Lord of Annihilation

Gliding across the dimly lit sky of the Cloud Cover Continent, Lucius used his soul's senses to sweep across the ground in search of opponents. He had also released his aura and murderous intent at maximum capacity in hopes of drawing out a Stage 3 Sword-Winged Angel.

In essence, Lucius current actions were similar to carrying a large beacon and megaphone through a forest while taunting its inhabitants for a fight.

"It's rather cold in here, isn't it?" Ka'lor'ah spoke, as her tiny body slightly trembled from the chill.

Due to the existence of a dense cloud layer above, sunlight was quite scarce within the planet. This resulted in a dimly lit, cold, and damp environment.

However, due to the existence of the cloud layer, the intensity of spiritual energy within was also quite high. With a higher Rule composition in the environment, the chances of entering Stage 3 and having a stronger Domain was also equally high.

"It's so quiet. Does no one live in thes—nevermind, you have your first opponent. I'm just gonna hide in your pocket," Tucking her body into one of the pockets in his armor, Ka'lor'ah peeked only her head.

Lucius' face was ceremoniously indifferent as his eyes narrowed while looking into a distance. His soul senses picked up a life from heading in his direction.

'Low-Level Stage 3. This won't do,' evaluating his opponent's strength from the hostile aura being released Lucius shook his head in disappointment.

On paper, Lucius strength was also at Low-Level Stage 3. However, his actual combat ability was at high Mid-Level, due to his superior body and Domain. 

If he was to release his incomplete Domain at a Low-Level Stage 3 opponent, it would effortlessly destroy his opponent's Domain, similar to a hot knife cutting through butter.

This was not the kind of fighting that Lucius wanted to experience.

'Right, I need to refill my stash of snacks too,' Lucius belatedly thought to himself.

Seeing his opponent speedily rush towards him in the horizon, Lucius did not wait but rather rushed towards her. 

Sword-Winged Angels were a female-only race. They were predominantly humanoid in form, except for a few dissimilarities. 

Instead of human-like independent arms, they possessed a wing-like attachment, which extended from the sides of their bodies onto their long, narrow elbows which further elongated into an arm-like appendage. 

To picture, they were like human-shaped bats, with human-like body and bat like arm. Also, instead of possessing membranous wings, it was instead pairs of thick clusters of long, sharp, metallic swords.

Another dissimilarity was their faces, where their eyes, nose, and ears were absent, with only their mouth occupying nearly half of a pale, blank face. This strange mouth could also expand to almost three times its size, turning them more into monsters than humanoids.

"Intruder from the Blackness, stop right there and accept your death!" A foreign language, spoken with a nasally, grating voice exited from the mouth of this alien creature.

Lucius, having heard her warning chose to ignore it. He exploded with great speed and instantly appeared before the Sword-Winged Angel.

The body of the Sword-Winged Angel jerked back, seemingly from surprise, at the sudden arrival of Lucius. She had not expected this strange intruder, who was equal in level as her, to suddenly appear before her.

'Well, it matters not,' shaking off her surprise, she instantly reacted by swinging both her arms forward. 

Under a strange combination of muscles and nerves, the cluster of sword-filled wings suddenly expanded and encompassed Lucius' body in a storm of attacks.

A visible, white-colored aura materialized around her sword wings and possessed incomparable sharpness. Lucius, with his abundant experience, recognized the aura to be pure Sword Energy.

Sword Energy was another type of energy that was pretty common within the Universe. Usually, it was gained after one made sufficient progress into the Rules of Sharpness which was a sub-rule of the Rule of Destruction. 

Gained after reaching sufficient mastery over a sword-like weapon, it presented its user's with an added attack bonus, similar to other energies like Curse Energy or Blade Energy.

However, the unique aspect of the Sword-Winged Angels was that the creatures of their species were born with Sword Energy. This allows them to have an extra edge compared to the other similar Grade species, while also making them geniuses in the way of the sword.

Back to the story…

Seeing the waves of glittering, white-colored sword energy rush towards him with incomparable ferocity, Lucius stopped his movements and raised his right hand. He did not try to evade, for the attack did not require evasion. 

An inordinate amount of [Annihilation Energy] was pumped into his right arm, causing the space around it to visibly twist. Just as the waves of sword energy was about to crash into him, Lucius casually swung his raised hand, downwards.

Fwoop!

The furious waves of sword energy slowed for a moment before completely freezing. In the center of the white wave, a transparent, imperceptible line cut across the entire length of the wave.

Similar to how Moses had parted the Red Sea, Lucius swing of [Annihilation Energy] effortlessly cut through the multiple waves of sword energy, parting it from the center. The rest of the sword energy by the sides greatly weakened before slowly dissipating into the air.

Having taken care of that annoyance, Lucius flew closer towards his opponent. 

