CHAPTER 33: THE DEVIL'S GAUNTLET
Vlad swallowed hard, the metallic taste of dread on his tongue. "Y-yes, my King. I examined the blood evidence in exhaustive detail, cross-referencing every known energy signature. The molecular degradation… it's conclusive. An advanced ice-based technique was definitely used. It wasn't just a weapon; it was a manifestation of deep glacial energy."
King Swain did not merely hear the words; he absorbed them, and they catalyzed a transformation. The air in the throne room grew dense and cold, not from ice, but from a rising, palpable wrath. The ornate gauntlet on his left hand, usually a dormant piece of royal regalia, began to vibrate. Crimson energy, thick like blood and furious like hellfire, seeped from its seams, then overflowed, crawling up his forearm. His roar was not just sound; it was a physical force that shook dust from the rafters.
"KIIIIING TAAAAASSSKKKK!"
Po, standing firm, felt a familiar chill—a memory from a buried past. This was only the second time he had witnessed the mask of the calculating monarch shatter to reveal the primal fury beneath. "The last time I saw that look," he muttered to Kai, his voice low, "the man before him wasn't just killed. He was erased from history. So, this is it. The line is drawn. There's no petition to the World Government, no diplomatic posturing. The war truly begins now… and there's no turning back."
"Vlad!" Swain's command cut the reverberating echo of his own shout. His eyes, now flecked with the same red energy, pinned the Blood Mage. "Dispatch my fastest messengers—use the shadow-hawks and the wind-riders. To every city-state, every lord and baron who swore fealty to Nexan. They are to enact immediate conscription. Strip the farms, the forges, the merchant guilds. Bolster their military numbers to wartime capacity. This is not a request. It is a royal decree. We are unequivocally, irrevocably going to war. Now, GO!"
"At your command, my King!" Vlad bowed so deeply his forehead nearly touched the floor, then scrambled from the chamber, the weight of the coming storm on his shoulders.
Swain's searing gaze then fell upon Kai. The king's fury was a forge, and in it, he saw raw material. "Kai," he stated, his voice now a controlled, deadly calm. "Your time for gradual growth is over. It's time you learned to manifest your Domain. The blood elixir has tempered your spirit, forged a stronger vessel. One more push, one more confrontation at the very brink, and you'll reach the critical mass needed to unlock it. Therefore, you will spar with me. Personally."
Kai was taken aback, the recent revelations about Swain and Po's scheming still fresh in his mind. "W-with you? But you're the king, and I'm…"
"We have no time for 'buts,' Kai," Swain interrupted, stepping down from the dais. The crows that perpetually haunted the hall's high corners flocked silently to him. "The war we face will be one of annihilation. Mercy will be a weakness, hesitation a death sentence. So, for this next hour, you will not see your king. You will see the enemy who murdered Reacherd. You will see Kral Task. You will see your end, and you will fight it with every fiber of your being. We go to the Barren Wastes. Your final trial starts now."
He glanced at Po. "You fought Morde to a standstill without a Domain, which means your spirit is already knocking on that door. The report confirms Morde killed Fizz—a master. That means he is also on the precipice. You cannot afford to fall behind, Kai. Not even by a step."
Without further ceremony, Swain raised his bare left hand. A complex, darkly glowing circular sigil materialized on the marble floor beneath his feet. From the shadows of the hall and from the very air itself, crows materialized, swarming into a living, shrieking vortex that rose as tall as Swain, its center a void of inky blackness.
"Step into the circle," Swain ordered, his form beginning to blur at the edges.
Po, with a warrior's instinct, moved first. Kai, heart hammering against his ribs, followed. The moment they crossed the threshold of whirling feathers and shadow, the world dissolved into a cacophony of caws and a sensation of violent, directionless motion. An instant later, silence and harsh, dry wind replaced the chaos. They stood on cracked, ochre earth under a bleached-white sky. The Barren Wastes stretched endlessly in every direction.
"Whoa, King Swain! That's an incredible ability!" Po exclaimed, brushing non-existent dust from his arms, a grin spreading across his face. "Teleportation? That's a legendary-tier power!"
"A tool, nothing more," Swain replied, his focus laser-locked on Kai. He had not even broken a sweat. "We'll discuss its utility after we secure victory. Now," he said, settling into a relaxed but utterly terrifying stance, "come at me. With everything you have. Hold back, and you will break."
The air in the Ice Kingdom's infirmary was antiseptic and cold, a different kind of chill than the training grounds. Morde entered, the scent of blood and old snow still clinging to him.
