novelraw Chapter 353
Chapter 353
Power clashed against power!
Until now, Kanzaki Rei had never truly known the limits of Iz and Akasei’s strength.
But in this instant—when their techniques collided—he felt an overwhelming, heaven-defying force crash down upon him, pressing his body downward!
Boom!
The ground fractured, splitting into countless cracks!
Akasei pressed down on his greatsword with one hand, his tone arrogant."Your strength... isn’t bad!"
Hum—
All around them, countless tiny points of light flickered.
Pff!
Needle-thin strands of magic had already pierced through Kanzaki Rei’s body, stabbing clean through every vital point!
This was Knorloya. Kanzaki Rei could clearly feel that Iz was holding back—he had no intention of causing excessive destruction within the city.
Because of that, he was deliberately using smaller-scale spells.
And then—
He felt the surrounding elements instantly stripped away!
They transformed into a chaotic void.
Within this space, casting magic became extremely difficult. It wasn’t just a lack of elemental energy—there was also an overwhelming presence of chaos mixed in.
For an ordinary mage, it would already be impossible to recover mana from the air.
They might not even understand how to cast spells in such an environment at all.
Whoosh!
At the same time, the pressure from above suddenly loosened!
And in the very next moment—
A relentless barrage of greatsword strikes descended like a raging storm!
[Invincible Flow — Seventh Form: Phantom Heavy Slaughter · Layered Mountain Shadows]
Seeing Akasei change forms, Kanzaki Rei immediately adjusted his stance!
[Skyflow — Third Form: Phantom Strike · Rapid String]
Bang!
Their first clash met!
A massive shockwave erupted instantly!
It surged outward in all directions!
The aftershock spread with unstoppable force, reducing the surrounding buildings to flat ground in mere moments—
Yet the ground itself remained completely intact.
The shockwave didn’t travel far.
Kanzaki Rei could sense that after dispersing, the impact hadn’t harmed a single civilian.
Behind him, through his perception—
He saw Obades’ feet rooted deep into the earth, as though the land itself had become part of his body.
To shatter the ground would be equivalent to shattering Obades himself.
And mere aftershocks from battle were nowhere near enough to damage him.
Obades was still protecting Knorloya—together with Kumironi, shielding the ordinary people.
Chaotic sword shadows fell like collapsing mountains!
Even within the enemy’s domain—
Kanzaki Rei couldn’t help but feel a surge of exhilaration deep within his soul.
He had always wanted to fight them seriously!
And now, unexpectedly, he had been given that chance—within an enemy’s domain.
Boom!
The sword shadows from all directions were blasted apart by Kanzaki Rei’s rapid strikes!
Blood mist exploded from his arms again and again!
Each time he blocked Akasei’s attack, flesh tore apart, bones shattered!
Akasei’s strength... was actually not below his own!
Even though in this scenario, the duration of his Ascension to the Pinnacle State hadn’t stacked for long—
Even so... his base physical body already far surpassed that of ordinary Rank 7 class-advancers.
And after stacking one minute of Ascension—
Akasei was still able to injure him.
Didn’t that mean—
That Akasei’s physical strength had already been thousands of times greater than his current level, long before this moment?
Just how had he trained his body?
Akasei layered his sword shadows, surging forward like an enraged dragon!
Kanzaki Rei was blasted backward by the impact!
They tore through an entire street—
Carving a long trench through the structures of Knorloya—
After enduring thousands of heavy strikes in succession, Akasei suddenly changed his technique!
[Invincible Flow — Seventh Form: Phantom Heavy Slaughter · Furious Stacked Waves]
Boom!
The battle spear blocking Akasei’s greatsword shattered instantly!
The force traveled through the spear—
And slammed directly into Kanzaki Rei’s body!
Boom—
Like a streak of light, he was blasted straight through Knorloya’s city walls!
Boom boom boom boom boom boom—
He shot out into the wilderness—
Crashing through dozens of mountain peaks in succession!
Finally, he slammed into a mountain cliff, embedding deep within it.
Kanzaki Rei pulled himself free from the rock face and flew out from the mountain.
Before him, the mountainside was riddled with massive spiderweb-like craters.
A chain of holes stretched out in the distance—each one punched through by his own body.
He sent me flying tens of thousands of kilometers... Is this really the power of a Level 5 warrior?
Of course, Kanzaki Rei had held back as well—he had intentionally allowed himself to be launched.
In Knorloya, he couldn’t fight freely at all.
Still...
This was far beyond what he had expected.
"Kid, you’re really arrogant... giving your opponent an advantage when you already had favorable terrain."
Ansu’s voice sounded in his mind.
"Just shut up, Ansu."
Boom!
A crimson figure shot toward him in a straight line from the distance!
And even faster than that—
A figure appeared behind him, pressing down on a mage’s hat.
The moment he appeared, dazzling magic flooded the entire sky!
Tens of thousands of Tier 5 spells turned the heavens into a radiant, multicolored daylight!
