Arthur felt the new presence the moment its mana spread through the battlefield. It pressed against the air itself, heavy and deliberate. A new battle was about to begin. This enemy's mana was overwhelming, even greater than Leo's. If they hesitated now, they would lose their chance.
He had to finish the monster immediately.
Arthur drew his final sword. The blade flared with golden light, illuminating the Shadowland as if a fragment of the sun had descended into it. The shadows recoiled, and even the monster seemed to falter for a brief moment.
"Paul," Arthur said, his voice steady but urgent, "I need a little time to prepare."
As he spoke, the sword dissolved into pure light and shot forward. The radiance wrapped around Paul's body, layer after layer, forming a glowing armor that pulsed with divine energy.
Paul looked down at himself in disbelief. He could feel it, power reinforcing him, sharpening his movements, strengthening his core. He had never imagined an ability like this.
"So this is an S-rank support spell…" he muttered.
Without wasting a second, Paul kicked off the air and launched himself toward the monster. As he moved, two massive golden hands formed beside him, mirroring the motion of his arms. Every shift of his shoulders, every tightening of his fists, echoed through those radiant constructs.
The monster sensed the incoming threat. Its tentacles surged forward, thick and violent, aiming to intercept Paul mid-charge.
But it was already too late.
High above, Luciana moved.
She sliced her arm open without hesitation. Blood poured down, but far more than her body should have been able to produce. The ground below darkened as her domain spread outward. A vast lake of blood formed in an instant, rippling with power. Her domain was just like her mother's.
From the surface, blood-shaped tentacles erupted upward, moving with terrifying speed. They slammed into the monster's limbs one after another, binding, pushing, tearing them aside and clearing a path.
Paul seized the opening.
He kicked the air again, accelerating sharply, and in the blink of an eye he stood directly before the monster's chest. He drew in a deep breath, gathering every ounce of strength he had.
Then he unleashed it.
A storm of punches crashed into the monster's body, each strike detonating with raw force. At the same time, the golden hands struck in perfect unison, multiplying the impact again and again. The monster's massive form shuddered violently, unable to retaliate, its balance collapsing under the relentless assault.
Behind them, Arthur hovered in midair, eyes closed.
His awareness had turned inward. Deep within his domain, he stood inside the structure that housed Creator's power. Before him rested the sword, ancient, radiant, and heavy with meaning. His hand wrapped around its hilt. This was the moment.
He pulled.
The blade slid free with surprising ease, and a blinding surge of light erupted around him, power flooding outward as his new strength finally answered his call.
…
Luciana clashed with the monster's tentacles, cutting through twisted flesh and shadow, when a sudden surge of power washed over the battlefield. It didn't come from the enemy. It came from Arthur.
She felt it immediately, clean, overwhelming, and precise. She knew what he was doing. And more importantly, she knew she could do the same.
Luciana pulled back, letting instinct take over. She closed her eyes, and her awareness slipped away from the battlefield, sinking inward. The noise of combat faded as her consciousness entered her domain.
She stood inside the vast structure at its core, the air thick with the scent of iron and power. At the center floated the blood orb, suspended and pulsing like a living heart. Each beat sent waves of crimson light across the walls.
Luciana approached it without hesitation.
A small smile crossed her lips as she reached out and grabbed the orb.
The reaction was immediate. Power exploded through her, violent and raw. Her eyes snapped open as the force surged back into her body. Her hair spilled downward in a rushing tide of white, growing until it brushed the ground beneath her feet. Her crimson eyes burned brighter, pulsing in rhythm with the power flooding her veins.
She opened her mouth and screamed.
The sound tore through her domain, shaking its foundations. Blood energy poured out of her uncontrollably for a moment, clawing at the edges of her soul, threatening to overwhelm her will and drag her into corruption.
Luciana clenched her fist and held on.
She forced the power into submission, anchoring herself through sheer resolve. The surge stabilized, bending to her control instead of consuming her.
When the scream finally ended, the air around her trembled. Luciana stood transformed, power coiled tightly within her, ready to be unleashed.
