novelraw Chapter 148 - 144: Let’s Settle This [⅓]
Chapter 148 - 144: Let’s Settle This [⅓]
Once North erupted—once his blood flooded the land and his hardened Sryun took root—everything changed.
Not gradually.
The first shift didn't even happen on the battlefield.
It echoed outward. Across realms. Across something older than the tournament itself.
The Bloodline of Jafar stirred.
One by one, across distant worlds and hidden dominions, those who carried that lineage paused. Their gazes turned. Their attention narrowed. All of it focusing on a single point.
The realm of Yulm. On the planet Delark. On a dying region called Curtenail.
What had once been vast—spanning the size of three North America continents—was now reduced to something barely holding together. A fragment. A memory of what it had been.
Beyond it, the world was already lost.
Sixty-five percent gold as the wave slowly advanced.
And then North's aura touched it.
Just barely.
A brush.
A whisper.
And the gold responded.
A sound that resembled a lustful moan.
The surface trembled. Then surged.
The golden wave moved.
Not slowly.
It lunged.
Where it touched, reality froze.
Everything. Physical. Metaphysical. Matter. Energy. Concept.
All of it turned to gold.
The wave accelerated.
Curtenail trembled as the horizon itself collapsed inward, the golden tide swallowing distance, devouring space between moments.
What was supposed to take days now had a clock.
Twenty-five minutes.
That was all that remained.
For the battlefield. For the tournament. For everyone still breathing.
———
[These next moments happen in eight minutes.]
[This battle was two minutes]
Cawren's red eyes widened as his Mudra field shattered around him. The pillars—his dominion, his conquest—didn't collapse from resistance. They were erased. Overruled.
"How…?"
The question barely formed before—
Ashantiana was on him.
Her form had changed significantly. Black essence that had hardened into something absolute—obsidian skin, smooth and reflective like polished ink, was now ruined. Curved horns arched from her head like twin crescent blades, and behind her, jagged wings of fractured shadow spread outward like a broken night sky trying to hold itself together.
But it wasn't stable.
It was cracked.
Shifting.
And she didn't care.
Her fist slammed into him.
Cawren's body bent under the impact as the air itself fractured from the blow. He tried to respond immediately—flames bursting outward, runes igniting, his aura flaring as every system in him activated at once.
Blessings layered.
Buffs stacked.
Everything.
[Blessing of the Black Star] anchored his starlit core.
[Malefic Overdrive] surged his output.
[Solar Consumption] fed his flames.
[Infernal Prayer] reinforced his spirit.
[Draconic Veins] hardened his body.
[Starlit Devourer] awakened.
[Essence of Worth X2] amplified it all.
[Crown of the Fallen Flame] ignited over him, his Ryun blazing hotter than ever.
And on top of that—
Ria's gifts still lingered within him.
Everything he had.
Everything he built.
Everything he stacked.
And still—
She broke through it.
Another strike.
His guard shattered.
Another.
His ribs cracked.
Another.
His health dropped.
54%.
45%.
22%.
"…what the—"
His thoughts couldn't keep up.
How was she still hitting this hard?
How was she still here?
His body gave.
For a moment—
He let it.
He went limp.
Letting the next strike pass just barely off-center, the force fracturing the space beside his head instead of through it. The ground beneath him exploded from the impact.
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He moved with it.
Rolled.
His hands snapped down.
[DULURE: Circle of Empowerment]
Sigils of living flame erupted beneath his feet, intricate and layered, coiling upward around his body. The energy sharpened everything—his aura, his senses, his reactions—compressing his output into something tighter, more controlled.
He had already used too much. And he had no more level ups to use.
So now—
He focused on defense.
The flames condensed around him, reinforcing instead of expanding, every movement refined down to survival.
The battlefield trembled.
The blood was coming from behind him. And the gold was rushing toward him from behind Ashantiana.
He felt it.
Closing in.
Ashantiana struck again.
A direct hit.
He didn't block it.
He moved with it.
His body folded into the impact, letting the force carry him instead of break him, launching him backward as he redirected the energy through his flames.
He skidded—
Then ignited—
Propelling himself further away with a burst of fire.
Space.
Breathing room.
Ashantiana stepped forward to follow—
Then stopped.
