Standing upon the earth was a petite woman plastered from head to toe in talisman charms.
"Hiiieeeh!"
Gouging desperate furrows into the ground, a colossal, turtle-like creature serving under the Rot King scrambled frantically to get away from her.
The petite woman casually raised her right palm toward it.
Instantly, the rotting turtle's entire body seized up and levitated into the air. As she clenched her outstretched hand into a fist, a sickening sound echoed across the field. As though crushed in the grip of an invisible, gargantuan palm, the rotting giant turtle was compressed into a compacted sphere of minced flesh before plummeting heavily to the earth.
Seeing that escape was impossible, the giant subordinates of Dekkadeka—who had just been slaughtered by the white-haired girl—mustered the grim resolve to make a final stand.
"Dieee!"
"You damn monster!"
Shaking the ground beneath their massive strides, several giants clad in oversized, rotting armor brought their iron clubs crashing down toward the crown of a red-haired youth with vermilion wings sprouting from his back.
The youth made no move to dodge, choosing instead to take the blow squarely on top of his head.
He stood barely two meters tall. It was a direct, full-force blow delivered by beings several dozen times his size. Under normal circumstances, his brains would have been splattered across the dirt.
However...
"Ngh?!"
The iron clubs melted away like heated sugar, dissolving into gooey sludge.
"I-Impossible! The magical weapons bestowed upon us by Lord Rot King... melted?!"
As the rotting giant shrieked in disbelief, the red-haired youth furrowed his brow in utter disgust.
"Ha! As if a weapon from a mere evil god—one that didn't even leave a scratch on Norn—could ever work against Phoenix!"
He spat the words out with pure contempt.
He was Phoenix. An immortal divine bird who had gained the power to manifest in humanoid form ever since being registered in the Subjugation Compendium.
With a simple snap of his fingers, a pillar of crimson flame cascaded down from the heavens, reducing the giants to fine ash without leaving behind a single scrap of flesh or bone.
"To think beings with so little power dared enrage that terrifying Great One. It's so utterly pathetic it makes me laugh—it's like looking at my past self."
Muttering with self-mockery, he rose into the air. Gliding gracefully across the sky, he commenced the systematic annihilation of the enemy forces.
Several colossal rotting dragons—beasts that should have stood atop the pinnacle of strength—screeched in terror as they scattered in blind panic. The twin eyes on one of the golden seven-headed dragon's heads flared with light. A bolt of golden lightning crashed down from the sky, instantly vaporizing the beasts down to the last cell.
Another head opened its gaping maw and unleashed a torrent of hellfire, reducing the entire surrounding landscape to ash and cinders in the blink of an eye.
"Hey, Ladon! You tryin' to roast us too, you bastard?!"
"That single blast just blew away almost every enemy in the area! How're we supposed to earn praise from the Great One if there's nothing left?!"
Fierce shouts of indignation erupted from every corner of the battlefield, but the gigantic, seven-headed golden dragon paid them no heed. Striding forward with the sheer, unyielding majesty of an unsinkable battleship, he trampled everything in his path into oblivion.
And then, there was the supreme faction standing as an equal rival to the Dragon God Faction.
A faceless entity hovered above the ground, detached the crimson ring mounted on its back, and hurled it toward the undead. Spinning at blinding speed, the crimson ring cleanly decapitated the fleeing undead one after another. The headless torsos left behind dissolved into a sludgy, bright red humanoid liquid, immediately lunging after the surviving undead in search of fresh prey. The severed heads were left floating helplessly around the faceless entity, denied even the peace of death.
Driven by desperation, a mob of undead charged forward. An eight-eyed youth, his upper body completely bare, merely shrugged and casually swept his right arm.
His razor-sharp claws filleted a giant serpent undead into three clean slabs, which collapsed into scattered heaps of flesh. A split second later, the minced meat swelled and erupted into a violent blast.
Caught in the detonation, the surrounding undead were engulfed in flames and shredded into pulverized gore.
"Ghih!"
As the eight-eyed youth aimed his right palm at the back of a phantasmal ape undead fleeing like a terrified hare, the creature suddenly froze in its tracks. Its skin boiled and blistered before erupting in a massive explosion.
The corners of the eight-eyed youth's mouth curled into a sinister grin as he stalked across the battlefield, searching for his next prey.