Chapter 25—Clash of Sovereigns.
Chapter 25—Clash of Sovereigns.
The central support beam of the old bell tower shattered with a sound like an artillery detonation, sending a violent shockwave through the stone foundation.
The three-ton bronze gear listed heavily to the left, groaning as its rusted teeth sheared off against the granite pillars, launching a lethal rain of jagged iron splinters and pulverized mortar through the freezing air. Down below, Delegate Malakor’s leather-bound registry slid wildly across the tilted, metallic face of the falling mechanism, inches away from being crushed into unreadable pulp against the floorboards.
Kaelen didn’t hesitate for a microsecond.
Instead of dropping into a defensive guard or retreating from the falling debris, he drove his boots into the decaying wooden rafter, fracturing the timber beneath his weight as he launched his body directly into the churning void.
Air whispered past his ears with a deafening roar as he utilized a filling iron chain as a vertical launching pad. Gliding the side of his leather boot along the rattling links, he executed an acrobatic wall jump off a swinging pendulum weight, propelling himself directly toward the apex of the plummeting gear.
But mid-air, the ambient shadows twisted into a violent, unnatural vortex.
[WARNING: ENEMY SKILL ACTIVATED/Phantom Step/Air Phase]
The red-eyed rival materialized out of thin air directly in Kaelen’s line of flight, his dark ethereal scythe already mid-swing in a horizontal execution arc. The blade left a weeping trail of black fire that consumed the oxygen in the air, radiating an oppressive aura of death mana...
Kaelen twisted his torso mid-fight with terrifying, unnatural flexibility. He raised his stolen guard dagger in a reverse grip, catching the massive scythe’s inner curve right at the hilt.
CLANG!
A blinding shadow shockwave of compressed kinetic force and dark mana erupted at the point of impact, blowing away the surrounding mist and shattering the remaining stained-glass window into a million glittering shards. The sheer weight of the rival’s scythe pressed down with crushing force, forcing Kaelen’s elbow to bend as dark, corrosive flames licked at his sleeves.
"You’re soft, Kaelen!" the rival roared, his crimson eyes burning with manic delight as his dark leather coat billowed around him in the free fall.
"You’re fighting gravity, falling debris, AND ME! You can’t balance all three variables in midair."
"I don’t need to balance them," Kaelen replied through gritted teeth, his jaw set like iron as blood trickled from his cracked lips.
"I just need to use them."
Kaelen deliberately relaxed his left shoulder, releasing his rigid brace against the scythe. The razor-sharp edge of the black blade sliced straight through his leather coat, cutting deep into his left collarbone and trapezius muscle.
Blood spurted into the freezing air, but Kaelen didn’t even blink.
He used the self-inflicted wound to trap the rival’s scythe blade beneath his chest and left arm, clamping his body down like a vise and locking the rival’s primary weapon in place.
Before the rival could process the suicidal trade, Kaelen’s right fist flared with a dense, shimmering aura of siphoned mana. He drove a brutal, short-range knee strike directly into the rest rival’s exposed sternum.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: Mana Burst (Rank 2)]
The impact echoed like a cannon shot inside the hollow tower. The rival’s armor cracked, the air exploding from his lungs as he spat a mouthful of dark blood.
The sheer kinetic impulse blasted the rival backward, forcing him to release his grip on the scythe as he spiraled out of control through the cloud of falling dust, crashing violently through two wooden walkways before slamming into the far stone wall.
Free-falling alongside the massive bronze gear, Kaelen locked his eyes onto the sliding registry. It was hovering right on the edge of the bronze teeth, two feet away from the crushing point where the gear was about to hit the foundation.
Kaelen extended his right arm to its absolute limit, igniting his E-RANK Refined Core to its absolute peak.
He caught the heavy leather spine of the registry in his bloodied palm a fraction of a second before the three-ton gear slammed into the ground.
BOOM!
The impact sent a violent tremor through the entire academy grounds. The lower floorboards caved in completely, sending the massive gear plummeting into the subterranean catacombs in a roaring avalanche of stone, iron, and dust.
Kaelen landed on a narrow, surviving stone ledge with a fluid roll, absorbing the vertical momentum through his legs, though a sharp cough of blood escaped his lips from the chest impact he had taken earlier.
He held the registry tightly against his ribs. It was signed and stained with fresh blood, but completely intact.
