Lord of Annihilation

Flying out of the spaceship, Lucius' figure dashed through the dark void of space. Propelling himself using his soul power, Lucius did not stop moving until sufficient distance had been made between him and the spaceship. 

Feeling satisfied at the distance, his figure came to an abrupt stop and his eyes fixated themselves on a particular spot. 

"The two of you can stop hiding now," Lucius spoke.

There was no reply to his taunt, yet Lucius unflinchingly stared at the same empty spot. A few dozen seconds passed when light passing through the area, where Lucius was gazing towards, suddenly started to twist and warp.

"You have sharp senses, human." A foreign voice resounded in the area.

Two golden spherical vessels appeared before Lucius. Had the humans being here, they would've instantly recognized the vessel to be one of the personal Hive Minds of the Stage 3 Greater Queens.

Of course, Lucius who was not privy to this information did not know this. Nor did he seem to care, as his eyes instantly fixed themselves on the rune-covered surface of the golden vessel.

'Damage deflection, damage dampening, material recovery…ugh, what a troublesome ball.' Lucius inwardly sighed. 'This is going to take a lot of effort to break.'

Having been through innumerable battles in his previous life, Lucius instantly recognized the runes and their properties. 

"Hmm, you're aura feels strange. Different from all the other humans." One of the Stage 3 Greater Queens spoke with a strange voice. Her tone seemed to one of uncertainty and hesitance.

"Indeed," the other Stage 3 continued her partner's sentence. "This one doesn't feel like the humans. Rather, it reminds me of the endless darkness."

"You're not human are you, creature." The previous speaker asked.

Lucius did not reply to their questions but rather, sunk into thoughts of his own.

'I've just realized this, but my opponents always seem to feel something strange about me. Those other Stage 3 beings that I previously faced were also similar.'

'Seems like I'm involuntarily exposing my Void Eater characteristics resulting in the strange feeling within my opponents. I have to hide this.'

Reaching that conclusion, Lucius immediately acted. Within his mindspace, he controlled the solid clouds of soul power to break up into smaller pieces and restructured them in a specific manner. 

He then moved his soul and placed it in the center of this formation, whilst simultaneously controlling the soul power within his body to revolve according to a specific pattern. 

A strange event occurred as invisible swirls seemed to appear around Lucius and his presence seemed to completely disappear for a moment. The swirls then disappeared as quickly as they appeared and Lucius' presence also returned.

This time, however, something felt different about his entire demeanor. Looking at Lucius, one felt a strange sense of dissonance. 

It felt as though he was there but at the same time not there.

Of course, both the Stage 3 Greater Queens who had been intently observing him did not miss this change. 

"Hmm?!" Surprise colored their tone as they exclaimed. "That strange feeling just disappeared! Now he feels exactly the same as a human!"

"What are you?" 

"Your final opponent." Lucius curtly replied and disappeared from his previous location. He hadn't used [Void Step] but rather the innate speed of his body. 

Appearing before one of the golden spheres, Lucius kicked at the large golden ball with great force. A white mark appeared on its surface, followed by the giant sphere being flung back.

"Fast!" the other Greater Queen had barely managed to voice her exclamation when Lucius appeared before her personal transport. 

A sphere of condensed soul power had formed before his fists as Lucius punched forth with all his might. Unable to move her vessel in time, the attack hit the surface of the golden sphere and exploded.

BOOM!!

A soundless echo traveled through the empty space. 

Stopping his assaults, Lucius looked towards the tumbling golden sphere before looking at his punching arm. His right hand was bleeding profusely, with the bones on his fingers being broken and his muscles torn open. A light stinging pain assaulted his mind, which was quickly suppressed by Lucius' consciousness.

'Defensive shield. Durability is nearing Peak-Level of Stage 3.' Lucius analyzed.

Just instants before his punch landed on the surface of the golden sphere, a transparent defensive shield had appeared in between his attack and the vessel's surface. 

Being sufficiently sturdy, the defensive light shield had managed to ward off the majority of the strength behind his attack while also returning some of the damage to the attacker.

'I have to break the shield first.' Lucius concluded and used void energy to heal his hands. 

While he could have used soul power for the healing, it was nowhere near potent enough as void energy when it came to the matter of healing his body. Additionally, Lucius predicted this battle to be a long, time-consuming one, requiring him to ration his soul power.

Cracking his neck, Lucius flew towards the first golden sphere once more. 

