Soul of Blades - Chapter 59: The Swordmasters Gambit (Patreon)

Alex slashed, and the crystal exploded into shards, causing starry rain to shower the battlefield in all directions.

The portal, its power source shattered, shrieked in protest. Its size shrunk drastically.

The demons in transit weren't spared. Their forms contorted as they attempted to step between worlds and through reality, twisted in ways that defied nature. Some were crushed under the unrelenting force of the collapsing portal. Others flung into the unfathomable depths of the unknown, their screams fading into silence.

A pause fell over the battlefield. The remains of the crystal were strewn on the ground, their glow dimming.

Amongst the fragments of the destroyed crystal, Alex stood, a lone figure against the torrent of shock. The Demon Royals and their armies were silent, their shock painted clear across their faces. For a moment, just a heartbeat, everything stood still.

Silence. The only sound that could be heard, piercing the stillness, was Alex's panting breaths and the crackling of the shattered crystal, its pieces littering the ground in a mess of fallen stars.

The moment passed.

Like a storm breaking, the demon royalty stirred, their gazes fixed on the single figure amidst the ruins. Their eyes blazed with an unholy light. But despite this, Alex only had one thought echoing in his mind. Over and over again.

Destroy the remaining crystals.

His foot dug into the ground, and he was gone again. The world spun into motion, a cacophony of roars. And the Demon princes and princess were fixated on him.

This time, they followed.

Forwards. The third demon prince, his face twisted in fury, surged forward, the beat of silence shattered. Enraged, the third unleashed a devastating blow aimed at shattering Alex's vestigial defences. Yet, with Outer Focus, Alex sensed the fluctuations of mana in the air far ahead of time, enabling him to react with lightning speed. Summoning a blade into his free hand to parry the attack with precision, he narrowly escaped certain doom. He was flung backward as his blade shattered on impact, he immediately drew another from his inventory.

He felt a surge of heat behind him. With a swift twist, he activated Boundless Dodge. His world spun as his mana jerked him sideways. The ground erupted where he had stood a second ago. Despite dodging the initial blow, the intense heat of the attack scorched his arm completely black, rendering it useless. A weakness of the 'Boundless Dodge' skill, Alex realised. Attacks that affected wide areas couldn't be completely evaded by the skill. His heart beat rapidly in his chest from pain and frustration as he sped towards another crystal, the taste of adrenaline sharp on his tongue. 

The Third Prince, lean and muscular, stood in the smoking crater, his eyes cold and disdainful. The third had completely abandoned his lazy demeanour.

Red flesh and silver blades. That was all Alex saw. Demons were all around him. Thrusting with spears, swinging with swords, screaming in rage as Alex charged forwards. But so many. They tried to overwhelm him, to stop him with magic. He was only one man, after all. A captain thrust a smaller demon aside. He swung a axe as tall as he was at Alex. Alex spun, swung his leg and his foot flashed.

Blades and skin. A flaming blade erupted from his sole. The fusion was seamless, as if his flesh had become sheath and sword simultaneously. The edge sliced through the metal of the weapon and it’s wielder. The captain blurred past as Alex shot by. 

Panic and death. Panic spurred Alex onwards, the milliseconds ticking away like a countdown to doom. He flung himself forward with Phoenix Leap, his enhanced agility taking him far from the demonic royalty's reach. But they were relentless. He could feel the hot flush of their power, their predatory gazes locked onto him. “The rabbit is still running!” The third prince called. The provocation almost made Alex stop in his tracks.

But he pressed on. He would end this, and wipe the smugness from their twisted faces.

He could still sense his metallic clone. He felt it struggling in the background, through a connection that extended beyond himself. A ripple of shock ran through him at the fact that it was still standing. It may have only had half of Alex's strength, but being made purely of metal, it had durability in spades. It took a massive blow from a demon royal, the First prince. Sparks flew off its arm and shoulder as the limb exploded, creating a brilliant fireworks display amidst the carnage. But Alex’s demon sword clone still stood resolute, unfazed by the injury, carrying out his order; to fight. It was made of hardy stuff, without organs to slow it down.

The demonic forces thrashed against its metallic form like waves against a solitary rock. Its purpose wasn't to win. It was to distract. And it performed that role magnificently.

Death. In the corner of his eye, Alex spotted a graceful figure. The second Princess, in her beauty and terror. Her twisted, warped smile stretching wide as she advanced on his clone sent a wave of unease down his spine. She pounced on his clone head first, her mouth open impossibly wide.

Chomp. Snap. Crack.

Her gluttonous assault was a terrifying spectacle. Each gargantuan, grotesque bite consumed a portion of his clone. The clone twisted free and charged.

