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Chapter Five: Symphony of Annihilation (Part Two)

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  [SYSTEM ALERT: Location: Azoria Palace – Main Square]

  [Event: The Procession Emerges]

  [Status: The Line Between Logic and Illogic is Vanishing]

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  The giant gates of Azoria's palace opened. Not slowly, but wrenched from their hinges as if a heavy wind had pushed them from within.

  From the heart of the darkness left by the laboratory, emerged the procession that would change the face of history.

  In the lead marched Arthur de Flancde, Emperor of the Seven Continents. But he was not the Arthur his soldiers knew. He was surrounded by an aura of nothingness that made light flee from him. His eyes reflected a coldness that did not belong to humans.

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  Directly behind him marched the 18 Forgotten Ones.

  Their exit was anything but ordinary. The "Elf" moved like a phantom that did not touch the ground, his arrows made of blue energy flickering with a silent threat.

  The "Dwarf" walked as the ground cracked beneath his feet, wearing mechanical armor that breathed green steam.

  As for the rest of the hybrids, they emitted a low roar that shook the soul.

  Beside them were the war machines. Massive, metallic, walking on spider-like legs, emitting the sound of gears grinding the void. Their red eyes scanning the horizon for a target.

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  Outside the palace, the vast Imperial army was stationed.

  Hundreds of thousands of trained soldiers, who had crushed thrones and destroyed cities, stood frozen in their places.

  Spears fell from the hands of some. Horses retreated, neighing in instinctive terror.

  The great commanders, who had spent their lives in wars, felt like pygmies before the majesty of the 18, and before the eight girls who floated in the air around Arthur like angels of death. Their skin radiating a purple light that caused pain to anyone who looked at it directly.

  A veteran general (Whispering as he saw a mechanical war machine pass by him):

  "What is this...? These are not swords... this is not fire... this is Annihilation."

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  A short distance away, at the Great Square of Azoria, the rebels had gathered.

  The nobles of Azoria who thought their walls would protect them. The commoners misled by the leaders of sedition. The remnants of Fraden's army who had not witnessed his crushing inside.

  They were tens of thousands. Screaming words of "freedom" and "revolution." Led by Lord Cassius, the wealthiest and most arrogant of Azoria's nobles.

  Cassius stood on a high platform, pointing his gilded sword toward the palace.

  Cassius:

  "Look! The Emperor comes out to us in weakness! With him a handful of freaks and girls! Where is his great army? Did he fear the might of Azoria? Today we crush the throne and reclaim..."

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  Cassius did not finish his sentence.

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  He was not silenced by a sound. But by Presence.

  Elias and Flora suddenly appeared on the high balcony of the palace, watching the scene as if in a private theater.

  Elias put his hand in his pocket coldly. Flora was eating a strange fruit, looking at the rebels with disgust.

  They did not utter a word. But their presence made the air in the square boil.

  Every rebel felt his soul being pulled from his body just by Elias looking toward the square.

  Elias's voice came in a whisper, but it echoed in the mind of every being in Azoria:

  "Arthur. The place is polluted with noise. Purify it."

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  Arthur raised his hand slowly.

  He did not give an order to his Imperial army to move. Instead, he signaled the 18 Forgotten Ones.

  In a fraction of a second, the "Elf" vanished. No one saw him move. But in the next moment, the heads of the front row of rebels exploded.

  They were not ordinary arrows. They were bursts of energy that erased matter.

  The "Dwarf" jumped into the center of the rebel knights' gathering. When he landed, his armor unleashed a seismic wave that shattered the bones of horses and knights in a hundred-meter radius.

  The Fox-Girl lunged like lightning. Her claws not just cutting flesh, but "tearing the soul." Everyone she touched fell dead without a single wound. Their eyes whitened from existential horror.

  The 18 hybrids wreaked havoc in the square. It was not a war. It was a "harvest."

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  Then came the turn of the war machines.

  Metallic muzzles opened in their chests, firing beams of black light. Wherever the light touched, everything vanished. Stone, weapon, human... they turned into fine ash scattered by the wind.

  The rebels' screams turned from anger to a wail that tore hearts. But there was no mercy in the heart of Elias and Flora. And no mercy in Arthur's hand.

  As for the eight girls, they were the most terrifying.

  They used no weapons. They walked slowly between the ranks. Every time one of them looked at a rebel soldier, his body began to "fold" on itself. As if invisible forces were squeezing him until he became the size of a fist. Then vanished into nothingness.

  One of them raised her hand toward an entire battalion. Suddenly, time froze for them. They remained standing like statues while the girl passed between them and "erased" their heads with her fingers gently. As soon as she moved her hand, the headless bodies fell in a terrifying harmony.

