Chapter 194: The Crimson Spirit (3)
[You have retrieved the body of the Grand Mage summoned by the Sky Fortress. You will inherit their abilities.]
[Inheritance Rewards: Sensory +7, Intelligence +9, Magic +8, Unique Skills: Chuiwujincheong, Cheonrok, Thunder Spear, Crimson Spirit, Baekrak]
A notification window filled one side of Dalen’s vision.
The words, far more numerous than usual, danced before his eyes, and a stream of light flowed through his fingertips, filling his entire body with an overwhelming sense of euphoria.
“Phew…!”
His mind went blank, only to be flooded again with a kaleidoscope of colors.
The sensation was dizzying, like plummeting off a cliff, yet exhilarating, as if soaring through the sky, clearing his mind of all complexities.
This was a transformation on a different scale from retrieving a regular corpse. It was incomparable even to inheriting the powers of the Grey Projection.
“D-Dalen…?”
Lucia, who had been chanting a healing prayer nearby, stepped back in surprise at the blazing magic emanating from him.
“Are you alright, Dalen?”
Her blue eyes trembled slightly. Dalen chuckled softly and patted the head of the paladin.
“Looks like I made it just in time.”
He looked up to see the two skies still clashing above. The pitch-black storm clouds of Suum and the frozen sky of Charina.
There was no time to revel in the euphoria coursing through his body. Charina was literally risking her life to hold back Suum.
Rumble…
Even at that moment, flashes of lightning and thunder repeatedly tore through the sky.
Each time, the rapidly changing weather unleashed hail and fireballs, or sent bolts of lightning crashing to the ground.
[Can you do it?]
A quiet voice asked from beyond his consciousness.
The tone was somewhat weary. It was no surprise, considering it had expended all its power fighting Daltalion.
‘Who knows.’
Dalen replied nonchalantly. The clash between these two beings, beyond human comprehension, was akin to a natural disaster.
If this battle had taken place on the ground, it would have been only a matter of time before an entire city was reduced to ashes.
Charina had taken Suum to the skies as soon as the fight began for a reason.
‘A battle of the sixth rank is truly terrifying.’
Despite the surging magic, his mind cooled as he analyzed the situation.
Even though he had absorbed all of Daltalion’s abilities, it was impossible to fully grasp the vast knowledge in an instant.
Dalen’s current state was precarious, not quite at the sixth rank. Could he truly stand a chance in a direct confrontation with the evil god?
As he estimated the odds, Dalen suddenly chuckled.
‘But that’s the wrong question.’
[Hmm?]
‘It’s not about whether I can do it. It’s about whether I must.’
There was never a guaranteed victory in any battle.
Every fight he had faced was a gamble with his life, regardless of the odds.
Yet, once he decided it had to be done, even the slimmest chance of victory was enough.
Taking a deep breath, Dalen retrieved a hand axe and a holy sword from his subspace.
Crack—
“Huh?”
The moment he grasped them, the hand axe and half of the holy sword crumbled.
Before he could even be surprised, an unknown power surged through him, invigorating his entire body.
Crackle!
White lightning enveloped the holy sword, drowning out even Lucia’s murmurs.
As the holy sword regained its full form, a pure white axe naturally settled into his left hand.
In that moment, his battle-worn body, tattered from countless fights, was restored to peak condition, and the vision of a warrior appeared before him once more.
“…”
The warrior, with an axe at his waist, pointed to the sky.
Though the apparition vanished as quickly as it appeared, the vitality it awakened within him remained.
Was it just his imagination that the nameless warrior’s lips seemed to curl into a smile? Lucia spoke in a trembling voice.
“Is this… divinity? Dalen, how…?”
“I’ll explain later.”
Dalen shook his head. There was much to uncover, but no time to waste.
It would be a lie to say he wasn’t curious about the nature of this power or the identity of the phantom-like man he kept seeing.
But all of that would only matter after defeating the evil god in this battle.
Instinctively, he knew that the power filling him wouldn’t last long.
“I’ll be back soon.”
With a light stretch of his shoulders, Dalen vanished from the spot.
A streak of light shot up towards the sky.
Boom!
