Chapter 66
The world turned white, then deaf.
The collision of the Mountain-Cutting Flame Strike and the Arc Cleave was not a meeting of spells, but a violation of physics.
For one endless second, the two crescents—one of annihilating fire, the other of solidified mana—pressed against each other, neither yielding.
They created a searing, screaming line of white light in the dome's center, a razor-edge where reality itself seemed to fray.
Then it detonated.
BOOOOOOMMMMMMM
The sound was a physical thing, a tidal wave of pure pressure that flattened every remaining standing stone and ripped the last scorched clumps of grass from the earth.
The barrier dome, designed to contain immense force, groaned like a living thing, its luminous surface flickering violently as spider-webs of strain raced across it.
A flash of superheated light swallowed everything, bleaching the world of color and detail.
When the light faded and the thunderous echo began to recede, the center of the arena was a twenty-meter-wide crater of glassy, molten stone, cooling rapidly into twisted, obsidian shapes.
At its opposite edges, two figures skidded to a halt, their boots carving trenches in the slag.
Austin stood wreathed in slowly-dissipating tendrils of smoke, his chest rising and falling in a deep, controlled rhythm.
A thin line of blood traced from his scalp down his temple, sizzling away before it could drip.
Emberclaw glowed a persistent dull red in his hand.
Across the crater, Lucas landed in a low crouch, the katana held loosely at his side.
His blue eyes were calm but utterly focused.
The air crackled between them, charged with spent magic and rising dust.
Both men dragged in ragged breaths, chests heaving—not from exhaustion, but from the sheer, overwhelming intensity of the last exchange.
It lasted only a handful of seconds, but in that suspended moment, understanding crystallized in Austin's mind.
His keen gaze swept over Lucas, and he saw it: the absence of meaningful injury, the steady hands, the relaxed posture.
Lucas wasn't recovering; he was waiting.
He was offering a pretense of respite, already perfectly poised for the next clash.
A wry, inward chuckle rose in Austin's throat. So that's how it is, he thought.
You're just using me to warm up.
In your eyes, I'm strong, but not a threat. Not yet.
The realization didn't deflate him—it ignited him.
His eyes, the conduits of his heritage, began to spin with impossible, dizzying speed.
He didn't just want to fight; he wanted to tear down Lucas's composure, to force him to reveal the true depths of his power, even if the effort shattered Austin in the process.
[Ocular Spell: Cinderfall Phantasm]
Their eyes met.
In a flash of searing crimson light, Lucas's vision was overwritten.
The arena vanished, replaced by a cataclysm of primal fire.
The sky split with falling meteors, trailing hellish streaks across an ash-choked firmament, while the very earth below boiled and erupted in world-ending volcanic fury.
Yet, within the heart of the apocalypse, Lucas's consciousness remained an island of ice.
He recognized the illusion for what it was—a psychic assault.
With a master's discipline, he disrupted his own mana flow and fortified his mind.
The entire psychic war raged and concluded in a span of microseconds.
But a microsecond was all Austin needed.
The instant Lucas's eyes refocused on reality, Austin was already a blur of motion, having crossed the distance between them.
His hand was extended, palm-out, mere inches from Lucas's chest—a point-blank range from which evasion was a physical impossibility.
[Fire Spell: Snake Bind]
Viperous tendrils of living flame erupted from Austin's palm, not as a projectile, but as an extension of his will.
They hissed through the air, coiling around Lucas's torso and limbs with predatory swiftness, their intent clear: to sear flesh and shackle movement.
Yet Lucas was already moving. His mana, a loyal army, responded before the thought was fully formed.
[Mana Spell: Revolting Mana]
A violent, spinning vortex of chaotic energy exploded from his body—a personal typhoon of raw power.
The serpentine flames met this revolting force and were thrown aside, deflected and scattered into harmless embers.
Without a pause, the confrontation descended into a blistering dance of steel.
Lucas's katana met Austin's short sword in a percussive storm of clashing metal.
Ting ting ting ting TING!
The rhythm accelerated into a frenzied staccato.
Austin poured his frustration and ambition into every strike, each one faster, heavier, more desperate than the last.
He needed to see the limit, to find the edge of Lucas's legendary calm.
Lucas, meanwhile, flowed through the onslaught with infuriating ease, his movements economical, parrying and deflecting, only attacking to disrupt, never to overwhelm.
[Mana Spell: Searing Lance]
A spear of condensed, white-hot mana materialized beside Lucas and shot forward, not aimed, but hunting.
It twisted in mid-air, tracking the unique signature of Austin's mana.
Austin didn't flinch; he roared a counter-incantation.
