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"We don't have any choice. As long as my father's divine power lingers, we have to try. This is our only chance." The reckless Goddess drew a deep breath as she spoke.
A flash of resolve passed through her eyes as she turned, her gaze brilliant as it fell upon Ian.
"Your secret can sear even my father, and bind my future self in such an unfair contract. You could never be just an ordinary wizard… so, show me your third miracle."
Before her words had even faded, the reckless Goddess had already transformed into a streak of golden light and shot toward Herpo.
At this moment of crisis, her speed was so great that a golden trail was left behind in the sky. The Goddess displayed a courage that held nothing back; no wonder she could one day become the Sun itself, protecting an entire city in the future.
"This is only a fragment power of the Sun, just remnants of the old age." Herpo floated in midair, his figure towering like a colossal mountain, exuding a suffocating aura.
His gaze was cold and fathomless, as if it could pierce through everything.
"To think you can stop my ascension? Futile. I have already locked onto that destined, radiant future, and no one can stand in its way!"
Herpo's voice resounded like a great bell across heaven and earth, brimming with mockery, disdain, and arrogance. The reckless Goddess did not respond with words; she pressed her attack instead.
She swung her weapon, the blade blazing with dazzling brilliance, like a fragment of the Sun itself condensed into steel. Every strike radiated immense power, illuminating the skies.
The air roared like surging tides. Heaven and earth trembled. The pitch-black city was drenched in gold, as though the entire metropolis, along with Herpo, would be set aflame.
And yet, no matter how fierce the reckless Goddess's assault, it failed to leave any mark upon Herpo.
"Within this domain, your attacks will never reach me." Herpo merely raised a hand, and countless black threads rose from the ground, weaving into a colossal web. The Goddess crashed against it again and again, yet could not escape. Golden light clashed with black threads, bursting into blinding sparks.
"That's one hell of a collapse in performance." Ian muttered as he watched the Goddess's radiant wings straining against some invisible force, each feather exploding into micro supernova-like bursts of light.
"Look upon me, and witness the completion of my divine state! Behold the birth of true greatness!" Herpo's voice reverberated across the air. His body had already shed its human shape, his torso had become a mass of writhing black matter, its surface crawling with countless distorted human faces, ceaselessly chanting.
Those faces fused and split apart again and again.
"Bloody hell, that's some Cthulhu-level corruption!" Ian looked up at Herpo, and the twisted form of divinity made his vision spin. Yet his thoughts remained sharp. He unleashed what might be the strongest magic he could currently wield.
"Avada Plague · Profane Eruption!"
A beam of dark green light shot forth, tearing through space itself. Even the fabric of reality seemed to decay wherever it passed. This was the advanced form of the Avada Plague.
It was thanks to his own innate gift, being [black magic incarnate itself], and thanks to Professor Morgan, who had once taken Ian into her memories to witness the eruption of this spell firsthand.
Now, Ian had completed it.
He had recreated the magic that once led a legendary dark witch to her death. Perhaps it was not as powerful as Morgan's casting in that fateful moment, but in essence, it belonged to the same tier of sorcery.
Wherever it passed, not only life, but even buildings and lifeless matter withered and crumbled. This was perhaps among the pinnacle of magics. Any wizard who faced it would be destined for death.
And yet, Herpo was no longer a mere wizard.
"What exquisite death artistry. A pity…" He marveled at Ian's mastery for a fleeting instant, then raised his blackened, mist-wreathed fingertip and lightly tapped the incoming spell.
The magic, one that perhaps even Dumbledore and Grindelwald together could not have resisted, shattered into nothingness.
"Magic is meaningless to me now." Herpo's voice rolled out from within the black fog, tinged with an inhuman resonance. "Before a god, magic is nothing but children's building blocks."
He had already begun to regard himself as divine.
Arrogant. Defiant.
"Come, my Angel. Accept your destiny. Ascend with me, together, to the summit of the world." Herpo's monstrous face twisted into a grin, his eyes like spiraling nebulae, sparkling with countless tiny lights of souls.
"This shall be the glory of us both."
He fixed his gaze on Ian, slowly raising a hand that was no longer human. But on Ian's face, he found none of the expressions he expected, no fear, no despair, no trace of submission to temptation.
"Magic really does have its limits, then." Ian showed no panic. He remained calm, composed as ever.
"You still have a trump card?" Herpo regarded Ian from afar with keen interest.
"I've read plenty of myths, studied many books about gods." Ian blinked lightly.
He spread his hands. His wand quivered faintly, resonating with his power.
"You have your paradox domain for protection. Perhaps magic is just an itch in the material world to you. But I believe… There are still things that might threaten you."
Ian flicked his wand ever so slightly.
The magic he had hidden during the time the reckless Goddess bought for him finally erupted.
Herpo's expression was still clouded with confusion.
"You're insane!" The reckless Goddess, however, had already sensed it.
"You'll destroy the entire city!" She cried out in disbelief from within the "cage."
"The city was already destroyed." Ian's voice was eerily calm, low, firm, and his eyes deep as the sea. "Now… let us welcome a natural disaster together."
As his words fell, Mount Vesuvius erupted with a thunderous roar. Scorching magma shot skyward, staining the heavens blood-red. A colossal cloud of volcanic ash blotted out the sky, plunging the world into what felt like doomsday. The air reeked of sulfur, choking every breath. The searing heat made it feel as if all stood inside a blazing hearth, their skin burning raw beneath the inferno.
Countless priests shrieked in terror and despair.
Cassandra, regaining her senses, instinctively clung to Ian's leg.
"This shouldn't be happening yet… impossible, not this early… how did you do this?!" For the first time, horror flickered across Herpo's twisted face.
It was the first time he had truly felt threatened.
"Let us test it together then…" Ian's face remained expressionless. He poured his full strength into the spell, using the magic of [Path of Flames] to trigger the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which had long been on the verge of bursting forth. Rivers of molten red streamed down the slopes. Wherever the burning magma flowed, everything was reduced to ash.
"Herpo, let us see, can your paradox overcome this unavoidable, inevitable node of history?" Ian's quiet words fell against the backdrop of the volcanic eruption.
Behind him, all was swallowed by the flood of fate.
(End of Chapter)