…
Leo's eyes stayed fixed on Mr. Sage. This was a man who had formed his own gathering and ruled it like a god. His presence alone carried weight. Leo judged him to be at least S2. He kept his creation sphere active, ready to respond to any sudden attack.
Without warning, something felt wrong. Leo noticed his hand moving slower than it should have. He tried to adjust, but the moment he made a slight movement, one of his fingers snapped with a sharp crack. Pain shot through him. He froze immediately, realizing that any further motion could cause more damage.
Leo couldn't identify the enchantment at first, but he quickly understood the effect. Time behaved differently within a small area around them. Parts of his body moved at mismatched speeds, his hand slowed, his finger accelerated, and that imbalance tore his flesh apart with minimal effort. Mr. Sage, standing at the center of it, remained completely unaffected by the distortion.
A transparent sphere formed in front of Mr. Sage. Lightning gathered inside it, dense and unstable, crackling as he aimed it directly at Leo.
The sphere launched forward in an instant. Leo couldn't move, couldn't defend. The attack tore through the space where he had been standing.
But it struck nothing.
When the lightning dispersed, Leo hovered far away in midair, his body intact. He had escaped the range at the last possible moment.
"I can sense the limits of your ability," Leo said calmly.
Within his creation sphere, Leo felt everything, distance, pressure, mana flow, and used that awareness to teleport beyond the affected area.
Mr. Sage's lips curved slightly. "It seems like that."
A surge of mana rolled off his body, warping the air as the battle between them truly began.
Mr. Sage raised his hand toward Leo, and the same distortion washed over him again. Leo felt it instantly, the subtle drag, the uneven pressure, time itself slipping out of alignment around his body. Before Leo could react, Mr. Sage released another sphere of lightning, sending it straight toward him.
Leo tried to teleport, but his eyes widened as he realized the problem. His entire creation sphere had been flooded with foreign mana, dense and oppressive, locking his control in place. There was no gap to escape through.
The lightning sphere struck.
Smoke and force tore through the air, and blood splashed outward from the impact point. Mr. Sage watched calmly as the explosion settled, certain of the result. But when the smoke thinned, the space where Leo had been stood empty.
Without warning, a Blood Slash tore through the air toward him.
A small transparent sphere formed beside Mr. Sage, slowing the attack the moment it entered. Using the opening, he stepped back and turned his head just in time to see Leo standing to his right, unharmed.
"You didn't forget my name, did you?" Leo said coldly. "I'm Mr. Clone."
The air rippled as thousands of Blood Phantoms burst into existence and surged forward at once.
Mr. Sage responded instantly. Dark, translucent spheres bloomed across the battlefield, each one forming around a clone. Inside them, lightning ripped some apart while fire consumed others, every sphere destroying its target in a different way. Within seconds, the phantoms vanished.
High above, Leo hovered in midair, Thorn like a giant sword in his grip. The blood of the destroyed clones flowed back to him, coiling around the blade as he raised it overhead.
"Blood Calamity."
A colossal sphere formed around Mr. Sage as the sword descended, grinding to a halt the instant it touched the barrier. Time dragged, the blade inching forward at a crawl.
As it slowed, Mr. Sage leapt upward. Another sphere snapped into place around Leo, seizing him mid-motion and slowing him just the same.
Mr. Sage's voice carried calmly through the distorted air.
"Creation will not work here."
…
As Arthur stood motionless, a silver sword traced with golden markings began to form in his hand. Light condensed around the hilt first, then spread outward, shaping the blade inch by inch. When the sword fully materialized, Arthur opened his eyes, and six white wings unfurled from his back. His armor reshaped itself, thinner than before, stripped of excess weight, yet refined and radiant, as if designed for a single, decisive moment. Above his head, a ring of light appeared and slowly hardened into the shape of a crown.
Arthur raised his left hand, and light gathered at his palm, dense and blinding. When it pulsed outward, the force erased the smaller flying monsters instantly, reducing them to ash and fading echoes.
Behind him, in a distance, Dave and the others stared in stunned silence. Arthur looked less like a man now and more like a second sun suspended in the sky.
