Chapter 349: Mantis Stalks the Cicada II

Quandra - Two Days After The Destruction of the Primordial Humans’ Round Table

Appearing near the center of the Eldritch Terror’s main universe, Quandra channeled the yin and yang infused power of her core into a ball of energy over her right hand roughly the size of a planet. Then, in less than a second, she shrunk it down to the size of a city, and then to the size of a large fruit.

At this point, the two broodmother gods and the 16 other Terror divinities around them noticed her, but it was already too late.

The ball shrunk down twice more, ending up roughly the size of a lithium atom, and then she released it before teleporting away.

Compared to most other universes, the suppression of the Eldritch Terror’s main universe was quite high, so the resulting explosion was only about 60% of the size it would be had she used the same attack in the Prime Material, but it didn’t make too much of a difference.

With eight middle grade and four early grade True Laws and a ridiculously high attunement stat, Quandra could recover her energy quickly even in other universes, so she didn’t need to hold back.

In just a matter of seconds, three entire galaxies were destroyed and, over several hundreds of thousands of years, so long as no one intervened, an entire galaxy cluster would cease to exist.

More important than the destruction, however, was the death of one of the Terror god mages.

X’r’ak, the elder god of the Terrors, was not someone who had any noble category skills, so the owner of the universe had been a mage underling of his, and, with that mage dead, the suppression from the universe went down ever so slightly.

Moving around the universe, Quandra avoided X’r’ak, who she knew would have moved to where she’d attacked, and killed the remaining Terror gods with simple, low energy skills, mostly just hitting them with what everyone knew to be her staff, using a small amount of energy to destroy each of their souls with one hit.

And only then did she target the elder god.

First, however, she prepared.

Her weapon, carved from the thigh bone of a monstrous yin and yang focused elder god from another universe—one she’d slain together with Primordius and the Radiant Behemoth—wasn’t actually a staff.

Doubling its length in her hands, her Wind Whisperer of the Twelve Elements showed its true form as a black and white woodwind instrument roughly as long as she was tall, and she began to perform an ancient song, using her left wing to block holes along its length as she played the Dirge of Power’s Regret.

Quandra was old, very old, and the skills she’d formed were primitive compared to the modern standard influenced by Runemaster Alashan’s accomplishments. So, if she wanted to express her true power, to create effects that could do more than just destroy a fifth of a small universe, she needed to perform a long chant, or, with her Wind Whisperer of the Twelve Elements, play a song.

And the Dirge of Power’s Regret, a sad hymn she’d written when she realized she’d grown so powerful that she’d only be able to truly fight maybe once every several dozen trillion years, was one of her most powerful.

The mana in the Eldritch Terrors’ universe gathered to her, all life on the A rank planet she’d appeared on quickly dying due to mana poisoning as a side effect, and, over a few seconds, her aura expanded, becoming an aura of pure neutral elementless power.

Then a second aura emanated out from her, one containing her power of pure yin, infused with her middle grade True Laws of Water, Darkness, and Death.

And then a third aura joined the two, containing her power of pure yang, infused with her middle grade True Laws of Fire, Light, and Life.

Then, finally, a fourth aura joined, weaker than the other three but still powerful, an aura of sand, infused with her middle grade True Laws of Wind and Earth.

As X’r’ak approached, his star-sized massive body covered with powerful hellfire—a technique learned from his many fights with demons during his mortal years—Quandra’s four auras combined, her elementless aura merging with her aura of sand to empower it by a massive amount, followed by her auras of yin and yang merging in as well to transform the sand even further.

When X’r’ak reached out eight of his twenty four humongous tentacles to wrap around the planet, he was met not with the power of twelve elements, not with the power of yin and yang, but with Quandra’s current most powerful state, a planet size storm of mana-formed sand merged with the properties of yin and yang.

Every piece of sand that hit the Terror god's nearly indestructible flesh created an explosion worthy of an A rank using all their energy, each piece equivalent to a use of Quandra’s most powerful skill from back when she’d been a mortal, Yin Yang Bomb, and the solar system of the A rank planet was almost instantly destroyed.

