Rughsbourgh's voice didn't sound angry. In fact, it seemed to be the other way around. He sounded almost happy, such that a small smile lingered on his lips.
He was being forced to reassess the very mechanics by which he survived.
For a man who had mastered space, this was theft. His pride, his laws, his throne—all shattered by a strike that should not exist.
Rughsbourgh's brows furrowed as he finally raised his head to meet Northern's blank gaze.
"How… This is Will Manifestation on the level of a Paragon. How did you achieve such a thing at your level?"
Northern did not respond. He was there, staring at Rughsbourgh, but at the same time, he wasn't.
[CONGRATULATIONS…]
[YOU HAVE SET NEW STANDARDS FOR YOURSELF]
[YOU HAVE BEGUN AN ENDLESS JOURNEY TO A PEAKLESS HEIGHT]
[CHAOS ART IS BEING DESTROYED BY OMNIFORM]
[UNWRITTEN IS UNWRITING THE DEPTH OF CHAOS IN YOUR SOUL]
[YOU HAVE LOST ITEM]
[CHAOS ART HAS BEEN DESTROYED]
[A NEW HERITAGE IS BEING WRITTEN…]
[FOOT WORK: FORMLESS HAS BEEN GAINED]
[YOU HAVE CREATED A NEW HERITAGE: PATH OF THE ENDLESS]
Everything felt quiet—not in the way silence grips after battle, but in the way truth settles, not needing to be said.
Northern stood, unmoving, as the system messages faded. Not just off his interface display, but into the marrow of his existence. Words that were never meant to be read aloud, only understood.
He should have felt elation. But what settled in his chest wasn't joy.
It was stillness.
A presence deeper than pride.
A sensation like being hollowed out, but filled at the same time.
As if some ancient cavern in his soul had opened—one he had never dared to name. And now light poured through it, without beginning, without end.
'Is this enlightenment?'
Northern had asked that question with honest wonder.
But the answer did not come in words.
It came as a knowing.
A sharp, cutting understanding that bloomed behind his eyes and rippled through every breath.
And he understood:
Enlightenment wasn't power.
It was perception.
Not the act of becoming more—but of seeing clearly.
The veil had lifted, the sword had spoken. And the essence of it all was something he had always known:
Formlessness is not the absence of form.
It is the truth that all form is fleeting.
It is not chaos.
It is the acceptance of change without resistance.
His past self, the one who clung to the Chaos Art, had sought to master destruction. To wield instability. To dominate entropy itself. But in doing so, he had shackled himself to outcomes. He had become obsessed with the culmination of his art.
Victory. Defeat. Triumph. Survival.
All endpoints.
All forms.
But Path of the Endless required no endpoint.
It rejected destination entirely.
He saw now that every sword style he'd ever learned was just language.
But language was only the beginning of thought.
Eventually, thought must become silence.
And silence must become intent.
That was what formlessness truly was—not having no form, but being beyond the need for one.
And he had reached that point not by mastery… but by unlearning and letting go of what he thought he was.
'The moment I stopped trying to climb, I became the mountain.'
He breathed in.
And the breath tasted different—like it no longer belonged to him, yet sustained him all the same.
His feet didn't touch the ground—they existed within it.
His sword no longer needed to swing.
His thoughts no longer needed to react.
Each step now carried possibility—not attack, not defense, just opening.
He was no longer progressing toward a peak.
There was no peak.
Only the walk.
Only the path.
And he had chosen the Path of the Endless.
Even now, Rughsbourgh—one of the most feared Spatial Wielders in existence—watched him with an unreadable expression.
He was wary, not hostile, rather... aware.
Because Rughsbourgh understood what had just occurred.
He knew it all too well. It was the reason he despised Drifters who were swordsmen. The fact that at any point, any experience, any realization in battle could propel them into Enlightenment.
Thus magnifying their strength manifold.Thе full sеriеs is hоstеd оn Мy Virtuаl Librаry Еmpirе, knоwn аs
Of course, he too had experienced it… it was, after all, his gate to becoming a Luminary. But he had not accepted it.
He had contained it—shaped it into a domain of rules, laws, barriers. This was one of the many reasons that Rughsbourgh believed he was very different from many people who were like him, why he was very different from even his own Master, Milhwa.
And also very different from Northern, who had let himself be consumed by Enlightenment.
Rughsbourgh held a completely different and strange worldview when it came to matters like this. He was voracious in nature, especially for good virtues, and his desire for good things knew no bounds.
Yet his greatest fear through them all had been being controlled.
Being controlled by his greed.
Being controlled by his desires.
Being controlled by rules, by laws, and by even his own strength.
He loathed being controlled. He despised controlling also. He just preferred the necessity and flow of existence.
But he understood that for that to happen, he needed to be immensely strong. And so he had struggled all his life to grasp knowledge beyond reasoning.
It was what had caused him to stumble upon Spell Arts. Of course, Spell Art had started with Milhwa, but since Rughsbourgh never accepted Milhwa's Heritage, he never got it. Instead, he carved his own.
Spell Arts was how he became a renowned Drifter, was how he carved his path of strength. Spell Art was what made people mistake him for a Drifter with a Spatial Talent.
And it had been mighty to this magnitude because he did not let the Enlightenment shape him—he shaped them instead. And he contained them within himself.
He looked at Northern with a slightly raised chin.
A slow beat of breath passed.
"Your growth is going to be your undoing if you keep going like that."
Rughsbourgh opened his hand, manifesting a large tome that floated before him, its pages flipping open.
"Alright then, boy… let me show you Enlightenment."
However, the space around them rippled, causing both of them to raise their heads with a subtle frown.
Then something fell right between them and devastated the entire land, casting a shockwave and rolling debris and dust.
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