The power of the abominations did not deter Cain.
If anything, it sharpened the hunger inside him—the killing intent that pulsed with every heartbeat.
The stronger they are, the more Primal Origin Energy they will yield.
The ArchDeity spawns poured out from the Heart of the Root like rivers of corruption. Though the divine lattice of the Matrix weakened them, they were still creatures born of godlike might-each radiating enough destructive power to level continents. And every iota of it was directed at Cain.
The Scarlet King carved through the lesser spawns with rciless precision. The void blazed scarlet and gold with the aftermath of his onslaught.
But eventually, the tide changed.
He found himself surrounded by the true horrors-the ArchDeity kind. Hundreds of them encircled him, their shrieking roars forming a discordant choir that made even the void tremble. Their claws and fangs glead like jagged shards of reality itself.
They attacked as one.
The swarm's assault ca from every direction-an overwhelming storm of talons, energy waves, and claws that would have shredded anything at the ArchDeity Rank. Even Cain's overwhelming speed and reflexes were strained to keep up.
However, the Scarlet King did not lose his composure. His focus increased as he drew in a sharp breath, only for his eyes to glow with golden light the next second.
The rhythm of the enemies' movents filled his mind. His awareness expanded until every strike, every wingbeat, every distortion of
power was laid bare before him.
Then, he acted.
He flowed between the strikes, impossibly fluid, impossibly fast. When an attack beca impossible to dodge, he diverged it into another monster with a single wave of his hands. The creatures tore into one another, their confusion only feeding Cain's montum.
In the sa heartbeat, a lance of condensed gravity materialized in his left hand. With a swift motion, he hurled it sideways. The weapon punched through a cluster of ArchDeity spawn, detonating in a burst of compressed energy that tore their bodies to shreds.
What followed was a breathtaking display of mastery.
Cain danced amid the chaos; his movents were transcendental. He dodged, diverted, and countered. His strikes landed with surgical precision-each one a death sentence. Every fallen abomination dissolved into light, and the Matrix converted their destruction into golden streams of Primal Origin Energy, flooding into him, feeding his rising power.
Step by step, kill by kill, he advanced. A crimson trail of ruin followed him until at last, he stood before the Heart of the Root itself.
The world-sized tumor pulsed like a diseased sun, the spawns on its surface attacking the golden hands of the Matrix that were struggling to hold it at bay. Without hesitation, Cain raised both arms. Dozens of Tidal Mass Lances ford above him, glowing like miniature stars. "Fall."
He unleashed them.
The sky tore apart. Each lance blasted through the abominations surrounding the Matrix's hands, vaporizing them, and then drove into the colossal body of the Heart itself. The resulting shockwaves carved wounds across its grotesque surface-massive rents that oozed black ichor into the void.
Now that the golden hands were freed and the Root wounded, the will of the universe surged with renewed strength. The Nine Empyrean Suns Matrix began to push, inch by inch, forcing the monstrous entity back!
Cain's eyes glowed with fierce exhilaration. He could feel it happening -the tide was turning. If they could maintain this assault, they might drive the creature out entirely, preventing an apocalypse.
He roared, a sound that split the void, and charged.
The Heart's tentacles lashed toward him, vast and writhing, but too slow. Cain moved like a cot of living fla, the energy in his right hand condensing until it resembled a scarlet sun ready to go
supernova.
And then-
"CRACK."
The sound ca not from without, but from within the abominable
world.
Sothing inside the Heart of the Root broke.
The next instant, an imnse surge of energy erupted upward, tearing through its surface and blasting into the void above. Cain barely had ti to react before a colossal fist, forged of writhing tentacles and dark plasma, appeared before him.
Its power was imnse, forcing the Scarlet King to respond with all the power had had gathered.
The two forces collided, releasing a cataclysmic explosion that split reality apart. A shockwave of black light consud the space around them, scattering nearby debris and hurling Cain backward through the void.
It took a mont before the Scarlet King regained his footing, and then he saw a trail of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. His body, tempered to the level of an Alpha-Oga Overgod
Treasure, had been wounded.
Cain's gaze sharpened as he looked toward the Heart of the Root. And then he saw it.
It was a grotesque fusion of muscle, decay, and demonic power-a living nightmare wrought from divine corpses. Countless bodies had been grafted together into one seamless horror. Its flesh rippled with veins of black fire; one arm was a writhing mass of dark tendrils, the other a colossal blade of red, organic tal pulsing with erald cores of energy.
Its chest burned with crimson light beneath a skeletal cage, as if entire souls scread within. A crown of bone-like horns jutted from its skull, and its eyes-those dreadful, luminous eyes-burned with
intelligence and purpose.
This was no mindless spawn.
And that truth beca undeniable when it spoke.
"You are strong," it said.
The voice reverberated across existence, carrying corruption and command in equal asure. Even the void recoiled.
"I am Emprik, the Grafter, Champion of the Root." Its grin widened, exposing rows of crystalline teeth that shimred with warped energy. "I extend to you an invitation. Join the Root-and you will live forever. Beco part of sothing greater than yourself. Eternal bliss, eternal love, eternal purpose awaits you."
As it spoke, black plasma erupted from its body, rising like a storm of darkness. The energy it released was so dense that space itself began to fracture under the weight of its presence.
"Embrace the Unity!"
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