The doctor, a man with frost-pale hair and eyes like chips of flint, looked up from a table of gleaming surgical tools. "I was told to expect you. You are Morde."
"I was sent by King Task," Morde stated flatly, his voice echoing in the sterile space.
"Ah, indeed. Then we proceed as ordered. Sit." The doctor gestured to a reinforced metal chair. Morde sat, the cold of the seat seeping through his clothes. Without preamble, the doctor took a syringe filled with a viscous, iridescent blue liquid from a chilled case. He plunged it into Morde's arm with practiced efficiency.
Morde didn't flinch. "An elixir? Task mentioned power."
"This is a direct order from the king himself," the doctor explained, watching the liquid drain into Morde's veins. "The report states you engaged Fizz, the Desert Master, and King Arthur simultaneously—and displayed power sufficient to potentially defeat them. Such a feat places you on the cusp of a profound awakening: the manifestation of your personal Domain. This catalyst," he tapped the now-empty syringe, "will multiply your latent energy, forcing a confrontation with your own limits. It is designed to trigger the Domain's birth in the crucible of a single, all-out battle."
Morde flexed his hand, already feeling a strange warmth battling the room's cold. "So, this will force my power to grow. To break its shell."
"Precisely."
"Good. Then the process is welcome."
The doctor paused, his clinical demeanor flickering with surprise. "I… must admit, I expected skepticism. Perhaps even refusal. Such procedures carry immense risk. The mind can shatter under the pressure. Your compliance is… notable."
Morde turned his head, a smirk playing on his lips that didn't reach his cold eyes. "I'll walk through any fire, swallow any poison, for power. Sentiment, caution, fear—they are obstacles. To reach my goal, I must become the absolute strongest. If this is the path, then I sprint down it."
His words, devoid of hesitation, seemed to please the doctor in a detached, academic way. "A fascinating psychological profile. Very well. The catalyst is active."
A jolt, like lightning trapped under his skin, raced through Morde. His muscles seized, then relaxed with a newfound, terrifying density. The deep wound from his battle, which had been a constant, throbbing reminder, began to itch fiercely. He looked down to see the flesh knitting together not with scars, but seamlessly, as if the injury were being rewritten from existence. A surge of raw, dark energy flooded his meridians, filling him with a sensation of boundless, crackling potential.
"AHHHH!" The exclamation was less from pain and more from the overwhelming influx. "I can feel it… the power isn't just in me, it is me. My wound… it's gone. This energy… it's peaking!" He stood, and the air around him seemed to darken slightly, as if drinking the light.
"Excellent," the doctor noted, making a notation on a crystal slate. "The physiological response is optimal. You may now proceed to King Task. He will provide the final key—the combat stimulus to shape this raw power into your Domain."
Morde did not thank him. Power was not a gift; it was a transaction, and he had just paid with his compliance. He strode from the infirmary, his steps heavier, more deliberate, carrying the weight of his amplified potential.
The guards at the king's chambers took one look at his now-emanating aura and opened the frost-rimed doors without a word. Inside, upon a throne carved from a glacier's heart, sat King Task. Flower stood beside him, her expression unreadable.
"Ah, Morde. You shine with promised violence," Task observed, a genuine smile on his face. "The catalyst has taken. Good. We've been waiting. The final lesson cannot be taught in a palace. Come. I will teach you to not only awaken your Domain but to command it."
Flower raised a hand. Instead of a portal of light, she tore a seam in the very air, revealing a landscape of howling wind and eternal blue-white. A blast of paralyzing cold swept into the throne room. Without a word, Task stepped through. Flower gestured, and Morde followed, with her bringing up the rear.
The transition was brutal. The cold of the Ice Kingdom was a gentle frost compared to this. This was the elemental heart of winter, a desolate, frozen plain where the sky and earth were indistinguishable shades of punishing white and blue. The air hurt to breathe.
Morde's teeth chattered for a second before he clamped his jaw shut, his enhanced energy flaring to form a thin protective barrier. "T-this cold? In this… how can anyone focus enough to fight, let alone awaken a Domain?"
King Task's laugh was swallowed by the gale. "Merak etme, Morde. Do not worry. True power is not born in comfort. The greatest combat epiphanies are forged in the furnace of extremity. Here, your senses are sharpened to a razor's edge by the very threat of death."
