Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 331: Intervention

"A troublesome one has appeared."

The moment the Dragon of Death heard those words from their allies, their brows scrunched up.

Nothing was going as smoothly as planned.

To begin with, the Pinecone Galaxy’s response to the crisis had been too fast.

They had expected the chain of command to have some issues functioning in Lapis’ absence, but although they couldn’t sense Lapis’ presence, orders were still smoothly flowing from the top.

That, they could attribute to the competence of Lapis’ subordinates, but that didn’t explain how much faster than anticipated Pinecone’s mobilisation against the attacking space beasts and monsters was.

Granted, hundreds of planets had already been annihilated, and this wasn’t even counting the initial devastation caused by the ASB’s first roar, which Jamie had only partially blocked.

But even so, the current level of destruction was far less than projected.

Activating their Authority of Death, the dragon temporarily seized control of what was left of the minds of his scattered undead across the galaxy, peering through their eyes.

And what he saw disturbed him.

’The forces fighting back...they aren’t Pinecone’s.’

They were certain of this.

They could see the Vampire Kings still en route to the outer territories, far from reaching the conflict zones. He noticed some of them making weird movements, going to empty regions of space and just remaining there in silence.

’Why? What are they trying to do?’

Ideas of a possible defensive formation spanning the entire galaxy crossed their mind, but the dragon shook off those thoughts.

’The Galactic Ruler’s Authority is needed. Unless she was crazy enough to give it away, they shouldn’t be able to do anything similar.’

Still, they would be prudent and have some undead divert from the main hordes and keep an eye on those Vampire Kings.

Returning their focus to the outer regions of the galaxy, the dragon analysed the powerful defenders protecting the planets there.

They were vampires, yes, but like they’d concluded before, these vampires were not of Pinecone.

An unidentified force had entered the fray.

His collaborators had told him of a troublesome figure showing up, but hadn’t said who.

’Could it be they didn’t recognise them? That is a problem.’

They had prepared meticulously for this day.

They’d obtained the full guest list for the Eternal Trials, even accounting for those attending under false identities. Their web of conspirators and spies within Pinecone had combed through every detail.

And yet, this unknown element had slipped through.

Whoever they were, they were turning the tide in Pinecone’s outer regions. Territories that, by now, should have been reduced to cinders under the onslaught of billions of Space Beasts.

The dragon’s gaze shifted to the Amphitheatre, eyes narrowing slightly.

"Disruptions...," they muttered. "But it doesn’t matter. No plan is ever perfect."

There was always a margin for error, and they had to keep things within that margin.

No matter what, they had to obtain it today.

The mention of the ’troublesome one’ at the Amphitheatre worried the dragon more than they showed, and it pushed them to make a decision they had meant to delay—one reserved for when the ASB reached the Amphitheatre.

|Death Keeper’s Authority|

Their Unique Authority was activated, and they gave the command.

A moment later, the colossal behemoth that was the ASB, swimming through space and bending space-time with its massive body, unleashing immense gravitational waves that distorted light and warped the flow of ambient energies across space, suddenly came to a halt.

The moment it stopped, the Vampire Kings, who had been casting wary glances toward it even as they battled the Space Beast Kings, felt a chill crawl down their spines as every hair on their bodies stood on end.

A sense of overwhelming danger gripped them, and their bad premonitions became reality in the next moment as a deep purple light began to pulse and crawl along the curved, massive body of the undead ASB.

The light brightened as it raced towards the creature’s massive head, and the closer it got to the front, the more blinding it became.

|INCOMING!!!!!!|

No one knew who shouted it out, but then again, it didn’t matter.

The undead ASB’s mouth snapped open, and an overwhelming torrent of pure destruction erupted from its maw.

The light was blinding, even for the multitude of Deities present.

It was brighter than a supernova and erupted with the force of thousands, rending through the galaxy, distorting the fabric of space-time as it tore forward.

It wasn’t aimed at any one target, but at everything in the space above the Amphitheatre where the fiercest battles raged.

The beam didn’t distinguish between ally and enemy. It surged forth to incinerate everything from the hordes of space beasts, to the vampire legions and the foreign combatants who had rallied within the Amphitheatre to stem the monster tide.

The Race Emperors, who had been forced to act by their masked attackers, felt their breath catch in their throats.

Instantly, dozens of them unleashed their most powerful Authorities, preparing a titanic multi-layered defence.

It sounded like overkill, but these Emperors knew what they were up against.

That thing—the Amorphous Space Beast—though now an undead now, and nothing but a shade of its former self, had been a horror beyond reckoning when it was alive.

Even Lapis Argeryan, the ’Moon Empress’, hadn’t been able to defeat it alone.

And though undeath had dulled its might, it was still far more powerful than anticipated.

’And this attack... it shouldn’t have been possible at its current level!’

The thought of this impossibility crossed the mind of one of the Race Emperors as he felt cold sweat run down his back.

It shouldn’t have been possible, but it was, because the Dragon of Death had bolstered it.

Their Death Keeper’s Authority amplified the power of all undead creatures under their control multiple times over.

They had also layered multiple other Authorities, and added other enhancements, pushing the already overwhelming destructive attack potency of the ASB into something terrifying.

As the beam ripped through space-time, celestial bodies along its path were effortlessly erased.

Planets caught in its way were vaporised in seconds, their cores reduced to ash before they had the chance to rupture. Stars were simply gone, their radiances snuffed out before any nova could bloom.

Consuming all of this in its path, the beam thundered forward, continuing its path to the Amphitheatre.

The Race Emperors completed their combined barrier, layering it with their Authorities to ensure that every trace of the ASB’s attack would be neutralised.

But just as the blinding beam closed in on the barrier they had formed, a voice echoed across space, ringing in the ears and minds of all who were present.

|Third Privilege: Reality.|

Simultaneously, the space before them began to distort, rippling as if a stone had been dropped into a still pond.

And in the very next second following that decree, the beam struck.

It didn’t slam into the Emperors’ barrier, but into something else—an unseen wall that had appeared within the ripple of space just before the shield.

Upon contact, the beam’s destructive force did not pierce through but instead scattered. The moment it touched that invisible wall, the energy spread across its surface like paint flung across glass.

Its light and force broke apart and raced across the unseen barrier in wild arcs, trying to push through from every angle but being constantly redirected and absorbed by the unseen surface.

Then, space itself couldn’t withstand the distortion created by the collision of powers and was shattered.