The agonizing heat from the dark-flame wound on Kaelen’s left shoulder surged through his nervous system like liquid lead. Every ragged breath sent a sharp, stabbing sensation deep into his thoracic cavity, but he forced his facial muscles to remain completely immovable. He couldn’t afford to show a single physical vulnerability in front of an opponent whose class thrived on exploiting weakness.
His internal vision flashed with urgent red and gold warnings from the system interface as his E-RANK Refined Core worked on overdrive to contain the corrosive mana spread.
[SYSTEM ALERT: CRITICAL FLESH TRAUMA DETECTED ]
[ DAMAGE ANALYSIS: Left Trapezius & Collarbone Cut (28% HEALTH REMAINING).]
[ACTIVE STATUS: CORROSIVE MANA INFECTION (Contained Via Void Absorption).]
[EXP GAINED: +450 PvP Combat Exp.]
"The black first isn’t just physical damage," Kaelen noted silently, watching the gold EXP numbers settle into his status bar while his cold eyes remained locked onto the rising dust cloud across the crater.
"It leaves a residual mana parasite that slowly devours the host’s internal reserves. If I hadn’t used my Void Core to absorb the initial ignition at the point of contact, that shoulder strike would have paralyzed my entire left side within ten seconds."
He tightened his right hand’s grip around Malakor’s registry, feeling the smooth, cold texture of the enchanted leather.
Even beneath the thick layer of dust and drying blood, he could feel the faint, rhythmic pulsation of a hidden security seal warding the pages. It was a high-tier cryptographic lock—one that required a specific mana signature or a precise sequence of force to open without destroying the delicate parchment insides.
Across the yawing chasm of destroyed floorboards and shattered masonry, the red-eyed rival leaned against the half-broken support column, his chest rising and falling in heavy, ragged cycles as blood dripped from his cracked lips onto his coat.
The brutal kinetic force of Kaelen’s mid-air Mana Burst had shattered at least two of his ribs, yet the manic light in his crimson eyes hadn’t dimmed in the slightest. If anything, the realization that he had faced someone willing to trade his flesh for a strategic win seemed to ignite an unstable euphoria within him.
"You really calculate everything down to millimeters, don’t you, Kaelen? "The rival rasped, wiping a dark smear of blood across his cheek with his sleeve.
"You didn’t just dodge or block... you treated your body as a tactical trade on the board. A sacrificial move just to secure a piece of parchment."
Kaelen didn’t answer right away. He slowly adjusted his footing on the narrow stone ledge, allowing his newly gained EXP and siphoned mana pool to stabilize his breathing while keeping his dagger angled downward in a relaxed, defensive stance.
"It wasn’t a trade," Kaelen replied, his voice calm, flat, and chillingly confident despite the blood soaking his tunic.
"It was an absolute victory. You came here to eliminate a threat and secure the record of Malakor. You failed both objectives, you lost over sixty percent of your total mana capacity, and your physical structure is compromised. In terms of resource management, this encounter was a complete net loss for you."
Across the vast, dust-choked crater where the floor used to be, a shadowy figure slowly rose from the rubble.
The red-eyed rival wiped the dark blood from his chin, his chest heaving irregularly where his ribs had been fractured. His dark scythe dissolved back into wisps of black smoke.
Instead of rage, his pale face broke into a wide, terrifyingly ecstatic grin.
" Unbelievable..." The rival chuckled, coughing softly as he leaned against a half-broken pillar.
"You took a permanent flash wound just to lock my weapon and snatch the item... You really are a monster, aren’t you?"
Kaelen stood up slowly, his left arm hanging slightly limp, his eyes cold and unyielding despite the blood soaking his tunic.
"I have the registry. The quest item is mine."
"For now," the rival replied, his body starting to flicker as the ambient shadows began to swallow his silhouette once more.
"You win Round 1, Player. But remember ... Malakor isn’t going to wait for your shoulder to heal. And when you finally drag him down into the dirt... I’ll be right there in the audience, waiting to take your head."
With a soft, theatrical bow, the rivals dissolved completely into wisps of dark mist, leaving the ruined clock tower in absolute silence, save for the whistling wind and the constant hovering in Kaelen’s vision.
[ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ]
[ PvP ENCOUNTER CONCLUDED: VICTORY (Partial)]
[ EXP REWARD: +450 Exp]
[ ITEM SECURED: Malakor’s Secret Registry.]
[ TIME REMAINING: 39 Hours 58 Minutes.]
Kaelen tucked the registry deep into his coat, clutching his wounded shoulder as he turned back toward the fog-drenched entrance.
The true battle against Malakor was about to begin, and he had less than forty hours left to execute the final stroke...