Chapter 312

Chapter 312

Overcast skies.

A night where the crescent moon remained hidden.

Aster’s dark form pressed forward across the untouched expanse of pristine white drifts.

Rumble—

A low thunderclap accompanied every stride that met the earth, and by the time his silhouette had surged into the distance, violent gales rushed in his wake.

Through Aster’s eyes, the surroundings spun in a chaotic blur.

A boundless sheet of white frost. Snowflake after snowflake descending without intermission.

Murky clouds hung above, the pale ground stretched below, and the dark of night choked the space between them.

Black, white, and shades of gray.

It seemed as though all vibrant color had been bled from the world.

The monochrome landscape felt less like a sacred realm and more like an ominous omen, less like a warning and more like a bloodless corpse.

No, perhaps the one feeling suffocated and lifeless was not the surrounding space, but Aster himself.

If so, what was it that suffocated him?

“The patriarch Decullan… has arrived at the second black and white slums.”

In truth, nothing was set in stone.

Pahren von Decullan making an appearance at the Second Black and White Slums was a startling development, but his ultimate motive remained obscured.

Given the current climate, Pahren was hardly in a position to behave recklessly.

The Second Black and White Slums had already fallen under the jurisdiction of the Grand Duchy of Muspellun, and with armistice talks looming on the horizon, the Decullan family had no choice but to remain sensitive to the disposition of the imperial court.

Therefore…

…Pahren’s grand march was highly likely a calculated snare meant to bait him out.

Here I am, stepping directly into your domain. What is your move? Will you merely watch?

Will you skulk in the shadow of the Grand Duke of Muspellun and hold your tongue? Even if I trample over what is yours?

It was an empty provocation he could never truly back up.

And yet.

Aster did not decelerate in the slightest. In fact, he did quite the opposite, pushing his pace even harder.

It was unavoidable.

He could easily dismiss a cheap verbal threat, but his adversary was Pahren.

The man who had staked his entire lineage’s future on the Celestial Origin Art.

The one who ultimately crushed the Blandoga Family and seized their legacy as his own.

A figure who had climbed to the absolute pinnacle of historical might.

An ultimatum delivered by such a man could never be reduced to mere words.

Thus, Aster tore through the fabric of space itself. He pierced straight through the raging blizzard.

In a realm where the moon was obscured and visibility was practically zero, he navigated using nothing but transcendental senses and surged ahead.

Crash—

Thunder resounded with every footfall. Gales collided. Flawless white snow. Thunder once more, wind, snow… and still more snow.

It wasn’t long before Aster began to ease his momentum.

He gradually ground to a halt, narrowing his eyes at the environment ahead.

In the area where the snowstorm whipped with unbridled fury, nothing could be seen with the naked eye, but his senses cleanly locked onto an active presence.

Whenever the heavy snow briefly thinned, the silhouette of that entity materialized for a fleeting second, and with his hyper-acute sight, Aster identified the individual from that alone.

His opponent was a massive sorcerer.

Was he easily two meters tall? Even draped beneath his heavy robes, his hulking, powerful frame was unmistakable.

He bore the resemblance of a vanguard knight rather than a practitioner of magic, yet Aster was entirely certain that, regardless of appearance, he was a sorcerer.

He recognized him.

That face.

“……Holland.”

A faint mutter. To ordinary ears, the sound would have been utterly drowned out by the howling blizzard.

But Holland was no ordinary man, and his senses, sharpened to a lethal edge, could pick out the sound of a needle striking the floor amidst absolute chaos.

Because of this, a grin spread across Holland’s face.

“You know who I am?”

As if there were any reality where he wouldn’t.

Aster, however, offered no reply.

‘Just as I thought…’

It was indeed an ambush.

Yet even with his suspicions confirmed, Aster’s expression remained utterly unbothered. He wasn’t putting on a facade of composure.

After all, his features had been shrouded from the very beginning.

He was simply analyzing the parameters.

His adversary… and himself.

But was his opponent doing the exact same thing?

“For a long time, I fantasized about the day I would rip you to pieces. But… hmm, heh.”

The grin widened, contorting into something truly monstrous. With that, Holland burst into a laugh of pure ecstasy, pressing a hand against his own chest.

“It has been an eternity since my blood has boiled like this.”

He meant every word.

It was unlike his brief clash against Lortel’s blade earlier.

It was unlike imagining a duel against Aeviron under that same shadow.

His blood wouldn’t burn like this if his foe were merely powerful. Let alone against the weak.

Holland had realized something.

A true rival.

The masked figure standing before him was the exact entity he had spent his entire life searching for.

“Let me confirm. You are the Lord of the Tower, correct?”

He wasn’t asking out of ignorance. Holland had stationed himself there specifically to ambush the Lord of the Tower. It was simply… unbelievable.

The man he was destined to destroy… was the rival of his wildest dreams. Could there be a more perfect twist of fate?

Yet in stark contrast to the ecstatic Holland….

Aster observed him with freezing eyes.

And soon, a muffled crack of thunder shook the air.

Rumble—

The very instant the sound registered…

…Boom!

A bolt of lightning crashed directly into Holland. Naturally, that lightning bolt was Aster.

“Magnificent. Yes, there is no need for words.”

Holland smiled viciously at Aster, who had bounced back from the force of the barrier’s impact. Searing embers erupted from his fingertips and…

Detonation.

Screech—

White, black, and gray.

