Chapter 554
Episode 145: Omen (23)
Ron’s aura darkened to a dull gray.
An unsettling sensation crept over him as a shadowy force began to consume his entire body, and his vision faded into darkness.
His magnificent body, honed through a lifetime of relentless training without a single misstep, now radiated a murky, ominous energy.
The intangible sword lost its signature translucent hue, turning instead to a cloudy gray. This robbed it of its usual invisibility, but given the overwhelming magnitude of its power, this flaw was negligible.
The mages of Ziphl only truly grasped the vastness of the force pressing down on them once the Overlord Sword took shape from the intangible blade.
The sky and earth were filled with gray sword energy. And as soon as the Overlord Sword was unleashed, that power swelled even further—no matter where one looked, only gray blades filled the air.
Yet, the mages of Ziphl no longer feared him.
The power of the awakened Demon Stone was strengthening not only Keliak Ziphl but also the other mages and the entire fleet.
The dragons roared incessantly, their reason lost to the Demon Stone’s influence, but they did not attack their allies. Like well-trained war dogs, they waited patiently for the command to tear into the enemy.
Gaaaaaah!
Aside from Keliak, the most overwhelming presence was Belot.
Fueled by the Demon Stone’s energy, Belot spewed black flames, the intense heat pushing back the surrounding gray sword energy like a fierce storm.
Hoo…
Ron took a slow, steady breath and steadied his stance. The newly etched markings of the Overlord Sword partially concealed his gaunt frame.
His body was far from healthy. Because of this, his Overlord Sword couldn’t sustain its power as long as the Sword Saints’, but that didn’t matter.
The battle wouldn’t drag on much longer.
Suddenly, Ron Hyiran sensed a connection between the Demon Stone—constantly emitting those dreadful screeches—and the “White Stone.”
The White Stone: the greatest nemesis of the Hyiran family.
The ominous pebble, the wedge pointing to the end—Hyiran’s ancestors had called the White Stone by many names. No one knew its true name, and no one had ever cut it.
Passed down only from head of the family to head of the family, the stone’s significance lay in “cutting” it. Only by reaching the level capable of cleaving it could one stand at the pinnacle of Hyiran’s history.
And no Hyiran head had ever succeeded in cutting the stone.
In the end, the stone had brought Hyiran to the brink of ruin, and even now, it whispered words of destruction while imprisoning Dante.
The Demon Stone was no different.
Neither the White Stone nor the Demon Stone could be severed—and if they weren’t, Hyiran would vanish from the world by today’s end.
“Come forth, shameless monsters.”
Swoosh!
As Ron lifted Rashid, a towering gray mountain of sword energy erupted before the Sword Emperor’s fortress. The shattered walls were replaced by a barrier of blades.
From Hroti, black flashes shot forth again. This dark power pierced through the layered gray barrier without hesitation.
But before Keliak could even confirm the black flashes reaching Ron, he was met with sharp sword energy slicing through a crack in the gray barrier.
Yet, the sword energy vanished abruptly before touching Keliak’s face, as if dust had been snuffed out by fire.
The Demon Stone’s power was shielding Keliak and the fleet. Scores of sword energies fired in rapid succession dissipated the same way.
Keliak reached out slowly toward the afterimage left by the vanished sword energy. Only a faint warmth, generated by the Demon Stone’s cancellation of the attack, could be felt.
He didn’t take any defensive or evasive action. Merely a slight will to avoid being hit was enough to perfectly block Ron’s sword energy.
‘…Shiron, has he always felt this way when facing his opponents?’
Keliak thought as he swung Hroti again.
The gray sword energies Ron unleashed with the Overlord Sword were mercilessly torn apart each time Keliak extended Hroti.
The attacks from the mages, dragons, and fleet—once repeatedly blocked by intangible sword energy—were now far more effective.
Before the Demon Stone’s awakening, Ron had never dodged their attacks once.
He would either erase them with intangible sword winds before they reached him or block them while standing his ground.
But now, Ron was sweating profusely, moving back and forth between the fortress walls and the void formed by his gray sword energy.
Ron didn’t mind.
He silently gripped his sword, surveyed the battlefield, and struck back whenever an opportunity arose.
With every passing second, new scratches appeared over the Overlord Sword’s markings etched on his body.
“Gyaaaah!”
Like a tidal wave, Belot’s black flames crashed into the Sword Emperor’s fortress. The gray barrier shattered, destroying thirty percent of the left wall, and Ron blocked Belot’s advance through the breach.
As Belot charged, space warped, sending shockwaves and deafening roars through the air. Ron swung Rashid head-on, striking Belot’s head, but the blade didn’t cut through. It was like two swords locked in a fierce struggle.
When the clash ended, Belot was the first to retreat, but Ron was the one bleeding. A hot, thick mouthful of blood surged back up his throat.
“Ugh…!”
