Chapter 45: The Strongest Elite of Class S VS The Strongest Elite of Class A (4)
The battlefield trembled beneath the weight of mana, the cracked marble floor groaning like old bones under too much pressure. Dust swirled thick in the air, catching the red light from the sky and turning it into blood-colored haze. Light fractured in jagged bursts—white, gold, crimson—painting the ruined colosseum into a stage where gods and monsters fought for pride, for survival, for something deeper no one dared name out loud. The heat was brutal, the kind that made sweat sting your eyes and your lungs burn with every breath, but neither fighter slowed.
Celestia Silveria Van Lumina—princess of the Lumina Empire—moved like a streak of pure dawn, her white silk hair whipping behind her, her sword a blazing line of divine light. Every swing clashed hard against Amelia Eileen Orientalia's crimson magic, the impact sending shockwaves that cracked the ground and rattled the broken pillars. Explosions of flame painted the air scarlet, blooming like deadly flowers, only to be cut apart by Celestia's radiant steel. Neither yielded. Neither retreated. The air between them hummed with tension, thick as the mana that choked the space.
Her blade shone like a sliver of a dying star, sharp and beautiful, but Celestia could feel it—the slow drain in her arms, the way her mana flickered at the edges. Amelia's sorcery wasn't just powerful; it was wild, unrestrained, absolute in its hunger to destroy everything in its path. The flames didn't just burn—they devoured, licking at the edges of Celestia's light shield, testing, pushing, looking for weakness.
"Why are you holding back, Princess?" Amelia taunted, her voice cutting through the roar of fire, sharp and mocking, her crimson hair flowing like living flames in the wind of her own power. She hovered a few feet off the ground, hands glowing ruby red, fingers dancing as she shaped another spell. "Are you still acting all noble even in battle? Or are you afraid I'll burn that royal pride of yours to ashes? Come on—show me the real you, or are you too scared to get your hands dirty?"
Celestia gritted her teeth hard, the sound almost lost in the clash as she parried another blazing sphere. The fireball burst into a ring of fire that swept wide, forcing her to leap back, boots skidding on the hot stone. The heat kissed her skin, left red marks on her arms, but she didn't flinch. 'She's faster than before,' she thought, her mind racing even as her body moved on instinct. 'Her flames—they're infused with temporal mana. A gift from her bloodline, no doubt. They're not just hot; they're slipping through time, hitting before I even see them move. Damn it, if this keeps up… I'll be the one burned to nothing.'
Her thoughts were cut off sharp by the roar of mana from the other side of the colosseum—Claire Manhattan and Christopher Davenson's fight exploding into something massive. The ground cracked wide under their power, waves of pressure rolling out like a storm, and even here, Celestia felt her breathing hitch, her chest tight from the overwhelming force. Christopher's laughter echoed madly across the ruins, wild and free. "Now this is what I'm talking about! Come on, Lady Claire! Show me more! Don't hold back—I can take it!"
Celestia's grip tightened on her sword, the radiant steel quivering in her hands, reflecting her own exhausted face—sweat-streaked, eyes fierce but tired. 'Christopher's mana is destabilizing… I can feel it from here. He's pushing too hard; he's reaching his limit. I need to finish this quickly, or he'll burn out before Claire does.' She forced a breath, steadying herself, her boots planting firm on the cracked floor.
Her eyes darted back to Amelia—still floating midair, still confident, still arrogant, her hands glowing in ruby flame that twisted and danced like it had a mind of its own. The sorceress smirked, tilting her head. "What's wrong, Princess? Getting tired? Or are you finally realizing you're out of your league? I've trained for this—years of fire, years of pain. You? You've been playing dress-up in your pretty empire, smiling for the crowds. This is my stage now."
'Think, Celestia,' she told herself, ignoring the taunt, her mind sharp despite the ache in her muscles. 'You've fought her before—in the last exam, in training spars. You know her temper, her pride, her obsession with proving she's better than everyone, especially you. She's strong—but predictable. She loves the big show, the grand finish. She'll overcommit. Wait for it.'
