Chapter 941: Arad's Intent
Arad grabbed the knife tightly in his hand and tried to stand up, the veins on his bruised arms bleeding out as his eyes flashed with all kinds of colors, golden, red, and purple like a burning lamp. His body was already a dead corpse, and his magic had long since snuffed out, only one thing burning in his mind kept him moving forward, and he managed to stand up on his knees, the knife in his hand shining brightly as it reflected sunlight.
Lunara gasped, her eyes immediately spotting the power surging in that tiny kitchen knife that looked like a toothpick in Arad's massive palm. The arcane arts, the ancient magic, an artifact, a weapon of ancient origin and great power that she had once heard about from her countless cultists. The exploding nipples' knife!
"Why do you fight!" Lunara growled, "You could've flown away and dodged the moon, you could've won this fight by awaiting the right time to attack after I exhausted myself." She tried to stand, but her legs didn't have enough strength to carry her, and her demonic release started fading away as her ears and horns disappeared. Casting [Moon Fall] twice in a row was a stupid idea, she is now left defenseless and without any power to defend herself.
At that moment, Kayden appeared standing between them. He looked at Arad, "Don't worry, it's over. Keep going and you'll kill her, but at the cost of your own life." He approached and smacked him on the head with the scabbard of his sword, knocking him out.
As Arad fell, Hati appeared from a portal beside them and looked at the fallen moon, wanting to pull her hair out, "What the hell did you two do!? How long it'll take me to fix that!" She glared at Lunara, "Listen here you little shit! I'll grill you for dinner!" She growled, her fangs growing larger as she was about to shift into her true Fenrir form.
"Calm down." Kayden extended his scabbard between Lunara and Hati, "I'm the one who allowed them to fight. I'll fix the moon myself."
"Tch..." Hati growled, "Fine...I'll look the other way this time, but such destruction shouldn't be allowed. Look, even Arad is at death's door."
"He'll be fine, she as well." Kayden strapped his sword back at his waist and looked at Lunara, "Isn't he stupid? Trying to stop the moon instead of dodging it? He's durable enough to survive the blast, but not the impact."
As the moon impacts the ground at great speed, the energy and heat generated would evaporate it in the blink of an eye. The energy generated by such an impact would spread across the whole world in seconds and burn the planet to the core. But Arad is a void dragon, if he avoided a direct impact and flew a bit away, surviving the heat and shockwave shouldn't be a problem.
"I too expected him to run away." She looked away, "I never expected someone to be stupid enough to attempt stopping it. Even you dodged it."
"I see..." Kayden nodded, "Then you're a bigger fool than him. Do you know he risked his life to stop it? Why does he still insist on killing you right here and now even if it's the last thing he'll do in life?"
Something indeed seemed off. Arad is smart, and he should've figured that dodging the attack is a sure path to victory, so why did he choose to face it directly? Was it pride? Or something else, what does he care about? Winning, or is it something else?
Lunara stared at him with an open mouth, shocked at his words, but what was coming was bound to shock her even more. No one had ever seen Kayden going all out or had sensed the limits of his abilities. They all knew the fact he was a being far stronger than any demon, the man who adopted their goddess Kali and took revenge on their former god Asura's murder. His dominion over demons is absolute, but none could believe that he nearly had no limit on his power over them.
As Kayden's blood hit the sea water it created a long red line of blood an eye that extended all the way to the crushed continent and to the moon, seeping into its core in seconds. The loud pulsing of a heart was heard booming in the sky as the moon cracked, turning black.
A massive titanic eye appeared on the moon's surface as it grew tentacles ending in eyes and teeth, wiggling around like snakes as the moon started floating up. The moon had turned into a creature resembling a demonic beholder.
Lunara felt her blood draining from her body, that moon had turned into a demonic being far stronger than any demon lord she had ever seen, its power dwarfing all demon lords by several magnitudes. An eldritch horror that could feed on whole worlds.
Kayden didn't even look like he was putting any effort into it. To him, it was as simple as dripping his blood.
The moon looked at Kayden, lowering its massive eye down. "Orders."
"Get back into orbit." Kayde said and the moon flew up to its place. A second later, it started shifting back into a normal moon and its eyes and tentacles disintegrated into ash, its power returning into Kayde.
Such a powerful demon was born and died in seconds at Kayden's whims. Some powerful demons are known to be able to create minions of themselves like Merida's fungus and even Lunara herself, but nothing to this extent. Those powers usually are restricted to living beings, and they always result in a weak demon that must take decades to grow stronger. Kayden had just turned a full moon, a non-living object into a demon that surpassed all demon lords, and he did it so effortlessly.
"I put it back up." Kayden turned toward Hati, "And about the continent, sorry, but it'll need an earth mage to fix. With my powers, it'll be left looking too flat if I attempt fixing it." "A powerful earth mage?" A second voice came from behind them and when they looked it was a second Hati, that was her twin sister Skoll. "I'll fix it myself. It's been a while since I stretched my magic a bit."
As Skoll started walking on the sea surface, a small boat-sized island appeared beneath her feet and started carrying her away toward the destroyed continent. "I'll have it fixed by tomorrow. Take them to heal up." She waved her hand to them as her island sped up and she blasted away like a speed boat.
"Arad had finished his training. I saw it from afar, that last form of his must've been the best defensive form he could achieve at his current level of power." Kayden said as he looked back. While Hati didn't know what he was talking about, Lunara could remember the shadowy silhouette form that Arad appeared in right before being forced back into his humanoid form. That form is certainly what allowed Arad to survive the moon falling on him, but for now, none of them understood how, only Arad himself could explain it.
The overgod's words rang in Kayden's head, and they were true. The harder Arad is pushed,
the more he'll grow in power, but that's a dangerous game since that extreme level of stress and danger could kill Arad and end everything.