Kanzaki Rei turned back, his thoughts moving in an instant.
Neither of them required any chanting.
[God-Tier · Multi-Cast]
Whoosh!
In an instant, hundreds of thousands of different magic arrays bloomed across the earth!
Kanzaki Rei condensed every spell he had ever learned!
The ground boiled like a furnace!
[6th-Tier Fire Magic — Infernal Furnace][6th-Tier Lightning Magic — Surging Thunder Magma Sea][6th-Tier Wind-Dark Fusion Magic — Black Turbid Gale]...
Whoosh!
Iz’s magic and Kanzaki Rei’s magic erupted at the same time!
The world darkened!
The entire continent began to collapse!
Molten lava surged across mountains and rivers in an instant!
Raging winds sliced like countless blades—any monster caught within them was shredded into blood and flesh!
Thunder magma, glaciers, and massive chunks of earth surged into the sky, forming elemental bodies!
The elements rose like titanic giants, propping up the heavens!
It was a scene of apocalyptic destruction!
The Ruilen Continent simply could not withstand it!
In mere moments—
The entire continent shattered into countless fragments, rising into the sky!
Iz maintained a serious, focused expression as he controlled his magic.
He was constantly restraining its power.
But Kanzaki Rei—
Had no such restraint.
Changing the battlefield made little difference.
At this level of combat, Kanzaki Rei’s power had already surpassed what any ordinary continent could contain!
Bathed in Kanzaki Rei’s magic—
Iz analyzed every spell with his perception.
When lightning struck near him, it dissolved into its most basic elements—
And those same elements were immediately seized and reshaped into new magic under Iz’s control.
Not just lightning—
Ice, water, fire...
Every attack was disassembled before it could even touch him.
What appeared to be overwhelming destruction—
Ultimately became nothing more than faint ripples upon reaching Iz.
His body seemed completely immune to all magic.
So many spells... all nullified?
Then—
What about this?
All magic surged across heaven and earth!
Six differently colored cores manifested around Iz, emitting a faint glow.
[Void Nihility (6th Tier) (Soul Sacrifice: 10,000,000,000)]
Pure light ignited in six directions around Iz.
A sacrifice of ten billion souls.
Now that Kanzaki Rei wielded souls—
The destructive power far surpassed his previous Soul Burst.
Boom!
In the next instant—
The entire world was consumed by a single, pure white radiance!
The shockwave spread outward!
Mountains and rivers were annihilated within the expanding light—
Yet in the very next moment—
From the very center of the explosion, that familiar voice still emerged.
Kanzaki Rei’s perception locked on.
Iz Parult stood at the very heart of destruction—
His body ethereal, as if existing on a completely different plane.
[Origin Magic — Duality of Void and Reality]
He existed within the Void Realm.
Matter from the real world could not affect the Void Realm in the slightest—and vice versa.
This was Iz’s own Origin Magic.
But when he had taught Kanzaki Rei before, he didn’t yet know how to convert anything other than magic into a Void-state.
And now—
At the very brink of life and death—
Iz had understood.
At the same time, his aura began to shift.
Behind him, a special magic array manifested...
Vaguely, it resembled some kind of ritual.
An ascension ritual.
"You seem to possess more than one Origin Magic."
"Your mana... also feels as though it comes from the same source as mine."
"Even some of your spells carry traces of my own thinking. How strange."
"If we could sit down and talk, this would surely be a fascinating discussion."
Iz gazed at the continent destroyed by that strike of Void Nihility.
The Ruilen Continent—
Was gone.
Kanzaki Rei’s attack had left nothing behind.
To him, destroying an entire continent seemed utterly inconsequential.
Violent.
Inhuman.
"But... what you’ve done has gone too far."
"Perhaps... you can no longer be called human."
"I believe power is not meant to be used this way."
Iz’s tone remained calm.
It was as though the destruction of the Ruilen Continent brought him no sorrow at all.
Kanzaki Rei, however, looked in another direction.
There, he saw Obades stabilizing himself midair—
And behind him stood Kumironi and Akasei.
Protected by Obades, they had emerged unharmed even from the soul-sacrifice attack.
A trace of regret flickered in Iz’s peripheral gaze.
A Level 5 Obades... ultimately couldn’t protect the entire Ruilen Continent.
In a battle of this level—
Even he couldn’t safeguard everything.
Iz showed no anger—
Only a deep, somber calm.
But someone else—
Was already furious beyond measure!
"Enough is enough—there’s no need to hold back anymore, Iz!"
Akasei burst forth before Kanzaki Rei like a crimson storm!
Kumironi raised her emerald staff high, while Iz Parult lifted his staff within the Void Realm.
"Mm. No need to hold back."
[Invincible Flow — Twelfth Form: Infinite][5th-Tier Origin Magic — Primordial Annihilation]
Whoosh—
Kanzaki Rei saw a trailing slash—
As though dragged across the horizon from the very edge of the sky!
At the same time—
All reality around him began to peel away instantly!