Vogue growled and imdiately controlled his muscles with precise focus, tensing them around the wound to stop the blood from continuing to spill out. His regeneration was already working on closing the injury, but it would take several seconds.
He landed back on the ground with a heavy "thud" sound, his feet creating small craters in the cracked floor from the force of his landing combined with the gravity still pressing down on him.
Behind him, the four players whose necks he had sliced during Ti Stop all collapsed simultaneously as their heads rolled free from their shoulders. Their bodies crumpled to the ground in spreading pools of blood.
[Humans Killed 4]
But Vogue had no ti to appreciate those kills because the remaining players were already converging on him.
"Attack him together! Don’t give him any space!" soone shouted, coordinating the assault.
More than twenty players rushed at him from all directions simultaneously, creating a closing circle of bodies and weapons that left him no room to escape.
Vogue imdiately made a decision. He activated one of his most powerful defensive abilities.
"Ice Palace!"
The temperature plumted so fast that frost ford on every surface within seconds. A massive surge of freezing energy exploded outward from Vogue’s position, expanding in all directions.
The twenty-plus players who had been rushing toward him were all caught in the effect. Ice ford around their feet first, then climbed rapidly up their legs, their torsos, their arms. Within two seconds, all of them were completely encased in thick layers of solid ice that held them frozen in place like statues.
Their expressions were locked mid-charge—so showed determination, so showed fear, so showed surprise. All of them were completely immobilized.
Elaborate walls of ice rose from the ground, forming the structure of an actual palace around Vogue. The throne of nine dragon heads materialized beneath him, and he sat down on it with the bearing of a king surveying his frozen kingdom.
Vogue’s eyes were cold and rciless as he looked at the frozen players. His voice was flat and emotionless as he spoke a single word.
"Explode."
Instantly, the ice encasing all twenty-plus players detonated from within.
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"
The simultaneous explosions created a cacophony of destruction. The frozen players’ bodies were blown apart into chunks of frozen at and shattered ice mixed with crystallized blood. Even those among them who had possessed ice manipulation talents died just as completely as the others—Vogue’s mastery over ice was simply far superior to theirs.
Pieces of bodies scattered across the floor in a grueso display.
[Humans Killed 23]
But Vogue had no ti to rest or celebrate his successful defense.
"Stab!"
A blade suddenly pierced completely through Vogue’s back and erged from his chest, having been driven straight through his heart from behind.
Vogue’s eyes went wide with shock. He spat out a mouthful of blood as foreign energy from the blade penetrated deep into his heart tissue and caused it to explode from within. The heart ruptured completely, creating a gaping hole in his chest that went all the way through his body.
He could see daylight through the hole in his torso where his heart should have been.
Vogue was genuinely stunned. How had soone gotten behind him without him noticing? His combat instincts were usually sharp enough to detect threats even from his blind spots.
He turned his head with difficulty and looked back over his shoulder, only to see an extrely beautiful young woman standing directly behind him with a bloodstained blade in her hand.
She had long flowing hair, delicate features that looked almost doll-like, and wore an elegant dress that seed completely inappropriate for a battlefield. But her eyes were sharp and predatory, completely at odds with her beautiful appearance.
It was the sa young woman who had been standing beside Divine Son Xander up in the sky previously.
"Hey there," the lady said cheerfully, tilting her head to the side with a bright smile that didn’t reach her cold eyes.
"I am a huge fan of yours. Really, truly, genuinely impressed by your work. So violent, so efficient, so brutal." Her smile widened as she studied him. "Hmm, I should give you a proper nickna. How about... Calamity Vogue? Nice ring to it, don’t you think?"
She giggled like she’d just told an amusing joke as she slowly withdrew her blade from the hole in Vogue’s chest. The weapon made a wet, sucking sound as it pulled free.
Then she did sothing disturbing. She touched the edge of the gaping hole in his chest with her fingers, gathering his blood on her hand. She brought her bloodstained fingers to her mouth and deliberately sared his blood across her lips before licking them clean.
"Hmmm," she humd with genuine interest, her eyes widening slightly. "Really potent blood you have. Your bloodline must be sothing extraordinary. I can taste power in it."
The girl furrowed her brow as though she had noticed sothing unusual. Her expression changed from playful to serious as she seed to sense sothing about Vogue’s blood that surprised her.
A spatial rift suddenly appeared in the air directly behind the young woman, reality tearing open like fabric being cut. The rift created a portal to sowhere else, offering her an instant escape route.
She quickly began falling backward into the spatial tear, intending to retreat before Vogue could counterattack.
"Too late!" Vogue snarled.
Despite having a hole in his chest where his heart should be, despite blood pouring from the wound, Vogue moved with explosive speed. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the throat before she could fully enter the portal.
His grip was like iron, his fingers digging into her neck and cutting off her air supply completely.
With his other hand, he drove his blade deep and hard into her abdon, pushing the weapon in all the way to the hilt. He twisted the blade viciously once it was fully inserted, causing maximum internal damage.
Blood spurted out from her stomach wound in pulses, soaking her elegant dress and dripping onto the frozen floor beneath them.
She looked at Vogue with absolute shock and disbelief written across her beautiful features. Her eyes were wide with the realization that she had made a terrible mistake.
She genuinely couldn’t believe he was still alive and capable of fighting even when his heart had been completely destroyed! How was that even possible? Every living thing needed a functioning heart to survive!
Vogue chuckled coldly, the sound dark and rciless. His voice was a low growl as he spoke.
"Since you claim to be my fan, you should appreciate this parting gift, shouldn’t you?"
Without any hesitation or rcy, he clenched his hand around her throat and twisted with trendous force.
"Crack!"
Her neck snapped with a sickening sound, the vertebrae separating completely. Her head tilted at an unnatural angle.
But Vogue wasn’t finished. Using just his fingers, he ripped half of her throat completely out, tearing through flesh and windpipe and major blood vessels. Gore dripped from his hand.
Her eyes went glassy and lifeless. Her body went limp in his grasp.
She fell to the ground and died, blood pooling around her corpse.
[Human Killed: S-Rank Talent]
[Bonus Rewards Unlocked]
Vogue turned away from her corpse without a second glance, his own chest wound already beginning to close as his regeneration worked overti. New heart tissue was forming, the hole slowly filling in with fresh muscle and blood vessels.
He looked toward the other players who were still alive. There were perhaps forty of them remaining now from the original hundred. They were all staring at him in complete horror and hadn’t dared to move closer even a single step.
Even with Xander’s divine enhancent still flowing through their bodies, even with their strength doubled, Vogue had still killed them easily and in large numbers. That ant his actual combat strength was at a level they simply couldn’t match.
And he had even killed an S-Rank talent holder, the beautiful woman who had been standing with Divine Son Xander himself. That was terrifying beyond words.
The remaining players knew with certainty now that continuing to fight would simply an their deaths. The hunt had beco a slaughter, and they were the ones being slaughtered.
Vogue tilted his head back and looked upward, his eyes finding Divine Son Xander still floating in the sky above, watching everything with that sa indifferent expression.
"Why don’t you co down here yourself?" Vogue called up to him mockingly, a sneer on his bloodstained face. "Or are you too scared of ? Would you rather send others to do your dirty work instead of facing yourself?"
His tone was deliberately insulting and provocative, designed to anger the Divine Son and goad him into direct confrontation.
Xander glanced down at him with complete indifference, showing no visible reaction to the insult or provocation. His expression remained calm and emotionless.
When he spoke, his voice was quiet but carried perfect clarity despite the distance.
"Rember, you asked for this."
Then Divine Son Xander began to descend from the sky.
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