114 Before form
I warped space around me as I walked through the void, flying past every restriction in the spatial gaps. Then I materialized outside of the formation, and lightly stomped on the air creating a platform of space to stand on. I sat down holding the array disk with my left hand as the red flames young man approached me. He stepped on the air until he was standing adjacent to me.
"and who are you?" He asked with a dismissive tone if it wasn't for the strangeness of my appearance he would have attacked me.
I didn't respond as my perception scanned the man, but as it approached I felt it get shattered and my countenance grimaced. Although he looked young he had the power of a grand stage. I could tell by his skeletal age that he was indeed rather young, only around 30.
"A supreme genius, it seems that's why your Naga clan is so arrogant." I snickered, to enter grand stage by 30, was a supreme genius even Elton was 100 when he entered the grand stage. His cultivation speed was 3 times faster than even Elton, who was hailed as the top genius of his generation.
"If you realize that, then you'll get out of my way." The young man said with bare killing intent, the flame tattoos on his body fluctuated as if they were alive, changing into various flame beasts along his skin.
"That I can't do, I made a deal to protect this place." I said as I shook my head, as long as my life wasn't at risk I fulfill my agreements. But even with a little risk, I am still willing to make it, after all, I am a man of my word to those that show me no harm.
"You and what army?" The young man laughed as I cooly stared back at him.
"Warriors!" He roared as the army behind him raised their hydra banners. Various natural powers ascended to the skies like fireworks as they roared in response.
"Today we destroy these Lamia scum, show them our power!" He roared as he punched out with a stream of infernal flames, that flew at me like a flame giant.
He smirked arrogantly as the flame giant slammed into me and exploded into a flame pool that struck the formation. At the center of the flames, I stood calmly as I activated the array to absorb the flame energies around me.
I gripped my right hand as space fluctuated around it, my fist became obscured by intense spatial energies as struck out with a palm. The attack shot out powerful spatial force as the fire became disturbed and was sent into the void. Around me the flames disappeared, giving the young man great shock.
"I can't be sleeping on the job can I?" I laughed as my array disk started to vibrate with increasing intensity, some devour runes were shaken off due to the power but the array activated!
Behind me, the formation started to howl, as the trees released increasingly power starlight which coalesced into all sorts of abyssal beings. Thousands of devils and demons shot out glittering with starlight as they attacked the Naga.
Their tentacles and claws stabbed through them like butter, and their numbers increased every second. The young man became increasingly shocked as he attacked with more and more flames, but the monsters would just reassemble from the remnant starlight.
"What are these monstrosities?!?!" He roared as he turned to me with malicious intent.
"Your worst nightmare..." These were the various abyssal beings, devils, and shadow demons I devoured and sealed in my mental scape. I fused my various demons into the formation to create my 1000 devilish reincarnation wheel.
The young man shot out with hundreds of concurrent beams of flames at me. I smiled as the array released more devour runes and the power cores shined. The formation released intense violet energy that wrapped up with the increasing starlight.
They combined and formed a massive fist, that flew from the formation. It slammed into the incoming beams of flames and disintegrated them with windshadows. The flames seemed to wither away into nothingness, as the punch approached the young man who felt intense fear. He dodged back as the fist instantly accelerated and slammed into his body.
He felt his ribs crack as he flew back hundreds of meters with the fist still suppressing him. This was another feature I added to the formation, I could cast my magic through it for a certain price of magic. But luckily I reinforced the magic pools so that the cost wasn't too much.
"You're insane!" The young man roared as the fist dissipated, he came out of the crater looking ragged and torn up.
He removed a talisman from his robes and crushed it. A 9 colored light burst out of the talisman as it ascended towards me with murderous intent. I couldn't help but feel fear as I activated the array to released 10 more starry fists.
The starlight and magic pools decreased by over 50% all at once, as 10 fists converged together to attack the 9 colored light. The light increased in intensity as it slammed into the first, second, third, an at the 7th one it started to decrease in strength.
The final fist slammed into the 9 colored light as the disrupted the fighting on the battlefield. The two energies blasted each other apart releasing intense blinding light, and heat. The heat slammed into the ground disintegrating thousands of the Naga and abyssal devils.
It was as if the sun itself had descended, some of the scattered heat slammed into the formation causing some holes which quickly reformed with the use of the magical pools, at this point the pools had at best 20% left.
"Your formation can't last at this point, you were tough but not tough enough." The ragged young man snickered with intense hatred never had he in all his years been so humiliated.
In his clan everyone made way for him, he had never failed in his life and had always been the first in everything. For him to be so defeated unless he killed me he would be haunted by it forever. I understood that thinking because it was rather simplistic.
It was one where honor supplants power and power is for the sake of their honor. But such easy thinking is always easy to control and decipher. I coldly looked on and raised the array disk with telekinesis. Once it was over my head, I released intense swirling shadow force.
"Avatar art!" I roared as my body started to shake and from it departed 3 figures. The first was a devilish young man with charming eyes. The second was a young man dressed in starry robes with a transcendent aura. The last was nothing more than a silhouette, a shadow of some terrifying being.
Each of the released the power that they commanded, shadow force, astral powers, and devilish intent slammed into the array disk as it released every devour rune it had. The energies became amplified as they took on a terrible prowess.
The magic pools started to shake and rupture as the remaining liquids flew into the air and slammed into the silhouette. The silhouette opened it's mouth as it consumed all the magical liquids and energies becoming clearer and clearer.
A divine power seemed to supplant the power of natural law, the 2 avatars disintegrated into various lights as they fused into the silhouette. All of a sudden the unclear image, became an evil young man.
His eyes shined with terrifying darkness prowess, as his every motion inspired terrifying primordial fear. It was as if they stood in front of God himself, the young man laughed a distorted laugh as a black longsword materialized in his right hand.
"What are you!" The young man couldn't help but ask with his fear showing. He stood in front of a being far beyond his comprehension.
"We come from darkness." He intoned as the entire world vibrated and all traces of light dissipated. It was unlike shade last time because starlight still existed, but now the entire world was completely dark as if it had returned to before the start of time.
"Become time, before space, before form, before life. I existed before all things." The world slowly crumbled as time, space, form, and life disintegrated. The void collapsed, time no longer existed, every single magical particle disintegrated, and slowly each life form started to corrode.
"I am the origin and end of all things." The world increasingly corroded as it almost entirely disappeared, at this point no one in the domain as capable of thought but for me.
"I am the Lord of Shadows!" With the final declaration, the entire world disintegrated as the army and young man disappeared with no trace into a place beyond existence.
The world lit up again as the domain disappeared, and the young man became a silhouette again. The world reformed as the ground became whole again and magical particles returned, but nowhere was the army found. It was as if they had never even existed in the first place.
With the shining of starlight and devilish intent, the silhouette became Lucifer again, but his entire face was pale and awash with exhaustion. He took deep breathes as he flew back into the formation and warped into his cave to start his meditations.
The only witness to the terrifying scene of the Lord of Shadows was the old king, and he couldn't help but feel intense primordial fear, he couldn't find a single trace of the entire army.
