[A/N: If you see MP being taken then skills are being used. If not, then it's a talent. The lower MP required the Lower the skill rank...]
All five A-rank auras went off at once, and the throne room stopped being a room—it was like a collapsing star.
Gravity roared.
Ice burst over every surface in jagged spears as thick as ship masts.
Mirene's illusions multiplied the fighters until fifteen perfect copies moved in deadly sync.
Seris's ash and fire turned the air into a suffocating crimson blaze that swallowed the light. The five Veloran elites attacked as one, a single lethal force.
King Alaric struck first, the floor warping under the force of his charge. Lunar mana swirled around his right fist, pulling space inward like a sheet of paper crushed in his grasp.
[Gravitational Crush 3%MP]
In the blink of an eye, gravity surged from triple the norm to thirtyfold, the sheer force shattering the obsidian table into dust.
Ash moved to dodge, but Queen Sara was faster.
[Absolute Ice Manipulation]
Her power flared; the marble beneath his feet hardened into something denser than obsidian, locking his ankles in frigid shackles.
At that same moment, Prince Cael slammed his palms down, and gravity within a ten-meter radius around Ash surged to five times its strength. Blood streamed from his ears and eyes, his knees groaning as cracks splintered the floor beneath him.
Then Alaric's fist connected.
BANG!
BOOM!!!
The impact lifted Ash off the ground, caved his sternum, and launched him backward like a cannon shell.
He tore through three marble pillars in a row, each shattering into a cloud of white dust before he smashed into the far wall, leaving a man-shaped crater ten meters deep.
Pink blood streaked his lips as he looked up, grinning and laughing through broken teeth.
From every direction, fifteen royal phantoms closed in, their blades of gravity, ice, and illusion shrieking for his neck.
His [Eyes of First Dawn] flared, golden-pink rings spinning, shredding the illusions into glittering mist until only the real five remained.
But he never saw the final strike.
Seris stood on the broken dais, her crimson braids lashing in the scorching wind. She clapped her palms together with a sound like erupting volcanoes.
[Palm of Hell – 3% MP]
Every ember, every drifting ash, every flicker of flame in the palace heeded her command. They merged into a colossal, blazing hand fifty meters wide, its veins glowing with molten crimson like living magma.
And then it fell.
BOOOOOOM!!!
The palm struck the crater dead-center.
The last of the pillars crumbled to dust.
Shockwaves ripped through corridor after corridor; priceless tapestries went up in sudden flames, crystal chandeliers burst into molten droplets, and servants too slow to escape were caught mid-scream or left as ghostly ash silhouettes on the walls.
At the entrance, Vaeloria's ten tails fanned out, her aura wrapping Nia in a flawless sphere that brushed aside the cataclysmic force effortlessly.
"W-will he be fine?" Nia's voice trembled, golden eyes wide.
Vaeloria gazed into the heart of the explosion, recalling the eighteen months she had spent crafting this monster in the shadows. A slow, sharp-toothed grin curled across her face.
"Don't worry. He's only just begun."
As if the world itself responded, wild, unrestrained laughter erupted from the epicenter.
"HAHAHA! GOOD! FINALLY!"
Ash's voice sounded with raw excitement.
Nia and Vaeloria surged forward.
By the time they got there, the palace was nothing but a wreck drifting in the night sky.
Gravity warped and tangled, colossal ice lances pierced the heavens, fireballs and clouds of ash tore through every corner, and ghostly doubles shimmered in and out of sight like ripples in hot air.
Ash floated at the heart of the storm, his coat in tatters, body streaked with blood, hair wild and shining under the fractured moonlight. Pink streams spilled from his lips, his left arm dangled uselessly, ribs clearly fractured.
Then the moonlight reached him...
Flesh mended, bones snapped back into place, and blood flowed in reverse, rushing to fill his veins.
In just three heartbeats, he was whole again—no, more than whole—radiant.
He shrugged off the shredded coat, letting it dissolve into nothing on the wind, revealing a torso shaped by battle and sin. His eyes burned with golden-pink light, pupils wide with raw, unrestrained joy.
He had spent the entire beating trying to understand how they resisted his passive Soul Brand.
He still didn't know.
But he stopped caring.
'I'll just ask Val later.'
Ash cracked his neck once, rolled his shoulders, and activated two talents at the same time.
[Absolute Sol Invictus]
[Inferno Dominion]
That moment...the night sky died.
Every source of light within 2.5 kilometers—every lantern in every capital, every hearth, every photon drifting through the air—yielded. Even the moonlight bent toward him, like a subject before its ruler.
Ash stood at the heart of a vast, continent-spanning realm of light and flame.
With each passing moment of battle, his power within this domain swelled. In just sixty seconds, every enemy present would be crushed down by a full major rank.
And then, because he felt like it, he flexed.
Seris's last fireballs and ash storms halted mid-air, suspended in an instant. In a heartbeat, every ember switched sides.
Crimson shifted to paradox gold as Ash lazily lifted a hand and flicked his fingers.
The fireballs—now Paradox Balls, swirling spheres of golden-pink flame that mocked physics—whipped around and shot back toward the five A-ranks faster than ever.
For the first time in three centuries, Seris's eyes widened in fear.
Nia's breath snagged in her throat.
"T-that… looks like my talent… but stronger?"
The whisper was faint, yet Vaeloria caught it with ease. Her golden eyes shifted to the side, curiosity and keen interest sparking to life.
High above, Ash hovered within the heart of his self-created sun, arms outstretched, laughter rolling through the shattered palace like a god who had at last discovered something worth his time.
The true battle was only beginning.