Lord of Annihilation

"Wench, you dare!!" The Governor of Fallen Rock City, Xe'ar thundered with tangible rage.

His body crashed through the ceiling of the office and appeared in the sky above the city. Soul power wildly fluctuated around his body, as his enraged eyes stared at the fleet of spaceships before him.

A tinge of surprise and caution appeared within Xe'ar's heart as he had never seen such a large fleet of working spaceships before today. 

Usually, one or two spaceships would be found crashed into the planet's surface each of which was incomparably precious for the planet's residents. Each known crash would evoke large battles and wars between the major cities. 

As for the unknown ones…it was not known. Each city would carefully hide this news, keeping it as a form of a trump card. After all, more crashes meant more advanced technology falling into the hands of the inhabitants.

[Oh, that was quick. I didn't wake you up or anything, right? I honestly, just wanted to do this over as quietly as possible.} 

Olivia's voice resounded throughout the city once more. Her speech was being repeated and amplified by the speakers equipped in each of the dozens of spaceships.

{You can go back to sleep if you want to. I will just exact my payment and quickly leave. How does that sound?}

The moment she had finished saying this, multiple beams of focused ionic beams were fired from the spaceships into the city below. 

The starlight blue-colored beams of annihilation vaporized the constructs and the people who were so unlucky as to get caught in the line of fire. In but a single exchange, a good 5% of the large city was wiped out.

"YOU!!!" Seeing the efforts of his decades of hard work wiped out in mere instants right before him, Xe'ar raged with unmatched furiousness.

His body flashed across the sky and appeared before the nearest spaceship. His right hand was winded back and was just about to deliver a punch when it suddenly stopped.

Or rather, it was stopped.

Through narrowed eyes, Xe'ar stared at the long-haired youth who had appeared before him. His expressionless, feminine-looking face radiated an absurd amount of bloodlust and his scathing aura visibly pricked Xe'ar's skin.

The youth casually held Xe'ar's right hand with his own and started to slowly crush it. Feeling his actions, Xe'ar struggled to free his hands from his demonic youth, but alas, it was meaningless.

The seemingly slender arms of the youth carried an incredible amount of strength. Xe'ar found no respite, despite his best struggles.

Although the youth's hold seemed to be casual, he had accurately held Xe'ar's arm in a spot where the latter would find it the most difficult to apply his strength.

Unable to escape, Xe'ar had to bear the pain of his right hand being crushed.

"I'll kill you!!" he yelled once more and swung his other hand while kicking with his feet. 

An insane amount of soul power was infused into both of those attacks, being struck by which would instantly destroy the body of a Low-Level Stage 3.

'Got you now.' Ignoring his pain, Xe'ar triumphantly smiled.

The youth's aura was clearly marking him at the start of Stage 3. But the strength behind Xe'ar's approaching attacks was even clearer. Xe'ar simply had to land the attack to utterly decimate his opponent.

Feeling his attacks land on the enemy, the smile on Xe'ar's face turned even brighter for a second, before suddenly vanishing. A look of horror quickly replaced his previous expression.

'How?! HOW?!' Xe'ar panicked. 

Visually his attacks had landed on his opponent however Xe'ar never actually felt contact through his limbs. He had hit him, yet the opponent had not been hit.

"Confusing, right?" The blank-faced young man suddenly spoke. 

His soulless black eyes stared into Xe'ar's as the latter unconsciously nodded.

"It's my movement technique. My body is in a state of superposition which makes it invulnerable to all attacks that I can thoroughly observe." Lucius kindly explained.

Hearing a string of unfamiliar words, Xe'ar blinked his two eyes and asked with fear.

"Wh-what?"

Seeing the confusion on his opponent's face, Lucius simply shook his head and spoke.

"There is no point in you attacking me, as they will never hit me. Give it up and deploy your Domain." Lucius squeezed his hands one final time, thoroughly crushing Xe'ar's arms.

Xe'ar let out a slight shriek, before hurriedly backing up. His entire attention was focused on this youth in front of him, completely ignoring the fact that the spaceships in the background were deploying troops into the ground and battling his city.

It wasn't Xe'ar's fault for ignoring this either. His mind…or rather, his instincts honed through countless battles desperately screamed at him to pay attention to this youth.

One small misstep and he would die without even knowing how he had died.

'Who is this guy?! Where did he pop up from? Why is he so strong for a Low-Level Stage 3?!!' Xe'ar desperately cried within his mind, while using his soul power to repair his crushed arm.

