Building My SSS-Rank Universal Empire: From Trash to Cosmic Overlord-Chapter 238: I will kill you

The woman shrugged. "Countless. I tend to forget just how much. So, what will you do now, Vale Athrimir? Your brother told me to bring him your head. I didn’t know it would be as simple as this."

Vale smiled, flashing his teeth. "Then don’t let me get in your way. Try to bring the head!"

Dozens of small fireballs marked with red lines flew around the room like scattered petals. Vale flickered from his place and appeared beside the doll. The woman flinched away, but Vale wasn’t after her.

The doll turned with quicksilver speed, and the two swords beside it came down on him. Vale was faster, though. He disappeared again, this time directly behind the doll, and placed his hand on its back.

Thoomm!

A concentrated beam of red fire came out of his hand, blasting a hole through the doll. The force of the shockwave tore through the doll, and it was thrown across the room, limp.

Vale turned and made a fire spear. "Thrain should have sent a Master Knight. What was he thinking?"

The woman began to move away from him. "That I will complete the mission successfully."

"And how’s that going for you?" Vale lurched forward, exploding with a flash of red light. But then a shadow loomed behind him. The aura gave him pause, and still in midair, he whirled and raised his Veil of the Scorched Eclipse above his head.

Just in time, too. An axe three times the size of an average man, glowing yellow, came down on him and slammed into his shield with a cracking sound as he was driven into the ground.

Vale groaned and wondered if the sound of the floor cracking would make it outside, but he didn’t have time to think much about that.

The doll wasn’t dead—far from it—because it seemed to be stronger now, and its face was smiling with eyes like two red orbs.

Vale flung himself away from the hole, narrowly avoiding a kick to the head. He now wore his cloak—the formation one he would hold in his mind until the end of the fight.

The doll didn’t give him breathing space and was on him again in an instant. The axe had been exchanged for a whip of rusted metal. The doll flicked the whip, and it sounded with a howling screech as it tore through the air, coiling around and gouging lines in the wall and floor as the bladed tip searched for Vale.

With his fireballs scattered around, it wasn’t difficult to move, but his problems lay in the fact that the doll was simply powerful—both in raw strength and magic.

And it also had one annoying ability that Vale hated the most. Regeneration. Things that are down should remain down.

He sent fire spears and blades as he flew through the room, but they were ineffective against it.

To make it worse, the doll could also perform short-distance teleportation, which meant Vale couldn’t touch the woman.

He gritted his teeth as he filled the room with fire, a scorching wave that surged across every corner of the room. But when it cleared, the doll and the woman were covered in a mud-like substance that shielded them against his fire.

"Just where did you get this doll?"

A vine lined with jagged thorns slammed into him midair and rammed him into the wall. The wall shook and shattered, but instead of him falling to the other side, Vale was held back by some invisible force.

...I have to finish this, but the problem is that the doll has a lot of abilities that counter my fire pretty well... the woman... I will have to go after her...

He raised his hand. "Infernal Prison!"

The room was covered by a red glow. Bars of fire lined the wall as the illusory prison overlapped with the room. The cloak around him flared to life as Vale’s fire magic increased. He spun another formation in his mind. "Eternal Warden!"

The Warden rose from behind him—a thing made of fire and light. In its right hand was a club, and the other hand held a fireball.

Vale gestured and sent a mental command. "The doll."

The Warden jerked forward and then flung itself at the doll. The club swung in the air with a woosh, the heavy, condensed fire smashing into the doll’s axe and almost shattering it in one go. The doll stumbled back and raised its axe again, mouth open to fire a beam at the Warden.

Meanwhile, Vale was trying to kill the woman. In his hand was a sword made of pure red fire, lined with thin, jagged needle-like blades. It was also a technique, but it was one Vale chose because it looked cool rather than for its functionality. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

It was called Emberwraith’s Fang.

Vale raised the sword and swung. The fire blade flared with heat and expanded, crossing the distance between him and his target in a second, curling around the doll’s body to cut the woman up—but she just raised her hand and caught the sword.

Vale was so surprised he nearly let the technique dissolve.

The woman walked around the doll, but she wasn’t like before. Her body was covered in stitches joining her limbs together, and she wore a smiling face. "Do you think I can’t use my doll’s ability? The greatest thing about this is that the owner and the doll will, at some point, be one and the same."

...Ah, shit... I really hate this type...

Vale disappeared and appeared directly in front of her by changing places. His hand snapped forward like a cobra and touched her chest. It wasn’t where he was aiming for, but it was the quickest.

The woman flinched back and threw a wind blade at him, but it was shrugged away by his cloak. She hissed. "How dare you!"

Vale grinned. "Sorry about that, dear lady. But I have won this round."

The woman turned to the doll to see that it was still active, fighting the Warden, which came back to life immediately after being destroyed. "You... touched my... I will kill you!"