Translator: CinderTL
"Stop!"
Feeling the torrential surge of demonic magic still raging within him, Roland gritted his teeth and issued a forced command to the control gem.
The tamed Chaos Construct faithfully obeyed.
But how could it possibly contain such an endless torrent of magic?
The control gem strained to suppress it, but its efforts were like a cup of water against a raging inferno, only barely slowing the flow of magic.
Though the rate of inflow did gradually decrease over time, and Roland might have eventually adapted and gained control of this power...
His body couldn't hold out that long.
Not a single second more.
Mind Self-Shaping!
The Consciousness Shoal had been torn to shreds by the violent magic. Roland poured every ounce of his strength into guiding psionic energy to forcibly stabilize the core of his consciousness, which was on the verge of disintegration.
"Release! I need an outlet, now!"
"Or I'll be blown apart by this magic in the next moment!"
With this thought, he rasped hoarsely at the witch not far away.
"Vanessa, close your eyes!"
"Hmm?"
The witch's eyebrows rose slightly, but she paid no heed to the warning. Instead, she shifted sideways with keen interest, moving to Roland's oblique side. Her eyes gleamed with pure curiosity as she scrutinized his face, contorted in agony.
"Servant of the Dark Night Maiden, let me see what you truly... are..."
Before she could finish, a faint orange-red light suddenly blazed before her eyes.
Seeing the familiar initial gesture of a trick, Vanessa raised an eyebrow.
"Such a trivial trick could never unleash such a tremendous..."
But Roland could no longer respond.
He couldn't even squeeze out a word. He could only drain the last of his mental power, forcibly twisting the raging torrent of magic and guiding it toward the mark in the Deep Sea of Consciousness.
At this life-or-death moment, two diametrically opposed yet equally profound and mysterious forces, like the titanic tug-of-war of giants, violently tore at his fragile consciousness!
One was absolute darkness, cold and heavy, as if dragging him into an eternal abyss of despair.
The other was like radiant moonlight, pure and warm, attempting to lead him down an unknown path.
Though opposites, they seemed to point toward the same destination.
Under the extreme tension of this tug-of-war...
Boom!
A violent hum exploded in his skull.
Roland felt his consciousness instantly plunge into an indescribable clarity and vastness.
As if...
The narrow stream bed was suddenly widened by a tremendous force.
The magic that had been raging and stagnating within him now broke free, transforming into a wild, roaring tide that crashed against an invisible barrier.
Hum!
The landscape of the Consciousness Shoal was swept away by the storm, instantly dissolving into pitch-black void.
Then, as if spring had suddenly descended, everything came back to life.
The gravel beach vanished without a trace, replaced by countless vibrant and bustling, bizarre scenes.
But Roland had no time to dwell on the dramatic changes in his consciousness.
Sensing that the raging magic had finally forced its way into the Flame Rune Mark, he abruptly opened his eyes.
The moment he let out a long breath, he saw Ellis's cold, icy eyes.
And...
In his palm, a mass of gray-black negative energy coalesced, radiating a soul-chilling aura of destruction.
Without hesitation.
Without delay.
In the blink of an eye, a torrent of magic surged to his fingertips.
Instantly, countless clamorous, piercing "whispers" flooded his senses.
These were the voices of the fire element.
When he first obtained the Furnace Heart, his perception of the fire element had been like looking through a thick, heavy curtain.
After reaching the Awakened Consciousness Shoal, his perception of the fire element felt like sensing a docile young beast.
But now, empowered by nearly infinite magic, the moment the invisible barrier shattered,
he established an unprecedentedly deep resonance with the fire elements dancing in the air.
Those countless sharp whispers instantly converged and unified, coalescing into a deep, rumbling voice with an ancient resonance, like lava churning—
"Respected sir... Ifrit, responds to your summons."
Before the words had fully faded,
the restless orange fireball at Roland's fingertips abruptly became utterly restrained and calm.
Then—
Whoosh!
A deafening roar tore through the air!
The palm-sized fireball, like a beast breaking free from its chains, expanded outward at a terrifyingly rapid rate.
In mere moments, a colossal fireball, blotting out the sky and radiating destructive heat and blinding radiance, hung above the tower like a second sun, bathing the entire battlefield in stark white light.
The instant the blinding flames engulfed everything,
Vanessa, who had been observing with a playfully curious expression, froze rigid.
