Reincarnated in a novel: I am the villain!-Chapter 312: Silent Battlefield

The battlefield was silent.

It was the absolute, terrifying quiet that follows a natural disaster.

The chaotic roars of the stampede had been momentarily muted. The mercenary army, the remaining city guards, and even the arrogant Dukes of Argentum could only stare.

Damien stood in the mud, surrounded by the bisected, massive corpses of five 8th-Order Warlords. Toxic green blood pooled around his boots, but his trench coat remained immaculate, repelled by the invisible, suffocating pressure of his [King’s Mantle].

He didn’t look tired, neither did he look out of breath.

DING.

A sound clearer than any clash of swords rang in Damien’s mind. A translucent blue screen materialised in his vision, flashing with an intensity he hadn’t seen since the Surface War.

[System Alert: Extinction-Level Event Averted.]

[Major Plot Deviation Detected.]

[In the original timeline, the Stampede of the Depths annihilated Abyss Layer 6. The city of Argentum was erased, its economy shattered, and its population devoured before the horde spilled into Layer 5.] [By single-handedly breaking the Vanguard and holding the Chasm, the Host has preserved a foundational pillar of the Abyss ecosystem.]

[Calculation Complete... Impact: SSS-Tier.]

[Reward: 3,500,000 Destiny Points.] [Current DP: 3,500,000.]

Damien’s cross-shaped pupils dilated.

Three and a half million Destiny Points.

The sheer weight of the number hovered in his vision, golden and beautiful. He had spent his entire reserve to reach the 8th Order and fight the Emperor on Layer 4, scraping by on miniscule DP for far too long.

Now, looking down into the bleeding, apocalyptic pit of Layer 9 where his parents were fighting for their lives, he finally had the war chest he needed.

’I’m ready,’ Damien thought, his lips curling into a sharp, predatory smile. ’I have the funds and strength.’

KRA-KOOOOM!

Before Damien could relish the victory, the sky above Layer 6 shattered.

The flawless, blinding white ceiling of the Platinum Prince’s [Stagnant Eternity] actually splintered like a mirror hit by a sledgehammer.

"Look up!" Duke Ferro screamed, his steam vents whistling in pure terror as he pointed a rusted finger at the stratosphere,

The three 9th-Order Demigods—the serpentine leviathan of boiling dark-matter, the six-winged ash-phoenix, and the sentient, shifting mass of tectonic plates were breaking through.

The combined weight of three absolute Laws of the Abyss was simply too much, even for a Demigod as ancient as the Platinum Prince, to freeze indefinitely.

"The sky is falling!" Ziriork yelled, shielding his face as chunks of crystallized white light rained down on the Slag Heap, evaporating into heavy mist before they hit the ground.

High above, the Platinum Prince floated.

His pristine white void-silk suit was tattered, and the bored, half-lidded expression he usually wore was entirely gone. His glowing white eyes burned with the intensity of a dying star.

"You beasts," the Platinum Prince’s voice tolled like a funeral bell, echoing across the dimension.

"You dare bring mud into my eternity?"

The Prince realized he couldn’t freeze them all. The tectonic mass was grinding against his domain, giving the dark-matter leviathan and the ash-phoenix the opening they needed to unleash a wave of absolute erasure aimed directly at the Chrome Core.

If that attack landed, the entire city, and Damien’s newly established Black Thread casinos, would be instantly destroyed.

The Prince raised his pale hands, crossing them over his chest. He didn’t draw ambient mana; he burned his own life force, his divine silver blood glowing through his skin.

"Forbidden Art: Spatial Exile..." the Prince whispered, his voice cracking the very fabric of reality. "...The Platinum Vault."

VWOOOOM.

Space folded.

A massive, hyper-compressed cube of pure platinum energy materialized around the dark-matter leviathan and the ash-phoenix.

The two 9th-Order calamities shrieked, their apocalyptic attacks entirely swallowed by the absolute boundary of the Vault.

With a brutal, sweeping motion of his arms, the Platinum Prince forcibly tore a hole into the chaotic void between dimensions and hurled the Vault inside.

SNAP.

The portal closed, banishing two Demigods permanently from the Abyss.

