Lieutenant Dante's words hung in the air, thick and unyielding. They carried a resolve so fierce it seemed to press against the very walls of the air. Northern nearly buckled under the weight of it.
Almost.
But the fire inside him burned too hot, his indignation too raw to care about the Lieutenant's willpower or his rank.
Northern's eyes were sharp, cold, defiant. The eerie blue light swirling in their depths didn't just chill the air—it felt like staring into a void that could freeze a man's soul if he lingered too long.
Lieutenant Dante met that gaze without flinching. His own defiance was different—older, tempered by time, yet no less dangerous. The crimson glow in his eyes pulsed like embers in the dark, a silent threat.
Only a few strides separated them, but the space between crackled with an invisible force, two crushing wills clashing, each fighting to dominate the other.
Northern wasn't a Paragon. Defying one should have been impossible—an absurd notion, like a candle trying to outshine the sun. A hundred Sages could stand before Lieutenant Dante under this pressure, and they'd struggle just to breathe. They'd feel the world itself reject them, because a Paragon's connection to existence ran deeper than any Sage could fathom.
But Northern wasn't just any Sage.
The fact that he didn't just withstand the Lieutenant's will—but pushed back against it—spoke louder than words ever could.
Even he was beginning to understand it now—just how much of an anomaly he truly was.
He wasn't pushing back against Lieutenant Dante's will with Chaos or Void. No, he had changed his name and was Burning Storm now.
What radiated from him was a mimicry of a Paragon's will—a poor imitation, a counterfeit. Yet, in the hands of his formless soul, it became something unbreakable. An impregnable weapon forged from sheer resolve.
Maybe it was the fury drowning his soul. Maybe it was the indomitable spirit that refused to bend.
They stared at each other, unblinking. The air between them grew colder, sharper—unnaturally so, as if the world itself recoiled from their clash.
Then—
They moved.
No—
They vanished.
One moment, they stood apart. The next, they collided.
Space twisted. The ground shuddered. Even Fhugal's metallic wall—an impenetrable fortress by design—groaned under the force. No, it didn't just groan. A devastating shockwave erupted from the point of impact, tearing backward in a rage of pure upheaval. The wall shattered, its massive frame ripped from the earth with a thunderous scream.
Ancient trees, survivors of countless storms, were ripped from the soil like twigs in a hurricane. A titanic gust roared through the forest, threatening to strip the land bare.
At the heart of their collision raged a storm of force—furious, tempestuous. Their power carved through the land like twin blades, splitting the earth in a frenzy of destruction.
The very ground buckled beneath them, groaning as if tonight would be its last.
Fhugal had already been shattered by Lieutenant Dante's battle with Paragon Raizel. Now, this new clash didn't just threaten to break the land further—it promised to twist its remains into something darker. A scar so deep the world itself might never heal.
Dante moved with lethal precision, each strike sharp enough to cleave mountains. Northern couldn't deny the flicker of admiration in his chest. The devastation in the man's swordplay was… breathtaking.
If circumstances were different, he would've studied Dante's technique—dissected it, learned from it.
Omniform's Demon of Change and Emulation was already reshaping his understanding of combat, revealing layers he'd never seen before.
But now wasn't the time for revelation.
A single distraction—a single dip in his killing intent—would be fatal.
And against a Paragon like Dante?
Death wouldn't wait for him to blink.
Northern ignored the devastation around him, driving forward with relentless fury. Invisible forces coiled around his fists, each strike carrying the crushing weight of a hundred thunderclaps compressed into a single blow - yet moving with the razor's edge precision of lightning itself.
Where their attacks collided, reality buckled. The very air between them unraveled with every passing second, unable to withstand the fury of their exchange.
Lieutenant Dante's massive curved blade - some hybrid between katana and odachi - came crashing down. Northern didn't evade. Instead, he guided the descending steel aside with one fist while driving the other forward in a counter that should have shattered ribs.
Yet at the last possible instant, an array of mirrors materialized before the Paragon -
Northern's fist never slowed. It smashed through the mirror with terrifying force, sending crystalline shards flying - only for every fragment to freeze midair and hurl his own power back at him.