The Sword-Winged Angel was completely frozen from shock, her mind unable to process the sequence of events. Just a second ago, she had the upper hand by delivering the first attack towards her enemy.

While she wasn't the strongest amongst her race, she wasn't that weak either. Those waves of sword energy were more than sufficient to seriously injure an opponent of strength, similar to hers.

But alas, that had not happened.

Her opponent had, in the most casual manner, split apart her assault rendering it null in under a second.

As she dumbly watched him fly closer, she realized, for the first time since the beginning, the sheer, vast difference between them.

This strange-looking intruder from Blackness, a term that the Sword-Winged Angels use to refer to space, was on a different level compared to her.

'I cannot win, I must retreat!' Her instincts kicked in and shook her off her daze.

Swinging her heavy sword wings once more, she aimed to use another to slow down Lucius' speed and use that time to successfully retreat. 

Alas, her method was not bound to work.

Halfway through the swing of her wings, Lucius flashed once more before appearing within striking distance. He caught one pair of her massive wings with his bare hands and forcefully pulled outward.

CRACK!!

"AARRRGGGGHHHH!!!" 

Sword-Winged Angel screamed with incomparable pain, as Lucius casually tore her two of her wings. 

The wings were a part of her physical body. Tearing them away was no different to tearing away the limbs of a human.

Holding a pair of clustered sword wings in both of his hands Lucius did not throw them away. Instead, he ignored the screams of his opponent and carefully scanned the wings with his gaze.

'Hmm, it's too brittle. The quality of these swords are too terrible,' shaking his head, Lucius dropped the pair of wings before gazing back at his screaming opponent.

She had used the time of Lucius' distraction to retreat a few hundred meters. While she was previously of the mind to run away, that thought had changed after Lucius' savage action of tearing away her wings.

For the beings of this species, their wings were their most prized possession. Tearing them away was similar to pissing at their dignity.

It was intolerable. 

"YOU!! I WILL KILL YOU!!" She thundered with incomparable rage.

A tremendous amount of soul power then poured out of her body, quickly starting to fill the surrounding space. Her mouth then expanded to encompass a majority of her face, as she spoke, "Deploy Dom--!!"

Her scream was abruptly cut short as Lucius appeared once more before her and shoved his right arm into her open mouth.

"I don't have time to play around with you," he coldly announced, before forcing his arm further into her mouth.

Lucius' hand grotesquely dug into her body and pumped [Annihilation Intent] into her. This rowdy energy then started to happily grind and tear at her innards, fatally inuring the poor opponent. 

The Sword-Winged Angel's body rapidly convulsed as cuts and tears started appearing throughout her feminine body. Blood poured out in large amounts out of these wounds, dying the ground in red.

Staring into the featureless face of the Sword-Winged Angel, Lucius annoyedly clicked his tongue before pulling his arm out. Drenched in saliva, blood, and inner organs, Lucius' palms were holding onto a weakly thumping organ.

Brining it towards his mouth, Lucius threw in the rubbery heart before tearing another pair of her wings from her dead body. Having lost all traces of life, the body of the Sword-Winged Angel helplessly fell towards the ground, and the soul energy filling the surroundings also dissipated.

A powerhouse of this planet, who had lived for who knows how long, had died within seconds of meeting Lucius. In fact, her encounter could be considered long as Lucius was not taking the fight seriously.

Staring at the second pair of wings which he had torn from her body, Lucius scanned it thoroughly once more before nodding his head.

'Not the best, but this will do for now.' 

He then discarded one of the wings, while snapping the other in two. Pulling out a single sword-like potion of the wing that shone in a faint argent color, Lucius held it with both hands and stared at it.

'This will do.' 

"Why are you taking that sword?" Popping her head out, Ka'lor'ah curiously asked.

The scythe was Lucius' main choice of weapon and the one that he liked to use the most. Seeing him choose a sword was plainly weird in Ka'lor'ah's eyes.

Hearing her question, Lucius plainly answered, "My scythe is on the verge of breaking. It's unusable right now."

Swinging the procured sword in his hands a few times, Lucius used the nails on his fingers to scrape some parts of the sword while shaping others. Soon, the dimensions of the sword became similar to Olivia's rapier.

"Plus," he then continued, "I need to create a proper, ordered sword technique for Olivia. I need a weapon similar to hers to do it."

As such, the wings of the Sword-Winged Angels provided the perfect material for his experimentation and creation. If the sword were to break, he could simply tear another one from a different entity.

After all, materials were aplenty within this planet.

"Seems like the others have noticed the commotion. This will be more interesting."

Saying so, Lucius descended on the ground before assuming a strange posture with the sword. His eyes looked at the sky where dozens of Stage 3 Sword-Winged Angels were rushing towards him.

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