The mercenaries below erupted into cheers, tears of joy streaming down their faces. But Damien’s eyes narrowed. He saw the flaw.

"He overextended," Damien whispered.

The Prince had sacrificed his defense to cast the exile. For a fraction of a millisecond, the Law of Stagnation dropped.

The third Demigod, the sentient mass of tectonic plates, didn’t hesitate.

A colossal arm made of jagged, compressed bedrock and obsidian shot forward, moving faster than the concept of speed itself.

It bypassed the Prince’s remaining shields and landed a catastrophic physical blow.

CRUNCH.

The sound was sickening, reverberating through the souls of every demon watching.

The invincible Platinum Prince was swatted out of the sky like a fly.

He plummeted, a streak of silver light crashing down toward the Slag Heap with the force of a meteor.

BOOM!

He impacted the earth just fifty meters from where Damien stood. The shockwave threw the Dukes to the ground and sent a massive cloud of dust and debris hundreds of feet into the air.

"Prince!" Duke Aurum wailed, scrambling forward on his bloated golden legs.

Damien vanished using [Phantom Speed], reappearing instantly at the edge of the crater. Isabelle arrived a second later, her hands wreathed in violet gravity-flames to push the dust away.

When the smoke cleared, the sight was horrific.

The Platinum Prince lay in the center of the crater. His pristine white suit was soaked in glowing, silver divine blood. His right arm had been completely torn off at the shoulder, leaving a jagged, sparking stump.

Worse still, a massive, cavernous hole had been punched straight through his chest and stomach. Damien could see the cracked, blackened earth beneath him through the wound.

To any mortal, to any 8th-Order Warlord, it was a fatal blow ten times over.

"Your Highness..." Ziriork choked out, falling to his knees at the crater’s edge.

The Prince coughed. A spray of silver blood spattered across his pale chin.

Slowly, agonizingly, the Demigod pushed himself up into a sitting position using his remaining left hand. He didn’t scream or panic. He simply looked down at the massive hole in his torso.

"Beasts," the Prince grumbled, his voice strained but still dripping with aristocratic disdain.

"How dare you harm me."

He looked up, his glowing white eyes finding Damien.

"I handled them, Zero," the Prince coughed, silver blood leaking from his lips.

"But my Domain is broken. The rest of the stampede... is going to flood the chasm in less than a minute."

High above, the tectonic Demigod roared, preparing to descend and finish the job, bringing millions of frenzied beasts with it.

The Platinum Prince raised his remaining left hand. He pointed it down into the bleeding, crimson mist of the chasm leading to Layer 7.

"A deal is a deal," the Prince whispered.

He poured the absolute last reserves of his 9th-Order divine power into the pit.

"Absolute Stagnation."

A blinding flash of silver light shot down the shaft. The chaotic, tearing spatial scars within the chasm instantly froze.

The millions of red eyes scrambling up from the dark were completely locked in place, encased in a perfectly stable, shimmering tunnel of frozen time that dropped straight through the heart of the stampede.

It was a path. A straight, unmoving descent through millions of frozen monsters, leading directly into the deepest layers of hell.

The Prince lowered his hand, his breathing ragged. He looked at Damien.

"The path is open, human," the Platinum Prince smiled, a rare, bloody, genuine expression. "Go."

Damien stared at the fallen Demigod. He saw the sacrifice. The Prince had literally given an arm and his life force to honor a business deal with a human.

Damien placed his right fist over his heart and offered a deep, respectful bow.

"I will see you when I return, Your Highness," Damien promised, his voice ringing with absolute certainty. "Make sure the Black Thread is profitable."

The Prince chuckled, coughing more silver blood. "Just don’t die. You owe me a sequel."

Damien turned his back on the crater. He looked at Isabelle, who was already stepping up beside him, her ruby eyes blazing with determination.

"Ready?" Damien asked.

"Always, Master," Isabelle replied, summoning her gravity aura to cushion their fall.

Without another word, Damien and Isabelle stepped off the edge of the ridge, diving headfirst into the frozen, silver tunnel, plummeting straight down into the disintegrating nightmare of the Deep Abyss.