Her head tilted slightly.
Because the blood had arrived.
The crimson flood surged into her, slamming into her form and swallowing the space around her in an instant.
North watched it all unfold from above.
Standing on a lattice of spiked black Sryun constructs, his body barely holding together, his aura still bleeding into the land below, he smiled. Because he already knew. This wouldn't last. Not the stalemate. Not the chaos. Not the resistance. Something had to give. So he decided—it would be now.
His gaze shifted and locked onto Ashantiana.
Still standing. Still pushing. Still refusing to die.
Anger stirred—low and sharp.
Why?
Why was she pressing this hard?
What could possibly drive someone to keep going like that—through annihilation, through corruption, through everything being thrown at her?
His eyes narrowed.
And then a memory surfaced.
Jonathan stood up slowly and shuffled to the cabinet. "In a world where people can blow up mountains by accident, I think I can handle a lost liver."
"So the woman," he began, taking a swig straight from the bottle. His face wrinkled at the taste. "The one with the halberd and murder eyes…"
Sšurtinaui glanced over. "She's a Dorferan. Native to this region."
"Oh," he said, nodding slowly. "She's pissed her home is being turned into an interdimensional gladiator ring. She could've just said that."
Sšurtinaui arched an eyebrow. "Assuming she spoke English. Most Dorferans don't bother with Outlander languages. Especially not here."
"Yeah, well…" Jonathan sighed, "she had a very aggressive dialect."
The memory faded.
North exhaled softly.
"…right."
As much as he hated her—for killing Caroline, for everything she'd done to the Occulted Moon—he couldn't pretend he wasn't doing the same thing. Burning everything down. Turning into something worse. Just to keep the memory of those he lost alive.
Becoming a monster.
A quiet chuckle left him.
"…guess we're not that different."
He didn't reject it. Didn't deny it. Didn't try to dress it up as something noble.
But he understood something else too.
Stagnation.
One path. One emotion. One obsession.
It didn't lead to growth.
It led to endings.
So if she was walking that road, then he'd meet her there. Not to follow. Not to fall. But to surpass. To grow from it. To carry it forward.
He thought of Zavrien—First Blade of the Hollow Sanctum, Guardian of the Eighth Gate. A man who stood in this same region, protecting what remained of his life—his wife, buried beneath a broken temple. The gem he guarded, twisted into a prize for this tournament, once meant something simple.
Something grounding.
North had wanted that once.
That kind of resolve.
That kind of conviction.
That kind of mercy to express.
He laughed.
"…thinking too much."
The battlefield snapped back into focus.
Ashantiana was still there. Still resisting. Still pushing against the flood of his blood as it ate away at her.
Good.
That's how it should be.
The Sryun beneath his feet shifted and extended, spikes growing outward to form a path as the structure carried him forward—closer, step by step, his presence pressing heavier with each movement.
She watched him approach.
Through the blood.
Through the pressure.
Through the weight of everything trying to end her.
Her body was barely holding together. Cracks ran through her form, her obsidian frame splintering at the edges as Sryun struggled to keep her intact. Every movement cost something. Every breath felt like it was borrowed.
But this wasn't over.
It couldn't be.
It would never be.
Not while she still stood.
She carried them.
Their wills.
Their dreams.
Their hopes.
Every life that had been crushed beneath this tournament. Every voice that had been silenced. Every story that had been cut short and discarded like it meant nothing.
Her presence deepened.
Not outward.
Inward.
She needed to sink into it. Into the hearts of those watching. Those listening. Those who would remember. She needed to become something that couldn't be ignored. Something that couldn't be erased.
A curse.
Not just one that destroyed—
But one that lingered.
One that devoured everything that allowed this to exist.
Her eyes narrowed as North drew closer.
They made her homeland a joke.
A spectacle.
A squandered existence for entertainment.
They watched as a nation died slowly—piece by piece—turning its suffering into something consumable.
They buried people who weren't ready to leave.
Left them behind.
Abandoned.
By the very gods that were supposed to protect them.
Her aura trembled.
Then hardened.
To be less than pawns.
To be used in games played by Supreme Families who would never set foot here—
Who would never understand what was lost—
Who would never care—
Her grip tightened.
Her stance lowered.
She wouldn't disappear.