"Hey," Xe'ar flinched as he heard the youth call him out. "I know I'm supposed to stretch out this battle as much as possible. However, if you simply stare at me without doing anything, I might just get it over with."

The cold voice sharpened as it demanded once more.

"Deploy your Domain."

Xe'ar body quivered in fear, as he hurriedly stuttered.

"De-deploy Domain – Cavern o-of Death."

Soul power poured out of Xe'ar's body and a sphere encompassing a 10km radius enveloped the two figures within.

----------

Inside a spacious room within one of the spaceships. 

Olivia comfortably sat atop a floating white chair while holding a teacup in her hands. She stared, through the large glass window in front of her, at the battle that was occurring in the city below. 

Hundreds of Pandemonium's warriors, thousands of Mankind's soldiers, drones, mechs, and even the spaceships were participating in the battle below. 

With complete superiority in both land and air, her forces were sweeping up the Fallen Rock City's resident forces facing little to no challenge.

Taking a sip out of her teacup, Olivia looked a little further into the distance where a large blacks sphere was occupying a large amount of space. Looking closely, one would be able to barely make out two figures battling it out within the sphere.

"Is this course of action…wise, my lady?" an aged voice rang from her side.

Lowering her teacup, Olivia turned to face the blue-haired, old man looking outside the glass window with a worried expression. Showing a smile, she asked.

"Is there something troubling you, Sir Baltmer?" 

Hearing Olivia's question, Baltmer tore his gaze away from the window and sighed. He then resolutely looked towards Olivia and voiced out his concern.

"I meant this sudden attack on Fallen Rock City, my lady. Is such an unprovoked war really necessary? While we do have proper casus belli, I fear that going this far would strain our relations with the other cities."

"I can see that these new troops which you have brought along are very strong, but Fallen Rock City has been the indisputable number two in Pectron for countless years. I fear that they may have some hidden trump card which we have unaccounted for."

"There is also the issue with the other cities. They will not simply stand by and watch as Pandemonium destroys another major city. Our actions with Stellar Light City have already tipped the balance on this planet."

"They might consider our actions as intent to conquer the other cities and might band together to suppress us. We must quickly act and make our intention clear before any misunderstandings are created, my lady." 

Baltmer respectfully stated while bowing his body. However, he mentally let out a sigh as he thought to himself.

'The young lady was too hasty in her actions this time. Our relations are already bound to suffer a setback once the word of our actions here reaches the remaining cities. We might even have to prepare for war.'

"Excellently put, Sir Baltmer. Your foresight is as keen as always." Olivia honestly praised this elderly gentleman. 

"However…your predictions are exactly my intentions." 

"Pardon, my lady?" Baltmer raised his head and looked at Olivia with confusion.

"To conquer the other cities, that is my plan." Olivia took another sip of tea and cheerfully replied.

Baltmer hurriedly rose to his feet and quickly dissuaded Olivia.

"My lady, you must not! Conquering the other cities is no easy task. Many years of bitter war and countless innocent lives will be lost if we go through with this! I beg you to reconsider your plans." 

Baltmer was dumbfounded at Olivia's words.

'Heavens! Whatever happened to the cautious young lady who left nine months ago! She was never this reckless!' 

"You're thinking that I'm reckless, am I right?" Olivia lightly smiled and spoke.

Baltmer visibly flinched at having his inner thoughts read. He opened his mouth to disagree but was interrupted by Olivia first.

"Don't bother. I know that my actions look reckless. Why willingly disrupt the balance and peace formed over countless years, right?" 

"You see, I've spent countless amount of hours stuck inside an office and doing an ungodly amount of paperwork. There was so much work that at one point, I feared that I might go crazy."

"To tell the truth, I want to desperately get out of that task, and to do that I must solve all the problems faced by my kind back home. Conquering Pectron is the answer to those problems."

"My mother species is a newly ascended one and is in desperate need of personnel and wealth. Conquering Pectron would give it both, sufficient personnel and open a channel to trade with the Universe."

"You don't have to worry too much. I have no intention to drag this war on for more than a few days. Destroying Fallen Rock City is essential to showcase the difference in our strengths so that the other cities willingly surrender."

Just as Olivia had finished explaining this with a smile, the device on her wrist vibrated with a message.

"Boss, the people from Moonwater City and Gravity Falls City are here with their Governors. Should I send them to your office?"

"Speak of the devil…"Olivia chuckled for a moment before replying.

"Send them in. It's time to have a nice and long talk."