novelraw Chapter 148 : Chapter 148
Chapter 148 : Chapter 148
Chapter 148. The Final Showdown (2)
Gugugugung-
As I headed towards the center of the island with Aman, the cheers of the allied forces led by Rude and the sounds of battle could be faintly heard from behind.
It was proof that they were buying precious time by dealing with Nox and his Lich legion.
My heart was heavy, but my steps did not hesitate.
There was only one thing left to do.
To settle things with Primus, the source of all tragedy.
Before long, we finally arrived at a huge clearing in the center of the island.
A strangely empty space, not marked on any map.
Aman informed me that this was the sacred ground where the World Tree had once taken root.
"Originally, there was a giant World Tree here that seemed to pierce the sky, Sir Hero."
"Where is it now?"
"It all became material for those towers. In a way, the two remaining towers you see in the distance are themselves a part of the World Tree, and the last remaining shackles that seal Primus."
I silently looked at the two towers faintly visible high in the northern sky.
Before, I had thought of them as just bizarre ancient structures, but after hearing Aman's explanation, they did feel like a part of a giant, living tree.
'A place where the World Tree originally was. A place where I can feel something inevitable.'
And finally.
I turned my gaze and faced the being standing in the very center of the clearing.
Primus.
He was waiting for us without a single movement, as if he had been there from the beginning.
A powerful, yet somehow unstable magic was swirling around him.
"Stay back, Aman. I think I'll have to face him alone from here."
But Aman shook his head.
His eyes were filled with firm resolve instead of fear.
"No, Sir Hero. I must watch this duel until the end. As the last descendant of the Sage of the East. And as the sole survivor of this island, it is the only duty I can fulfill."
Realizing I could not break his will, I nodded my head.
And I slowly walked towards Primus.
It was when I thought the distance between us was less than 10 meters.
Primus spoke first.
His voice was still cold and arrogant.
"You've come, Hero."
"Yes."
"Do you know why I spared you all on the coast just now?"
His words were as if he was boasting that he had the power to kill us at any time.
I smirked and retorted.
"Well. Were you afraid of us? Or were you afraid of me?"
At my provocation, the smile disappeared from Primus' face.
His eyes shone coldly.
"You insolent mortal. Do you dare joke with a god?"
"A god?"
I scoffed at his words.
"What kind of god are you? Just the first creation, abandoned and twisted by even your own mother. No, not even that. You are nothing but a fatal bug lump created by this giant system called the world."
"System? Bug?"
Primus showed a flicker of confusion at the unfamiliar words.
"What do you mean by that?"
But I no longer felt the need to explain it to him.
What more words were needed?
I drew Balisardo from my waist.
The blade, imbued with the holy and magical power of my three daughters, roared, emitting an incomparably brilliant rainbow light.
"Come at me, Primus! Your era ends here."
With my shout, Primus, his face contorted with anger, finally moved.
"How insolent for a mere mortal!"
"You talk too much."
I closed the distance in an instant and rushed towards him.
'I will pour everything I have into this one strike.'
***
Primus looked at the mortal, Frank, rushing towards him and smiled faintly.
There was a reason why he had spared the other stragglers on the coast and accepted a one-on-one duel with Frank.
'I needed to test how much of my power had returned.'
He had used more power than expected to annihilate one of the towers made from a part of the World Tree.
Although he could quickly recover his magic here at the World Tree's site, he needed to gauge to what extent it had returned to its peak.
And for that opponent, the one called the Hero of this era was most suitable.
In any case, his final plan was to annihilate all living things remaining on this land and create a new world on a foundation of perfect order.
If so, there would be no being left to oppose him.
No, he would be the only living being.
Of course, he planned to create new beings to follow him again after that, but it would take an eternity for them to gain meaningful power.
Before that, he judged that it wouldn't be bad to directly face one of the strongest beings in this world, the Hero, to gauge his own power and, at the same time, revive his battle sense, which might have dulled from the long seal.
In such a situation, it would only be bothersome if other stragglers attacked together.
That's why he had requested a quiet one-on-one duel with the Hero.
But when they actually crossed swords, the situation unfolded a little differently than he had expected.
'What on earth is this power?'
Primus frowned, feeling the strange energy emanating from Frank's sword, Balisardo, as it clashed with his.
It wasn't simple magic or holy power.
Holiness and demonic nature, purity and chaos.
Several completely different types of power were strangely mixed within a single sword, creating an unpredictable force.