Not like this.
Not until this ended.
Not until something broke because of it.
Her gaze locked onto North.
North's red eyes looked down on her.
The sigils rotated slowly.
And he smiled.
That—
That pissed her off more than anything.
"You've done a lot."
She didn't respond.
So he kept going.
"You killed someone I loved dearly. I know—crazy to say after knowing them for about a month, but this situation causes some crazy shit."
He rubbed the back of his neck slightly, almost casual despite the chaos around them.
"Ahem… anyway."
His gaze sharpened again.
"I just wanna say—I still hate you."
A pause.
"And I know you hate me."
Her eyes lifted toward him as the blood surged tighter around her, pressing, locking, holding her in place. In the distance, the golden wave roared closer, swallowing everything in its path.
North glanced at it briefly.
Then back to her.
"We don't have much time."
His smile returned.
"So I'll make it simple."
The red lines beneath his eyes glowed faintly.
"And I think I can share this because… well, I just need to say it out loud."
He tilted his head slightly.
"I'm not here to conquer you."
The pressure deepened.
"I'm not here to erase you."
The sigil eyes around them widened, focusing entirely on her.
"My dominance is simpler."
His voice lowered.
"I handle every situation differently."
A step forward.
"And I decide what to do with those I deem worthy of remembering."
She stared at him.
That look.
He saw it.
And laughed softly.
"If you mattered…"
The blood tightened.
The Sryun hardened.
"I'll carry you forward—whether you like it or not."
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"So don't make that face at me."
He raised his hand.
The world seemed to still around the motion.
No Ryun.
None left to give.
So he used something else.
Sryun condensed.
Pulled inward.
Compressed to a singular, unstable point.
Then—
His blood fed into it.
Not to stabilize.
To ruin it.
To command it to turn on itself.
To collapse under its own existence.
The field around him responded.
Blood.
Hardened Sryun.
Floating red sigil eyes.
All of it converged.
The pressure became absolute.
Ashantiana couldn't move.
Couldn't even resist.
Every eye glared down at her.
Judging.
Holding.
Witnessing.
North's fingers curled slightly—
"Majesti!"
And he fired.
A violent surge of unstable Sryun and blood erupted forward, devouring everything in its path as it crashed into her.
Her form shattered.
Not instantly.
But violently.
Piece by piece.
Her essence unraveling under the forced collapse.
And then—
She was gone.
Launched.
Carried by the attack—
North lowered his hand slowly.
The sigils in his eyes turned once more.
As she soared toward the wave, her mind fractured through possibilities.
Escape.
Counter.
Reform.
Every option surfaced—and died just as quickly.
But his words—
They stayed.
They found a place.
Rooted.
The fact she could even understand him… that alone was strange. The battlefield, the languages, the differences between them—none of it mattered in that moment. The meaning carried through.
He would carry her forward.
She smiled.
Even as her body dissolved.
How ridiculous.
That kind of thinking… that kind of belief… It wasn't normal. It was something else entirely. The arrogance of it. The weight of it.
That complex—
To believe you could hold the lives of others… their pain, their endings, their meaning… and simply move on.
Her smile didn't falter.
Because it didn't matter.
She was no longer Ashantiana Zarget.
Not a commander of the Delgoretha army.
Not a Dorferan with a family.
Not someone with a past to return to.
Ashantiana had died long ago.
The moment she killed her sister as a mercy.
The moment she became the last ember of her bloodline.
That was when she truly disappeared.
Everything after—
Was something else.
Something born from grief.
From rage.
From abandonment.
From a world that watched and did nothing.
Now—
She was the Malefic Herald of Endings.
And as such—
She didn't need to be remembered kindly.
She didn't need to be understood.
She didn't need to be carried.
If anything—
The only legacy she would leave to the man who defeated her…
Was a curse.
A curse for the divine.
A stain.
A weight.
A truth that would follow him whether he accepted it or not.
What remained of her collided with the golden wave.
There was no resistance.
Only acceptance.
She had done her part.
Fought with everything she had.
Given her homeland—
A proper requiem.
And like the rest of Delark—
Like the cities, the land, the memories—
Ashantiana was consumed.
Offered.
To the Golden Primordial Viper.
And the battlefield—
Moved on.