Chapter 522 – Hall of Usurpation (4)
'The momentum has shifted.'
An indescribable pressure pierced through the distance, agitating his very core.
Verden sharpened his senses.
Though an unforeseen situation had prevented him from using the Mystic Eye, the gap in power was not that large.
He still had more than enough strength.
The Mado of Infinity and the Mado of Destruction were still intact.
Huuuk.
Dahit extended his right arm across to the left, turning his palm forward. Then, with a wide motion of his shoulder joint, he traced a half-moon.
Above it, seven tiny black flames rose like candles.
Paaat.
At a light gesture, the jet-black flames, swallowing light itself, shot out, each trailing an irregular curve.
Verden focused his magic power carefully, sending forth a powerful wave, but… changing their trajectory was impossible.
'Mana control won't work on them.'
Yet to precisely snipe them down from afar was equally impossible, for their movement was erratic to the extreme.
He shifted his thinking.
Verden spun his staff, charged with the lightning strike of Destruction, sweeping from left to right, and struck one of Dahit's flames aside.
Jjeooeoeoeong!
'...?!'
It was heavy.
Even with
The ground where the deflected flame struck simply vanished.
Then came the surging wave of fiery lights.
Verden batted away the two nearest flames, then calculated, transferring himself upward with
He could not shake them off.
The moment he judged so, he abruptly halted
He spun with dazzling precision, over and over. When the flames entered his range, he smashed them away with [Interis], driving them back with brute force.
The two remaining candles on either side flickered.
Puuuuuung!
In an instant, jet-black fire engulfed his entire body.
"...!"
Unlike the flames Dahit had wielded so far, this one burned with unbearable heat. No—more precisely, it felt that way.
It was as if the very existence of his being was being burned away.
"My
Dahit raised his arms.
"Until now, all who witnessed this died. We shall see, Verden, if you are different."
Once again, seven flames bloomed. Soon they split into countless fragments, growing from dozens to hundreds.
To parry them physically was folly.
Immediately, Verden manifested the Celestial attribute, tracing his unique constellation.
Spirit Star, Alhena.
The third star of Celestial Magic drowned the land in pitch darkness. Above, countless starlights lit an artificial night.
"Another spell born of the heavens… Harkan Dazest must have crafted it with teeth clenched in spite."
Two Transcendents took aim at one another.
A meteor shower of countless streaming stars.
Kwaaakakakakakakakakakakaka!
Dahit Wethroel's flames were few in number, yet each carried crushing weight.
Verden's meteor shower had the advantage of overwhelming numbers, but each was light.
Their strengths pierced each other's weaknesses, forming a perfectly balanced clash in midair.
'This won't be enough.'
Dragging this out meant nothing.
He needed to drive a deep fissure into Dahit's perception, a single chance to land a fatal blow was essential.
Verden pulled back [Interis], aiming diagonally downward.
While sustaining the meteor shower above, he unleashed a beam of destruction below.
At the same time, Dahit maintained
A massive annihilating flash clashed head-on with the destructive beam, erasing it completely.
Fwaaaaaaaaak!
As the jet-black light grazed past Verden's side, Dahit burst forth from within the torrent of annihilation, seizing Verden's wrist and throat in an instant.
"A magical being who has set foot into the realm of Transcendence, comes to truly understand the essence of the Mado he has pioneered, and at the end, becomes that very thing."
Dahit was cloaked in black flames.
"I am annihilation itself."
"Khuk...!!"
The heat that erased all things invaded Verden's mana circuits, disrupting the flow of magic power.
Resistance was impossible.
In the blink of an eye, Dahit dragged Verden down toward the ground.
Kwaaaaaaang!
As they slammed into the earth, a storm of Deathflame exploded.
'If I don't escape, I'll die.'
With desperate force, Verden swung his arm, shaking Dahit's hand off.
Then, a dark crimson bolt of lightning flared.
A maelstrom of jet-black burst forth.
