Chapter 177: Darkness Descend

Hunter, Mardock, and Myas soon found the collapsing walls and saw the many unmoving bodies of various dracanae.

"It looks like sister's been doing awesome things! Look at all these dead monsters! While we've been hard pressed, she seems to have " Myas smiled as she saw it. Many dracanae ghouls were killed. Over thirty or so were dead. Many were buried in the stones, and the bow or the blade killed others.

"No. This looks bad!" Hunter, however, knew better.

"These ghouls don't have blood in them! Lady Martha drained it!" Hunter cursed.

"What do you mean?"

"Lady Myas. Regardless of what form you see Lady Martha. Do not panic. We are vampires, and our special bloodline can even allow us to regrow our limbs. So no matter what state you see Lady Martha in, do not worry. You've seen my brother's state. His arm was sliced off, but he's still able to fight without worry. Our blood clots easily, and we have Minor Vampiric Healing." Hunter gave his warnings.

"It's that bad? She might have lost an arm?!" Myas grew worried.

"Yes. She's probably in a Dark Maddening state. I'm guessing Lady Martha followed the strategy that this dracanae had. She's allowing herself to become mad, but her Path of Combat might be guiding her battles. But it's a desperate move!" Hunter's sprint became faster, forcing Mardock and Myas also to speed up.

There were some weakened and injured dracanae along the way.

Myas drew her bow, but Hunter interrupted.

"Don't shoot! Let my ghouls deal with them!" 

The four ghouls suddenly rushed up ahead and began to stomp and break the arms and legs of the dracanae they encountered. But he didn't kill them."

"I might need them when we run back. We save Lady Martha, and you two may have to retreat with her."

Myas nodded. But she didn't ask any more questions as she knew the implication was that Hunter might stay behind to fight and drink the blood of these ghouls.

In the depths of the cave, five dracanae continuously fought against Martha.

She had a peculiar form that made her look like a dark half-breed spider monster.

"A Tyrant Spider? That's her real form?" One of the dracanae guessed.

The dracanae bit down and devoured the dark spider-like appendage that struck him. He had the ability to devour the darkness and rip off the limbs of his enemy.

The shadow figure it faced retreated almost instantly. Its attacks were too weak to harm the dracanae. Yet, in this fight, it was the dracanae that was growing angrier and angrier.

Around the area were the corpses of more than ten dracanae ghouls. Originally, there were twenty. But some of them were devoured.

Martha had regenerated all her arms and limbs back. She was covered in thick darkness, and even her face was monstrous. It was like her head had a smooth, black helmet with large fangs, and a dim yellow light replaced her eyes.

She had several strange spider-like appendages that grew on the sides of her legs and arm.

These appendages had sharp points at the end and were Blood Weapons that she used to stab the dracanae ghouls. And through that, she not only absorbed the blood, but even the bones and skin, and every cell of the dracanae ghouls.

The five dracanae were unable to control the dracanae ghouls properly, and some of the ghouls began to fight in instinct as they wanted to devour the dark creature before them.

With the sluggish and slow movements of the Dracanae ghoul, the fast Martha was fast enough to chase and kill them.

The five dracanae ghouls would feel the pain and a strange separating power that they feared.

The lack of concentration and the fast movements of Martha caused the five to keep missing the mark.

This was because the dark form of Martha kept on releasing Death Ripple. But there was something strange with the Death Ripple Magic. The closer the dracanae ghouls got to Martha, the more it lost the ability to move and fight.

Eventually, the five dracanae used whatever power they had to command the dracanae ghouls to retreat, but Martha instinctively chased them. 

And while they managed to cut and strike Martha, Martha recklessly pushed through, ignoring whatever attacks that dracanae's did on her.

She was stabbed, sliced, and punched. But Martha would always sacrifice the ambushes and corners that the dracanae made so that she could absorb more of the darkness. And whatever damages are done on her would vanish.

More and more of the darkness made Martha more grotesque.

