sovbooks Chapter 215: 6th Firmament
Chapter 215: 6th Firmament
Adonis stood perfectly still for several long seconds. Then, his shoulders began to shake, and a loud, booming laugh echoed through the grand audience hall. It was a laugh of pure, unadulterated arrogance.
"A minor deity?" Adonis asked as his eyes flashed with a dangerous glint. "You want me to kneel to a man who is currently running a celestial recycling plant because he is terrified of the system’s natural cycle? You want me to be a middle manager for a thief?"
The Avatar’s smile finally vanished, his golden eyes turning incredibly cold.
"You are letting your tiny mortal ego blind you to the reality of your situation, Adonis. You are level ninety-nine. That is the absolute ceiling of this layer. You cannot gain a single point of divinity here. You have reached the end of your rope."
"The ceiling of this layer is just the floor of the next one, Ascalon," Adonis stated in a low, rumbling growl. "I did not break my original chains just to let a silver-haired bastard hand me a longer leash. I do not serve gods. I replace them."
"Then you are a broken variable that must be deleted," the Avatar said softly.
Whoosh!
The Avatar did not run. He did not move his legs. He simply vanished from across the room and appeared directly in front of Adonis, the silver rapier already thrusting forward with a speed that defied the concept of time itself.
The tip of the blade carried a microscopic point of absolute white light, a concentrated singularity designed to pierce through any physical or magical defense.
BAM!
Adonis’s chaos sword was already there to meet it. He had drawn his blade in the microsecond before the thrust landed, his movements guided entirely by his system’s preternatural sensory interface.
The collision of the silver rapier and the dark imperial sword did not create a loud crash. Instead, it created a silent, terrifying ripple of distorted gravity that instantly shattered every single stained-glass window in the citadel.
The black marble pillars cracked deeply, and the stone dais beneath the throne crumbled into fine powder.
The Avatar’s golden eyes widened slightly as he felt the sheer, crushing physical weight behind Adonis’s parry.
"Your structural density... it is higher than the layer parameters should allow."
"I told you, Ascalon. Your math is incredibly flawed!"
Adonis flexed his wrists, executing a brutal, sweeping counter-strike that aimed to slice the Avatar’s head clean off. The Chaos roared with chaotic lightning, tearing a physical rent in the air as it swung.
The Avatar smoothly stepped backward, his body liquefying into a cloud of pure golden light to avoid the strike. He reformed ten feet away, his white tunic completely pristine, though a single strand of his silver hair had been severed by the passing vacuum of Adonis’s attack.
He looked at the fallen strand of hair as it dissolved into ash, then looked back up at the mortal Emperor.
"Impressive," the Avatar noted, "You truly are a magnificent ant. It is a genuine shame that your must be wiped out. But this vessel was not designed for a prolonged engagement. The structural restraints of the 7th Firmament are already rejecting my presence."
The golden rift behind the Avatar began to pulse violently, pulling him backward with an immense, magnetic force. The white marble floor began to turn back into dark obsidian, the divine influence fading rapidly.
"Are you running away already, god?" Adonis mocked, "We were just starting the conversation."
"The conversation is over, Adonis Kingsbane. Consider the Ash Barrens a final warning. The 6th Firmament is completely under my control. The adjudicators, the death gods, and the ancient Underworld lordd of that layer have all accepted the Golden sword. If you dare cross the threshold of the next gateway, you will not find helpless demons waiting for your banners. You will find a meat grinder designed specifically for you."
"Tell them to sharpen their blades then. Because I am coming up, and I am bringing my entire army with me." Adonis replied.
The Avatar let out one final chuckle.
"I will see you at the execution block, mortal."
BOOM!
The golden rift snapped shut with a deafening explosion of spatial force. The sterile white light vanished instantly, plunging the grand audience hall back into the familiar, dim red glow of the underworld. The suffocating divine pressure dissipated completely, leaving behind only the ruined stone and the scent of ozone.
Sirius slumped forward slightly, letting out a long, ragged breath as she leaned against her whip-sword for support. Her forehead was covered in a fine layer of sweat.
"By the abyss... the sheer pressure of his gaze alone felt like it was trying to dissolve my soul core."
"He was indeed strong," Adonis acknowledged, sheathing his charp sword.