She exhaled slow, steadying her heart, forcing the burn in her lungs to calm as another thought crept in—a memory buried deep in the shadows of her soul, heavy and painful, like a wound that never closed.
A memory of her past life.
She remembered fire—not like Amelia's, but colder, crueler.
She remembered blood soaking the ground, the screams of a battlefield that stretched to the horizon.
She remembered him.
Lucian Azrael Von Blackstar—the man she loved, the man she couldn't save, no matter how hard she tried.
She could still see it vividly, like it was happening right now: his lifeless body resting beneath a twilight sky, the stars cold and distant above. His chest, pierced clean through by a blade meant for her. His deep black eyes, empty yet peaceful, like he'd accepted it all. The moment she realized he was gone forever, something inside her broke—shattered into pieces she could never put back. She'd held him, screamed his name until her voice gave out, but he didn't move. Didn't breathe. Didn't come back.
At first, she prayed—to gods she'd never believed in, to spirits in the wind, to the world itself. She begged on her knees for a miracle, for anything to bring him back. None answered. The silence was worse than any scream.
Then, her prayers turned to research.
She locked herself in the imperial library, poring over ancient texts until her eyes bled, searching for any spell, any ritual, any whisper of a way to cheat death.
Her grief turned to obsession.
She abandoned court, ignored her duties, let the empire whisper about their mad princess.
And her obsession turned to madness.
As the years passed, the once-beloved Empress of the Lumina Empire abandoned her throne, her morality, and even her humanity. All for him. She began dissecting divine scriptures in hidden chambers, unraveling the forbidden laws of creation, bending the very essence of mana itself until it screamed. She waged wars across the continents to seize relics said to hold the power of life, enslaved divine beings to pry their secrets from their minds, and slaughtered anyone—scholar, priest, king—who dared call her insane or stand in her way.
In her madness, she discovered the existence of the Path of Divinity—a transcendence achievable only through one's ultimate obsession. It required abandoning mortality, sacrificing every emotion that made you human, and rewriting your existence within the Laws of Creation. It was a path walked by no one sane. And she did it. She stood atop the corpses of gods and kings alike, her empire bathed in eternal light that blotted out the sun. Her name resounded across worlds as the Sovereign of Worlds, the woman who challenged fate itself and laughed.
But all of it—every victory, every conquest, every drop of blood spilled—was for one goal: to revive Lucian. She ascended not for power, not for dominion—but for love that had rotted into madness, a love that consumed worlds.
When she finally became a goddess, her divine light shattered the heavens. Her wings of pure mana extended beyond sight, vast and terrible, her halo formed from countless dying stars that wept light. Armies fell to their knees. Gods bowed. The universe itself trembled at her name.
And yet, when she tried to bring him back, when she reached into the void of time and death to pull his soul from the dark—Lucian's essence did not respond. It slipped through her fingers like smoke, silent, gone. Her divine magic failed. Her godhood was powerless before fate itself, before the cold rules that said some things could not be undone.
In her despair, Celestia fell to her knees upon her divine throne, high above a world she'd remade in her image, and screamed. Her voice echoed through the void of eternity, shaking stars from the sky. "Why…? Why won't you return to me, Lucian?! I gave everything! I became this for you!"
Then she heard a voice—gentle, yet cold, like starlight on ice. A voice that belonged to one who stood above gods themselves, untouched by their pleas or their power. "Because you cannot defy the balance, child."
The Goddess of Fate and Time appeared before her, draped in veils woven from starlight and shadow, her golden eyes filled with pity, not cruelty. "You broke the cycle, Celestia Silveria Van Lumina. You reached for eternity with mortal hands. You cannot resurrect what has been chosen by destiny. Some endings are written in the bones of the world."