Flower's voice, calm and clear, cut through the wind. "You wondered how I move as I do? How strikes seem to pass through me? The secret is here. In the Frostforges, every movement, every spark of energy, is refined. What you achieve here will be twice, even three times more potent and precise when you return to the mortal realms. This is the most logical crucible for your awakening." She drew her twin ice-daggers, which glowed with an inner, pale light. "Now, we begin. I will be your instructor. And I will not hold back."
She didn't lunge; she appeared, her form blurring in the wind-blown snow. "Glacial Death!" Her dagger traced a line of absolute zero through the air, aimed not to injure, but to extinguish life itself. Morde, his reflexes honed by pain and power, reacted not with thought but with instinct. A Shadow Fist, denser and darker than ever before, materialized to meet her.
The collision was silent for a split second before a CRACK like a glacier splitting echoed across the plain. The shockwave blew a circle clear of snow. Flower, to her visible surprise, was forced to take a sliding step back, her boots scoring the ice beneath.
From the sidelines, King Task's grin was a fierce, proud thing. "İşler kızışıyor," he breathed. "It ignites."
Back in the oven-like heat of the Barren Wastes, the clash was of a different nature, but no less intense.
Swain made the first move, a deceptively simple gesture. "Crow Command." He did not call new crows. He commanded the very concept of them. From the bleached sky, from shadows cast by rocks, from the dusty air itself, they coalesced—a swirling, shrieking maelstrom of feathers and beaks and claws centered entirely on Kai. They didn't just obscure vision; they absorbed sound, smell, and a terrifying sense of spatial awareness. Their endless, circular motion created a centrifugal force that pulled at Kai's spirit, draining him.
Kai cried out, disoriented and instantly weakened. "W-what is this?! I can't see… I can't feel the ground! What do I do? You're on a different level entirely!"
"Do not glorify your enemy's strength on the battlefield, Kai!" Swain's voice boomed from everywhere and nowhere, laced with anger. "To acknowledge a gap is to accept it! Your doubt feeds them! They will finish you in a single move if you hesitate! Now, FIGHT! Retaliate!"
Spurred by the reprimand and a surge of desperation, Kai tapped into the core of his being—the pure, white energy of his spirit. He stopped trying to see and instead felt. He felt the drain, the vortex of negative energy, and charged against its flow, trusting the power within. But he staggered, his energy reserves already noticeably depleted.
"They're siphoning my spirit energy? But… I am spirit!" The declaration became his mantra. With a raw shout, he combined Spirit Fist with Spirit Leap, becoming a projectile of concentrated will, shooting through a temporary gap in the feathered storm toward Swain's silhouette.
Swain did not dodge. He looked at his left hand, still bare, the demonic arm pulsating. With a deliberate motion, he pulled off the ornate gauntlet he now wore on his right hand, letting it clatter to the hard earth. Both arms were now bare. But the left… the left was now fully revealed. It was no longer merely red; it was a landscape of contained infernos, the skin etched with dark, pulsing sigils that burned with inner fire. The air around it wavered with heat.
"Enough preamble," Swain said, and his voice had a double timbre—his own and a deeper, more ancient one. "Devil's Arm — Black Covenant."
The sigils on his arm blazed. The demonic power within, now fully unshackled, surged. Swain's physical presence seemed to expand, not in size, but in density, in gravitational pull. His strength multiplied exponentially, and when he threw a simple, straight punch, it tore the air with a sound like rending cloth.
Kai's glowing Spirit Fist met Swain's Demon Fist.
The impact did not produce a mere sound. It birthed a silent, expanding sphere of light—white from Kai, hellish crimson from Swain—that swallowed everything before exploding outwards. Po, watching intently, was forced to throw up an arm and plant his feet, the shockwave of pure energy pressing against him like a physical wall.
When the light imploded back into nothingness, Kai was airborne, hurled a full ten meters backwards. He landed in a rolling tumble, coming to a stop on his knees. His arm was numb, his knuckles bleeding. He looked up, not with defeat, but with a blazing, insatiable hunger. He stared at Swain, who stood wreathed in fading crimson tendrils, a dark god of war.
"This…" Kai gasped, pushing himself up. "This is true power! Not just technique, but… absolute dominance! I need this… No!" he roared, his voice cracking with determination. "I need to become more!"
Inside, Swain felt a profound, grim satisfaction. There. The spark. Not of a hero, but of a conqueror. The spirit I've been searching for.
They charged again, the Barren Wastes their endless arena.
