Chương 417: Chapter 406 - Until Nothing Remained

Lukas froze. For a fraction of a second his hand trembled, his fingers refusing to respond as the scale of what stood before them pressed against his mind. Then he gritted his teeth and forced himself to move. His eyes locked with Chiara's. Behind her, The Magician flared into being once more, its sigils blazing silver through dust-choked air." Cover me. I'll get Ayu." Chiara flinched at the pulse, eyes wide, face drained of colour. Yet… she nodded. Without hesitation she raised her cane. Light gathered at its tip.

Then the field erupted. Projectiles screamed forward, detonating across bark and stone in violent succession. The first blast tore open the ground with a concussive roar that flattened the earth and hurled shards of rock skyward. The second struck like heavy artillery, the shockwave punching dust into the air so thick it blotted out sight. The third followed before the echo of the second had faded, churning the battlefield into a cratered wasteland of shattered roots and raining debris.

The air became a storm of grit and splinters. Sap and earth sprayed in dark arcs. The ground trembled beneath each impact. Through that chaos Lukas moved. Cards formed beneath his boots and carried him forward, their edges shifting through falling rubble. The Hermit dimmed his outline, swallowing him in muted light as he slipped between detonations. He reached Ayu in a breath. Her body lay twisted among broken stone, blood soaking the earth beneath her.

He sent a spread of cards outward in a spiralling fan, forcing Maerwyn's attention away for the smallest window as they formed flickering EM projections of himself as distraction. Explosions thundered behind him, relentless and overlapping, like sustained bombardment from a war unseen. He did not look back. Mid-motion, he summoned The High Priestess above Ayu. A luminous form unfolded, silver threads descending and stitching torn flesh with unnatural speed. Skin knit. Blood slowed.

Her breathing steadied by degrees visible even through dust. Chiara did not stop. Blast after blast carved through the haze, each one shaking the air, each one heavier than the last. The world had become nothing but concussion and smoke. Lukas felt nothing beyond the tremor of impacts, yet he knew she was still there… somewhere within the destruction. He tightened his grip and lifted Ayu with the aid of his cards, their forms straining beneath her weight as he pivoted to retreat. He moved— KSHH!

His body jerked violently. The force ripped Ayu from his grasp. For a breath, there was no pain, only confusion. His feet were no longer touching the ground. The Hermit flickered, its lantern light fracturing into shards. The High Priestess dissolved into scattered threads. Cards that had hovered around him lost the force that anchored them and fell, clattering uselessly against the ground. Then he saw it. The creature's sabre had pierced through his chest.

The blade protruded from his back in a dark curve, wood-veins writhing along it, burrowing deeper as they fed on his blood.

"NOOOO!" Chiara's scream tore across the field, raw and cracking. Lukas' eyes widened. Shock emptied them before pain ever arrived. The wooden veins pushed deeper, splitting muscle, scraping bone. Blood poured down his torso in thick streams, soaking his clothes and dripping from his fingertips in steady lines. His fingers twitched as the colour drained from his body. He coughed. Crimson spilled from his mouth, staining his chin and collar. The light in his eyes dimmed by degrees. His hands moved on instinct.

They closed around the blade embedded in his body, fingers slick with his own blood, as his gaze lifted and locked with Maerwyn's cold, empty stare. Lukas remained there, breathing ragged, darkness creeping along the edges of his vision as his consciousness began to fade. In the end… it was… not enough— Suddenly the creature shifted with a sharp backstep, and Lukas felt his body torn free from the sabre as a trembling arm caught him from behind, gripping his clothes. Blood poured down his chest.

His strength was fading quickly, yet he forced himself to look back. Alonso stood there, holding him with the only arm he had left. His body was torn and wounded, and above all… his eyes remained cursed and hollow. Lukas felt Alonso's grip falter as he slowly lowered him to the ground. His gaze seemed unfocused, his face turned toward nothingness. A moment later Chiara rushed in, appearing beside Lukas with tears in her eyes as she cradled him in her arms. Lukas forced a smile… yet… No…

He reached into what felt like emptiness and forced it once more. Between threads of flickering light, The High Priestess manifested once more behind him, wrapping him in its healing embrace. Chiara saw it, and a crushing weight lifted from her chest, if only for a moment. She looked at Alonso. She did not know what the curse was doing to him, but it was clear he was still lost within it. She had sent him several pulses to reach him, but he had never answered.

