Chapter 247

  Clash of Kings (IV)

For the short time that he was tied down, Eldur was besieged by an array of skills; the Blademaster chopped away at his back, while the Saintess dropped a rain of weapons on top of him. Furthermore, a barrage of fire-charged infernal arms dug out through the floor, much like the chains, and repeatedly struck him, dwindling his HP.

It was a concentrated assault, one that even his high defense was unable to curb entirely, resulting in long-term debuffs being applied non-stop, from ‘Bleeding’, ‘Burning’, ‘Wounded’, and onward. Almost seven seconds later, he was finally freed.

Lightning burst out of his feet, covering his entire body as she shot forward, slamming his blade toward the dark-skinned man. The latter skillfully bent sideways and swung back, the clash resulting in the explosion of milky-white Starlight and lightning cracking up into a pillar of light. The floor beneath blossomed into a surge of debris, dust kicking up. The stalemate lasted for but a second before Eldur pushed more Mana into the strike, easily overpowering the Blademaster.

Jamal flew backward as though punched by a mountain, completely unable to control his momentum, slamming into a distant wall of the throne room. Half of his HP dissipated for a moment before being swiftly healed up. Nonetheless, he couldn’t help but cough a mouthful of blood as he gasped for breath. Though he’d experienced hopeless situations before, that was the first time he was so boldly overpowered directly to the point of being unable to do anything.

On the other side of the throne room, Emma managed to hammer away a strike headed toward Senna, intercepting it entirely by accident. Before she realized what happened, the sword slithered past her hammer and pierced her chest, causing her to cry out as the bolts of lightning spread out violently. At the same time, a whip of decaying matter slashed in-between the two, forcing Eldur to retreat by flickering backward, leaving an afterimage coated in the bolts of lightning.

His eyes drifted away from the others and toward the floating figure in the distance. There was still a faint smile on his face, elements and Mana surging around him like a storm.

Cain took a deep breath and began slowly activating all of the ‘Core’s’ options; the last one to go off was ‘Singularity’, the weapon’s secondary magnum opus. The storming Mana around him froze for a singular moment before suddenly decaying down to its base components, reconstructing around him like an unwinding of a clock.

[Singularity] -- core deconstructs and condenses, careening a singularity; for 2 minutes, gain access to infinite Mana of ‘Higher Property’, become wrapped in deflective energy that cannot be destroyed unless you are hit by a direct strike that deals at minimum 600,000 damage, and remove all casting requirements from your Skills. Upon the duration’s end, the Core falls aslumber for 8 months. Each 100,000 Mana infused into it speeds up the process by 1 day.

In certain ways, it’s even better than the weapon’s last augment, one that essentially gave him a cheat-death effect once a ‘cycle’.

Due to the effect, Mana began to warp and distort alongside the surrounding matter. He felt that certain infinity within it, the ability to do whatever he willed at absolutely no cost. It was both freeing and terrifying-- like an ordinary man becoming a God for a moment. Certainly there would be the excitement because of it, but there would also be some dread at the sheer possibilities.

Cain took a deep breath and focused. Slamming his hands together, he began to multi-cast skills rather than Elements. Whips of raging fire emerged from behind him like an army of tentacles, growing in numbers impossibly quickly, reaching hundreds. At the same time, Mana roared, condensing into six gold-lined blades of Ruin that hovered about. He became an Avatar for that brief moment, reaching the state of being he only experienced once-- while fighting the skeleton on the First Floor.

He was at his peak during that fight, the peak that was driven internally through his own strength rather than the borrowed power from the time when Laura handed him the strength of someone well beyond the Second Floor.

At the moment, he touched the edge of that strength-- he was, naturally, still light years away from actually hitting it, but even just touching the edge this early on was remarkable.

Without delaying any further, whips and blades and chains fired off, each roaring like awoken slumbering beasts as they headed for Eldur. Everyone else split, making room for the two as they made a circle behind Eldur, trapping him within Cain’s area of attacks.

The King felt the sheer brutality of the incoming attacks but rather than dreading it... he smiled. The crown on top of his head grew alight as lightning surged from every inch of his body, blinding the world. For the first time since Awakening, he let go of all his inhibitions, freeing the soul that was begging to be unchained for years.

He swung forward, ripping through the reality, tearing it asunder. The sound of thunder boomed out as the sword and the blades collided, resulting in a massive explosion that swatted away everyone else further back, ripping out the ground and tearing through the pillars. The throne itself was rammed by the aftershock, destroyed alongside the wall, exposing the room to the outside world.

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The two, however, didn’t even pause. Cain surged higher up, casting Skills with no abandon-- some which he already had in store, while creating the other ones on the spot.

Tearing the spacetime surrounding him, he began to walk through the different planes to dodge the thousands of bolts of lightning that were fired off at him; at the same time, rubble and debris around the two began to ascend and combust, slamming toward the King who expertly weaved his sword, cutting through everything.

The storm raged, winds reaching hundreds of miles per hour, even thousands, cutting through the stone itself with no problems. Rather, the winds turned into squalls, creating the barrier around the two that aroused the spirits from their slumber.

