[What on earth is that?]
Lexerra witnessed the battle between Ludger and the Transcendent.
That they were engaging in a completely absurd fight that clearly surpassed human limits—he could understand that well enough.
But the magic Ludger was using right now was something else entirely.
He had vaguely known that Ludger ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) was a mage of a higher tier than himself.
However, knowing it in theory and witnessing it with one’s own eyes were fundamentally different things.
Ludger’s magic embodied that difference.
Dark Thunder.
The name itself was simple. Yet perhaps because it was not flashy but restrained and refined, it felt all the more overwhelming.
It was like how someone born truly strong felt no need to flaunt that strength.
Ludger’s magic was exactly that.
And in reality, just the aftermath of completing the spell caused the underground cavern to tremble, making space itself resonate.
[That bastard... how on earth did he...?]
At that moment, Casey let out an awed murmur beside him.
“Wow. I never thought I’d get to see that again in my lifetime.”
[Again?]
Casey turned to look at Lexerra.
“I saw it once before. With that, he blew away the Holy Sovereign of the Bretus Theocracy.”
Lexerra stared at Ludger with an even more vacant expression.
The magic coalesced in his hand was difficult to put into words.
Yes. If one had to describe it, it was overwhelmingly beautiful.
Perhaps this was how it felt to watch tens of thousands of exquisitely crafted mechanical parts assemble themselves on the spot, meshing together perfectly without a single error.
Not merely a device that functioned, but a mechanism whose very existence fulfilled a purpose.
A dreamlike realm he would never reach—yet now he was witnessing it in reality, and that fact left him deeply shaken.
[But with that power...]
That single blow, so strong it twisted space itself.
It might be enough to bring down the Transcendent who wielded the energy of an artificial sun.
Of course, the opponent was surely thinking the same thing.
“That power...”
For the first time, the Transcendent’s face—unchanged until now—stiffened.
The being who had looked down on the humans of this era as lesser creatures was feeling tension.
“Are you planning to blow up this entire test facility?”
“For someone who tried to do exactly that first, don’t you think that question is funny?”
“Then let me ask you something else.”
Ludger gestured with his chin, telling him to go on.
“Are all humans of this era as strong as you?”
Ludger let out a faint chuckle. The clear wariness in the question was amusing.
“If there were more like me, the world would be far more chaotic than it already is.”
“...I see. That’s more than enough of an answer.”
Among humans, there was no one stronger than Ludger. Of course, that was only when considering humans as a single species.
This world was shared with other races as well.
“In that case, all I have to do is get past you first.”
As if that alone was sufficient, the Transcendent gathered his strength.
The light of the surrounding suns burst forth like crimson flames, flooding the surrounding space.
Golden ripples distorted the atmosphere and extended their impact across the entire forest.
“Ugh!”
Casey hurriedly drew in water, surrounding the space around herself and Veronica.
Even after forming a barrier of water and freezing it solid, part of the barrier instantly vaporized and disappeared.
It wasn’t even aimed at them—this was merely the residual effect.
Casey frowned.
To think they had ended up facing such a monster in a place like this—it felt absurdly cruel.
‘But I don’t feel like that man will lose.’
She herself had grown stronger, but Ludger was still strong.
He had endured a gap of three years, yet those empty years seemed meaningless—he was still in his prime.
Even as the world changed and surged forward, that man had already been walking alone in a place far beyond it.
She had thought she had finally caught up.
Yet the distance between them was still vast. The gap seemed as though it might narrow, yet never truly did.
That fact pricked at Casey’s pride, but at the same time, it stirred her competitive spirit.
Back then, she couldn’t see it.
‘Now I can.’
No matter how far away it was, as long as she could see it.
And as long as she didn’t stop moving forward.
She believed she could eventually catch up.
At that moment, something strange caught Casey’s eye.
“I’ll finish this here. Before the radiant power of the blazing sun, turn to dust and vanish.”
The Transcendent raised his hand, and a small golden sun formed above his palm.
It was a mass of heat on a completely different level from any high-tier fire magic.
A single spark that leapt from that sun was powerful enough to swallow a 5th-tier fire spell whole.
Judging by sheer output alone, it had already surpassed the 7th tier.
It looked nearly comparable to Ludger’s Dark Thunder.
And even after wielding such power, the Transcendent showed little sign of exhaustion.
That was because most of this power was supplied by the artificial sun.
The sun was a symbol of pulsating force.
Before such intense violence, no matter how great a mage was, they were nothing more than a created being.
“I’ll end you here along with that vaunted magic of yours.”
“You seem to be misunderstanding something.”
Holding Dark Thunder in his right hand, Ludger spoke to the Transcendent.
“You don’t seem to understand the magic of this era, so I’ll explain. Eighth-tier magic is a realm that exists only as rumor among the masses. Naturally, magic that has reached that level is different from what you imagine.”
“What?”
“In the case of this Dark Thunder, it possesses tremendous power and certainly looks strong. That’s true. But its greatest effect lies in completely collapsing molecular structures.”
No matter what defensive measures the opponent took, it would grind everything down completely.
In a sense, it was a spear that pierced everything—a world where the concept of defense itself no longer existed.
“That’s what eighth-tier magic is. It burrows down to the smallest particles of mana—the core of all magic—and either nullifies them or rewrites them according to one’s own method.”
As he spoke, Ludger pointed at the sun floating above the Transcendent’s head.
“For example, taking something like that golden sphere you created... and changing it into something else.”
“What?”
Only then did the Transcendent sense something was wrong.
The immense heat he had felt just moments ago was gone.
He had assumed he’d simply adapted to the power he was wielding.
But that wasn’t it.