The composure in her deep purple eyes vanished completely, replaced by disbelief, shock, and...
A sharp, sudden realization struck her.
She saw it.
Within the dazzling inferno, a path seemed to open, spanning countless planes and leading straight to the trail of the... secret artifact she had been pursuing.
She wasn't alone in her loss of composure. Thousands of human soldiers on the battlefield and numerous transcendent professionals from the River Domain Nations were equally stunned.
Among them was, naturally, Ellis, who was at the forefront.
The negative energy coalescing in his palm suddenly dissipated.
The backlash of magic caused him to emit a pained groan. His body, rebuilt by his phylactery, trembled violently, and dark red blood gushed from his mouth and nostrils.
But he had no time to tend to his physical agony.
Because...
At the core of the destructive light, he saw a figure.
A figure wearing a loose, plain robe, yet unable to conceal her beautiful face.
"Mentor Natania?"
Ellis's voice lost all its coldness and detachment, trembling like a lost child's.
"How... No... I didn't... I didn't..."
Her face, which should have been indifferent to everything, was now filled with pain, remorse, struggle, and profound regret.
"No! This... this isn't real!"
A desperate roar tore from his throat.
Recalling his previous experience, Ellis violently broke free from the influence of [ Dazzling Charm ].
He took a deep breath, and when he looked at Roland again, his icy pupils burned with a pure and blazing hatred for the first time.
A hatred so profound it felt as if it would consume him entirely.
"How dare you..."
His voice twisted with extreme rage, like metal scraping against metal.
"Desecrate the resting soul of Natania... You deserve death!"
Reason completely shattered, Ellis abandoned the composure expected of a spellcaster. The remaining negative energy around him surged like a black storm out of control, surging wildly without restraint.
"Turn into eternal dust!"
Ellis's roar tore through the air as his hands clenched into a fist toward Roland.
The swirling negative energy around him, like a black hole out of control, instantly collapsed inward.
This was not a spell, but a curse.
The embodiment of hatred.
A pitch-black torrent composed of pure death and despair, like the maw of a monstrous beast from the abyss, surged toward Roland and the "sun" at his fingertips, its shriek carrying the power to annihilate everything.
The darkness that devoured all was reflected in Roland's pupils.
There was no fear, only resolve.
The "sun" at his fingertips responded to his will, slowly advancing.
Collision!
Light and darkness, life and death, infinite magic and the ultimate hatred of a burning soul...
On the summit of the High Tower, they collided with a thunderous impact!
There was no sound.
Or rather, all sound was instantly erased.
Only the ultimate white and the all-consuming black tore, devoured, and annihilated each other in utter silence.
Space began to distort.
The spire of the High Tower crumbled inch by inch under the invisible energy storm, disintegrating into the finest crystalline dust.
A fleeting yet seemingly eternal energy singularity was born at the collision's center, expanding rapidly.
The boundary between white and black blurred abruptly.
Then—
Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!
The destructive roar, suppressed to its breaking point, finally erupted.
A ring of destruction, a hybrid of ghastly white energy and shattered darkness, swept across the tower summit, the sky, and the entire battlefield at speeds beyond comprehension.
The clouds in the sky evaporated instantly.
The earth tore apart with a mournful cry.
But light ultimately overwhelmed darkness.
The "sun," though dimmed by countless orders of magnitude, stubbornly tore through the final torrent of death.
The remaining, space-distorting flames of light, like the spear of divine retribution, instantly pierced the spot where Ellis's desiccated frame stood.
"Aaaah!"
A piercing scream, filled with agony and disbelief, echoed through the air.
Ellis's figure writhed and burned violently within the purifying flames.
His body, reforged by the phylactery, melted like cheap wax under the intense heat.
Only a faint, almost imperceptible soul fragment, carrying his final obsession, managed to escape the flames. In the instant before being completely consumed, it transformed into a dim, spectral light and fled desperately toward an unknown corner deep within the city.
The destructive flames slowly dissipated, leaving only a massive, molten gap at the tower's summit.
Scorching air whistled through the void.
Roland collapsed to one knee, utterly exhausted. The heat lingered on his fingertips, and his body trembled violently from overexertion.
Yet his eyes burned brighter than ever before.
Text, tinged with blood and fire, slowly materialized in his vision.
But before he could read it, a massive tremor shook the ground beneath his feet.
(End of the Chapter)
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