Chapter 1024: Rest
Rughsbourgh’s eyes widened—he was in a state where he was barely clinging to life. Staying alive was more grueling than dying. If Northern unleashed his next attack, what would happen?
This left him with two choices. He either had to truly take on Northern, which he believed would definitely kill the poor juvenile, or his test was done and it was time for him to retreat.
As pitiful as that sounded, Rughsbourgh saw no shame in it. Northern—the guy had managed to give him a shock no one in the world had.
No one in this world had proven capable of destroying him. However, if Northern was given the chance, he definitely would.
And he was only a Sage.
What happens if he becomes a Paragon?
Rughsbourgh felt his spine go cold as he thought about it.
’I can’t be enemies with him.’
Rughsbourgh felt a crushing wave of fear about how bleak his future might be if he continued to clash with Northern from time to time.
In this fight alone, Northern had grown leaps and bounds and would continue to grow more each time they fought, until he was capable of defeating him at his peak.
Rughsbourgh feared that.
And his fear, in fact... was immense.
As the vapor began to release searing smoke, Rughsbourgh began to feel the impending destruction that was going to rip his body apart.
The cells of his body were already disintegrating at an alarming rate, and he had to maintain constant Time Reversal to stop it from totally killing him.
Even while he stood, he was already beginning to look younger than he had a couple of minutes ago.
It was getting dangerous by the second, and he knew it.
’I have to flee.’
He admitted to himself shamelessly. A dark frown fell on his face, and while everything was vaporizing, the very air was burning without flames.
Rughsbourgh vanished.
Just like that—nothing grand, nothing dramatic. He simply ceased to exist in this space. The domain he had conjured dissolved faster, already being torn down by Absolute Heat.
Northern frowned ferociously and dropped his hand, his eyes scanning the surroundings for a moment.
No matter how he thought about it, Rughsbourgh was gone.
The force that was constantly trying to throw him out of this space was also gone. His body felt relieved as he removed the coating of momentum.
He felt free, like the weight of the world had been lifted from him.
And a restraint on his soul was also released—something he had no idea Rughsbourgh had even put there. But that explained why his summons hadn’t been able to come out of the Limitless Void.
The bastard had constructed a barricade between his soul and the space of reality.
Northern staggered forward but plunged his sword into the ground and leaned on it.
He was silent for a while, then he gritted his teeth and shouted at the peak of his voice.
"YOU BASTAAAARRRDDDD! HOW DARE YOU RUN AWAY!! YOU FOOL!! COME BACK AND LET ME WHIP YOUR MOTHER’S ASS!!"
He exhaled and panted as he stopped, looking toward the clouds as they cleared and the rays of the day star hidden within began to penetrate through.
Then the disappearing dark clouds began to form runic words. Northern belatedly caught it and frowned, then he read internally.
’I am not your enemy.’
His frown grew even darker.
"Why don’t you come down here so we can talk about that man to man, huh?"
However, there was no response. Rughsbourgh was gone. Long gone.
Northern stood alone in the scarred battlefield. The day star was already retreating to the horizon, which was proof enough that Northern had been in battle with Rughsbourgh for almost all day.
Besides that, from the day before into the night he had fought Dante and a Leviathan. Even before that, he had to cut off a Leviathan’s hand and fought in the tournament.
In between that, he had to destroy some Behemoths, defeat a Paragon of Dante’s, and defeat the Academy backstabbers on the flying ship as well.
Now that he wasn’t doing anything, the fatigue was seeping into his soul.
Now that he wasn’t forcing his legs to move, they were aching so badly that his legs were trembling. His hands had stayed clenched so much that he could not unfold them.
And his internal body was screaming—it was a tangled mess of organs and bones. As Chaos slowly fixed it up, Northern was trapped in a vicious cycle of pain.
But he was so used to it that his facial expression didn’t give any of that away.
The pain it took when Chaos was mending his body would naturally kill any other person. The pain alone was enough to drive their brain mad. People lose their sanity from torture, after all.
But Northern, over time, had endured such pain that now it made no difference to him anymore.
As he wanted to move, his vision suddenly went dim. He tried to open his eyes, to keep them open, but it suddenly felt like a herculean task.
One he was too weak for.
As he took a step forward, his consciousness wavered and succumbed to the tempting embrace of rest. Slowly, his body went down.
But a black wing fluttered, black feathers falling from it. She stood gently in front of Northern, letting his jaw fall on her shoulders.
Then she patted his back with a tense smile—one that held a thousand complicated emotions.
Her face swung sideways as she began to hear footsteps. Her expression was wary at first, almost like a cat with its hackles rising, but she did the calms the next minute.
And smiled, as she first saw Helena.
Helena’s eyes widened as she got within close distance.
"Oh... my dead stars... I th...thought I was hallucinating. It really is you, Raven."
Raven’s smile widened a bit as she tilted her head.
"You’ve grown quite strong, Helena."
She threw her face to the side and squeezed her expression for a bit.
"Tell that to Rughsbourgh, who beat the shit out of me without even trying."
She was silent for a moment, then she exhaled and looked at Northern, who was slumped against Raven’s shoulder. She looked around—no sign of Rughsbourgh.
"He fled?"
Raven lingered, then nodded.
Helena released a scoff and shifted her weight to rest on one leg with her hands resting on her waist.
"Of course he fled. Even Rughsbourgh, at the end of the day, was subjected to the might of Northern’s existence. If you want to say someone has grown stronger, you should point to him."
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[A/N]
Amidst all the struggles recently, this volume has come to an end. The next volume, will be a lot of battle and I’d like us to be integrated into it.
I apologize for how unsteady update stability as been. I just need to get my shit together. But I promise to end this book. It’s not gonna stop.
So do not stop supporting, if anything, I need that support now, I hate to admit it but I do, I need the comments to cheer me up, I need to power stones and golden tickets to make me realize that people still care about my book, still care about Northern’s story, I need the gifts to remind me, that a lot of people are giving their all into this, so I must respond with great Chapters, a lot of great Chapters and peak contents!
Thank you