Chapter 446 - 91: Wind Break, Thunder Destroyed, Water Parted, The Pope’s Abdication
The glow of the blade retracted completely, sinking into silence as if everything before had been a mere illusion.
But in the next instant—
The three-inch sword moved.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Three near-simultaneous booms rang out, exploding in the ears of all who watched.
No flashy techniques, no mystical trajectories.
It simply faced the ravaged earth of the Holy City below—the raging wind, the dancing thunder, the surging water—and with the most tyrannical, most unreasonable of gestures, it unleashed three strikes.
A beam of Sword Qi—condensed to its absolute limit, over a hundred feet wide, and composed purely of Dark Gold light—burst into existence, like the first ray of dawn cleaving through eternal darkness!
It was magnificent, straight, and vast, carrying an irresistible, absolute power as it brutally slashed down toward the source of the wind, where its gales were strongest!
HISS!
Before this beam of Sword Qi forged from pure power, the all-pervasive, life-eroding vortex of dark green wind was like melting snow under a blazing sun—it disintegrated in an instant!
Wherever the Sword Qi passed, a wide path, completely free of the withering aura, was forcibly carved into the landscape!
At the edge of the path, a few civilians who had just been grazed by the green wind—their skin already turning a deathly gray—watched in astonishment as the ashen color rapidly receded from their bodies. Warmth returned to their freezing flesh. They collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath, and gazed up at the fading Dark Gold trail in the sky as if they had witnessed a miracle.
A single slash: Wind Break.
A second, equally magnificent beam of Dark Gold Sword Qi soared into the sky. With that same tyrannical might, it crashed directly into the core of the raging thunder!
BOOM!
The Dark Gold Sword Qi and the azure lightning clashed violently, erupting with a light and heat more dazzling and ferocious than any previous collision of Energy!
The sky looked as if it had been torn open, and the deafening roar made the entire Holy City tremble.
However, the stalemate lasted but a moment.
Before the peerless sharpness and power of the Dark Gold Sword Qi, the annihilating lightning that seemed capable of destroying everything was like a fragile glass pillar. It began to shatter, inch by inch, from the point of impact.
Blue serpents of electricity scattered wildly, no longer able to coalesce into a fatal attack.
Its momentum only slightly diminished, the Sword Qi still carried the power to crush all before it, utterly annihilating the remaining lightning!
Beneath a ruin about to be struck by the annihilating lightning, a group of women and children huddled together, blinded by the intense light. The destruction they had anticipated never came. All that remained were fine, scorched-smelling sparks of electricity drifting down from the sky and a roar that was gradually fading.
Trembling, they opened their eyes to a sky that was gradually clearing and the slowly fading afterglow of Dark Gold.
A single slash: Thunder’s End.
A third beam of Dark Gold Sword Qi, even more magnificent—like a mountain range shifting on its axis—slashed vertically down from the heavens. Its target was the very core of the surging flood crest!
RUUUUMBLE!
Amidst the deafening roar...
A miracle occurred.
The seemingly endless flood, which threatened to devour everything, was forcibly split down the middle by the Sword Qi!
It formed a corridor of dry land hundreds of meters long, flanked by walls of water dozens of feet high.
Countless civilians—clinging to driftwood, cowering on rooftops, moments from being submerged—stared dumbfounded as the turbid torrent parted just inches from them, surging away along an invisible barrier.
A single slash: Water Separate.
After three slashes.
The brilliant Sword Qi on the small, three-inch sword did not dissipate. On the contrary, after breaking the wind, ending the thunder, and separating the water, its glow only intensified as it unleashed another slash toward the earth.
RUUUUMMMBLE!
The Sword Qi plunged into the ground, and the earth let out a muffled roar. Centered on the point of impact, the ground in a hundred-meter radius bulged upward like the skin of a drum struck by a giant hammer, then collapsed with a thunderous crash!
Countless terrifying, crisscrossing fissures, each several meters deep, spread out at astonishing speed. Rubble and earth were blasted into the sky like a geyser by the terrifying force!
"AHHH—!!!"
A bloodcurdling, inhuman shriek, filled with pain, fury, and disbelief, erupted from deep within the earth!
It was the voice of Muriyas’s true self!
He had been lurking nearby, concealed within the earth’s shadows, waiting for an opportunity to strike—perhaps he was even planning to make another move.
However, Murphy’s slash had completely shattered all his schemes!
From the abyss torn open in the earth, a dim, twisted, and rapidly dissipating silhouette of earthen-yellow light shot out in a panic. Without a backward glance, it made a desperate flight toward the Plane Rift that was about to close completely!
Its speed was so extreme it left a piercing streak of light in the air. It was an escape technique that Muriyas, the Shadow of the Earth, could only use by burning his own Origin, a last resort now that he was cornered.
Just as the rift shrank to a final, paper-thin slit, the streak of light squeezed through in the nick of time. Immediately after, under the final pressure of the Wall of Faith, the rift slammed shut with a boom and vanished, leaving behind only faint ripples as space returned to normal.
Meanwhile, Muriyas’s clay avatar, which had already been covered in cracks, rapidly began to disintegrate, turning into wisps of black smoke before vanishing completely.
After four slashes, the world fell deathly silent.
The wind stilled. The thunder ceased. The waters calmed. The earth fell quiet.
The cataclysmic phenomena over the Holy City had vanished, leaving behind only ruined buildings and souls still shaken from the terror.
"Melfield—!!!" Just before the rift closed completely, Raphael’s final, thunderous roar echoed faintly, a mixture of unbridled rage, frustration, and a hint of dread. "You will regret this! To possess such power, yet choose this ridiculous Path! You don’t understand what true eternity is!"
"Such a pity..." Sigrid’s ethereal sigh seemed stained with blood. "Such a bright and piercing light... will ultimately be lost, left to rust in the endless flow..."