Chapter 60: Winning Against Death
Goran collapsed to his knees as he coughed up blood after the violent clash with Valerian in his [Cosmic Fire] form.
He couldn’t hear on his right side, as his bear ear that normally sat on top of his head was gone, and blood streamed down the side of his face.
Between heavy breaths, he reached inside his spatial ring and took out a vial with red liquid inside. Not finding the motor skills to uncork it, he just held it over his open mouth and crushed the vial, ignoring the shards of glass falling into his mouth, as they couldn’t even break his skin.
Drinking the red liquid, a warm feeling spread through his body, and the bleeding from the missing ear stopped. But that was all that happened.
Goran was confused, because the potion he just drank was an Ascendant-rank healing potion; it was created by an Ascendant-rank alchemist. Normally, it could regrow limbs in minutes and save someone from the brink of death, but now it only managed to stop the bleeding.
’What is happening, and how did he create such a strong attack?’
When the frozen beastman and the living torch that was Valerian met, he broke through his [Tectonic Armor] on a scale that had never happened before. Sure, it broke when he was weaker, but it never failed on such a scale.
’I have to kill him.’
Goran knew that Valerian wasn’t dead, he already showed that he had great durability by tanking the hit from before, so Goran moved towards the crater with Valerian to finish him off. Even though he moved as fast as he could, he was still heavily injured and could only limp forward.
But as he got closer, he got a weird feeling. It wasn’t his mana sense picking up a spell or a fast movement; it was a feeling that something was happening, but it was beyond his existence and he couldn’t perceive it. This weird, unexplainable feeling caused panic to take hold, and Goran increased his pace towards Valerian. But the closer he got, the more intense the feeling got.
Pushing through the pain and the strange feeling, Goran reached the crater, but because of all the dust, he couldn’t see Valerian. So he summoned a gust of wind with his remaining mana and dispersed the dust, revealing the inside of the crater.
There, lying down below, was the mutilated Valerian, with half his head and torso, as well as his legs, gone. His life essence, which Goran took for a weird blood mutation, lay underneath him.
But when Goran took a closer look at the wound, the strange feeling he got intensified even more, because instead of organs or bones, there was nothing, just an ethereal mist slowly rising into the air.
"Just what are you?"
Even though he was curious, his goal was to kill Valerian for good, so he ignored the weirdness of his body and got closer.
Once he entered the crater, his heart started to beat at a rapid pace and he began to sweat. Taking another step forward, something shook. It wasn’t an earthquake; it felt closer to the space bomb Goran took face-on earlier.
It was like a ripple spreading through space in rhythmic waves; with each wave, the puddle of weird, dark-purple liquid underneath Valerian rippled, with small waves spreading through it.
But Goran didn’t stop; he advanced further into the crater. The closer he got to Valerian’s body, the more frequent the ripples became, and the faster Goran’s heart beat.
’I shouldn’t get closer. I have a bad feeling.’
Not wanting to get any closer, he channeled his small mana reserves into his earth affinity. Moving to his command, the earth mana formed a large hammer in the air, intended to crush Valerian.
Goran moved the hammer with high speed towards Valerian’s body, but right as it was about to hit, only centimeters away, something changed.
The air froze, the space trembled, and the hammer refused to move any closer. No matter how much of his pitiful remaining mana Goran infused into the hammer, it didn’t budge.
Then there was movement under the hammer. Valerian moved his remaining hand; in a slow and careful motion, he placed his hand on the stone hammer hovering only centimeters over his body.
That simple touch caused the mana in the hammer to disperse, and the hammer turned into motes of pure mana. Like it was called by a parent, the mana moved into Valerian’s body on its own and reformed the missing body parts. His life essence as well moved back under his skin, creating his perfect body again like nothing happened.
Goran watched everything with an open mouth; he couldn’t believe it. Not only was his spell dispersed and turned into pure mana, but that same mana then healed Valerian, who should be long dead considering his injuries.
Supporting his body with his new arm and legs, Valerian stood up. His clothes were gone, but that was the last thing he could think about right now.
Because to him, the world changed; everything was different. Like he had the say in how the world works, like he was God.
He turned his head and met the wide amber eyes of Goran, who, once he met his gaze, broke eye contact and took a step back.
’Right, he’s still here.’
The space folded around him.
He appeared in front of Goran, his eyes burning with a cosmic light like the birth of a new universe. Once he got closer to Goran, he could feel it: he was inside his domain, the place where he was God.
Goran was surprised at the sudden appearance of Valerian, but he was still a trained commander with centuries of experience, so he fought through the fear and the strange feeling and brought down his silver-glowing fist.
Valerian didn’t even make an attempt to block or dodge and just stood still in front of the incoming density-enhanced fist. Goran had a bad feeling, but he couldn’t back down, so he increased the density even more.
When the fist finally made contact with Valerian’s forehead, something happened that Goran had never seen before: the fist simply stopped when it hit him.
It wasn’t blocked by the same spatial lock Valerian had shown earlier with the rocks; the fist touched him, but all the force behind the punch ceased, and he just lightly touched Valerian’s forehead with his fist.
’What?!’
Before he could pull back to retreat, Valerian raised his right index finger, and with a casual motion, tapped Goran’s chest.
It was nothing more than a little poke, but the result was devastating.
After the touch, Goran’s entire torso exploded from within, spraying blood and gore everywhere. But somehow, not a single drop of blood touched Valerian, like it was purposefully avoiding him.
After the frighteningly simple death of the SS-rank powerhouse, Valerian felt something shrink back into himself. And as his mana ran out, he collapsed on the battlefield, with frozen rocks and plasma still burning the surroundings. But one thing was clear:
Valerian won. He not only defeated Goran, he also won against death.