It was a battle of who could last longer: the defensive shield or Lucius' soul power.

'Although, the flow of battle might change depending on when they decide to release their domains.' A thought flew through his mind, as another punch landed on the golden sphere.

----------

Generally speaking, Stage 3 being tended to use their Domains as a last resort. A trump card or a final ace, if you will. 

There were two reasons for this behavior.

One, Domains radically altered their areas of influence forever changing the terrain and natural composition of the environment. If the fight was to occur over a city or a resource point, casting a Domain would result in significant losses.

Two, it was very expensive to cast a Domain. Deploying a Domain would drain the Stage 3 user of all of their soul power. Being in Mid-Level or Peak-Level did not change this fact, as only the operation time of the Domain would be affected.

That is to say, if their opponent wasn't killed before the duration of the Domain ended, then the user will be helpless to resist after the fact as they will be completely drained of their soul power.

Only upon reaching Stage 4 could this weakness be removed.

That being said, Lucius' fight against the two Greater Queens continued for a long time. 

With Lucius not being able to inflict enough damage to instantly surpass their defense and his opponents not willing to deploy their Domains, it was a battle of endurance.

Nevertheless, all things had a limit and even boundless energy was prone to eventually running out. In this battle, it was his opponent's defenses that had run out first.

With precise usage, unmatched recovery speed, and the body of a Stage 3 being available for a quick snack, it was safe to say that Lucius was sufficiently prepared for the long game.

The inane flurry of punching and kicking lasted for an entire 38 hours before coming to an end!

It had to be said that, Lucius had cleared millions of humans in a shorter timeframe than compared to breaking the shells of these golden spheres. The defensive power of a Peak-Level Stage 3 artifact was simply monstrous.

And it was not that his opponents were simply receiving his endless attacks without dishing out a few of their own. Nay, they responded with numerous attacks of their own.

The Greater Queens had a vast array of spells and techniques that attacked the target's mind, ranging from simple illusions to confuse the opponent, to brutal [Mind Spears] which tore apart the opponent's consciousness.

This coupled with their Low-Level Stage 3 strength must've made this a simple, one-sided battle.

Alas, reality was strange and their opponent was even stranger.

Most of their spells simply missed their target, owing to his superior speed and evasion skills. As for the ones that did reach him, they simply had no effect on him!

Well, it was incorrect to say that the attacks had no effect. Rather, the attacks did have an effect, but their effects were too weak to affect their target.

[Annihilation Energy] was the bane of all other energies. The strength of the attacks launched towards Lucius were chipped away and eroded by the combined assault of [Annihilation Intent] and Lucius' own soul power. 

By the time that the attacks actually reached him, they were too weak to cause any actual harm to the Void Eater.

Had the battle taken place in an enclosed environment that limited movement, then the result would have been vastly different. Alas, fighting in the emptiness of space, gave Lucius all the space to move about.

Watching their opponent dodging and evading their attacks, frustrated the two Stage 3 beings to no end. A few hours into the battle, they had even tried to retreat!

Unfortunately, every time that his opponents tried to retreat, Lucius caught up to them using  [Void Step] or [Void Travel].  As for the attempts which involved illusions to throw him off, [Flaw Detection] rendered all lies meaningless. 

"How are you still not tired?!" One of the Greater Queens screamed in irritation.

The latest attack by this hateful creature in front of her had successfully cracked the hull of her vessel. The bodies of the Greater Queens were the weakest aspect of their power, being only slightly better than Peak-Level Stage 2.

There was no doubt that if Lucius' attacks reached their actual bodies, the damage caused fill be fatal.

With the threat of death looming over her, she finally contacted her partner through their telepathy.

{Let's deploy our Domains. At this rate, this hateful creature might actually kill us!}

{Understood, let's do it!}

At the confirmation, the two Greater Queens started to release their soul powers en masse. 

Instantly noticing the change, Lucius quickened his pace and hurriedly punched at the hull of the golden sphere, causing large cracks to spread throughout its surface. 

Pieces of the golden sphere started to fall off and a gap large enough for Lucius to enter had formed. Exploding the soul power beneath his feet, Lucius rush inside the vessel and stretched his hands to grab the head of the Stage 3 being.

Alas, he was a moment too late.

A smile formed on the face of the Greater Queen and a shared voice resounded within Lucius' mind.

"Deploy Shared Domain: Ideal World!"