He didn't flinch. Void Force surged upward as his soul trembled from the impact. His invisible barrier buckled visibly, rippling like thin ice about to shatter.
No time to dwell. No time to think. The battle moved too fast for anything but instinct.
Their strikes became a continuous thunderstorm of collisions, each impact making the very air convulse as if struggling to breathe beneath their assault.
Lieutenant Dante moved like liquid steel - every slash flowing seamlessly into the next, building an inescapable web of attacks. His speed alone should have made defense impossible.
Yet somehow... Northern matched him.
The white-haired teen moved in perfect sync with him—an impossible dance of blades and bare hands. Each time Dante's sword connected with Northern's flesh, it met resistance like a fortress forged from ten thousand celestial alloys—if such a thing even existed.
It was appalling.
Amazing.
Exhilarating.
That someone so young, so seemingly insignificant, could match his speed sent an electric thrill through Dante's veins.
His own velocity was a curse gifted by his light-woven Talent. Not true light-speed—nowhere close—but faster than any Drifter he'd ever crossed blades with… until now.
Northern wasn't keeping up effortlessly. Every burst of speed pushed him to his absolute limit, his feet hammering the earth with enough force to crack the ground beneath them. Each step sent spiderwebs of fractures radiating outward, the very soil disintegrating under the punishment. The air itself screamed in protest, the pressure of their clashing blows threatening to tear the atmosphere apart.
From his vantage point, Bairan paled, his eyes wide with disbelief. The sheer terror of their battle had stolen the breath from the world itself.
Lieutenant Dante and Northern crashed together, rolling across the ruined landscape in a whirlwind of violence. A full minute had passed—hundreds of strikes exchanged—yet neither had landed a clean hit. Their defenses were terrifying in their precision, a relentless barrage of blocks and counters that rang out like thunder, each impact hollowing out the air around them.
Their speed didn't wane; it ravaged everything in its wake. The ground beneath them had long since been reduced to sand, and now even those particles defied gravity, swirling upward in the vortex of their motion.
To the untrained eye, it was pure horror.
But to a true swordsman?
Exhilaration.
Bairan's veins burned with adrenaline, his heart pounding in fierce approval of the master he'd chosen to serve. At this moment, there was nothing—nothing—he desired more than to cross blades with Northern himself.
Yet he knew that dream would have to wait.
For all his monstrous strength, Northern was still just a Sage. He needed time—time to fully harness the power he hoarded within.
But that didn't stop Bairan's lips from twisting into a hungry grin.
Meanwhile, Koll lay half-buried beneath a mountain of debris, his body aching from the impact.
Darkness festered in his eyes—a bitter, choking anguish.
Was this how it would end?
All his grand designs... reduced to rubble like everything around him?
No.
With gritted teeth, he clawed through the wreckage until his fingers closed around a jagged stone. Without hesitation, he began carving a rune into the fractured earth, his movements frantic yet precise.
The thunderous clash between Dante and Northern shook the wasteland around him, but Koll worked undisturbed, his focus absolute.
A circle took shape beneath his bleeding hands.
Kneeling before his creation, he pressed his palms together, closed his eyes, and began whispering words too rapid to comprehend.
The rune's lines pulsed to life—a sickly crimson glow spreading like infected veins. The air curdled with the stench of decay, the very light dimming as though the ground itself were rotting.
It took minutes before the putrid odor reached Bairan.
One sharp inhale—
His nose wrinkled in disgust. Hand clamping over his face, he whirled toward the source.
And found the Prophet.
A snarl twisted Bairan's features as understanding dawned.
"This heathen—"
Bairan vanished into a streak of motion tearing across the battlefield.
Koll looked up as the warrior closed the distance with terrifying speed... and grinned.
"Too late."
A tidal wave of crimson darkness erupted—a churning flood of pure decay that geysered upward like blood from a severed artery. The very air seemed to rot where it passed.
Bairan's body reacted before his mind could. Momentum died mid-flight as he twisted with lethal grace, boots slamming down in a landing that cratered the earth. Dust plumed around him as he rose, casually brushing debris from his immaculate garb.
His eyes—cold, calculating—never left the spreading corruption. The gaze of a predator assessing new variables in the hunt.