Paragon of Skills

Chapter 248

The image on the mirror trembles in front of the stunned audience.

For a moment, it is as if a star detonated. There is a blinding light that makes the surface of the mirror tremble in an inexplicable manner.

Pressure erupts from the mirror, seemingly from nowhere. A bunch of students jerk back in their seats, uncomprehending.

“Where is that pressure coming from?” One asks.

“That is only a mirror!”

“How is it possible?”

In the VIP box, the hooded figure, the Headmaster's master, rises slowly from his chair.

His eyes are fixed on the trembling mirror.

"This human," he says.

The Headmaster glances sideways. Stella Aerodromos is perfectly still, her white eyes locked on the projection, her hands clasped in front of her.

"Whoever says he is untalented," the hooded man continues, his voice low and rough, "is a moron."

Queen Matriarch Maelthra's jaw tightens but she says nothing.

The hooded man's eyes do not leave the mirror.

…

Fifty thousand people hold their breath.

Nobody moves. Nobody whispers. Every eye is locked on the mirror.

The white light fades.

And Jacob Cloud is standing.

But he is not the same.

The smoke clears and Garros sees him.

Jacob's eyes have changed. The deep blue is gone. In its place is a blue so light it is almost white. Electric. It pulses faintly, as if current is running behind the irises.

Behind his left shoulder, a single white-feathered wing extends. Translucent, structured from light and mana, with sharp and geometric edges. It moves with Jacob's breathing—expanding on the inhale, contracting on the exhale.

One wing.

Just one.

On his arms, from the wrists to the shoulders, circles of the same electric blue light have appeared.

They pulse in a slow, rhythmic cadence, and with each pulse, vapor hisses from the rings in thin, high-pressure jets.

But the most striking thing is the tattoos.

Skeleton-like patterns, black and intricate, running across his forearms, his ribs, his collarbones, his neck. They trace the lines of his bones as if someone has drawn his skeleton on top of his skin.

Jacob looks down at the torn remnants of his armor. The chest piece is shredded. It hangs in strips.

He tears it off.

The armor falls to the dirt. Jacob stands bare from the waist up, skull tattoos covering every inch of visible skin, blue rings venting vapor, the single wing shifting behind him.

He looks at Cassian.

Jacob's aura detonates.

The shockwave picks Garros up and throws him backward. He hits the ground rolling, his sword clattering beside him, the air punched out of his lungs.

The monsterified students ringing the clearing are blown back like dead leaves. Their bodies tumble, crash into trees, sprawl across the moss. Several do not get up.

Cassian—the hulking, fully monsterified Cassian, twice his original size, True Diamond Rank—skids backward several paces. His massive clawed feet carve trenches in the dirt. His arms come up to shield his face.

Then Jacob speaks.

***

The students hear his voice through the projection. Jacob’s tone is calm.

"The Sword of Light does several things," Jacob says.

On the mirror, he is looking at Garros. Garros is on the ground, propped up on his elbows, staring up at Jacob.

"First, despite the name, it is an infinite reserve of Vitality. You can basically say that until you knock the sword out of the user's hand, they can heal anything."

He pauses.

"And when I say anything, I mean it."

"Garros's control over it is still very weak. But one day, you would not be able to cut his arm off before the Skill already regenerated the wound the instant the sword moves. It does not grant immortality, but it is as close to invulnerability from healing as you can get."

A murmur runs through the stands. The students who watched Garros stab Jacob through the chest—who watched the white light pour into Jacob's body and seal wounds that should have killed him—suddenly understand what they saw.

"Second," Jacob says, "it is the bane of Undead. Being so full of Vitality, most Death Magic—like the kind wielded by the God of Shadows—is essentially impossible to use against the bearer. The reason Garros could never activate the Rainbow Skill before, I suspect, is that the curse of the God of Shadows specifically prevented the heirs of the Hero of Light from ever being able to learn it."

Jacob glances at Garros.

"Once the curse was removed, the Skill finally had room to breathe."

***

The fully monsterified Cassian roars at him.

The sound shakes the trees. Birds scatter from the canopy. It is the roar of something that has lost the last thread of rational thought. The vocal cords have been fully consumed by the sludge. Cassian does not understand the words. He does not process them. He is beyond processing.

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Jacob pauses mid-explanation. He looks at the hulking shape of his cousin. Blinks once, as if he forgot the monster was there.

"Oh. Right." He turns back toward Cassian. "Nothing, cousin. Just wanted to give you an explanation and a moment to reflect on your life before it ends."

Cassian roars again and charges.

The ground cracks under his first stride. His massive frame accelerates to a speed that should be impossible for something that large. His sludge-covered arms extend, the blades at the ends thickening mid-sprint.

Jacob turns to Garros.

"Stay back," he says.

"Jacob, there are too many—"

Jacob smiles at him. The same smile from the first day. Calm. Genuine. Completely, maddeningly confident.

Then he turns and walks toward Cassian.

The Devil's Engine hums in Jacob's veins—through every vein that before had struggled to combine. They are the Vespeir Veins behind his collarbone, the Siren Pulse Veins in his inner elbow, easily venting the excessive Mana there as steady jets of vapor, and the Atlas Root Veins in his lower back.

After absorbing the Star Metal drops with Liuthkrav’s help, The Devil’s Engine has evolved.

[The Devils Engine (True Diamond) - Level 50]

One hundred percent output. No strain.

Cassian reaches him first. A massive, sludge-armored fist swings down at Jacob's head. Fast enough to crack stone.

Jacob catches it. One hand. Open palm.

His fingers close around the obsidian knuckles and the fist stops dead. The shockwave from the arrested momentum blows the dirt out in a ring around them.

Jacob's arm does not tremble.

