Chapter 133: Black Star

As Apophis was thrown in the air, he tried to determine the power levels of each of his attackers. Though it had at first seemed as though Ceasar, Lucifer, and Zelda had combined their powers to break his ~Susanoo~...

He quickly realized that Lucifer had done nearly all the damage himself, and had been the only one to deplete some of Apophis's HP.

While in the air, Apophis activated ~Demonic Wing~. Two black wings emerged from his back and stabilized him in the air. Once he had pulled himself together, Apophis crossed his arms and waited patiently.

Zelda said, "What is this monster?! I feel more like I'm facing a Veigar Dungeon boss in Nightmare mode, rather than an Esper player."

At that moment, a hundred more players joined the three legends who were staring Apophis down.

Ceasar and Lucifer's personal escort had finally arrived to back them up—led by an old acquaintance of Apophis's, Scorpion, who had since joined the Lord Of War guild!

Ceasar, staring up at Apophis, could only marvel at the gap of power that separated them now, one even larger than it had been before. That led him to a disturbing question...

What exactly was Apophis's motivation here? With the level of power on display, he could easily wipe all of them out. Why didn't he?

Lucifer said, "Stay focused! He hasn't responded yet. Scorpio, order your captains to form a defensive line!"

Scorpio responded, "Yes, Sir!"

Scorpion had been waiting for this day for months.

Ever since Apophis had humiliated him at the beginning of the game, his life had been hell. His friends had turned their backs on him and he'd spent nearly all his money putting up a bounty on Apophis's head.

However, this experience had eventually led him to join Lord Of War. Lucifer had found Scorpion's story intriguing and had invited him to join so that Scorpion could share what he knew about Apophis.

Even at that time, Lucifer had considered Apophis a very particular obstacle standing in his way.

Below Apophis, thousands of players had now arrived and were positioning themselves, preparing to fight.

'This' was what Apophis was waiting for. After what he was about to do, his life would change forever. The relative tranquility he'd enjoyed thus far would be lost forever. In exchange, he would rise to the undisputed top of the world.

Many of the players below had the same thought as they stared at the figure far above: "He looks like a fallen angel up there, spreading his huge, dark wings..."

Apophis stretched his hands towards the sky and used ~Dark Lord of Flames~. The black flames which had ravaged Nokful rushed towards him and concentrated in his hand. Rather than use his ordinary flame control abilities, Apophis used ~Telekinesis~ to compress the immense quantity of unquenchable black flame into a tiny ball in his hand.

Ceasar, Lucifer, and Zelda all immediately knew that Apophis was preparing something, so they ordered the tanks in the group to rush to the front to absorb the coming attack.

Then Lucifer and the few players with exceptionally powerful long-range attacks hurled their best efforts at Apophis.

However, ~Susanoo~ had already recharged from its earlier breaking, and it absorbed almost all these attacks entirely. Only the Snipers with their specialized single-shot attacks managed to drain a noticeable amount of energy from him, but Apophis wasn't bothered.

His attack was now ready.

It had the appearance of a black sun in the palm of his hand. In Apophis's old life, this had been his favorite technique around the time he died, at which point he had just reached lvl 200 and Rank A+. It involved using ~Telekinesis~ to compress flames until they caused a chain reaction like that of an unstable, collapsing sun.

Apophis knew that, despite his recent power-up, he was still far from his former power level. The difference between Rank A and B was so vast that even all his skills and Skill Points hadn't yet let him reach that point.

Though Apophis held the equivalent of over 100,000 Energy in his hand, he had once been capable of even more than this.

However, he still had a trump card which might change things completely.

Apophis activated ~Universe Editor~ for the first time.

Time and space froze, and the colors of the world inverted.

Apophis knew with perfect intuition how to use this skill. He simply thought about compressing the sun in his hand a hundred thousand times further.

One second passed, and reality returned to normal.

A white flash illuminated the planet.