"You betrayed your own kind and lost your place among them .. yet you’re nothing more than an outsider among the demons as well. You don’t belong anywhere."
Snow’s Vermithor sank deep into Nito’s flesh, tearing through his hardened skin and leaving countless wounds behind.
"You have no place in this world! A filthy creature like you has only one fate—extinction!"
"Shut that damn mouth!! Didn’t I tell you to stop?!"
BOOOOOOM!!
Nito retaliated violently, launching a ferocious close-range assault, completely disregarding the countless injuries he had sustained.
"You’re nothing but a clueless brat who understands nothing about this world! By what right do the likes of you judge me?!"
Nito’s body ignited as it began to change with every word he spoke.
"Geniuses like you .. born with everything .. can never understand people like me. You never will, because we see this world from a completely different perspective!"
Nito’s body exploded outward, taking on an entirely new form.
Before Snow’s eyes, he revealed his strongest card.
A hybrid body, somewhere between human and dragon.
Long, backward-curving horns.
Massive wings bursting from his back.
Scales spreading across his fists and various parts of his body.
The Pantheon’s hybrid form .. the state that granted them their maximum possible power.
Nito had decided to unleash everything.
And Snow had been waiting for exactly that.
"All that filthy mouth of yours spews are excuses, you damned traitor."
Snow raised his sword, as a tremendous power began to form within it.
"Let me show you what true power looks like .. the kind of power that creatures like you will never obtain, no matter how hard you try...
no matter how many people you betray."
Before Nito’s wide, disbelieving eyes, Snow did something only a handful of beings could accomplish.
Something he had once seen Agaroth, the Demon King, do in the distant past ..
and something he himself had done with Frey in the recent past.
Snow released Pureflame, while simultaneously invoking the power of the Light Soul, merging the two together.
A superior form of power was born.
Something entirely new.
"Merging... two world-breaking abilities?!"
Nito was visibly shaken, unable to comprehend what Snow had just done.
Snow raised his sword high, allowing his new aura to blaze freely.
"That’s right."
This was the power Snow Lionheart had been speaking of .. a power that struck terror straight into Nito’s heart.
Nito ground his teeth together, unleashing a thunderous battle roar.
"Damn you, Scion of the Lord of Light! I will not lose to you!"
He raised his hand .. and something astonishing occurred.
The Slitherin Sword, which he had thrown into space earlier, trembled violently as a translucent aura-duplicate, identical to Nito himself, took form.
The replica grasped the sword, assuming a battle stance.
In the next instant, Nito’s copy unleashed a colossal arc of aura through the Slitherin Sword, firing it down from outer space.
The sword’s ability was unique:
the greater the distance from which an attack was released, the more overwhelmingly powerful it became.
By the time the strike reached Snow, it had manifested as a gigantic arc that blotted out the sky itself.
Faced with this overwhelming assault, Snow answered in kind ..
releasing an arc of aura through Vermithor.
Compared to the incoming attack, Snow’s strike looked modest.
Yet his simple arc cleaved the Slitherin attack cleanly in half with effortless ease.
The reason lay in that ethereal aura born from the fusion of Pureflame and the Light Soul.
"You can try as much as you like," Snow said calmly,
"but you won’t defeat me."
Snow surged forward like a roaring beam of light, crashing into Nito.
Nito drew out every ounce of his power, his pressure shaking the void itself ..
the fourth stage of the SSS rank fully unleashed.
The Dragon Emperor’s fists collided again and again with Vermithor.
Though the blade shattered his scales and tore through his hardened flesh, Nito endured the damage with sheer, stubborn resolve.
At the same time, his duplicate in space continued firing aura arcs relentlessly—
like meteors threatening to strike the planet itself.
Amid the violent clashes, Nito laughed madly.
"The Slitherin’s attacks won’t harm me ..
that aura belongs to me! But what about you?!"
Nito roared as another arc of aura engulfed both him and Snow.
Unlike his previous form, Snow no longer wielded a defensive shield with his free hand .. his new configuration was focused purely on offense.
With Nito’s main body pinning him down, Snow had no opening to defend against the Slitherin’s strikes.
"Who will fall first—me or you? Let’s find out!"
Nito shouted, brimming with confidence.
The battle became one of endurance.
Nito endured Snow’s assaults, empowered by two world-breaking abilities.
Snow endured the Slitherin’s strikes raining down from outer space.
Though Snow was clearly stronger, Nito’s advantage lay in his absolute durability as a Pantheon.
Having surpassed the Manifestation of Origin stage of SSS, Nito had gained his race’s innate traits ..
near-absolute endurance and monstrous vitality that allowed survival under the harshest conditions.
"No matter how strong you become," Nito roared,
"I know I won’t be the first to fall!"
His roar shook the heavens as the devastating blows from space continued to descend.
Yet Snow did not waver in the slightest.
"We’ll see about that," Snow replied, his speed suddenly surging.
The fused power of Pureflame and the Light Soul ..
both were supreme-tier offensive abilities, and the force born from their union was something Nito still could not fully comprehend.
"I created this power in preparation for the day I’d fight the peak of the high Seats .. and the Demon King himself."
"I can’t maintain it for long at my current level. It burns through my aura at an absurd rate and drains me rapidly..."
"But against the likes of you ..
I don’t need to sustain it for long."
At that moment, Nito noticed something crucial .. something he had overlooked in his earlier frenzy.
Snow had not been affected at all by the Slitherin’s devastating strikes.
Not even a scratch marred his armor.
"How?!" Nito shouted in disbelief, just as Vermithor drove deeper into his body.
"The power created by merging the two abilities doesn’t just coat my blade," Snow said coldly.
"It envelops my entire body."
As he spoke, the fused aura became clearly visible, covering his formidable armor completely.
"This power is the greatest offense .. and the ultimate defense at the same time.
A force that leaves no weakness...
true power that creatures like you will never reach."
Snow’s eyes blazed as he unleashed his full might.
His sword became the brush of a master artist—
one who used no color but red.
The sky turned into a canvas.
Blood scattered everywhere.
Snow’s speed multiplied exponentially, and his sword vanished from sight.
The terrifying rampage of Snow Lionheart lasted only a few seconds ..
yet it was enough to bring everything to an end.
There, upon the utterly devastated southern continent...
Snow hovered calmly in the sky, gripping Nito’s collapsed body by the throat.
Nito was torn apart .. a pitiful, miserable state.
Both arms severed completely, along with his right leg.
As for the left, barely anything remained after Snow had shredded it.
Dozens of bloody gashes covered Nito’s chest and face...
he was barely alive.
Not by his own will ..
but because Snow had deliberately allowed it.
Snow’s white armor slowly faded away, along with his transcendent aura, returning him to his usual human form.
"You made a grave mistake, traitor of the Pantheon, choosing this land as your target."
"Humanity will not lose anymore—because they have me and Frey on their side.
With the two of us here, your defeat is inevitable."
Snow spoke with absolute confidence before darting away, dragging Nito’s broken body with him.
Far out in space, the Slitherin Sword floated alone after Nito’s duplicate vanished with his defeat.
But it didn’t last long.
Snow soon appeared, grasping the Slitherin Sword, a wide smile spreading across his face.
"I’ve always wanted a second sword, just like Frey," he said mockingly.
"And you gave me the opportunity, traitor of the Pantheon."
He lifted Nito’s battered body before him, sneering.
"Looks like I’ll be taking something else from you .. besides the Light Soul."
With that, Snow surged back toward the Shadow Sect,
having achieved a decisive victory over the Ninth high Seat.