The Conquerors Path
chapter-549

The silence within the lush plains shattered as the roar of Shira filled the place. She slowly rose herself from the rubble, her mind still fully filled with hate and killing intent, with no question about how I had punched her across the place, despite her being at Origin level 10.

Raw dense energy started to circle around her, the inscription 'ō' on her forehead lighting up, as a beam of energy faster than any left her head towards me, the power within it crushing, and I could even sense a heavy amount of corruption energy centered around it.

'That's dangerous,' I mused to myself, realizing the peril. I coated myself with the special energy property of my bloodline, my hand raised as it came face to face with the energy. The two battled each other until the light faded away from Shira's head.

'This is something to look into,' I thought, examining my hand. It emitted a small sizzling sound.

Shira didn't let me dwell on my thoughts for long as her rapier soon appeared near my heart. The place she stood before caved in as I came eye to eye with Shira, her black eyes now a blanket of negative emotions. The rapier, aiming for my heart, missed as I blinked to another location. The rapier's force quickly destroyed the area before it, leaving only destruction.

Shira stopped in her place for a moment, her head whipping towards me. With speed, the same ray as before blasted at me. I dealt with it in the same manner, taking the brunt of it with my hand until those symbols once again cooled down.

My body tensed as I appeared before Shira, my fist aiming towards her face. She dodged it, her rapier twisting in an impossible manner as it went towards my eye, which I also dodged. My leg rose as I kicked her in the stomach, her body flying across, leaving the place of our little bout completely desolate.

Our pure powers, both at Origin level 10, brought forth extreme pressure from our actions. Just one small action from the two of us easily destroyed the entire place.

Shira landed on her feet, her black eyes once again locked onto me. The ground below me caved, a sinkhole of 100 feet opening below to swallow me up, yet I stayed fixed. I floated above it effortlessly. However, a huge shadow seemed to cover me.

Raising my head above, an upside-down hill appeared within the clouds. Its size was humongous as it aimed directly towards the sinkhole and me. Within a split second, it began to fall, its sheer weight and power bringing a huge gravity force on me.

'No wonder the family name is Hillclowd,' I chuckled a bit. The hill reached towards me, but before it could reach me, I released an extremely potent amount of destruction energy. I compressed it into a small dot and sent it towards the hill. The hill just disappeared from existence, leaving the pressure on me to disappear as I looked at Shira.

Small pools of sweat fell from her head, while the sparkle of her rapier dulled a bit. But the main thing was her standing there clenching her teeth, with no concern for how, what, or why. To her, the only thing that mattered now was seeing me die.

As I floated above the sunken ground, the ground below Shira started to twist. Rock-like spears, thousands of them, formed and moved towards me. However, not a single one managed to reach within 5 steps of me as a destruction energy barrier formed around me, turning those thousands of spears into nothing.

Seeing this, Shira once again moved. Her rapier lit up in dark red and brown, and the ground split open again. This time the rocks quickly formed 10 different images of Shira, all of them real and all of them powerful. They all attacked me from every range. I floated towards the sky, and she followed by raising the very ground beneath me.

Ten different Shira's, all of them moving towards me with the raging ground beneath, and I waved my hand. Light destruction energy left me and targeted all the fakes, turning them into nothing. The real Shira still moved as she waved her rapier at me, her body twisting as a rotating flow added itself to her rapier. Along with it, the symbol on her head lit up, and the ray fired toward me as the twisting flow rapier reached me.

'Let's end this...' I thought as I closed my finger tight, the special energy of my bloodline filling my hand as I mixed a bit of destruction energy with it, fusing them lightly. A small inscription appeared on my hand, making the power of my hand beyond anything as I just punched forward. Everything in front of me disappeared in a humongous blast.

A tremendous pressure was released from my hand, the sheer power and force of it obliterating everything in front of me. The figure of Shira quickly disappeared under the intense pressure, and the power of my energy followed suit, disintegrating any remnants of Shira's attack. Within the blink of an eye, the entire place within a radius of 2 km disappeared, leaving only dust and rocks.

'I need to tone this down a bit,' I thought. With that, I deactivated the inscription as I started to float towards the ground. Shira lay bruised within a humongous crater, black blood leaking from all over her body. The inscription of 'ō' on her head turned pale, while the cracks on her body started to grow bigger and bigger.

I stared down at her broken form. The woman I had pretended to love, the one I had used and manipulated for information, was now dying at my feet. The sound of her labored breathing echoed in the desolation that surrounded us, a stark reminder of the cruel game I had played.

As I floated closer to Shira's shattered body, memories of our time together flashed before my eyes, each one a painful reminder of the deceit that had brought us to this moment. I had whispered sweet words in her ear, kissed her passionately under the moonlit sky, and held her in my arms as if she were the most precious thing in the world. But it had all been a lie, a charade to extract the information I needed.

Shira's eyes, once so full of life and warmth, now held nothing but pain and betrayal as they locked onto mine. Her lips quivered as she struggled to speak, her voice barely a whisper.

"You... you used me, Austin," she gasped, each word a struggle. "All those promises, all those... moments... they meant nothing to you."

Shira's body convulsed with a violent cough, and a fresh wave of black blood spilled from her lips.

"I hate you....I hate you.....I hate you..." she choked out, her voice filled with anguish.

Shira's breathing grew shallower, her life slipping away with each passing moment, even in her final moments she tried to move her body, pushing her body to somehow come close to me and bite me, to leave some kind of mark on me.

"You tried to harm my family and this will be the end of it..."

I spoke as I knelt down a bit, my eyes meeting hers, the two of us knowing that her ending was near yet her despair hadn't ended.

"Do you know? even in death you will be very useful to me, don't worry, I shall take good care of your body..."

As I said this I placed my hand on her head, her eyes shivering as she stared wiggling her body, seemingly understanding what was coming.

"NO!....NO!.....NOOOOOOO!"

She screamed in her hoarse voice but her help never came as my bloodline with a spell covered over her mind, soon erasing the concept of the individual Shira HillClowd.....