She stood nearly a foot taller and had pitch-black long shadowy hair. She had black claws on her arms, and there were now two appendages on each of her arms and legs.

"Damn this beast! Half of our warriors are gone because of her!" A dracanae cursed.

"This power that she has. Isn't it similar to the dark energy of the heart?"

"Indeed. This creature must have linked with the heart somehow. But this can be to our advantage. The dark energy she has is weaker. So we might be able to devour it!" One of the dracanae watched with excitement.

"Yes. This woman is getting tastier and tastier by the minute."

"But how can we kill it? We've lost so many dracanae ghouls!"

"Relax, brother. Their energy is not lost forever. Once we kill this woman, we will get it all back." The dracanae that managed to rip off one of the appendages began to munch on it.

"We have her cornered, and she has no food supply. Haven't you noticed? Her Path of Combat is slowly disappearing. She's descending so far in the darkness that she's is becoming a real beast. She will soon turn into a mindless creature that is driven by wildness and death. Without dracanae ghouls, we would be her next target."

"Correct. Even that nasty Death Ripple spell that she kept on using is weakening. All that is left is the same dark energy that can make us lose our minds. But even that is weakening."

Martha kept growling as it devoured more and more of the dracanae ghouls. But the more it devoured, the wilder she grew.

"Get ready to attack! She's losing it!"

"How shall we split this up?"

"Split this up? That will depend on your skill!" One of the dracanae laughed.

"Then it's decided, we take and eat what we can. The weak only has himself to blame." The dracanaes moved in position and prepared to charge in.

Martha began to growl even louder as only her wildness remained.

The dracanae all charged together as Martha howled and fell to her knees.

Each of the five dracanae was racing as fast as they could towards Martha, and their hulking forms started to transform. Each of them had a different color, a different kind of scales, and a unique form.

They were awakening the dragonic cells in their bodies to devour Martha.

And as they did that, Kyriachos has successfully triggered the collapse of the Separated Realm. 

There were now two sources of Seperaed Realm. The first one was in the heart of the dragon deep underground. The second one was the forming realm within Martha's soul.

Kyriachos made Martha's soul strong and triggered the power of a black hole. Martha slowly ate up the Separated Realm and formed her own. 

As one Separated Realm collapsed, a small one was forming within Martha's soul.

The collapse and birth of a Separated Realm triggered a reaction in the real world. One would create a small black hole that would cause the space to implode, while another would trigger an explosion.

The dragon's heart, which was the main source of food and sustenance for this dracanae, imploded and collapsed in itself. It wasn't just that the dragon's heart disappeared, but the space around it also disappeared, forcing all of creation to 'push' things to fill the sudden void. Like water rushing back to fill the gap from the missing water taken by a bucket, the area around the dragon's heart moved closer as if the dragon heart and the space around it never existed. 

The implosion occurred on the dragon's heart, and an explosion occurred to someone else.

Collapsing and birthing another Separated Realm didn't create a Separated Realm of such tremendous space. Especially since the source of the new Separated Realm will be a Time-Space Dark core formed in Martha's soul. Most of the energy would be to create a heaven-defying core that was only inferior to the Dark Core of Kyros. 

And so, even though the original realm was millions and millions of cubic kilometers wide, the new space was just barely 30 cubic meters in size. Kyriachos designed the size of this realm intentionally. The birth of the Separate Realm would juxtapose itself on the real world for a short amount of time.

As a new 'space' appeared on the realm, a tremendous shockwave erupted out.

BOOM!

The powerful pushing sensation smashed on the dracanae and sent it flying.

It then created a weak pulling sensation that was so faint that it didn't even make the flying dracanaes crash slower.

CRASH! CRASH!

"Argh! That damned beast!" One of the dracanae howled.

"What happened?" Another cursed.

All of them were wounded by the explosion.

"She's absorbing the darkness in this place!" One of the dracanae noticed.

"We have to kill her now!" Another cursed as he understood what had happened. His assessment was wrong. Martha did not descend into darkness. Darkness descended into Martha.