[Fire Spell: Great Fireball]
A sphere of roiling fire, large as a carriage, met the searing lance head-on at the arena's center.
The collision was not a mere sound, but a physical event—a BOOOM that shook the ground and sent a concussive wave of heat outward, flattening the dust.
In the visual distortion of the heat haze, Lucas moved.
[Mana Spell: Shadow Mirage]
He seemed to fracture.
Three, four, five afterimages of Lucas sprinted from the blast zone, converging on Austin from different angles.
Austin's spinning eyes dilated, processing mana trails and minute physical tells in an instant.
There!
He identified the true form just as he summoned his own wings of annihilation.
[Fire Spell: Phoenix Ascent]
Wings of brilliant, consuming flame roared into existence behind Austin, and he became a comet.
He shot toward the real Lucas with neck-breaking velocity, the speed alone dispelling the fragile mirages.
And then he saw it—the slight, calm smile on Lucas's face as the fiery death approached.
A spike of pure, hot anger lanced through Austin.
He's still smiling?
After all this?
He, Austin, was the strongest of his generation!
He had clawed his way to the top through sheer, relentless effort!
How could Lucas still be so far ahead?
Rage fueled his fire.
The inferno point engulfing his short sword turned a deadly blue-white.
His attacks became a blinding barrage, a hurricane of sharpened flame.
Lucas's defense finally seemed to tighten, his blocks coming faster, meeting power with impeccable technique.
Then, inexplicably, Lucas slowed.
His footwork grew heavy, his parries a fraction late.
A feint?
A trap?
Austin's mind raced, but his body was committed to the rhythm of assault.
He took the bait, driving forward for a decisive, overpowering strike.
Their blades met with a shocking, discordant clang.
Lucas blocked it, but barely, and the force of the impact sent him skidding backward, feet carving trenches in the earth before he was launched into the air.
Austin watched, chest heaving, as Lucas spun and landed hard on one knee, his form uncharacteristically clumsy.
The majestic wings of the Phoenix Ascent flickered and died on Austin's back as he felt his own mana reserves dip critically into the red.
He was running on fumes.
Across the ravaged field, Lucas rose slowly, weaving signs for a new spell.
But Austin saw it—the tremor in his hands, the strain etching his face.
He's drained too! This was it—the clear, final opening!
With the last dregs of his speed, Austin closed the distance in a mere second, a fist aimed to finally, finally end this.
Lucas looked up, his eyes widening with what seemed like genuine shock.
Victory was inches away.
Then, the illusion shattered.
As smoothly as a shadow lengthening, Lucas's drained posture evaporated.
He swayed aside from Austin's strike with effortless, contemptuous grace, moving to the side as the air around Austin solidified.
[Mana Spell: Astral Chains]
Glowing, semi-translucent chains of pure astral energy erupted from the ground, the air, from nothingness itself, wrapping around Austin's limbs and torso with a cold, unbreakable grip.
His movement ceased; even the flow of his mana within his body met a resisting, binding force.
A slow, breathless chuckle escaped Austin. "Fucken hell," he gasped, admiration and bitter amusement warring in his voice.
"You noticed that I knew you were holding back… so you started acting. You pretended I'd weakened you, let me think I could end it quick. Used my own desperation against me. Clever, Lucas. Very clever."
"Why win by force," Lucas said, his voice calm as he approached, a rotating sphere of violently compressed mana beginning to rage and whirl above his upturned palm, "when you can win by wit?"
[Mana Spell: Mana Vortex]
The sound was a high-pitched, devouring scream of energy. "It was a great fight, though," Lucas added, almost kindly.
But Austin was not of the generation's strongest for nothing.
In the mere moment before Lucas released the annihilating vortex, Austin poured every shred of his defiant will into a single point.
One of the astral chains, stretched over his shoulder, shimmered and—cracked.
It was enough.
A trickle of mana, wild and unbidden, rushed through him.
[Fire Spell: Pillar.]
A solid column of furious flame erupted vertically between him and Lucas, a last-second wall of defiance.
Lucas's strike, the raging Mana Vortex, lanced forward.
The pillar lasted only a heartbeat before the vortex consumed it, tearing through the fire like paper.
The raging ball of energy connected.
There was no dramatic cry, only a terrible, grinding sound of destruction.
Austin's clothes frayed into nothing.
His skin seared.
And then the kinetic force took him.
He was blasted from his feet, not flying, but vanishing in a blurred streak of motion.
He crossed the entire breadth of the colossal dome in an instant, a human projectile, before crashing through the reinforced outer barrier and into the silence beyond.
Inside the arena, the vortex dissipated.
The chains faded.
Dust settled.
Lucas stood alone, the winner.