Chapter 991: Battlefield of Gods
It hung behind him like a massive, perfect sphere of ice, cold mist streaming from its surface in ghostly wisps.
Northern studied his own body, noting what freezing the sun had done to him.
His form had changed completely from what it once was. Being able to connect with the world around him at a deeper level meant he could tap into several of his talents and their powers, especially the elemental ones.
This meant some reactions from Northern’s elemental talent could directly touch his body. Or to put it more clearly, his body could drink from the benefits that flowed from it.
Extreme cold made the body brittle and stiff, slowing it down like rusted metal. That’s why Northern hadn’t relied on just the ice side of his talent.
That’s exactly why he had frozen the sun. While he wrapped FrostHeart around Sun Legacy, the latter still burned bright and kept strengthening his body.
But Northern was using that stiff point in his muscles, so he needed the ice. He used the sun’s heat to keep his muscles rigid while stretching their snap-back power.
It was dangerous and should have been impossible, but Northern’s body defied the rules.
He did this because he needed the raw power. Northern could have switched his name to Titan’s Reckoning or Burning Flame to boost his strength. But he also needed his talents to work together like a well-oiled machine. Sure, he could make a clone and use them as different tools, just like before.
But Northern held back because of the difficulty of being two people at the same time. If it was anything weaker, especially groups of monsters, he wouldn’t have cared. But right now, he had to watch every move like a chess master.
This was a Leviathan. He couldn’t test things out against this kind of beast.
There was one more gift from how his body worked with his elemental talents.
Northern drew breath, cold air pouring from every gap in his armor like winter’s ghost. Then he spun fast, throwing a punch that cut through the air like lightning.
The blow smashed into the tentacle that whipped toward him. The entire world shook from a powerful blast that ripped outward with bone-rattling force.
Then the tentacle broke apart. Everything shattered into a spray of ice chunks that rained down and struck the stone.
Annette dodged one huge piece of ice and looked down. There... it really looked like solid ice all the way through.
This was different from something being frozen. It seemed like over a hundred meters of the tentacle had turned into pure ice and exploded into pieces...
’All from his punch?’
Her eyes trembled.
’Northern... what has he become?’
She hadn’t even scratched that thing with everything she had. And she was a Sage! It made no sense unless he was a Paragon.
Even in theory, it was impossible for a Paragon to beat a Leviathan. But of course, there were monsters who had fought nothing but evil creatures above their level and had grown incredibly strong even as Sages or Paragons.
In fact the only reason why she survived was because she was part of such a category. Any other Sage would have died before they even began. After all, the Head Instructor that quivered in fear was also a Sage.
Northern too was part of such category. The only problem was that it should have been impossible for Northern to reach Paragon level.
It wasn’t that simple.
’I’m sure he’s not a Paragon... he’d be stronger than this if he was.’
Even though Annette wrestled with wonder, she got it. Northern really was a Sage like her, but his power had shot past his rank and maybe sat right next to a Paragon’s strength.
Maybe, when he finally became a Paragon, Northern would be as strong as a Transcendent.
Her eyes went wide, her heart felt like it might burst from the thrill.
’Transcendent...’
She tried to wrap her mind around it but couldn’t grasp anything. A Transcendent was, after all, something that hadn’t been seen in two whole eras!
Meanwhile, Northern was already cutting through the air, sliding at a terrifying speed that made him invisible to most other Drifters. Only the cold trails that hung in his wake could be used to track where he had been, and even then, he was already long gone before anyone’s eyes reached that spot.
The tentacles chased him with stunning skill, almost catching up at times. This made it hard to follow the tentacles themselves, but they were so long and thick that they could still be traced no matter what. Following them let everyone watching from below find the flying man in the end, but they kept missing him. Before they could lock their eyes on him, he was already somewhere else.
He moved so fast that their eyes hurt trying to track him. Some of them were crying. Not from sadness - staring too hard had made their eyes water.
And the tears... froze solid before they could touch their cheeks.
The battlefield felt wrong in every way. It felt like a war zone for beings born in the age of stars, the time of legends. Beings that could crack worlds with a snap of thunder, beings that should not exist in this time at all!
All of them, mostly the teachers - both the ones who had followed Northern and the ones still at the school - stood frozen, staring up with faces full of awe. They squinted hard, horror slowly eating away at their expressions.
Even the other Majors that had been tearing through the school had stopped at some point, watching the scene play out with deep frowns. Some shook their heads:
"How in the world...?"
The air itself seemed to hold its breath at the awful speed Northern was moving with. Then it shook with fear of being torn apart by the mad speed the tentacles chased Northern with.
The fact that they could even match such speed was shocking and really showed the endless power of a Leviathan. The creature’s main body had not made any real moves except when it dug through the academy wall and brought it down with its huge tentacles, and when it broke free from the ice mountain Northern had trapped it with.
Northern flew at a speed that broke every rule of how fast a human could move.
No one watching him could have believed, even in their wildest dreams, that he was just a Sage.
He was too powerful... so much that the Sage title felt like it was dragging him down instead of lifting him up.