Nolan slowly stood, his leg armor scraping with a crisp metallic sound, as if sounding the horn of attack.
He faced Messmer, leaning forward slightly, the Dark Moon Greatsword in his hand glowing with a dim, ghostly light.
What a champion could not do did not mean a Lord could not.
Messmer suddenly snapped back to himself. His eyes widened as he stared at Nolan in astonishment.
In his eyes, Nolan was no longer an ordinary human champion, but a ferocious, monster-like Lord.
Messmer was inwardly shaken. He could be considered well traveled, and he had seen countless powerful beings.
Yet the human before him was completely unlike any of the powerful opponents he had ever encountered.
If their first exchange relied on reaction, and the second on speed and strength, then what Nolan used in the third was something far purer.
What now filled the Demigod's heart with helplessness was... martial skill.
Even the simplest movement was flawless. Could the War Lord Hoarah Loux have reached such a level without relying on that body of muscle?
With martial skill alone, he had mercilessly crushed a Demigod.
That explained how, even before that body had become a Lord's vessel, Nolan had pushed his combat power far beyond that of a Demigod.
It was strength forged through countless trials and endless refinement.
Nolan fixed his gaze on Messmer. His blue-green pupils seemed as hot as a blazing furnace, yet as cold as the deepest night.
He seemed to have fully taken on the role of a stern father. What remained in his eyes now was a father's love, and his anger toward a rebellious son.
"Father?"
Messmer could not help murmuring in an extremely faint voice, and the sense of father and son between them grew even stronger.
As he hoarsely repeated the name of this stranger, a scorching power was roused from deep within him.
In an instant, a domain of flame expanded at terrifying speed.
Messmer's body began to change violently.
A crimson serpent body, like a spirit snake emerging from its cave, suddenly burst from beneath his clothes and armor, coiling tightly around him.
Looking more closely, this serpent body was not a single being, but two snakes tangled and intertwined together.
Their forms were bizarre. Not only were their bodies long and slender, but each had a single wing on its side, like the wing of a bat.
And on closer inspection, one would be shocked to find that the two snakes pierced directly through Messmer's body, as if they were parasites living within him.
But after spending so long in Castle Ensis, no one was unaware of Messmer's knights and their worship of the Winged Serpent.
It was like Godfrey's Beast Chancellor, remaining at Messmer's side as his wise friend, suppressing the far more terrible power within him.
Messmer's right eye suddenly widened. His slender right hand plunged straight into it, and without hesitation, he tore out that golden eyeball by force.
As his palm tightened slightly, a sharp crack rang out. The eyeball instantly shattered into countless fragments and scattered across the ground.
The winged twin serpents were freed from their restraints. The red on their bodies rapidly faded, turning white in the blink of an eye.
A power as deep as the abyss was released. Flames burned across him like that vivid red hair, while a black aura rose and blotted out the sky.
At last, the black aura filling the air collided, intertwined, and fused together.
Gradually, it condensed above Messmer's head, taking shape as two enormous, grotesque bodies.
From afar, those two bodies looked like two rotting giant serpents twisting and tearing at each other within dense black fog, giving off waves of nauseating stench and the breath of death.
This was what the Kindling Demigod and the Winged Serpent had been suppressing all along, the Evil Serpent.
"This is the essence of my evil... Father... let us walk the road to destruction together." Messmer raised his empty right eye and looked at Nolan.
Madness. Madness. This was truly madness. Because of a few words from that madwoman, this boy actually wanted to drag his own father down with him?
The flames on Nolan's body burned again. The heat of life spread outward without end, like a furnace fire driven by bellows.
The domain of "Life" around Nolan rapidly expanded, carrying endless vitality as it crashed toward the domain of black air and fire controlled by Messmer.
The instant the two powerful domains collided, a visible shockwave tore through space.
Scorching pale-yellow flames danced wildly like living fire dragons, while terrifying black fire serpents coiled against them, baring their fangs and claws.
Where there was light, the radiance was dazzling, almost impossible to look at directly. Where there was darkness, it was like a bottomless black hole, devouring every trace of light.
Both sides kicked off the ground almost at the same time. Their iron-hard knee joints erupted with abnormal force, and their figures vanished in high-speed motion.
Such explosive power and physical ability beyond common sense should not have appeared in any living creature.
A body made of such muscle and bone seemed as though it should belong only to gods, beings that existed only in imagination.
And yet it existed in this world.
At this moment, a scene that should have existed only in fantasy unfolded before their eyes.
Nolan and Messmer raced through the vast space like two meteors.
Each time they collided, an earth-shaking, deafening roar exploded outward.
They chased each other relentlessly at astonishing speed, even running along vertical walls and completely ignoring the planet's powerful gravity.
Broken stones kept falling from above, only to melt in midair. Wisps of black air scattered and fled in terror, then were swiftly reduced to ash by the heat of life.
Some of the black air landed on Trina's long hair and writhed like snakes. She shook her head hard, trying to throw them off, and the next moment her ears were filled with their screams.
White light radiated from her body. Black and white erased each other, and the war between the Goddess of Light and the Evil Serpent began.
If they fought one-on-one, the little goddess would probably be swallowed whole by the great black serpent in a single bite. Fortunately, she had someone beneath her to rely on, and for a time, the light and the black air were locked in a struggle neither could win.
The entire terrace seemed to be roasting inside a furnace, glowing with a terrifying red heat.
As far as the eye could see, every scrap of wood and blade of grass had caught fire, the flames raging with frightening intensity.
Thick smoke spread across the earth. Tiny transparent grains of dust seemed to come alive, dancing wildly through the air, rising and falling.
They had been crystallized by the raging heat.
With every collision between the father and son, countless crystal fragments scattered through the air. The flame of unknown origin inside Messmer was clearly no match for the heat born from life itself.
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