The monsterified students recover and charge from all sides.

Jacob does not let go of Cassian's fist. He pivots, dragging the hulking body around like a counterweight, and swings his free hand outward. Baal's Cage erupts from his palm—invisible chains of cursed force that slam into the first wave. A dozen monsterified students are caught mid-leap. The chains wrap around their torsos, constrict, and crush. Dark sludge splatters outward. The bodies hit the ground, unable to move.

The Afflictions return to Jacob in form of even more power.

Two dozens more come from behind.

Shadow Plague activates as he briefly slashes backward, barely grazing their bodies.

The Affliction hits the students before they reach him. Their sludge-covered bodies seize. The dark coating begins to eat itself—cracks racing across the surface, the sludge rotting from the inside out. They collapse, twitching, their borrowed power devouring their bodies in seconds.

Cassian wrenches his fist free and swings with the other arm. Jacob ducks the blow. Steps inside the reach of the massive arms. Plants one palm against Cassian's chest.

“Cinder Rot.”

The curse burns inward. Cassian's sludge-armor cracks and flakes. Orange heat glows through the fissures. The monster screams.

More students come, hurling themselves at Jacob mindlessly.

Jacob moves through them without stopping. Curse of Fire ignites on his left hand. He touches a monsterified student's shoulder in passing and the body erupts into black flames that consume it before it hits the ground.

Bleed activates on his sword and every cut he lands opens wounds that do not close. The dark sludge tries to regenerate around the gashes. The cursed bleeding eats the regeneration alive.

The vapor rings on his arms pulse faster. The Devil's Engine feeds power into every Skill simultaneously. The skull tattoos on his skin glow faintly with each stacked Affliction.

The wing behind his shoulder extends wider.

Cassian recovers. His body regenerates the damage from Cinder Rot, the sludge filling in the gaps. Slower now. The cracks have not fully sealed. But he charges again—both arms wide, trying to envelop Jacob in a crushing embrace.

Jacob floats up and grabs Cassian by the throat.

One hand. His fingers sink into the dark coating until they find the flesh beneath.

He lifts.

Cassian's feet leave the ground. His massive legs kick. His arms come down on Jacob—huge, bladed, monstrously powerful strikes that slam into Jacob's bare shoulders, his ribs, his skull. The impacts sound like hammers hitting stone.

Jacob does not let go.

The strikes hit him. They do not move him. His electric-blue eyes stare into the void-black pits where Cassian's eyes used to be.

Cassian hits him again. And again. And again.

Jacob holds him in the air and looks into his eyes.

"Asmodeus," Jacob says. "I know you are somewhere in there."

***

The arena goes cold.

Jacob Cloud is holding his monsterified cousin by the throat and speaking to the God of Monsters.

Not metaphorically. Not symbolically. He is looking into those black eyes and addressing the being behind the corruption as if it can hear him. -> Jacob Cloud is holding his monsterified cousin by the throat and speaking to Asmodeus. Literally. He’s literally speaking to the God of Monsters.

Several students grip the arms of their neighbors without realizing it. In the VIP box, Queen Matriarch Maelthra's claws have extended involuntarily. Stella Aerodromos has not blinked in a very long time.

The hooded man is perfectly still.

***

"I am going to kill you," Jacob says.

Cassian's massive body thrashes. His sludge-bladed arms keep striking Jacob's head, his neck, his back.

The blows do land.

But they do nothing.

"This world has seen many victims of yours. Men and women who stood against you or were simply victims of your plots,” Jacob looks at Cassian in disgust. “Look at ."

He tightens his grip.

"I am going to avenge every single one of them."

Cassian's body convulses. The sludge surges—trying to envelop Jacob's arm, trying to crawl up his wrist. It touches his skin and burns. The blue rings on his forearm pulse and the vapor jets hiss and the sludge recoils, smoking.

"Your monsters are pathetic imitations of humans.”

He looks into the void-black eyes one last time.

"This," Jacob says, "is real power."

Wild flames erupt from Jacob's body. From the skull tattoos, from the blue rings, from the wing behind his shoulder.

From outside the pillar of flame, nothing is visible.

Garros shields his eyes. The heat presses against his skin even at this distance.

The monsterified students still alive on the ground writhe and shriek as the radiant heat detaches in blazing sparks and envelops them as well.

The fire roars for several seconds.

Then it dies.

The column collapses inward. The flames fold into themselves and vanish.

Jacob walks out of where the fire was.

He is alone.

Behind him, where Cassian stood, there is nothing.

Only a pile of floating white ash that catches the dim forest light and sparkles.

The ash drifts upward. It glitters as it rises—tiny, bright motes that turn in the air like snow falling in reverse.

***

In the arena, there is a single, held moment where no one breathes.

The white ash sparkles on the mirror. The motes drift and turn. Jacob Cloud stands alone in a clearing littered with crumbling remains and the ash of what used to be a Duke's son.

Then a voice cracks through the silence.

A boy in the third row. He cannot be older than fifteen. He stands on his seat and screams Jacob's name at the top of his lungs. His voice breaks halfway through.

A second voice joins him. A third. A tenth.

The dam breaks.

Students are on their feet—launching themselves upward as if physically incapable of staying seated. They are screaming. They are chanting. They are pounding the stone railings with their fists until their knuckles split. The sound builds until it is not individual voices anymore. It is a single, unified roar that shakes the foundations of the arena.

"JACOB! JACOB! JACOB!"

Students are grabbing each other. Strangers embracing strangers. A girl in the upper rows is sobbing with her fists raised above her head. A boy near the front has climbed onto the railing and is screaming so hard the veins stand out on his neck.

They are cheering for the promise that the monsters—even their Gods—can be beaten.

"JACOB! JACOB! JACOB!"