Primus pushed Frank back with the overwhelming power and experience he had accumulated as a primordial being.
His every gesture twisted space, and his every footstep shook the earth.
But Frank parried or dodged those attacks with amazing reflexes and a strange swordsmanship.
They had already clashed more than thirty times, but the victor was not yet decided.
'Impossible.'
Primus' expression hardened coldly.
'I am the first son of the Goddess, the true ruler of this world. And yet I'm struggling like this against a mere mortal.'
He thought he could no longer show such a disgrace.
In any case, he had already achieved his goal of testing his power to some extent.
'It's time to end this.'
Primus increased the distance from Frank and began to gather all his power.
A destructive energy, as if to destroy the world, swirled around him along with pitch-black darkness.
"This is the end, Hero."
It was the very moment he was about to deliver the final blow.
"What?"
Frank did not back down either.
He too, as if pouring all his power into his sword, raised it high into the sky.
Then, a powerful and brilliant pillar of light, incomparable to before, shot up from the entire blade.
'Is it the Hero's ultimate skill, Aura Sword?'
But Primus soon realized his thought was wrong.
The light emanating from Frank's sword was not a single color.
Iris' blue holy power and red demonic energy.
Adel's pure white divine power.
Noemi's deep yellow magic, like the abyss.
They were all mixed together, wrapping the entire blade in an indescribable color like a brilliant rainbow.
"Wh-what is that!!"
Primus, seeing a form of power he had never seen before in his life, one he could not possibly understand, unconsciously stepped back in astonishment.
That was not a simple Aura Sword.
It was a powerful, unknown force, different from any power he knew.
***
Meanwhile, at that time, on the fierce battlefield of Reubungwo's northern coast.
Douglas Junior was fighting furiously against the enemies before him, based on the swordsmanship he had learned from his master Frank and his newly awakened Aura Sword.
Every time his blue-aura-clad sword cut through the air, the bodies of the bony Liches were powerlessly cut down.
But the opponent was by no means easy.
'I heard they were originally the natives of this island.'
The story Aman had told him came to mind, but Douglas tried to erase that thought.
They were no longer ordinary souls.
They were beings defiled and bound by the evil magic of the Lich King Nox.
Based on their powerful magic, they constantly rained down death magic, tormenting the allied forces.
He had no intention of going easy on them.
Whoever they were originally, now they were just enemies threatening the world.
Douglas even thought that defeating them quickly might be the only way to free them from Nox's bondage.
The blue aura on his sword burned even brighter.
He charged towards a group of Liches once again.
A sharp sword strike pierced the sternum of a Lich.
"Kuaak!"
The moment the Lich's form was about to scatter into ashes with a death cry.
Douglas saw a black liquid flowing from its empty eye sockets.
It looked less like tears of sorrow and more like the joy of one who had finally been liberated from long suffering and bondage.
'Yes. What I'm doing is right.'
Douglas comforted himself and gripped his sword again.
He glanced to the side.
The battlefield was fierce, but his side was not being pushed back.
The support fire pouring from the mages and elf archers led by Sage Rude in the rear.
Anonymous' surveillance and breath weapon from the sky, as if seeing through everything.
And the human, dwarf, and even vampire soldiers fighting together on the front lines.
Everyone was fighting desperately as one.
'I have to try harder too.'
It was the very moment he was about to raise his aura again and charge towards his next opponent.
KWAAAAAAA---!!!
From the direction of the center of the island, a tremendous storm of magic, as if shaking the heavens and the earth, was felt.
An unbelievable sight unfolded before Douglas Junior's eyes as he turned his head.
In the sky above the center of the island, a giant rainbow-colored pillar of light was rising endlessly towards the sky.
A magnificent and beautiful light, the likes of which he had never seen in his life, a mixture of various colors of divine and magical power such as blue, red, white, and yellow.
With an intense radiance that seemed to cover the entire world, a wave of pure energy that made the skin tingle spread throughout the entire battlefield.
The tremendous energy was transmitted all the way here, making it hard to even breathe.
'What is that? Is it Master's power? No, it's something more than that.'
In the face of that overwhelming release of magic, not only Douglas Junior, but all beings on the battlefield, both friend and foe, stopped fighting as if by promise.
All the noise of the fierce battlefield momentarily ceased, and gazes mixed with awe and fear all turned towards the rainbow-colored pillar in the center of the island.
In the absolute silence, as if time itself had stopped.
Only the brilliant pillar of light was brightly illuminating the night sky.