"But he is limited by the system’s architecture. He cannot bring his full power down here without destroying the very world he wants to harvest. He is playing within the rules because he has to."
Sirius wiped her brow and looked up at him.
"He said the 6th Firmament is a meat grinder, Adonis. He has converted the entire layer into his personal fortress."
"Then we will have to break a larger fortress," Adonis smiled and turned toward the panicky imp who was still shaking on the floor.
"Snark! Stop trembling and get up."
"Y-Yes, my Emperor!" Snark squeaked, scrambling to his feet and saluting clumsily.
"Tell the generals to alter the marching orders," Adonis commanded, "We are no longer invading the Ash Barrens. Azazel is dead, and his land is ash. We are shifting the entire colonial vanguard toward the Gateway of Life and Death."
"We are ascending to the 6th Firmament immediately?"
"The 7th Firmament is completely conquered, Sirius," Adonis stated, walking toward the shattered windows and looking out over the massive, sprawling encampment of his millions of demonic soldiers.
"There is nothing left for me to break down here. Gather the legions. We are going to climb this death ladder, and we are going to tear Ascalon’s golden sword apart piece by piece."
"To the higher realms!" Sirius cheered, her voice echoing through the ruined hall as she raised her whip-sword high into the air.
"Long live the Chaos Order!"
Outside, the massive army of a million demons let out a synchronized, earth-shaking roar that rattled the entire firmament.
Rumble!
---
The Primus of Death watched everything with an amused smile on his shifty face.
"Things are finally looking good. Once he stepped through the 6th Gateway of Life and Death, the Chaos God’s legacy would finally meet an end."
---
The indigo vortex of the Gateway of Life and Death swallowed the millions-strong vanguard of the Chaos Order in a silent, swirling vacuum. Adonis walked at the absolute front, his hand resting on the hilt of his great sword. Sirius kept close pace beside him, her ruby eyes darting warily across the shifting dimensional tunnel until the oppressive spatial pressure suddenly dropped.
They emerged not into a grand fortress, but onto a staggering, monochromatic expanse. The sky of the 6th Firmament was a stark, bleeding grey, choked by thick, cold fog. Suspended across the entire horizon was the Scales of the Adjudicators, a colossal, automated judicial apparatus made of dark iron and glowing white gold.
"So this is the meat grinder," Adonis murmured, his voice cutting through the heavy, sterile silence.
"Look at the machinery, my Emperor," Sirius whispered, pointing a trembling finger upward. "It is not just weighing them. It is dissecting them."
[System Notification: Entered 6th Firmament: The Grand Adjudication.]
[Regional Rule Active: Karmic Weight Enforcement.]
Before the advancing, multi-million demon army, billions of souls from various lower realms were being processed through three horrific, interconnected functionalities.
The first mechanism was the Pillar of Extraction. Translucent spirits were dragged by invisible spiritual chains onto massive, rotating gears of bone.
Here, their core memories were systematically flayed from their ethereal bodies. Adonis watched as a powerful demon warlord’s soul was pinned down, its past deeds ripped out like glowing, jagged shards of glass.
The system stripped away all memories, isolating only raw intent and consequence.
"They are erasing their identities before the trial even begins," Sirius noted with disgust. "That is not judgment. That is stripping the livestock."
The second functionality was the Mirror of Regression. The isolated memory shards were fed into towering, crystalline mirrors that reflected the precise pain the soul had inflicted during its lifetime.
Millions were forced to experience their own sins in a hyper-accelerated temporal loop. If a soul had murdered innocents, it felt the blade ten thousand times over in a single second.
"The system quantifies suffering into localized energy. Ascalon is using their guilt as a conducting medium." Adonis said from his observation.
The final, most horrifying mechanism was the Crucible of Judgement. The processed, hollowed spirits were dropped onto massive iron pans.
On the opposite side sat a single, glowing golden feather representing the Sword God’s divine law. If a soul’s karmic debt was heavier than the feather, the pan tipped downward, plunging the spirit directly into a grinding vortex of holy fire.
This fire did not purify; it compressed the heavy souls into raw, condensed energy blocks to be shipped directly to the upper realms.
"They have mechanized damnation. Let us tear down their factory."
However—