On the frozen plain, Morde recovered from the shock of the first exchange, his breath pluming in the deadly air. He wouldn't be passive. He focused the new, volatile energy within him, aiming his palm at Flower. "Shadow Shock!" A concentrated beam of corrupting darkness lanced out, seeking to freeze her from the inside.
Flower didn't meet darkness with darkness. She pirouetted, her movement leaving after-images in the cold air. "Glacial Dream." A wave of not cold, but of absolute stillness, of entropic cessation, flowed from her dagger to meet the beam. The two forces collapsed into each other, canceling out in a shower of black ice shards.
Undeterred, Flower closed the distance in a blink, her right-hand dagger aiming a clinical stab at his heart. Morde, anticipating, twisted and formed another Shadow Shock around his own right fist, aiming to shatter the dagger at its source.
But as his fist flew forward, his connection to the energy in his arm suddenly… vanished. The shadow around his fist dissipated like smoke.
"What?! A feint? I was sure the attack was from the right!"
It was a fatal misreading. In the split-second his brain processed the failure, Flower's left hand, which had been held low and hidden behind the glittering distraction of her right, flickered upward. The ice-dagger's edge, colder than the void between stars, traced a shallow, precise line across Morde's abdomen.
It wasn't a deep cut. But the pain was instantaneous and profound—a deep, soul-chilling burn that locked his muscles. He gasped, crumpling to one knee on the ice.
"What… what kind of technique…"
"Morde," Flower said, her voice calm, instructional, as she stepped back, allowing him the space to suffer and learn. "Remember. This is a real battle. If it were anything less, you would rely on tricks, on half-measures. You would not be forced to confront the gaps in your perception, the delays in your instincts. True power is only unleashed when death is the cost of failure. Now, get up. The lesson is not over."
The outcome in the Wastes was becoming a brutal pattern. Kai unleashed a Spirit Shockwave, a visible ripple of concussive will. Swain, with terrifying simplicity, stepped into it and threw another demon-empowered punch. The shockwave shattered against his fist, and Kai was thrown back another five meters, his defenses crumbling.
"This power… it's an insurmountable wall… I have to find a crack, a weakness…" Kai's mind raced, but Swain was a force of nature, granting no quarter.
"You seek strategy against overwhelming force?" Swain's dual-toned voice asked, almost gently. "Sometimes, there is none. Sometimes, you are simply… ended."
He raised his demonic left hand, palm open. "Silent Execution."
The crows, which had been circling at a distance, stopped shrieking. The world went quiet. Then, in perfect, horrifying unison, they dove. This was not a swarm; it was a calculated, precise bombardment. Each crow became a black dagger aimed with lethal intent.
Kai screamed, "Spirit Curtain!" A shimmering wall of white energy erupted around him. It held for a heartbeat before the crows, each one empowered by a fragment of Swain's demonic will, struck like living ballista bolts. The curtain spider-webbed, then exploded inward.
Kai had time to twist, a futile attempt at evasion. One crow, moving faster than sight, impaled itself through the meat of his shoulder, pinning his cloak to his body. A millisecond later, a second struck him in the side, below the ribs. The pain was electric and nauseating. It wasn't just physical; it carried a psychic chill, a whisper of oblivion.
His legs gave out. He dropped to his knees, a strangled cry torn from his throat. But his head remained up, his eyes, wide with agony and defiance, still fixed on Swain. He did not fall forward.
Swain observed him, a hint of something resembling respect in his hellfire eyes. "This… seems truly to be a fight to the death," he mused aloud, slowly beginning to walk forward. "Very well. If you have offered your life to this trial, then I, as your opponent, shall honor it. I, too, shall fight as if my life depends on it. Let us end this chapter."
Kai's vision swam. The world was pain and the approaching figure of a demon-armed king. He had nothing left. No clever plan, no hidden reserve. Only the stubborn, unyielding core of his spirit, the same core that had healed Arthur, that had yearned for Swain's power. It was a tiny, white-hot ember in a sea of darkness.
He would not die on his knees.
Gathering the ember, feeding it with his last shreds of will, of anger, of desperate need, he planted his good hand on the ground. The movement tugged agonizingly at the crow in his shoulder. He ignored it.
"Spirit…" he rasped, blood on his lips.
Swain paused, ten paces away, his demonic arm raising for a final, annihilating blow.
"LEAP!"
It was not an attack. It was not a dodge. It was the last, defiant expenditure of everything he was. A suicidal, all-or-nothing propulsion not at Swain, but beyond him. To move one more time. To prove he could.