Crimson blazes disrupted the monochrome world, while jagged blue currents of lightning surged upward toward the heavens.

The clearing where the monstrous blazes had finally died down lay in a blackened, charred ruin.

Snowflakes drifting from the sky dissolved into mist before they could even brush against the earth.

And at the dead center of the blast radius.

Holland swept his gaze across the area, a feral smirk playing on his lips. Nothing was visible.

If his foe had been some commonplace magician, Holland would have undoubtedly assumed they had been completely vaporized by the blast.

But Holland understood the sheer caliber of his enemy. No sorcerer of that rank would perish from such an explosion.

No, it was impossible.

“Where are you hiding? Come out…”

As Holland spoke…

Creeeak!

A low, crushing sound suddenly manifested directly above.

Holland looked upward instinctively. And there…

A singular spear.

Colossal.

And utterly ruthless.

Mana and magical energy compressed to their absolute limits. The volatile force of their violent friction.

Holland recognized the peril in a fraction of a second, and in that same heartbeat, he spotted the sorcerer wielding the weapon.

The lightning spear plummeted toward Holland immediately after.

Kiiing—

Transcendence unleashed.

In that fractured split-second, Holland tracked the oncoming strike. And he pondered.

Could his physical form withstand the brunt of that?

The conclusion was plain.

‘Imposible.’

It would shred him to pieces, leaving not even a corpse behind within the destructive wake.

Even a defensive barrier possessed its thresholds. One erected in a frantic rush would shatter entirely, along with all its elements.

If he had only realized a single second—or even a tenth of a second—prior, he might have intercepted it cleanly.

What now?

Fiery blazes bloomed right before Holland’s eyes at that exact juncture.

Roar—

In the vacant air, the embers ignited and expanded entirely on their own.

No conventional incantation could prompt such an instantaneous manifestation in a single heartbeat.

Even magical fire required oxygen to combust, possessing unavoidable speed restrictions.

But how?

The explanation was elementary.

This was the ultimate realization of Red Fire.

Flames that combusted entirely on their own.

It was precisely that phenomenon.

Having verified that the Red Fire had ignited, Holland seized the fleeting window of opportunity and hurled himself away.

…Boom!

A cataclysmic detonation. The flames slammed into the lightning currents and exploded, the condensed pressure of the spear obliterating everything in sight.

A disadvantageous recovery. After rolling twice across the ruined earth, Holland rapidly regained his footing.

And in a single heartbeat—

Boom!

A fist lunged straight toward his face.

“Kh, hehe.”

Holland let out a chuckle.

Their engagement resembled a clash of knights far more than a duel between sorcerers.

Wielding raw magic instead of steel blades, shifting their bodies ahead of any incantations to strike directly at the throat.

Moving forward without a care for shedding blood, sacrificing flesh just to sever the opponent’s bone.

Holland took a direct punch to the jaw while driving his knee straight into his adversary’s solar plexus.

As his foe gasped out a strained “Guh!”, Holland unleashed a barrage of savage, merciless strikes.

Not every blow hit home, naturally.

Clang, claaang—!

Several attacks were deflected by shifting barriers.

Crunch, craaack!

Bones fractured under the routine force of the impacts.

On occasion, Aster’s targeted concussions found their mark, but Holland consistently evaded any lethal trauma through animalistic reflexes, retaliating by setting Aster ablaze.

They traded wounds that would easily slaughter ordinary mortals without pause, yet their transcendent physiques were scarcely human anymore.

Even without the Light of Healing, the restorative magic of a transcendent archmage far surpassed conventional limits.

Granted, much like Shine’s clash with Aeviron, a truly fatal injury could disrupt that balance, but the gaps between Aster and Holland’s domains were not so wide.

No, it wasn’t merely a matter of their domains.

Their practical combat experience matched perfectly as well.

Crash!

Because of this, Holland could maintain his composure even when facing an explosion that would rip flesh apart.

He understood its non-lethal radius and, rather than retreating, slipped along its perimeters to hunt for openings.

When Holland’s brutal grip clamped firmly around Aster’s throat, Aster betrayed not a single shred of panic.

He knew.

Roar—

The flames enveloping him lacked the power to end his life.

Crack.

The chokehold was on the verge of snapping his neck, but he possessed the fortitude to endure it.

Aster seized Holland’s forearm in return, deploying the Collision Formula. Without the luxury of time to draw upon the ambient mana around them, he solely circulated his internal magical reserves.

“Gahk…!”

In the end, Holland broke his hold first and surged backward.

Aster might have severed the man’s arm right then… but he was forced to step back to extinguish the persistent flames consuming his own form.

A momentary lull.

Holland laughed aloud.

“Magnificent.”

Pure, unadulterated sincerity.

Aster, however, did not share the laughter.

Instead, his gaze drifted past Holland’s broad shoulder.

Toward the snow-swept horizon.

…The second black and white slums.

He simply observed it all.

Aster thought to himself.

‘Young patriarch, you see, you were mistaken.’

‘That one has no option but to grow powerful when there is something left to protect?’

Even while committing his entire mind and body against an opponent whose defeat was far from certain, his focus wavered in this manner.

A divided mind invited ruin.

And it was all…

Because there was something he had to safeguard.

And yet.

Aster reignited his surging aura.

The force that prevented him from retreating despite sensing the shadow of defeat was elementary.

…Deep within his chest, a singular tower.

That was what he carried within.