Lord of Annihilation

Immediately after chopping off his left leg, Lucius flicked his scythe and sent a wave of [Annihilation Energy] towards the illusory chain. 

The roaring wave of tumultuous energy contained a fair portion of Lucius' soul power and crashed against the illusory binding. Blinding light flashed and the illusory chain was…

…merely pushed back.

Lucius' full-powered attack which could easily destroy the body of a Peak-Level Stage 3 entity had merely pushed back the illusory chain by a few dozen meters. 

Never mind about destroying the illusory binding. Lucius' attack had barely scratched it!

Catching this scene from the corner of his eyes, Lucius inwardly sighed, 'Just as I remember. It cannot be destroyed.'

After confirming this fact, Lucius threw this matter to the back of his mind and hurriedly accelerated. Seeing that one chain had managed to break past his barrier of murderous intent and had nearly latched onto him, it was only a matter of time before more arrive and do the same. 

As such, Lucius had to hurry.

Channeling void energy to heal the amputated leg, Lucius continued to climb through the golden platform while ignoring the manifesting Rule Guardians joining and evading the attacks from the chasing crowd behind him.

With [Absolute Evasion] Lucius was near-guaranteed to avoid every attack thrown at him. His recent advancements in speed also guaranteed Lucius' ability to outrun his pursuers.

Well, he couldn't just run away from them. But he could at least choose when to engage.

Crossing the sixtieth golden step, the number of Rule Guardians trailing Lucius had grown to number forty-eight. Their translucent golden bodies were as varied as always, but the hatred in their eyes was exactly the same.

Nothing would bring these artificial, soulless monsters greater joy than tearing this unholy heathen into uncountable pieces. 

Phasing through a cluster of attacks aimed at him, Lucius paused for a single instant at the edge of the sixty-third golden platform. Black-colored blood trailed from the edges of his mouth and a look of conflict appeared within his eyes.

'Should I use it?' 

The number of chains breaking through his barrier of murderous intent had steadily increased. Although only a minute had passed since the start of this ordeal, the number of times Lucius had been nearly caught by the chains had increased up to six.

Twice in his legs, once across his torso, three times across his arms, and once across his neck. 

Each time, Lucius resorted to using the same tactic of severing that body part of his, the instant the chains managed to get a hold of him. 

The one time when it latched onto his torso, Lucius had unhesitantly spun his scythe and decapitated his lower body from his upper body and barely managed to shake the binding at the cost of being grievously injured.

In the most recent instant where the chain had almost latched onto his neck, Lucius had gotten extremely lucky as he used the Rule Guardian of the fifty-eight step, who had, in that very same instant, finished forming, as a human shield. The illusory chain had latched onto the Rule Guardian and Lucius had narrowly escaped a perilous situation. 

(AN: Having your head lopped off after having formed a Body of Rules is not a fatal injury. It will, however, take a reasonably long time to re-grow the body from the head down. Time which Lucius sorely lacked in this situation.)

Apart from the chains, the size of the assailing force had also grown to a size which even Lucius found it increasingly difficult to handle.

The cluster of attacks consisting of diverse nature of attacks could not all be superposed by [Absolute Evasion] resulting in Lucius tanking those attacks.

No matter how strong he was, at the end of the day, Lucius was still a Half-Step Stage 4 entity. 

As such, it had come to the point where Lucius had to stop and cull the number of pursuers. Letting them grow beyond the manageable point would certainly spell doom for him.

However, having said that, an unexpected problem occurred.

Well, it wasn't exactly unexpected as Lucius had already foreseen the arrival of this problem. The only thing unexpected was its timing of arrival.

The problem had simply arrived sooner than Lucius expected it to come.

What is this problem you ask? Well, if you haven't already guessed it, rereading the previous couple of paragraphs might enlighten you with the answer.

Still haven't guessed? Well, here's a summary.

Currently, Lucius was in a situation where he had to stop climbing the steps to cull the number of Rule Guardians following him. This would cost him time and this was bad.

Every second that Lucius spent not rushing towards the 108th step, was a second spent in facing the illusory chains. A situation that he wanted to avoid at all costs.

Now, what was so scary about the illusory chains? It's not like they instantly kill you upon touch. 

And you're correct. The illusory chains do indeed not kill you upon touch.

They do, however, slow you down, restrict your movement, and leech on your soul power. In other words, your speed will slow down, your movements will grow stiffer, and you will constantly have your soul power consumed by the chains.

