Chapter 999: Team-Work [part 2]
BOOM!
The ground shook as the first strike hit home. Another blow followed right after.
Titan’s Reckoning landed first, the impact bouncing back with unnatural force—something ancient and terrible. Wind burst from the collision, spider-webbing the ground with a thousand cracks in an instant. The force shattered stone and sent debris chunks flying skyward.
The monster’s leg buckled, its massive weight shifting off-balance. In that split second, Northern—as Burning Flame—struck with crushing momentum.
Just before Burning Storm’s attack could connect, Northern crashed down on the beast. Sinister blackish-purple flames roared to life, blazing with pure destruction.
The Leviathan moved for the first time. Its folded wings spread wide at lightning speed, covering hundreds of meters in a heartbeat before folding forward like a shield.
But the flames were too much. They smashed through, peeling away skin like crumbling stone.
At the same moment, another force slammed into its right limb. The creature’s entire body shuddered.
Without pause, the wind howled and struck with deadly purpose. This wasn’t ordinary momentum.
Northern attacked with cutting gales. Using his wind control, he mixed Breakneck’s edge into the gusts. Burning Storm had to channel it, and both abilities merged—even without sharing the same name.
The different names still created limits. Northern could not boost the cutting power by pouring void essence into it right away.
But either way, this could work. The wind danced around the Leviathan like a blade, gliding across its surface. Deep cuts tore through what seemed like ancient, unbreakable hide.
Northern grinned as wounds opened across its skin. Then watched them seal shut just as fast.
This wasn’t healing. The cuts didn’t even bleed before closing.
The way they sealed felt like Chaos—how Chaos rebuilt his own body, but faster.
’Why does this thing feel so much like Chaos?’
What were the odds this monster came from Chaos? Any monster could, really.
But there was something wrong about this Chaos. It felt twisted in every way possible.
Then again, shouldn’t Chaos feel wrong? Or was his own Chaos the twisted one?
Northern yanked his thoughts back on track.
’Let’s not go down that road.’
Now that the Leviathan was moving, it seemed even angrier. Its wings hung torn and ragged, pieces falling to the ground in a shower of fragments. Each piece that hit the earth got swallowed by red mist. In the next breath, flying and fast-crawling monsters burst from the haze, joining the fight.
None of the Leviathan’s body parts were wasted, dead or alive. Northern almost felt like he needed them alive, because dead they just gave the mist more soldiers to create.
Burning Storm moved and struck the skin with his fist, but it was like punching solid steel. The beast’s hide met him with such resistance that his entire hand shattered in an instant.
This shocked him. Just moments ago, the monster’s hindlimb had buckled under his momentum, and he was still charging with that same force. So how?
The answer was clear—the monster had rewritten the rules of its own body.
’This is going to be rough.’
Burning Storm believed he could break through whatever rules the monster had changed with its will.
A Leviathan might seem deadly and powerful with its terrifying ability to bend reality, but if Northern had to guess, that very power was also their weakness. This wasn’t their world, after all.
It must take everything they had to mess with the rules of a world that didn’t want them here.
He nodded.
’That’s right.’
Burning Storm kept moving and striking. He summoned Illusioned Hefter, and even though each strike was useless—like hitting metal with a straw—he didn’t stop.
The beauty of Burning Storm’s ability lay in building up over time.
When he mixed momentum that had already peaked without needing to charge with momentum that kept building with every second, even he was curious what would happen.
But the Evil Dragon wasn’t going to wait around for them to find out.
Its torn wings spread wide like a dark canopy, casting shadows across the land. Then it began to flap hard, slowly lifting its massive body into the sky.
The beast opened its mouth as it rose, and a deep orange glow radiated from inside its throat.
The two Northerns stood ready—the third one, Titan’s Reckoning, had gone back to fighting the smaller monsters and saving people.
"Holy hell..."
Northern muttered as the monster’s jaw stretched even wider. A thin white beam shot out.
Burning Storm raised his hands. The air rippled in front of them as he strengthened it with Momentum’s Guard. But the light beam tore through easily, ripping the momentum apart with savage force. Burning Storm felt the ability snap back into him, making him stumble and cough up blood.
Northern didn’t have time to react properly. He threw out his own hand, filling the air with Void Force just as the deadly light beam broke through the momentum coating.
A flame powerful enough to tear through momentum that easily would definitely shatter the world if it hit the ground. The whole academy might not survive it.
That’s why he was fighting so hard to stop it.
The light beam pushed forward. Even though Void Force had stopped it, it kept trying to break through the separated reality and strike the earth.
But Void Force created endless space. No matter how fast the beam was going, it could never...
Northern suddenly shook.
His eyes went wide as he felt something wrong again. Blood dripped from his nose and mouth.
His brow creased into a frown.
’Soul damage?’
It felt like the monster’s attack had found a way to slice through Void Force’s reality walls, leading straight to Limitless Void. A brutal assault hit the core of Limitless Void, sending terrible pain through Northern’s soul.
Before he could fully understand what was happening, something else tore inside him. He coughed up a spray of blood. In that moment, Void Force flickered and for the first time ever, vanished completely.
The light beam shot through and slammed into the ground with crushing force.