Chapter 96: The Demigod's Wrath
The chamber beneath Ibadan shuddered old wards cracked, support pillars fractured beneath the gathering storm of two opposing forces.
Philip stood at the heart of it all, lightning wreathing his body like furious serpents. His eyes gleamed a pale, icy light that promised one thing: annihilation.
Across from him, the Abyss-possessed Odii roared in defiance. The altar behind him bled streams of cursed faith energy. His veins pulsed black, skin cracked with abyssal corruption. His muscles bulked unnaturally veins bulging, shadow and divine might coiled around him. Gone was the man only a vessel remained for something ancient, something hateful.
The world held its breath.
And then it began.
Philip vanished blurring into raw motion. A crack of displaced space echoed through the chamber.
BOOM!
His first strike landed a straight fist to Odii's chest. The sound was like a mountain splitting. Black ichor exploded across the floor as ribs cracked inward. Before the possessed could react, Philip was already behind him, driving a backhand into the skull sending Odii flying across the chamber in a blur of dark mist and broken stone.
CRACK BOOM THOOM!
Odii slammed into a supporting pillar with enough force to shatter it into rubble. The ceiling quaked. Dust and blood rained down.
But the Abyss vessel was not done.
Dark veins pulsed drawing life force from the thousands of dead cultists littered throughout the complex. A grotesque wave of healing washed over the possessed host. Bones knitted. Flesh rippled. The creature howled a sound not of man, nor beast.
It retaliated.
A wall of shadow-infused debris lifted corpses, stone fragments, shattered weapons and surged toward Philip like a tsunami of death.
Philip's eyes narrowed.
With a pulse of telekinesis, the wave froze mid-air. His outstretched hand trembled as he clenched his fingers CRUSH the debris imploded into black dust, compressed by sheer force of will. The remnants rained harmlessly to the floor.
He reversed the motion FLING!
A storm of compressed fragments hurtled back toward Odii at breakneck speed, slamming into the blackened armor. Bone shattered, dark energy hissed in agony. The possessed staggered under the assault.
Philip advanced not walking gliding through space. His Supreme Body thrummed. Muscles rippled beneath gleaming skin that shimmered with raw mana. Even now, only 5% of the cultivation method had been completed yet his strength was titanic. Every step cracked the earth beneath him.
He struck again left fist, laced with kaleidoscopic lightning.
BOOM!
A brutal uppercut snapped Odii's head back black teeth flying from shattered gums. Lightning arced across the corrupted flesh, searing deep into abyssal tendrils.
The possessed screamed high, broken, unnatural.
Odii lunged, driven by instinct. Claws of corrupted faith energy lashed out aimed for Philip's heart.
Philip twisted space folded and he blinked two meters aside. The claw tore empty air.
He countered instantly a brutal spinning kick to the ribs.
CRACK!
Odii crumpled, vomiting a torrent of blackened blood across the altar floor. But before Philip could press further
BOOM BOOM BOOM!
The floor itself split abyssal glyphs activated. Dozens of lesser Gutterborn, trapped in hidden chambers, burst forth, screaming. They charged in a mindless frenzy, their eyes burning with madness.
Philip didn't flinch.
His aura expanded waves of force erupting outward.
He lifted his hands and drew on the World Tree's roots within his soul.
Roots of golden light flared through his veins cosmic leyline energy surged.
With a sharp snap, Philip commanded space.
A rift opened space quake a spiraling vortex of folded dimensions trapped the Gutterborn mid-charge. One by one, they twisted limbs bending in impossible angles then collapsed into meat and bone mush.
A single swipe of his lightning-clad arm CRASH sent the remnants flying in burning chunks across the chamber walls.
Blood soaked the floor.
Odii shrieked in frustration rage boiling in the possessed mind.
He pulled all the remaining cultist souls into himself hundreds of lives. Dark flames consumed his flesh bones snapping new limbs grew grotesquely long and clawed. His mouth split wider than humanly possible, revealing rows of jagged, blackened teeth.
A partial avatar of the Abyss God was manifesting.
Philip felt it divine pressure like T'zaruun's… but lesser. Weaker. Imperfect.
Still dangerous.
His gem pulsed with radiant platinum light countering the oppressive will. His blood sang with battle fury. He was a warrior this was his moment.
Philip clenched both fists Outshock Formation.
He drew in lightning from the fractured leyline beneath the altar cosmic energy fused with his own.
A vortex of light and thunder gathered above him heavens trembling.
Then BOOOOM!
He descended in a blur both fists crashing into Odii's malformed torso.
OUTSHOCK!
The chamber imploded walls pulverized, pillars disintegrated, the ceiling cracked. Lightning and shockwaves rolled through the underground complex, collapsing tunnels, vaporizing anything near the epicenter.
Ibadan shook.
Across the city, windows shattered. Buildings trembled. Drivers slammed brakes as roads shifted. Distant screams echoed.
Every awakened across Nigeria felt it a divine-level fight unleashing chaos.
"What… what is that?!"
News alerts blared across phones. Sirens wailed.
Below, amid the wreckage, Odii's body twitched.
It wasn't dead.
Black sludge crawled from the torn torso dragging corrupted flesh to rebuild.
But Philip was already there.
He manipulated space folding distance reappearing at Odii's side.
One glowing hand extended grasping.
TELEKINETIC CRUSH.
Odii's chest collapsed inward ribs shattered lungs imploded. The possessed howled in agony.
Philip's voice rang cold:
"You will not rise again."
He raised his palm the World Tree's roots surged within him.
A beam of pure cleansing energy lanced through the vessel burning shadow, devouring abyssal taint.
The false avatar screamed shrieking begging in unknown tongues.
But there was no mercy.
The entire chamber collapsed the weight of space forced downward by Philip's will.
Beneath the rubble, only one thing remained an orb of blackened divine sludge.
Philip floated above it breath ragged, body scarred but unbeaten.
He reached out formed a spatial bubble and sealed the Abyss essence within.
The World Tree roots coiled greedily drawing in the sludge, purifying it.
Philip gasped as new power flowed through his soul strengthening the tree, expanding its influence. The trunk gained further clarity; branches flickered into faint existence.
The fight was done.
Far above, the entire mine complex caved in a massive sinkhole swallowed the surface compound, sealing the Maw beneath layers of rock and earth.
All across Ibadan, the earth quaked an aftershock of divine battle.
The news would call it an "earthquake."
The awakened world would know the truth.
Philip hovered amid the ruin lightning still crackling across his skin.
The silence that followed was eerie profound. No more cultists remained. No more cries.
Only the echo of one man's vengeance.
He looked around the devastated chamber cracked walls, shattered runes, bloodied altars.
He whispered:
"Never again.".
Above Ibadan, dawn broke.
Philip rose through the collapsing ruins, floating above a broken landscape.
He scanned the horizon his Supreme Body thrumming with newfound resonance. The World Tree within pulsed brighter than ever before.