Only the echo of thunder, following the trail of light, lingered on the battlefield.
The end of the fight was drawing near.
Whoosh…
A biting cold wind brushed against his face. The higher he ascended, the more the temperature plummeted.
The frozen sky and storm clouds mingled, causing the surrounding magic to ripple like waves, and the collision of forces fractured the space, scattering the scenery in all directions.
Rumble.
The storm clouds churned as they spotted Dalen approaching. Blood-red lightning bared its fangs from within the dark shadows.
Dalen sheathed the axe at his waist and formed a hand seal.
Even in the face of the blood-red lightning that had effortlessly neutralized the first wall of Eclahim, he didn’t slow down.
He simply completed the hand seal and kicked off the air once more.
Whoosh—
From the ripples left in his wake, blue light streamed forth, and hundreds of thin electric currents surged ahead of Dalen, reaching for the sky.
「Chuiwujincheong」
Crackle!
The blue lightning intertwined with the blood-red lightning, sparking fiercely.
Not only did it clear a path for Dalen, but it also penetrated deep into the storm clouds, the source of the blood-red lightning.
The dark clouds writhed in resistance, but only for a moment.
Like a rake scattering a pile of straw, dozens of strands of blue lightning tore through the storm clouds, revealing the scene beyond.
Crack—
What emerged from behind the clouds was a sky frozen solid.
More precisely, it was a sky that was shattering like ice, piece by piece.
Where the sky broke, the dark clouds seeped in, painting a world of fire and lightning.
Already, more than half of the sky above Eclahim had transformed into a hellish landscape.
Boom!
A foreboding thunderclap suddenly echoed. Turning towards the sound, Dalen saw a small figure falling helplessly.
“…Damn it.”
There were only two possibilities for who could have arrived before him. Clicking his tongue briefly, Dalen kicked off the air and caught the figure.
“Cough…”
Even the groan was faint. Charina looked like a large ice sculpture shattered by a massive hammer, with pieces missing here and there.
Instead of blood, ice shards trickled from her lips. Her one remaining pale blue eye barely focused on Dalen.
“…Dalen.”
“You’ve done well. I’ll take it from here.”
“…”
No response came.
Her shallow breaths faded away, leaving nothing behind.
Her cold heart ceased its feeble beating, and her icy corpse had no warmth left to lose.
“I’m sorry.”
Dalen spoke.
“I thought I wasn’t too late… but I was.”
He gently closed her eyes, which were staring into the void. Her frozen eyelids were stiff, but with a touch of crimson flame, they melted enough to close.
The droplets that had gathered like jewels at the corners of her eyes melted in the heat and slipped away.
What meaning did the last tears of a transcendent being of the sixth rank hold?
Was it fear of her own death? Or concern for the people she left behind?
“You’ve done well. And I’m sorry for being late.”
He offered another apology that would never reach her, and carefully placed Charina’s frozen body into his subspace.
This time, even Arbor made room in the subspace without a word. Despite it being as cold as the essence of Kalkas, it did so.
‘…Dalen.’
Her final words lingered in his mind like an echo.
Though her voice had been cut off before forming a complete sentence, the intent she wished to convey was clear.
Dalen drew the axe from his waist. Around that time, a second figure was descending from the sky.
Thud.
The sound of its landing was oddly out of place for something settling in midair.
The figure spoke.
[Oh, what? Already dead?]
A lighthearted voice. An equally lighthearted expression and demeanor.
Now he could see its face. The evil god, free of distortion, appeared as a young man about Dalen’s height.
His hair was a wild mess of dark red, and his face was androgynous, making it hard to discern his gender.
His blood-red eyes gleamed with an unmistakable madness. Suum gazed at the spot where the entrance to the subspace had closed and smiled.
[Hehe… It was fun for a while, though. Farewell.]
The spiked armor it wore was torn and warped in several places.
The wounds visible beneath the armor were not few. It was the result of a sixth-rank mage sacrificing their life to create.
[So, is it finally time for the main course? Hehehe, do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this?]
The demon flicked out a bright red tongue, savoring the moment. Dallon silently waved his left hand.
With a flash, a hand axe flew through the air. Suum casually reached out with his left hand to catch the blade.