When he looked up, a massive sphere was still floating above his head.
Yet it was no longer blazing, nor was it a brilliant gold.
Instead, it was a blue so cold it sent chills straight to the bone just by looking at it.
Simply seeing it made his eyeballs and optic nerves feel as though they were being gouged by icicles.
Startled, the Transcendent tore his gaze away and staggered back.
“What is this? What did you do?”
“I just showed you magic. And one more thing, at that.”
Ludger hadn’t used only Dark Thunder among eighth-tier magic.
Even as he created Dark Thunder, he had simultaneously prepared another eighth-tier spell.
That frozen sun was the result.
“To freeze and halt all molecular structures, to manifest a perfect zero world where no energy exists. A magic that can freeze even the radiant sun and bestow cold silence upon all things.”
Eighth-tier magic.
Azure Frost Garment.
The blazing sun donned a coat of frost and transformed into a complete mass of ice.
Casey, Veronica, and Lexerra shuddered.
That was not ordinary ice.
As evidenced by how the Transcendent immediately looked away and retreated.
Just seeing it inflicted cold upon the viewer.
Had the Transcendent stared at it for more than ten seconds, his pupils and optic nerves would have frozen solid.
That wasn’t all. The surrounding space settled into silence.
It was as if space and time themselves had been frozen.
If Dark Thunder’s power distorted space, Azure Frost Garment did the opposite.
“This...!”
Unable to simply accept it, the Transcendent tried once more to draw heat from the artificial sun.
But the artificial sun remained silent, as if rejecting his will.
“Why? Why is the energy...?”
“I told you. It freezes even the radiant sun and grants silence to all things.”
It wasn’t that the artificial sun wasn’t emitting energy.
Rather, before that energy could be absorbed by the Transcendent, it was completely blocked midway by Azure Frost Garment.
And that wasn’t all.
Crack—crackle.
Frost formed at the tips of the Transcendent’s fingers and began creeping inward.
His eyes widened in pain that went beyond cold, turning into a deep, throbbing ache.
His body, which surpassed humanity—immune to burns even when thrown into a wildfire, able to withstand crushing pressure in the deepest seas, and unscathed even in extreme cold—was now feeling pain.
Not merely cold, but pain.
Golden energy erupted from the tattoos etched across his body as he tried to resist.
It was useless. Azure Frost Garment halted the structure of all particles themselves. No matter how intense the flame, it froze in place.
Normally, when cold overtakes fire, the flames flicker out like a candle.
But Ludger’s magic was different.
When eighth-tier magic, Azure Frost Garment, engulfed fire—
The fire stopped in place.
The shape of the burning flame froze, fixed as it was.
The same applied to the Transcendent.
The heat radiating from his body stopped, leaving only its form frozen in place.
He struggled, but the more he did, the colder it became. There was no escaping this cold.
“This... this is impossible. There’s no way a human can wield such power.”
“Well, you’re not entirely wrong. The one who first invented and developed this wasn’t human to begin with.”
It was created by Grander, the strongest True Ancestor vampire in the world.
Of course a human couldn’t have made something like this.
Ludger agreed.
If a human had made it, it would have been far less quiet—and far more vicious.
“And learning something that already exists is entirely possible.”
The Transcendent tried to escape, but it was futile.
The movement of the air had already stopped, and his body was bound within it.
The skin he had once boasted was invincible froze, and his cells began to necrotize.
“W-wait! If you kill me! Humanity will never advance to the next stage! You’ll be destroying the most important means in history!”
The Transcendent was a form of evolution—like mana-infused beasts, spirit beasts—representing the direction humanity was meant to advance toward.
The fact that such beings could be created artificially was incredibly important.
Concerns over food would diminish, and humanity would be freed from countless diseases and plagues.
The world could move toward a better future.
“I have all the knowledge and data! Information engraved in my mind, never recorded anywhere! Are you really going to erase it all?! You’ll throw away humanity’s path forward, right here?!”
The Transcendent tried to persuade Ludger.
If Ludger truly sought knowledge and a better path forward,
Then killing him here would be foolish.
“For someone who pretended to be bestowing gifts upon humanity, what was the first thing you said once you stepped out?”
Naturally, Ludger didn’t even listen.
“You claimed you’d become a better human to oppose the gods, but in the end, weren’t you just trying to become another god?”
Had he claimed from the start that he was acting for some grand cause, there might have been room for consideration.
But he hadn’t.
He believed himself superior and saw present-day humanity as something different.
Because he had become a Transcendent.
And so he harbored the arrogance of becoming a new god.
Perhaps that, in itself, was human.
“We don’t need that kind of evolution.”
Ludger aimed the Dark Thunder in his right hand at the Transcendent.
“The people of this world aren’t all as foolish as you. Someday, we’ll reach the point you arrived at. We don’t need your help. And when that time comes, we’ll achieve far better results than you ever did. We’ll keep moving forward toward what comes next.”
Because what truly drives the world forward is ultimately humanity’s good will.
People share intent. They share resolve.
That’s how people live.
Not through the overwhelming domination of a single being, but through countless individual choices coming together like innumerable interlocking gears.
Sometimes they clash, sometimes they mesh, influencing one another.
And the result born from those infinite choices and interactions—that is the future.
The future is not predetermined.
And so Ludger advances toward the light, hoping for a better tomorrow.
Together with the people he holds dear.
“You have no place in that future.”
As if refusing to hear any rebuttal, black lightning shot diagonally toward the Transcendent.
Kwarrrrumble!
Dark Thunder swallowed the Transcendent whole.
The desperate struggle of the being who sought transcendence vanished, swept away by the overwhelming torrent.