Chapter 582: Frey Starlight vs Joseph Blattier (3)
BOOOOM!!
Spear and swords crashed again, Blattier pressing Frey harder and harder.
"What good is this miserable struggle of yours, Frey Starlight?"
BOOOOM!!!
Another hit—Frey staggered farther back.
"You clearly can’t defeat me. You can’t even wound me, nor pierce this great shield tempered by the souls of millions."
BOOOOM!!!!
"Why keep fighting to deny the inevitable? In the end you’ll die—just like every fool who ever dared stand against the Church of Purification."
Blattier kept talking—until Frey answered with an even greater surge of shadow-aura.
"I told you... you talk too much," Frey said.
Blattier’s eyes flared white. "You’re right. There’s no need for words anymore."
His aura poured thicker, gathering at his spear’s tip—
—and he unleashed a roaring beam of holy light straight into Frey’s face, a torrent that erased the entire upper half of his body, down to exposed flesh and bone.
Blattier’s power kept swelling; he was finally starting to master his new might.
He lunged again—and Frey did the same.
Half a body of meat and bone, Frey still attacked, ignoring his wounds and forcing his limbs to move by sheer Shadow Adaptation.
BOOOOM!!!
The battle was on another plane entirely... a level Frey had never faced.
"This is SSS..."
The opening step into the absolute power his deadliest enemies wielded.
"I have to hold..."
BOOOOM!!!
Another explosion tore Frey apart further—and the ground with him.
"I have to hold," he whispered, forcing his body to move again.
"If I fall to him, how can I even dream of facing the monsters beyond?"
Blattier was the trial—the wall Frey had to cross, whatever it cost.
His foe was the weakest of SSS—freshly broken through, by crooked means that might make him less than others of the same rank.
If Frey Starlight couldn’t endure here, there was no point in going on.
The fight dragged on; Blattier’s patience thinned.
Feeding more power into his colossal spear, he swatted Frey away yet again—
then, gathering everything, raised his weapon to the heavens.
"Let me show you—the true power of a sovereign!"
Blattier’s body blazed; the sky itself split as if he’d opened a gate to another world.
From that rift, a titanic spear took shape, its girth blotting out the entire island—packed with SSS-ranked aura, the kind only a handful in history had ever witnessed.
One annihilating strike—enough to erase the City of Eternal Night.
Blattier aimed it squarely at Frey, intent on erasing him outright.
Frey stared up for a heartbeat, stunned—then clenched his teeth, every muscle drawing taut as he raised Velerion, the Black Terror, to meet the falling spear.
"All of it—every last drop of aura in me."
Every grain of strength, every shard of the being called Frey Starlight, he poured into the attack that would carry all of him.
Within that young body, an aura also classed as SSS surged—equal to Blattier’s, perhaps even beyond.
He cut upward in a vertical arc to meet the spear, unleashing the strongest strike in his arsenal:
"Ten Thousand Steps of Shadow — Frey Starlight Style... Nameless Judgement!!!"
It was a terrifying technique—no matter how many times he unleashed it, it never lost its splendor in the eyes of those who saw it.
Unleashing it at its fullest, Frey sent Nameless Judgement crashing head-on into the colossal spear.
A vast vertical slash swallowed space itself—and threatened to swallow the spear with it.
Light-aura and dark-aura clashed again, but this time on a wholly different plane.
The impact of those titanic forces hurled out shockwaves that shook not only the island, but the wide sea around it.
Across the planet called Earth, sensitives felt the flood of aura, unable to comprehend what was happening in that distant corner of the world.
The collision was immense—but this time, the darkness overran the light. Nameless Judgement shattered the spear completely, then detonated in the sky in a breathtaking bloom that left every onlooker gaping.
Even Blattier hadn’t expected Frey to repel a full-power strike.
Seizing that instant of shock, Frey tore through the veiling storm of aura and appeared before Blattier, forcing his battered body forward.
This was his one opening—
his single chance to wound the foe whose defenses he hadn’t pierced since the fight began.
Face to face, at point-blank range, Frey Starlight swung Dark Sister, drawing more and more from the ocean of aura within him.
"I’ve never poured out this much aura in my life..."
He had pushed himself too far—but this enemy left him no choice.
He had used Nameless Judgement once against a War Angel, and again now against Blattier. Twice should have been the limit; any more and his body would break beyond battle-worthiness.
But against an opponent of this tier, Frey knew he had to break his limits to have even a single chance.
Drinking the very air from around him, Frey let loose a thunderous war-cry and cleaved for Blattier as the latter raised his shield.
Another strike into which Frey Starlight emptied everything he had.
"Nameless Judgement!!!"
SLAAASH!!!!!
With a third Nameless Judgement, he split the world again, engulfing Blattier in that torrent of overwhelming aura.
The blow distilled Frey Starlight’s story to this point—the peak of the offensive power he had reached in his life.
A terrifying strike that could reach even those of SSS-class.
From within the violet darkness, Frey’s eyes stayed locked on his foe,
waiting for the result—
the result of his struggle and all the pain till now.
He didn’t wait long. Out of the ruin and shadow,
Blattier emerged again.
He still blazed with dazzling holy light, unbroken—but this time,
his great shield was finally gone, dissolving into the air. And the left arm that had borne it was destroyed—obliterated by Nameless Judgement.
He had hurt him for the first time—but it wasn’t nearly enough. His enemy still stood, ready to fight.
"All that... just to cost me a single arm," Blattier said, a deep voice edged with anger, eyes flaring at Frey Starlight.
Frey panted hard, fighting not to collapse.
"Congratulations. You managed to wound me and break my shield. Are you pleased, Frey Starlight? Your power reached me—I who stand here after sacrificing millions of souls..."
Blattier glanced at the ruined limb—then dismissed it. With a surge of blinding light, he renewed it, shaping a new arm from pure aura.
"You don’t seem capable of giving more than that, Frey Starlight. It seems you’ve hit your limit."
Step by step, Blattier advanced, colossal spear in hand.
"Time to end this."
The battle had entered its final phase.
Frey Starlight had poured out everything in his arsenal, yet still couldn’t defeat his foe.
Blattier had finally taken real damage—but it was so trivial he erased it at once.
Between the two, the tide swung harshly against Frey Starlight, who neared defeat; his mind raced for any escape.
The longer the fight dragged on, the clearer the gulf became—the gulf between his strength and that of the monsters who belonged to that legendary class.
Between Frey Starlight and Joseph Blattier—under the eyes of those watching from afar—
the war against the Church moved into its last act, poised to end at last.