Eldur slashed forward, meeting a concert of blades and deflecting them; he roared, pushing his Mana further and burning through it with abandon, accelerating himself even further. From dozens of strikes per second, it went up to hundreds; his blade was a blur-- no, both of them were mere blurs at this point.

Cain continued to phase in and out of different realities, appearing everywhere and nowhere through the spatial gateways that he could use with no restrictions while repeatedly firing off a hail of offensive skills at the King.

With yet another clash, the world rumbled and shook, the light blinding everyone for a moment as the pillar of fire and lightning shot up into the sky, tearing open the roof above and extending further up until it hit the ‘ceiling’ itself-- and kept moving. It tore a hole in the world, causing the entire plane underneath the sands to shake violently as the sand itself began to rain.

Everyone besides the two lost their footing and stumbled backward while the palace leaned sideways, slipping. The two, however, didn’t even look aside, maintaining locked gazes as skills continued to clash.

The world around them was falling apart, the walls of the palace crumbling into rubble and ash, while the sky above rained the sand of the desert. All battles throughout the city ceased as people began to run away, terrified of what was happening.

Cain blinked to the side and slashed his arm out, summoning almost a hundred infernal blades in the process that cut toward Eldur. The latter swung his blade black, creating a pillar of lightning that clashed with the fiery blades, resulting in yet another explosion. The squalls hurried further, ripping the pillars apart on their own as they extended further out, forcing others to retreat even more.

The two were in the eye of the raging storm that looked ready to rip the entire world apart at its seams, yet seemed entirely disinterested in anything other than each other.

Eldur flashed forward, shades of blue bleeding out of his ever-phasing form. The lightning itself began to warp Mana, further agitating it alongside Cain’s entirely reckless treatment. They, however, smiled at each other; through the raging storm, they could see the lips of the other curl up. Eldur roared once again, pushing his Mana to its limits as his body began to break apart from within.

Spiderweb-like cracks began to spread throughout his skin, blood spraying out swiftly. He ignored it all completely, however. Lightning flashed once again, tens of thousands of tendrils exploding from within him, funneling it all into the raging storm that surrounded him. He turned his artificial lightning into a natural storm-- thunder began to boom as Cain did something similar, roaring while his muscles bulged until they tore through his skin.

His body was unable to handle the sheer quantity of Mana and the solitary reason why it remained stiched together thus far was entirely because of Yuki’s timely heals. However, even the complete focus of possibly the best healer in the world wasn’t enough to keep his body together any longer. Time cased to move for that brief flash, that brief moment as he slapped his palms together. The sound of it, somehow, managed to push through the surrounding storm, through the incessant thunder, through everything else... and be heard by everyone. It echoed. It awoke something.

Five of the seven Elements he had access to coalesced within a tiny pocket of space-- Fire, Ruin, Mind, Space, and Starlight. Suffused within were the threads of the sixth, Creation, as it bound the unbindable, formed the impossible, created the paradoxical.

“Jesus Christ...” Emma mumbled in terror. “EVERYONE BACK!! SHIT!! RAISE ALL THE FUCKIN’ SHIELDS YOU GOT!!!”

It was then, while everyone was bunching together, trying to raise their defenses as high as they could go, that the light snapped. From the colorful reality, all color seemingly bled out, warped within the tiny orb that manifested in front of Cain. It was a skill that he physically could not use without the weapon’s ‘Singularity’ activated due to the Mana cost that went into high millions. It was a skill specifically created to be used within the frame of ‘Singularity’ being active, and it entirely reflected that reality.

The colorful Mana bent around the tiniest black hole, tendrils desperately trying to escape but failing repeatedly. Then, with a single flick of his finger, it broke down. Everything broke down. The reality itself required immediate assistance from the Tower to survive as a pillar of black-and white ripped out, tearing through everything and turning it into ash. The floor below, the sky above. What was ‘merely’ a small hole in the ceiling became a gaping pit tens of miles across, bleeding sand into the underworld.

For the first time in the Kingdom’s history, everyone saw sun-- but, unlike the myths and tales... it wasn’t colorful. Just like the rest of the world, it was black and white. It felt weak compared to the eerily still pillar. Rather than a smooth continuation, the pillar behaved almost as though it was animated through stop motion. Or, rather, as though the reality lacked enough strength to properly represent it.

Eldur witnessed it first-hand; he was the closest to the center of it all, to the birth of something that should not exist. Not just on the Second Crucible, but not on the Third or the Fourth or the Fifth... this was something from the legends, from the myths.

However, rather than terror... he felt bliss. After all, he would be felled by something that could likely kill beings much stronger than he was. He got to witness something that broke his understanding of reality-- no, something that broke the reality itself.

The palace was no more; the city itself lay in ruins. There was nothing but ash and debris and the falling sand as the color began to return to the world. The sun regained its luster, and it began to shine on the ruins of the once-grand Kingdom. Now... now it was a reminder of something that would not be mentioned till it turned into a myth. All from the fear of invoking the wrath of the entity that destroyed the world with a flick of his finger.