He spat out the blood, but before it even hit the ground, black flames and flashes engulfed him. The flames scorched his chest, the flashes pierced his shoulder.
In that brief moment when he tried to steady himself, the fleet and dragons continued their bombardment. Since earning the title of Sword Emperor, this was the first time Ron had been subjected to such relentless, one-sided attacks.
Kiiiii…!
The Demon Stone seemed to mock Ron endlessly. That was the feeling the mages, dragons, and Belot shared. They were already drunk on victory and madness.
But Keliak thought differently.
‘The Demon Stone… is uneasy. Has it judged Ron to be a threat after all?’
Keliak couldn’t immediately discern why.
The battle was overwhelmingly one-sided. Even if Ron still had reserves, Keliak himself was only partially using the Demon Stone’s power.
Still, there was no room for doubt. Over thirty gods resided within the Demon Stone, and the sum of their wills produced an absolute verdict.
Keliak’s gaze fell to the ground. Jin and his group had just entered the fortress, avoiding the battle’s aftermath, while Octavia and the Phantom Corps pursued them.
Ron was holding back, trying to prevent the shockwaves from reaching that area, unable to unleash his full strength.
‘Perhaps it’s because of the shadow power dwelling within Jin Runcandel.’
Compared to what Andrei had wielded, the Demon Stone was superior, but it was still incomplete.
Shadow.
Without the power of Solderet, the Demon Stone could never be perfected. Even if it housed the combined strength of all other gods—living or long dead.
“Where are you looking, Keliak!”
Ron’s sword energy pierced through the barrage, closing in on Keliak’s face.
This sword energy couldn’t be dispelled with a mere flick of will like before. When Keliak swung Hroti to erase it, his wrist ached.
It was surprising that he could still feel pain despite being fused with the Demon Stone.
He thought of a long-lost race that had vanished after defying the gods—surely, they had provoked the gods’ wrath in a similar way.
“Don’t worry. Killing you is the priority.”
Kruuuuu…!
Like a tumor, a black sphere of flame began forming in the sky.
Five spheres of annihilation flame, transformed by Keliak and empowered by the Demon Stone, aimed at Ron. Their raw power surpassed even the Legacy of Riol’s second form.
Ron didn’t withdraw the power he was using to defend the ground, even after seeing this. Keliak frowned, displeased.
“Did my words sound like lies?”
One of the black flame spheres fell toward the Sword Emperor’s fortress, following Keliak’s staff. Belot pressed Ron relentlessly, ensuring he couldn’t dodge the attack.
But Ron never intended to dodge.
Siiiiii…!
The gray Rashid emitted a low resonant hum, and the Overlord Sword’s markings on Ron’s body deepened in color. His gray eyes, fixed steadily on Belot and the black flame spheres above, were unwavering.
Overlord Sword, First Battle Form
Rashid radiated a gray brilliance.
Even Belot, empowered by the Demon Stone, instinctively stepped back as a massive energy engulfed the area, swallowing the black flames.
The gray light pouring endlessly from the Sword God replaced the space, displaying the Overlord’s majesty. At that moment, the ominous expression on the Demon Stone, hanging like a sinister moon, twisted.
‘This sword is eerily reminiscent of…’
Keliak couldn’t help but recall a sword he had faced long ago.
The Overlord Sword was originally forged for the decisive battle against Runcandel, modeled after Runcandel’s own blade.
Thus, every Overlord Sword bore Runcandel’s likeness—not as a crude imitation wielded by an unblessed body, but as a weapon created to defeat Runcandel.
Meteor Breaker
Runcandel’s Third Battle Form: Meteor Shower.
The sword Keliak remembered was the very Third Battle Form Runcandel himself had wielded, and the Overlord Sword’s First Battle Form was…
This was the sword forged to overcome exactly that—the meteor shower of Runkandel.
Following the path of Rashid’s trajectory, the air around them split in two from all directions. From the rift surged a grayish sword energy, reclaiming the space consumed by black flames, taking control once more.
Kaaah, aaaaah!
The voice of the Demon Stone carried a deeper sense of anxiety and rage than before. It was as if it dared to say, “Do you really think humans deserve to wield such power?”
Belrot twisted away, letting out a guttural scream. There was no way to block the surging gray aura of the Meteor Breaker.
As soon as Belrot dodged, Keliak dropped the remaining four black flame orbs all at once, but their speed faltered under the recoil.
Worse still, they scattered before even reaching the fortress walls. The five flame orbs had already lost their form, no longer spheres but chaotic masses, their power fading fast.
“I never thought you’d use the Demon Stone’s power against me. Just moments ago, you said as much… I feel the same.”
“This isn’t just some hidden strength… Could it be that you’re growing stronger by facing me?”
Keliak narrowed his eyes, certain of it, while Ron clenched his fist around a handful of shattered black flames, snuffing them out.
“No matter how this fight ends today… you and I will both lose much. And the true victors won’t be either of us. It will be the children.”