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  When Lord Cassius saw his army vanishing before his eyes, he tried to flee.

  But he suddenly found himself flying through the air. Drawn toward Arthur by a magnetic force from one of the machines.

  He fell beneath the feet of Arthur, who stood frozen like a statue of black marble.

  Elias and Flora descended from the balcony slowly. As if descending on an invisible staircase.

  Flora approached Cassius, tilting her head.

  Flora:

  "Oh, were you talking about crushing the throne? What a lovely ambition for someone made of flesh and blood."

  Cassius was trembling. Urinating on himself in terror.

  Cassius:

  "Please... mercy... I will give you all my gold..."

  Elias looked at him with empty eyes.

  Elias:

  "Gold? We own universes, so what would we do with your yellow metal? Arthur, this man enjoyed his voice very much. Let him enjoy it forever."

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  By Elias's command, the eight girls began a gruesome ritual.

  They did not kill Cassius.

  Instead, one of them "expanded" his senses to the point where he felt the air passing over his skin like razor blades.

  Then another "froze" the time of pain within him. So that every second of torture seemed like an entire century.

  The mechanical machines began tearing his limbs apart very slowly. Millimeter by millimeter. While Flora's power prevented him from dying or losing consciousness.

  He screamed in a voice that was no longer human. A voice coming from the depths of hell.

  Elias watched in silence. Interested only in how much the human throat could endure before it exploded.

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  The other nobles who were captured were forced to watch Cassius's end.

  Then were turned into "luminous pillars" that served as fuel for the war machines. Their souls burned slowly to generate energy. In a torment that does not end until the soul is completely annihilated.

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  At the peak of the massacre, Arthur felt immense pressure.

  It was not the power of the rebels. But the "Absolute Power" given to him by Elias that began to leak from his body.

  Arthur let out a scream that echoed throughout Azoria. Shaking the seven continents.

  A wave of black energy erupted from him. Erasing all remaining traces of "rebellion."

  The buildings that housed the rebels collapsed. The high walls turned to dust.

  That moment was the total collapse of Arthur's human power and its transformation into something "supernatural."

  Arthur fell to his knees. Spacetime distorting around him.

  Elias smiled coldly.

  Elias:

  "The fetus has begun to grow... your body has begun to accept the Illogic."

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  When the "cold heat" fires lit by Elias died down, and the machines stopped grinding bones, Azoria was not as it had been.

  The kingdom once known as the "Pearl of the East" had turned into a silent cosmic graveyard.

  The sky over Azoria was no longer blue. It was stained a dismal gray. Interspersed with a strange, lingering purple glow. As if the "Absolute" had left its mark on the atmosphere.

  The air became heavy. Saturated with the smell of burnt ozone mixed with the smell of blood that had not dried, but frozen in place by the forces of time manipulation.

  The earth, which had been fertile, turned into a substance resembling black glass. The power of the 18 and the war machines had melted sand and stone until they turned into a smooth surface reflecting the images of the dead soldiers with terrifying clarity.

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  There were no corpses in the traditional sense.

  Most of the rebels were "erased." Their clothes and armor remained in place, lying on the ground like empty snakeskins. While their bodies vanished into nothingness.

  The silence that prevailed was more painful than the screams of war. A "dead" silence. Not interrupted by a bird's chirp or a tree's rustle. Wildlife had fled from Azoria as if it were a cursed zone forever.

  In the Great Square, Lord Cassius's platform remained standing. But it was surrounded by a bubble of "frozen time" where his blood droplets still hung in the air, witnessing the never-ending agony.

  The majestic palaces became distorted ruins. Not fallen by catapults, but parts of them evaporated as if a giant monster had bitten them coldly.

  Ancient statues of former kings were found overturned. Their faces completely erased. Leaving space for the "Elias and Flora" mark carved into the heart of the city like a permanent tattoo.

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  The Imperial army stationed outside remained in its place, silent. Its commanders trembling at the mere sight of what Azoria had become.

  They realized they were no longer fighting for a human emperor. They had become witnesses to the emergence of the "Eternal Rulers."

  Azoria was no longer a kingdom. It had become a "Museum of Annihilation." A place inhabited by existential fear.

  Among the wreckage, Elias and Flora walked hand in hand. Strolling over the ashes as if in a flower garden.

  Arthur stood at the center of the destruction. Looking at his hands which no longer resembled the hands of humans.

  Azoria had ended as an entity. Born as a "terrifying memory" in the history of the Empire.

  And Elias and Flora's journey to destroy other worlds had begun.

  For what happened here was merely "the prologue."

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