within this insignia.
The rest also moved at this point. Lissandra waved her staff and summoned spears made of pure starlight and sunfire that pierced the demon king's body and pinned it to the ground. Anthony once again summoned gigantic chains of metal burning with sunfire to prevent them from struggling.
Old Man Jin sliced its wings off, Raven summoned hundreds of feathers that burned with sunfire to further pin it down, and Cassandra called forth lightning that's as thick as a tree to smite it down.
All of this caused more agony to the dying demon king, but more importantly, it got rid of any possibilities for it to escape.
"Oh, buddy, we're not done with you!" Fiona snarled at it. "Our dear Sun Sage ordered you to stay, so you will stay!"
"Who's the inferior creature now, bitch?" Cassandra fiercely spat at it.
"Do we kill it now or...?" Anthony hesitantly asked.
Raven then said, "No, killing it now is a form of mercy this beast doesn't deserve."
"I say we try to pluck out its soul," Old Man Jin suggested. "It's a Demon King after all; that's still a precious resource. It should be possible even though we're not in purgatory."
"Let me handle that."
They all looked over and saw Gabriel, accompanied by his retainers. He nodded at them before coldly referring to the beaten demon king.
"Did he send you?" Raven asked.
"Kind of. Acala was the one who notified me," Gabriel replied before taking out a container from his inventory. He then sighed and said, "I think he's still not done with his seclusion, and knowing him, there's no way he would sit still after knowing what's happening."
"I just hope that his forced action isn't detrimental to his growth." Gabriel worriedly sighed as he held up some kind of lantern over the gaping hole in the chest of the bone dragon.
They were silent as they saw how a pitch-black clump of light flew to the latern as if it were sucked in. The lantern shook fiercely for a bit, making it seem like the soul inside was banging on the walls of its prison in an attempt to escape, but Gabriel just sneered and raised the lantern to the sun, and the activity died down instantly.
Seeing this, Gabriel kept the latern away and faced his colleagues: "Its remains still have value, I suppose; don't throw it away. I'll leave the clean up to you guys."
The rest nodded to him and immediately went into action.
With the leaders actively cleaning up the remaining demons behind them, the defeat of the demon army became certain.
Cedric, who's been watching all of this from beginning to end, closed his eyes and released a sigh of guilt before retreating to his room.