The light above Arthur shifted again, stretching and narrowing until it took the form of a massive spear, its edge humming with contained power.
The monster sensed the danger at once and let out a furious howl. The shockwave slammed into Paul, whose golden armor flickered and nearly shattered as he was thrown backward. The creature tried to retreat, but before it could move far, Luciana appeared behind it.
Her silver hair spilled down past her height, flowing like liquid silver. Under different circumstances it might have looked beautiful, but the dark veins standing out across her skin twisted that beauty into something terrifying. She opened her mouth and screamed, a sound that shook both earth and sky. The monster clutched its head, fingers digging into its own flesh as if its mind were being torn apart.
Luciana raised her hand, and thousands of thin threads of blood shot forward, piercing into the creature's back. The monster stiffened, its movements locking as if its body no longer obeyed its will.
From a distance, Briva watched her friends with wide eyes, unease creeping into her voice.
"What's happening?" she whispered. "Why are they like this?"
The monster strained against the blood bindings, managing only a slight twitch of its arm. Directly in front of it, Arthur hovered in silence, spear fully formed, wings spread wide, and light blazing around him as he prepared to release the final attack.
The monster refused to fall quietly. Mana surged within its chest, gathering around the cracked sigil, and it released a concentrated beam of energy straight toward Arthur. Arthur answered without hesitation. He lowered his hand, and the spear of light shot forward, meeting the beam head-on.
The golden spear pierced through the attack as if it were nothing, tearing through the monster's chest and completely destroying the sigil embedded there. A massive hole opened in its body. The creature struggled for a brief moment, its limbs twitching as if trying to understand what had happened, and then it went still.
Arthur did not linger. His six wings spread wide, and he launched himself into the air, flying toward Leo.
Ahead of him, Leo stood frozen in place, caught within Mr. Sage's spell, while Mr. Sage calmly formed another sphere of lightning in his hand. As Arthur drew closer, Mr. Sage sensed him and instantly summoned a transparent sphere around himself. Time warped inside it, slowing Arthur's movement, but not enough to stop him. The light around Arthur intensified as he swung his sword. The sphere shattered like fragile glass.
Mr. Sage's eyes widened. He hurled the lightning sphere forward, but Arthur's blade struck it directly. The collision sent Mr. Sage flying backward, and the remaining spheres collapsed at the same time.
Mr. Sage steadied himself and glanced at the fallen monster before turning back to Arthur.
"Mr. Light," he said, his tone measured. "You've grown far stronger."
Arthur looked down at him, his presence overwhelming. "I am no longer Mr. Light. I am one of the Creator's angels."
The word made Mr. Sage's expression darken. "The Creator… the one who stopped me before. I will kill him as well."
Arthur's gaze remained cold and distant. "You won't reach him. His angels are enough for you."
Mr. Sage began forming another spell, but a thread of blood suddenly pierced his hand, locking it in place. He stiffened. Luciana descended behind him, her eyes monstrous and glowing with power. He raised his other arm, only for Paul's massive hand to seize it firmly.
In the next instant, Leo appeared in front of him, freed from the spell.
Mr. Sage stared at him in disbelief and rage. "Impossible. You shouldn't be able to use creation here."
Leo hesitated for only a heartbeat, realizing Mr. Sage had used a method similar to Lucius's amulet. Considering the way items of powers worked, it made sense. He placed his hand on Mr. Sage's head.
"All spells have a weakness, Mr. Sage."
Behind him, Arthur and Luciana radiated overwhelming mana, their power pouring outward like a rising tide.
After a brief pause, Leo spoke again, his voice low and controlled. "Illusion."
Mr. Sage snarled. "You can't place illusions on my mind."
At that moment, Luciana's blood threads burrowed deeper, disrupting his thoughts and sending a wave of dizziness through him.
"I told you," Leo said calmly, "one way or another." His hand pressed more firmly against Mr. Sage's head. "Now let me show you the past."
Mr. Sage's eyes rolled back as his consciousness collapsed, pulled into the illusion.