Dahit instinctively raised his arm to block, sliding far backward. It seemed ineffective—but Verden saw Dahit's fingertips tremble slightly.
'One mistake means death. But Dahit is no exception.'
As long as his foe was not invincible, there was a way out.
The fifth star of Celestial Magic.
Satellite, Theab.
Flame, water, wind, ice, earth, lightning, gravity, space—eight satellites orbited Verden, adding additional elemental damage to his magic.
The battle was rejoined.
***
Verden ignored the strain on his body, pouring forth all the power he possessed.
He pierced Dahit's right shoulder with Profound Thunder, and with all satellites expended, shredded his body into pieces.
And Dahit, in turn, compressed the range of
The intensified Deathflame erased Verden's flesh wherever it touched, burrowing deeper, gnawing away at the functions of his body.
Blood drenched the earth.
A battle between Transcendents, so harrowing that not a single scream was uttered. In their eyes, there was only the madness to kill, regardless of their own wounds.
At last, when they both staggered apart, a distance of about a hundred paces between them, Dahit drew forth a steel rod from his breast.
Cheok!
With a twist of the grip, a sharp spearhead extended, cloaked in jet-black flames.
A consumable artifact, [Spear of Dan].
Once used, it would be destroyed forever. But in return, it boasted overwhelming penetration, supersonic speed, and accuracy so precise it could be called unfailing.
Now infused with the power of annihilation, its force was self-evident.
Dahit's hidden trump card.
Swaeeeeeek!
A murderous wave reverberated.
The black-burning spear ripped through the air, aimed at its target.
Verden caught his breath.
'A direct hit would mean the end.'
Among all elemental magics, the near-absolute defense, a 7th-tier spatial magic once cast by the Administrator in the Demon King's laboratory.
Even the jet-black spear could not withstand the spatial twisting, swept away to fall somewhere deep within the forest.
"To be able to fight at such a level, even without the spell formula held in those eyes… I acknowledge it. Your computational ability truly surpasses mine."
Dahit crossed both arms.
"But I can see your limits."
Black flames rose into pillars, and those pillars formed a massive sphere. It was less a spell, and more the pure discharge of Mado itself.
It was like watching a black sun fall from the sky.
Not quite superlative magic, yet its power was nearly equal.
'I cannot handle this with my strength alone.'
Admitting his limitations, Verden spoke in a low voice.
"Unseal, Interis."
The orb radiated light.
Bluish-gray brilliance illuminated the surroundings.
Verden forced his mana circuits to release their output limit completely, his heart pounding violently. The abyss of infinite magic was revealed to the world.
Just as in the Grand Hall, he had no intention of burdening Dahit's mana circuits with
It would not work on him in the first place.
Instead, he sought to unleash vast magic temporarily, sweeping away and blocking 'all external factors' that might interfere with him.
───!
The blue mana barrier blocked the black sun, not yielding an inch, standing in perfect opposition. The defense succeeded.
'The burden on my mana circuits will be enormous from activating [Interis]… but Dahit Wethroel will suffer just the same.'
The balance was even.
Verden looked several moves ahead, anticipating what would follow.
Then, in that instant—
Dahit emerged from within the sun, thrusting both hands into the sea of magic. His forehead veins bulged as he clenched his teeth.
"───Haaaaaaahhhhhh!"
Cracks formed in the infinite magic, thought to be unbreakable. Slowly, fissures widened.
Using himself as a bridge, Dahit drew the flames of the sun behind him into the sea of magic.
An eruption of annihilation against a tide of magic pushing back.
Repulsion against repulsion, two forces driving in opposite directions—their inevitable end was mutual destruction.
Jjeojeojeok!
Dahit's
But Verden was still in recovery from the backlash. Naturally, he had no time to regain his footing.
A jet-black beam pierced Verden's leg.
Thud.
Verden grimaced, dropping to one knee. It was all he could do not to collapse entirely, using his staff as a crutch.