Celestia trembled, clutching her chest, her divine light flickering like a candle in wind. Tears—real tears, hot and human despite her godhood—fell from her eyes. "Then what do I need to do? I'll do anything! Please, just bring him back! I'll burn the heavens again if I have to!"
The Goddess's expression softened, just a fraction, her voice quieter now. "If you wish to meet him again… then break time itself. Rewind it. Begin again. Start from the moment before the blade fell, before the choice was made. But know this: the cost will be everything you are now."
Celestia didn't hesitate. "Do it."
And with those words, the Goddess granted her the Eye of Chronos, a divine relic small as a tear, glowing with the light of forgotten beginnings. Celestia accepted it, her divinity fracturing like glass, her vast wings crumbling to dust, her light collapsing inward as she rewound the entire world—every star, every soul, every second—returning to the moment before everything began, before the war, before the blade, before Lucian's death.
Back in the present, in the heat and dust of the colosseum, Celestia's eyes glimmered faintly with divine radiance—the last remnants of her former godhood, a spark of the goddess she'd been. She steadied her blade, the weight familiar in her hands, and glared at Amelia with eyes that had seen the end of worlds.
"You know, Lady Amelia," she said, her voice calm but chilling, like winter wind through a graveyard, "your arrogance reminds me of someone who once defied me. She burned like you, full of pride, full of fire… until I extinguished her flame. She begged in the end. They all do."
Amelia snarled, her ruby eyes flashing, hands clenching into fists as flames roared higher around her. "You dare compare me to some dead fool? I'm Amelia Eileen Orientalia! My bloodline traces back to the First Flame! You're just a princess playing with light—pretty, but weak!"
Celestia's lips curved in a smile that wasn't kind. "Pretty? Weak? Let me show you what weak looks like when it breaks."
She stepped forward, mana surging through her blade, the air around her shimmering with heat and light. Amelia laughed—sharp, defiant—and thrust both hands forward. "Crimson Reign — Inferno Cascade!"
A wave of fire erupted, massive and roaring, shaped like a dragon's maw, rushing to swallow Celestia whole. The princess didn't dodge. She raised her sword high, her voice steady, ancient power stirring in her blood. "Lumina Divine Art — Reflection of the Fallen Star!"
The fire hit—and stopped.
The dragon's maw froze mid-roar, flames bending, twisting, reversing like time itself was pulled backward. The inferno shot back, faster, hotter, slamming into Amelia with the force of her own hatred.
The sorceress screamed, arms crossing to summon a barrier, but it cracked under the weight. The flames engulfed her, exploding in a pillar of crimson and gold that lit the colosseum like a second sun. When the light faded, Amelia stood in a crater, clothes burned, skin blistered, hair singed at the ends, but her eyes still burned with defiance.
"You… you redirected my spell?" she gasped, voice hoarse, coughing smoke. "How? That's impossible!"
Celestia stepped forward, her aura radiating like a goddess descending upon the mortal world, the ground cracking under her boots with every step. For a brief second, everyone—including Lucian and Christopher fighting far off—felt it. That suffocating, divine presence, heavy as judgment, cold as eternity.
The return of the Goddess of Vanity and Tyranny, the one who'd burned heavens for love.
Amelia staggered back, eyes wide. "What… what are you?"
Celestia raised her sword, her white silk hair flowing under the broken sunlight, the wind catching it like a halo. She spoke softly—her voice trembling with a mixture of sorrow and authority, quiet but carrying across the entire battlefield: "For you, Lucian… I'll ascend again if I must. Even if it means losing myself once more. I've done it before. I'll do it a thousand times if it brings me back to you."
The world seemed to stop.
The mana in the air stilled.
The flames died.
Her divine aura shattered the ground beneath her feet in a perfect circle, cracks racing out like spiderwebs, reminding everyone that behind the kind smile of Princess Celestia Silveria Van Lumina… slept the wrath of a god who once ruled the heavens for love.