[Aaaargh!]
Or at least, he tried to. The pristine axe sliced through his fingers as if they were nothing more than soft fruit.
[Divine power? Are you in league with that disgusting creature…?]
“Enough with the chatter. Are you some kind of spellcaster?”
Above the demon’s head, where he had hastily deflected the axe, a shadow flickered, and Dallon’s form emerged.
「Return to the Underworld」
「Arcane Armor」
「Flame Armor: Crimson Torrent」
His body was engulfed in fiery red flames, cascading down his legs like a waterfall.
Roar…!
Before the flames consuming the demon could disperse, Dallon formed a seal with his empty left hand and scattered it.
「Sudden Rain, Shaking Blue」
Crackle!!
A sudden storm of blood-red lightning closed in from all sides, clashing with the blue light erupting from beneath.
As the two torrents of lightning intertwined, the demon’s form burst forth from the fiery waterfall.
[Finally, a real fight! Finally, I can kill you…!]
“Keep dreaming.”
Thud—
Dallon stomped the ground, channeling the force into his sword as he swung.
The white blade gleamed, and flames erupted from Suum’s armor. In the next moment, the two figures collided.
Boom, boom, boom───
Explosive sounds echoed as the surrounding magic distorted.
The holy sword left a trail of white, while the hellfire created a red shimmer, clashing repeatedly.
Thousands of red and blue lightning strands tangled and vied for dominance, as the warrior in celestial robes and the demon in spiked armor exchanged relentless blows.
Yet, it was the human form that was racing against time.
With even the hand seals abandoned, countless variables were conjured to break the stalemate.
「Thunder Strands」
「Flame Serpent」
「Crimson Flame Pillar」
「Combined Strike: Iron Fist」
Roots of lightning and serpents of flame gnawed at the spiked armor.
Pillars of fire erupted from the air, attempting to engulf the demon, while sharp strikes sought out blind spots.
Crack!
A tiny fracture appeared in the demon’s armor. But at this rate, exhaustion would come first.
Suum seemed to realize this too, stepping boldly into the fire pillar and shouting.
[Heh heh, show me something other than that axe and sword! If you received divine power from that bastard, prove you’re worthy! Show me more!]
Dallon met the demon’s blood-red eyes, electricity crackling at his fingertips.
What seemed like a meaningless barrage of spells and techniques was merely a ruse to buy time.
Without fully absorbing Daltalion’s insights, he was paradoxically both pressed for time and in need of it.
Yet, by controlling the blue lightning clashing with the blood-red, he managed to partially digest the insights of the lightning mage.
Crackle…
[Forget those tiny sparks, throw something big! Like that massive ice chunk that died!]
The demon shouted, scattering the fire pillar. His outstretched hand didn’t complete the seal.
Instead, the lightning magic twisted and coiled even more intricately.
What shot from his grasp was a bolt of lightning in a color never seen before.
「Piercing Green」
A streak of deep green lightning pierced the demon’s left shoulder.
Crunch!
The armor crumpled, and blood spattered.
For the first time, the demon staggered back, his face twisted with joy.
[Heh, it hurts! I love it! Kill…!]
The demon’s expression, licking the blood from his lips, froze as if someone had hit pause.
Rumble…
The dark clouds that had covered the sky split apart.
Crushing the resisting blackness, a vast sea of lightning began to reveal itself.
「Domain Unleashed: The Great Sea of Thunder that Swallowed Hell」
It wasn’t a complete domain release. Yet, its power surpassed even the chilling domain of Charina that had frozen the entire sky.
A world of lightning, crafted by a wizard’s lifetime, had become part of someone’s domain, defying all logic.
The multicolored lightning that had once claimed the demon’s life in another timeline now bared its fangs at its prey in this one.
[Heh…]
Was it instinctive fear? Suum’s lips, curled into a grin, trembled as if in a spasm.
Dallon flicked his hand toward the sky. He wiped the blood from his returning axe and spoke.
“Here it is, the big one. Just like you wanted.”
In his dark eyes, multicolored lightning swirled.
From his left hand, where the axe was now sheathed at his waist, bright yellow electricity began to surge.
“Let’s see how long you can keep that grin.”