Quandra had been hoping X’r’ak would hold back a little, desiring to save the A rank world, but, sadly, the monster was not stupid, and he was giving the fight his all.

As Quandra continued to play her instrument, endlessly attacking with her sand, X’r’ak moved his damaged tentacles back, and each healed with a speed worthy of an elder god. Then he started attacking with tentacle after tentacle, using his hellfire to try and destabilize her control, causing many, many of her sand particles to uselessly waste their power with powerful explosions far away from his flesh, her mana wasted without doing any damage. But the explosions were far away from her, so her body was completely safe.

They fought for six hours, X’r’ak gaining many small injuries that almost immediately healed, draining his energy—and his hellfire was using up about the same amount of energy it was causing her to waste with the useless extra yin yang explosions—so Quandra didn’t try to change anything.

X’r’ak was a powerful elder god, with an insanely strong body complemented by five middle grade True Laws, and he was in his home universe, so she knew she would not be able to beat him easily.

Their fight continued for seven more days, moving throughout the universe, Quandra hunting the giant Terror god, and she could tell X’r’ak was growing tired.

But then the fight moved toward the portal to the Prime Material and Quandra’s senses were unable to find either her ancestor or her son, even when she sent her senses further through the portal.

What she did find, however, was Arthur Algebrute, looking like a small version of Primordius with large eyes, and he purposefully licked his lips when he felt her notice him.

Two of X’r’ak’s tentacles reached out while Quandra was stunned and slammed her body between them, causing her domain to falter. And Arthur quickly transformed.

One instant he looked like a little kid, psychotic and cute at the same time. Then the next he was a huge nine-headed bird, his body about the size of a small city and his wingspan even larger.

He was entirely covered in black and gray feathers which gave off an aura of death and darkness. His talons and beaks were an abyssal black, absorbing almost all light. And his nine necks were all far longer than those of most birds. But the most disturbing thing about him were his eyes, most made of different shades of sin flames.

One of his heads had eyes made from the green flames of envy, another from the red flames of wrath, and his head just left of his center head had eyes made of the purple flames of pride. His head just to the right of his center head had clear eyes, seemingly made from the same material as his talons and beaks, the head representing his chaotic mix of emotional Laws. And the eyes of his center head were swirling dark abysses, the head representing the core of his being, the Law of Absorption.

Then, without a word, something incredibly rare for the egotistical monster, all nine of his heads attacked her at once.

His center head breathed in, absorbing part of her sand domain, the particles flowing down its long esophagus and somehow not exploding. His head of emotions hit her with some sort of chaotic charm ability that she easily shrugged off. And his seven sin heads all breathed sin flames in her direction, his chaotic charm ability disrupting her actions just enough that she had to block the flames with the wing she was using to help play her instrument, disrupting her music.

This allowed X’r’ak to slam her with a tentacle again and then he quickly backed off, Arthur turning his sin flames onto the humongous Terror god while Quandra recovered.

The previously drawn out fight between her and X’r’ak turned into a three way melee and Arthur, as the combatant entering fresh without fighting for a week, quickly started winning.

X’r’ak, with his murderous tendencies and lack of full self control, had a lot more trouble with Arthur’s sin flames, which had a slight emotion altering component, than Quandra herself, so he was the first to die, his giant form burnt to a crisp.

And then Arthur started eating him as she and the bird fought, allowing the evil monster to regain energy throughout the fight.

Three more days passed, and Arthur continuously blocked her from returning to the Prime Material where she would have the home universe advantage, but Quandra did manage to at least send a message back, asking one of her subordinate gods to invite Primordius to come take advantage of the situation.

The Endless Thunderlord, however, never appeared, her message either never getting to him or the man wanting to wait until after either she or Arthur fell.

And, after ten days of all out combat, Quandra Xar Ni Kemizle, the Lady of Laws and ruler of all native cultivator races of the Prime Material, fell.

Burned by sin flames, wielding a broken instrument, and with one broken wing and two broken legs, all seven of Arthur’s sin heads managed to grab her—his head of pride biting her head, his head of wrath her left wing, his head of lust her right arm, and so on. Then they pulled her apart, burning her flesh further with their individual flames, and tossed her limbs one by one to his center head to devour.