This will, in turn, increase the risk and danger of facing the Rule Guardians which will, in turn, require more effort and time to solve which will, in turn, result in more chains latching onto you which will in turn…well, you get the gist.

Lucius currently found himself in a situation where he could neither slow down, nor spend time to deal with Rule Guardian, nor climb onto the next floor.

And now, his solutions…

Stopping at the edge of the sixty-third floor, Lucius swallowed the mouthful of blood threatening to spill out and glimpsed at the crowd chasing him for three steps down. 

He also gazed at the illusory chains- The Fake Bindings of Cause- which were slowly but surely inching their way past his murderous intent barrier.

Inhaling a lungful of cold air, Lucius pondered, a conflicting look appearing within his eyes.

'Should I use it?' thought Lucius, referring to [Void Step], his instant displacement void skill.

Using this skill had both advantages and disadvantages

Its advantages obviously were an instant respite from his current situation. Lucius would be able to greatly increase the distance between himself and the Rule Guardians while getting closer to the top, buying him some much-needed time.

Its disadvantages were also glaringly obvious. Using this ability would not solve the root problem for Lucius and would merely postpone it. In fact, it would even increase the frailty of the delicate situation and could perhaps place Lucius in even more danger than currently.

The second, not so obvious, disadvantage was the fact that someone was currently watching him.

At the very start of the ordeal, Lucius had noticed some using a prying technique to observe him. After sensing the Giant Kings' aura on it, Lucius left it alone, or rather, was forced to leave it alone as he did not have the ability to break it. 

When Lucius had decided to unseal and display his murderous intent, it was done with the intention of both holding back the illusory chains from immediately ganging up on him and interfere with the prying technique.

While his murderous intent did not break the technique, it did, nevertheless, cast some interference on it. As for how much interference, Lucius did not know.

Using his void abilities in face of someone's intense and close monitoring was equal to declaring to the world that he was a Void Eater. Not to mention, the person monitoring him was a rare Stage 5 powerhouse.

Now, one might argue; isn't the Void Eater a super rare, super old race whose existence is only known to a few ancient entities and primordial races?

Once again, you are indeed correct. Giant King Klytius might not necessarily know about the Void Eater race. After the completion of the ascension, Lucius could simply fabricate some lies to cover it up and convince the Giant King, otherwise.

This situation, while perfectly sound on paper, unfortunately, will not work out. 

The moment Lucius had released his murderous intent, he had burnt any sort of friendship and understanding that he possessed with Giant King Klytius. In the latter's eyes, Lucius was most probably a member of the [Evil] faction who must be captured and fiercely investigated.

And due to the fact that records of Lucius and his party were pretty much nonexistent (since they have still not registered their identities with the Traveler's Guild), they are bound to be labeled as insurgents from the [Evil] faction.

This will cause his lies to fail, information about his abilities to spread, and alerting those ancient entities. 

Worst case scenario, the Lords might learn about Lucius' identity as a Void Eater, resulting in them breaking the previously mentioned pact and sending an execution squad full of Stage 6 or Stage 7 beings!

In short, it was bad. Very bad.

Of course, the above situation was purely hypothetical and relied on many factors; the screen flawlessly broadcasting Lucius' execution of his technique, Klytius remembering it and placing value in it, Lucius failing to escape with Olivia, and Ka'lor'ah, etc.

Still, it was a risk that did not quite justify the gains.

Having gone through a similar internal debate, the gaze in Lucius' eye sharpened as he planted his feet firmly, turned around, and exhaled a breath of foul, bloody air.

'There's no point in continuing to run as the root issue of the situation remains. As such…'

Holding his scythe firmly in his right hand, Lucius reached into his [Void Storage] and grabbed the handle of another blade.

'…might as well eliminate these annoying bugs right now.' 

The very moment Lucius pulled out a certain blade, the motley crowd of Half-Step Stage 4 Rule Guardians arrived on the golden platform and a dozen of the illusory, Fake Bindings of Cause, broke through his barrier and headed towards Lucius.

A cornered beast always bites the hardest.

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Author's Note:

To those wondering why Lucius' didn't deploy his Domain and instantly kill these Rule Guardians...it's because it's impossible to do so.

To be specific, it's impossible for 'only' Lucius to do so.

Reason: Rule Guardians are soulless, on-the-spot conjured, artificial, unliving, entities. Lucius' current Domain, which predominately centers around the concept of Death and Judgement, cannot do anything to these dolls of Rules.

If anything, deploying his Domain will only result in tying up Lucius to a single spot.