At once, Dahit closed in with
Annihilation seized control of his mana circuits.
"Haa, haa… So you've withheld your superlative magic until the end, waiting to counter mine? A pity. Even stronger, even more prepared than in the Grand Hall, and yet still falling short."
Catching his breath, Dahit extended his burning hand toward Verden's head. At that moment, [Interis] returned via remote recall.
Barely, Verden caught it, blocking Dahit's strike.
But that was all.
"…For a moment, I thought you might be the last piece for my ideal. But no, it seems not. Even a special being with limitless potential for the future, disappears if unable to surpass me."
Kkuuuuuguk.
Dahit pressed harder, Verden's ribs began to crack. The greater the pain, the weaker his strength became.
At this rate, the duel's outcome was certain, and the loser would be obliterated.
That was why Verden did not falter.
"Pieces, qualifications. I don't know what nonsense you've been rambling since earlier… but it's far too soon to conclude."
Despite Dahit's annihilation, Verden gathered magic into his head, his eyes gleaming.
The magic circle of Defying the Heavens, engraved into his right eye, flickered.
The unsealing of [Interis] released the infinite magic of his heart outward, and in that process, all external factors influencing Verden were swept away in the torrent.
That included Dahit's annihilation, which had been sealing the magic circle.
"You───"
The Mystic Eye activated.
Tuuuuuuuung!
The spatial shockwave caught Dahit off guard.
His head snapped back.
Catching himself midair, Dahit thrust his hand against the ground, braking his flight. Blood ran from his ears.
Taat.
Verden used the recoil in his waist to spring to his feet swiftly.
Instinct told him.
This was the decisive moment.
"Persistent…!"
Arrows of annihilation filled Verden's sight, a volley certain to devastate upon detonation.
So then—
Chain Star, Regnarum.
The fourth star of Celestial Magic was the Seal.
A gray constellation formed a circle, locked on ahead, and froze Dahit's unique magic entirely.
Through the gap in the black arrow-rain, Verden dashed with all his might,
The distance shrank exponentially.
Huuuk.
Dahit charged to meet him.
At close range, he struck aside [Interis] with a knife-hand, twisting its trajectory. Bone snapped, but without hesitation, he slashed for Verden's throat with a claw of black flame.
He seized the initiative.
But he had overlooked something.
The 7th-tier enchantment spell
A superlative spell once created by the Transcendent Lintara, allowing the caster to lower either physical or magical resistance to its minimum, while raising the other to the extreme.
Naturally, Verden chose resistance to magic.
Kwaaajijik!
Thanks to it, he avoided decapitation, losing only a strip of flesh. His robe was stained with blood, but it was far from a fatal wound.
The two Transcendents crossed paths.
Spinning as they passed, both pushed off the ground with their hind legs, unleashing a third strike.
Puuuk!
The black-flame blade on Dahit's knife-hand pierced through [Ainber], completely skewering Verden's abdomen. Not just burning internally, but physically rupturing as well.
His spine narrowly missed, but much of his organs were warped—a grievous wound.
Yet Dahit could not laugh.
For Verden's palm, pressed against his body, burst forth a destructive lightning strike, tearing his insides apart in an instant.
That spot was, precisely, his heart.
"Kruuugh…!"
Dahit's bloodshot eyes widened as he coughed blood.
His lungs, half destroyed, and his heart badly damaged, made his reaction inevitable.
The first was sealing.
The second, canceling.
The third, striking.
Verden had not bested Dahit directly.
But that he had landed a mortal blow after these three exchanges was no coincidence.
Verden's vision blurred, but he clung to consciousness.
He could not faint.
No matter how dire his state, he knew it was still better than Dahit's.
In other words—
'This is the chance.'
Extreme concentration of weight.
His toes crushed the earth.
Huuuung───Jjeoooeoeng!
With all his strength, Verden swung [Interis], and struck Dahit's head.
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