Chapter 300: Collapsing Heaven, Rising Resolve
My body lay sprawled in the crater, back half-buried in cracked earth. Dust floated around me as I blinked up at the sky. Far above, Arkas hovered calmly, staring down like a god inspecting the mortal he’d just swatted out of the sky.
My mind kept replaying that skill.
It was... beautiful.
There was no chant, no build-up, no dramatic gesture. Just a soft whisper...."Collapsing Heaven" and the entire world bent around his will. I hadn’t even had time to react. My wings had shattered. My domain was torn apart. Everything I’d built felt like a castle made of ash.
I groaned and slowly pushed myself up.
Pain pulsed through every limb. My skin was cut open in places, and blood flowed along my arms and neck. I looked down at myself, grimacing at the damage.
"[Verdant Extraction]," I whispered.
My perception stretched into the earth, reaching out to the trees, the roots, even the moss beneath shattered stones. Life force surged up, pulled from the world and funneled through my feet. Warmth rushed through my veins as the energy spread, mending tissue, sealing wounds, washing away the ache.
I stood up straighter feeling refreshed from the sudden surge of life force.
Arkas landed softly in front of me. A small smile tugged at his lips as he looked me over.
"You’re full of surprises, kid," he said. "You picked up a healing skill too?"
I ignored his teasing and asked the real question.
"What kind of skill was that?"
He answered immediately, a little too casually.
"A good one. You liked it?"
I stared at him. Something about that skill didn’t sit right. It hadn’t just been powerful. It had been... layered. Structured on a level I hadn’t seen before. My instincts told me it was more than just raw force.
Probably something tied to his rank as a Grandmaster.
That attack showed me the gap between us wasn’t something stats alone could fix.
For a moment, I considered activating Node 3, calling on everything—Lyrate, Silver, everything I had but something inside told me it wouldn’t be enough. Not yet.
Still, there was one thing I could do.
I rolled my shoulders, smirked, and said, "Yes, I liked it. Liked it so much that I want to see it again."
Arkas chuckled.
"Don’t tell me I broke something in you with just one skill."
I shook my head.
"No, Commander. I’m perfectly fine. All mental faculties intact. I just want to feel that again... and bow in appreciation at your greatness."
He snorted.
"That you should. You’re still a long way off from replacing me."
I nodded repeatedly.
"Yes, absolutely. I couldn’t agree more."
He took a breath, then pointed his trident straight at me again.
"All right then. I’m satisfied with your progress, so I’ll grant your wish. Prepare yourself."
I nodded, appreciating the man for playing along with my request.
I closed my eyes and gave the silent command.
’Node 3, activate.’
The lowest rune on my spine flared to life. The Essence coursing through my channels and in my generator got consumed rapidly as all my stats surged at once, straining every muscle in my body.
Then something unexpected happened.
A tremor passed through my mind and another fracture formed in my Psynapse.
I opened my eyes in surprise. I checked my status and saw the number.
I’d crossed the 2000 mark for the first time and a third fracture had awakened.
The world sharpened again. Everything was brighter, clearer, faster. My thoughts flowed like a river. I forced myself to ignore the rush of euphoria and locked all three fractures onto Arkas.
’[Absolute Domain],’ I mentally activated my domain.
A violet pulse spread out, enveloping both of us in the field.
Then, I reached into the power I’d been saving. The skill unlocked by my class evolution, the first of the Rights.
I whispered inside my mind.
’[Right to Insight].’
The violet circle around my pupils glowed brighter.
Suddenly the world changed.
Within the domain, everything unfolded into runes.
I saw Arkas’s body, not just his limbs and weapons but his Essence flow, his life force, and the invisible strings of his control over lightning and the environment.
Then I heard him speak.
"Collapsing Heaven."
The moment he uttered it, the web ignited.
The strands I saw shimmered with structure. I watched, stunned, as lightning laws interwove with laws of wind, not simply stacked, but braided, reinforced.
Wind didn’t follow lightning. It was part of it. There were no gaps, no sequential flow like my skills had. Instead of "Step 1 then Step 2", this was a unified command—one law with two voices.
Essence and skill had become inseparable.
Through the glowing eyes of [Right to Insight], I watched the laws of wind restructure themselves.
A field of vibrating air particles surrounded me, each of them pulsing in perfect rhythm. Waves formed—concentric and layered—and I realized I was the center. Everything bent inward, the point where every wave converged.
Then the lightning came.
Streaks flashed in all directions, but they weren’t chaotic. They danced to the same rhythm, syncing with the wind’s vibrations. The laws of lightning and wind harmonized. Not layered. Not following one another. Just... one. Unified.
All three of my fractures strained, decoding every detail the Right fed me within my Absolute Domain.
As soon as that harmony locked in place, a strange ripple passed through the space around me. Energy flooded into the structure. It overloaded the natural balance of the area.
My domain runes flickered, caught in the merging forces. I watched them unravel, their structure overridden. The domain collapsed. And with it, [Right to Insight] faded.
But it didn’t matter. I had already seen what I needed.
I took a breath and prepared.
"[Sovereign Absorption]."
Violet vortexes spun to life around me, ready to siphon as much energy as they could into my core.
"[Spatial Shield]."
Space itself shimmered, pressing inward to form a translucent barrier.
Then it began.
The vibrating wind folded inward. The lightning twisted and tightened with it. A funnel formed—dense and unstable. At the very center of the convergence, a tiny, white-hot point of compressed energy floated above me. A single dot of annihilation.
And then—
BOOM!!!
The world detonated.
The vortexes flared, absorbing the first wave. Energy channeled straight into my generator core, nearly overloading it. One by one, the vortexes shattered.
Then came the shield. It held longer. It compressed, groaned, cracked and finally shattered like glass under a hammer.
But I wasn’t done.
I channeled Essence into the earth.
"Rise."
The ground buckled, forming a thick dome above me. It took the brunt of the next blast but the pressure kept climbing. The dome exploded in a spray of rock and dust.
And the final wave slammed into me.
I hit the ground again, smashing deeper into the crater I’d made earlier. My body ached. My arms trembled. But I wasn’t in pain.
Not like before.
A smile crept onto my face as the dust settled. I felt satisfied with what I observed. I could see the road ahead for myself, my skills and my laws.
I stood up and dusted myself off. This time, I didn’t even bother healing. It wasn’t needed.
Arkas walked toward me. His trident vanished from his hand as he desummoned it. He stopped in front of me and smiled before patting my shoulder.
"I’m glad you’re back in one piece."
I nodded, a small grin tugging at my lips.
"Of course. That should’ve been expected."
He chuckled softly.
"You’ve grown very strong."
There was a pause in his voice, before he continued.
"I think it’s time for you to start getting involved with the real threats we face. To stand as a sword—not just for the Empire, but maybe someday... for humanity itself."
My grin faded. I nodded slowly, expression sharpening.
He turned around, facing the distant edge of the horizon.
"Let’s go," he said. "The Emperor has invited you."