And the second Princess lunged, a blur of deceptive beauty and monstrous agility. Alex's clone met her with its remaining arm, the sword held in a death grip. They clashed, the sound ringing through the air.

An explosion rocked the battlefield. The collision of the second princess's spell with the sovereign clone's metallic body sending shockwaves rippling through the surroundings, leaving destruction in its wake. The clone lay in many tattered pieces, rippling and shifting back into the form of a shattered blade.

Alex had to act quickly.

Fatigue settled upon him as the battle raged on. Wounds and burns adorned his body, a vivid canvas of his struggle. Blood mingled with sweat, staining the ground beneath his feet, as both sides fought to halt the inevitable.

“Worm!” the first prince spat.

Alex barely caught the sound, his eyes focused to the brink of insanity. 

Three crystals left.

***

“Forget trying to capture him. He is just one human. Focus on protecting the crystal. Then we will catch him.”

“I will find out what he knows, and how he has attained it. With the knowledge—”

“Brother! Sister! Shut up!”

The the first prince roared. The second princes flushed a deep and angry red, affronted. The third prince clenched a fist as if to retaliate. All present chasing their heels raised their heads in alarm.

The first prince saw the crystal shatter. The world shook, and so did his, but not from the fallout. It was his anger boiling. The human stood amidst ruins, then dashed, headed for the final pieces. 

The oldest prince's wrath boiled as he watched the battlefield descend into chaos, all due to the fleeing human. His eyes, cold as the void between worlds, sought Alex amidst the turmoil. 

“Insolence.”

His two siblings raged and yelled in arguement as the first uttered the word. One sibling wished to secure the remaining crystals. The other sought to uncover the humans secrets. But the first wasn’t listening. The first Prince of many was focused on the young human evading their soldiers. the human fled at speeds that almost touched upon their own. Almost. The humans body summoned blades, phantom warriors, and his mana appeared to constantly pull him from harms way— a rare class, then. He had seen many of those. He pointed at Alex and his warriors roared, surging at his position. 

His disdain for humanity deepened with each passing breath. This newly inducted human had disrupted order, a feat thought impossible. The human had touched upon something that resembled the Dao. Although perhaps the First had been mistaken. It could not have been the Dao, that would be another impossibility. And now, he threatened to destroy their conquest. The prince vowed retribution. Alex would pay.

He would not taste failure. Never again. He had to capture him. Or kill him. At this point it mattered not.

An exhale. Smoke and flames escaped pursed lips, curling to the blood red sky. The First Prince did something he had never imagined himself having to do. Not in all his years.

He began to take a human seriously.

***

At the corner of the battlefield, the Second Princess was a blur of agile motion. Her predatory gaze burned into Alex’s back. Suddenly, he felt weaker. It was her, he realised. Her eyes. They were sapping his vitality. Barely had he grasped the situation when his Inner Focus emerged, shedding off the enchanting gaze, focusing solely on his own internal mana flow.

And from the corner of his vision, he detected a rush of darkness, the Second Princess had begun surging toward him, a twisted, warped grin adorning her angelic face. She was impossibly fast. Her razor teeth reflected the light, an unsettling paradox of beauty and terror. With a swift swivel, Alex called upon his Boundless Dodge and Phoenix Leap, mana seizing his body and pulling him into a swift, unnatural motion. He evaded her strike by a hair's breadth, her inky strands grazing past him.

She pouted as he soared away, and launched after him.

He landed, then, on nothing but air. Unseen magic propelled him into a sideways somersault, narrowly avoiding a shower of shadow-blades manifesting from the Third Prince's hands. The intensity of their exchange exhausted Alex's very being, and the countdown on his Mana Burn was almost done. Yet it was the very key to his survival. Repeatedly, he invoked Boundless Dodge, each time narrowly escaping the fatal designs of his enemies. The Sovereign Executioner surged into visibility and retreated into nothingness. A shield in one instance, a blade in the other.

His stamina continued to deplete rapidly, his wounds making each move a struggle. The timer on his Mana burn ticked. His strength dwindled. Mana burn had boosted his stats, but at a great cost.

His focus shifted. From the outer chaos to the inner reservoir of mana. Inner Focus, activated.

Ten seconds. That was all he had left.

The first demon prince surged forward, a blurred shadow of fury in the stillness. His fist was a comet of dark energy, cutting through the air towards Alex.

Alex was ready- Boundless dodge. His body spun gracefully around the incoming strike, bending reality to his will. An afterimage was all the fist found.

[Boundless dodge - Mastery: 0 > 5%]

A second fist immediately surged towards him. Alex mentally yelled at his skill to activate, Boundless do—

The impact sent him flying. Blood spurted from his lips as he felt something, several somethings within his chest, crack.

But the impact had sent him hurtling at speed towards the remaining crystals. His skill, had somehow activated just enough to alter his trajectory.

He dismissed the notification as a cascade of deadly shards flew towards him. The second demon princess was the source, her power billowing around her like a tempest.

Yet, in that moment, Alex was focused. Through the myriad of pain that assaulted him. A completely burned back, a deep gash across his chest- slightly exposing a glimpse of his organs, his arm burned into a unusable form he could barely recognised, and a portion of his ribs destroyed, encroaching into what felt like a punctured lung. Darkness pooled into the corners of his vision but he fought against it with all he had. With an effort of will he remained conscious, but it was fading. In the old world, he would have been long dead. But this wasn't the old world. Alex mentally vowed to invest more stats into endurance, if he survived this. A Phoenix Leap sent him skywards, the ground receding beneath him.

The Second Princess's attack sliced through the air where he had stood, scouring the earth. His eyes scanned the battlefield while he was speeding through the air. The third crystal was close.

He descended, plunging towards the crystal.

He struck.

The mana blade shone blindingly bright at the point of impact. A Dao-infused attack shattered the crystal, the force of the strike scattering fragments across the battlefield in a wave of force.

The portal shrieked.

Starved of its energy source, it began to shrink. More world-travelling demons were caught in the backlash, their screams echoed as they were flung into the void or twisted and destroyed.

The demon royalty froze once more. Their armies did, too.

The respite was fleeting. They were upon him once more, a torrent of magical assaults pouring down on him.

Alex was undeterred.

He swung his Mana Blade, decimating another crystal.

The portal convulsed, shrinking further, trembling the ground.

A sharp pain blossomed in his leg.

The third prince had struck. His precision was devastating, slicing off Alex's leg with searing accuracy. Pain engulfed Alex as the demon incinerated the remains.

Yet, even as pain threatened to cloud his senses, his focus remained unbroken.

There was one crystal left.

Desperation. Alex was almost out of mana, with just two seconds left. His mana reserves were beyond finished, on the brink of depletion.

One second. That was all the time Inner Focus told him he had before he would lose access to his skills. Before his life would end. The pounding in his head from overusing his Dao was excruciating, and each pulse sent blinding flashes across his vision. The world spun around him. He knew he might pass out at any moment, but he continued to fight against the encroaching darkness with all he had. Falling unconscious was not an option, not now.

Out of options, he moved.

With no other alternative left, he acted. With a swift move, his hand plunged onto the final crystal, using his Inventory skill to store it away. The moment the crystal vanished, the portal - the demons incursion point - reacted. It began to collapse, reality shifting as it became unstable.

An unstable portal was a dangerous thing.

The portal, now starved of its energy source, imploded. The once stable entrance to the demon realm twisted and convulsed, its form warping as it fought against its inevitable destruction. Then, with a final shudder, it birthed a voracious vortex, a spatial anomaly.

The battlefield was chaos. Demons scattered in all directions, fleeing the spatial calamaty.

The vortex was relentless, sporadically sucking in everything within reach, crushing or warping or simply vanishing every thing sucked in to oblivion or the unknown. It drew everything into its depths. Nearby demons, caught in its pull, were crushed and warped, their forms disappearing into the unfathomable depths of the anomaly. The battlefield, once filled with the noise of war, now rang with the chilling sounds of the vortex's insatiable hunger.

The demon royalty fled. All around him, demons scattered in all directions, their focus shifted from capturing him to their own survival.

As Alex made his own attempt to escape the chaos, praying he wouldn't be caught in the vortex's anomalous pull, a sudden force slammed into his stomach and knocked the wind out of him.

A boot had halted his attempted escape, pressing against his stomach. He met the eyes of the Fourth Prince. R'jdar.

“Magnificent.” The demon whistled. Debris and torn dirt flew by. Each headed in a different direction.

The prince looked down at Alex and attempted to pry the infinite blade from Alex’s wounded fingers. But even now on the brink of consciousness, Alex refused to let go. A blade erupted from the skin of Alex’s hand like a blooming petal, forcing R’djar to release the blade and mutter words of healing.

He eyed the human curiously, ignorant of the calamity that engulfed the world around them.

The smirk never left the demon.

He appraised Alex a final time, a sly smile crossing his face before he uttered;

"My thanks, human,"

and with a wink, shoved Alex into the collapsing portal.

Alex was swallowed by the void.

His world winked out of existence. The last vestige of reality was the fourth prince’s chuckling laughter, a chilling sound ringing in his mind as he was hurled into the abyss.

Helpless, Alex fell into the void—an abyss of dimensional anomalies that winked in and out of existence.

He vanished.