Then her gaze shifted to the creature that had retreated, and she saw it. Where it had stood a moment ago, a deep, clean line carved through the earth, as if something had severed the very space beneath it. She stared back at him. He held no swords. Nothing. His condition was as broken as the rest, and yet… without a word, without hesitation… he stepped forward. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

He walked as blood dripped from his frame, his steps unsteady, each one seeming as though he might collapse… yet he did not. Maerwyn stood ahead, watching him. For the first time, something close to apprehension flickered beneath her cold, emotionless gaze as she stared at Alonso. The creature slowly raised its blade, analysing him. A breath passed between them in silence before her form blurred, cracking the ground behind her in a sonic boom. Her massive sabre swung wide— CLANG!

The impact rang through the air as its momentum was halted. Maerwyn frowned and struck again. CLANG! CLANG! Again and again her blade collided, as if an invisible edge met her own at the exact instant of impact, interrupting her advance at every turn. Before her, Alonso stood. His body swayed, barely perceptible, and with each collision he flinched just slightly. Blood slipped from the corner of his mouth. His head twitched in sharp, erratic motions, as though searching for something no one else could see.

Chiara's eyes widened. She did not understand what she was witnessing. She knew Alonso could strike with Will, she had seen it, but this…

"Help… help Alonso," Lukas whispered suddenly, blood thick in his throat. Chiara flinched and turned back to him, then forced herself to steady. She gently lowered Lukas and rose, drawing on what little strength remained, pushing her Will outward once more and demanding the world respond. A moment later, she felt it. Behind her, Lukas' manifestation of The Magician flared to life. It was dim, hazed, but present. His Will, despite it all, still burned. Still refused to fall without a fight.

And he was not only supporting her. Around Alonso, the image of Justice ignited once more, called forth by Lukas' lingering strength, reinforcing him and lending him resolve in the form of Will and power. Alonso's stance adjusted, just a fraction more stable, as his own Will Manifest ignited—the human-shaped void rising behind him, granting him the strength to stand where the world demanded he fall. Chiara tried again, sending a pulse toward him." Can you hear me?" She tried once more with words. Nothing.

There was no reply. She paused for a moment, and then a sudden idea struck her. If waves and sound could not reach him, then perhaps something else could. The air around her shifted. This time, it was not an explosion. She threaded spectral equations through the space before her, symbols and constants rearranging under her control. Numbers dissolved into letters, letters into meaning, forming a sentence suspended by Will alone. It read: " Can you see this?" Only then did Alonso react.

His head did not turn, yet his jaw moved. The voice that emerged was low, and cracked.

"Yes." Chiara flinched. So that was it. He was cut off from physical perception. Right now, he was perceiving the world through Will alone. Her pulse skipped. In that instant Maerwyn moved again. Her sabre blurred forward, but unseen slashes tore through her path, ripping furrows into earth and air alike. Some struck her guard. Some deflected her blade. Others cut for her vitals.

The creature shifted between them with unnatural speed, reacting as though she could perceive the invisible strikes, yet still unable to breach the unseen wall before Alonso and gain ground. His jaw opened once more, voice heavy and fractured.

"We… we will… not die here. We… together… fight. We… win." The words struck Chiara like a hammer against cracked glass. Her teeth clenched. Something within her ignited. The symbols hovering in the air trembled in response." Yes… we will." Her cane rose. The projections around her sharpened, gaining new life. She no longer calculated every variable. She no longer weighed outcomes or exact metrics of cohesion. Only one objective remained: Destroy her.

The air around her flickered, distorted now by a presence she no longer held fully under her reins. A sphere of compact energy formed before her cane, a fusion of EM force and her Will, compressing tighter and tighter until the space around it trembled. Then it was released. Not as a projectile, but as a focused beam. A laser. It struck the creature before it could react, at near light speed, tearing a clean hole through its shoulder guard in a burst of molten fragments and splintered bark.

Before it could even recoil, Alonso stepped forward. A heavily Will-infused No-Strike carved through the opening, slamming into its chest plate with an invisible edge that rang against armour and whatever was underneath. The creature staggered, fury igniting in its eyes as it roared and surged toward them. Yet Alonso did not retreat. He slashed. And slashed again. Each strike fell in relentless succession, tearing through space itself. In his world there was no light, no sound, no waves.

Only the flickers of Will around him. The same flickers he had watched burn and falter. The Wills of his allies, blazing even as they bled. The same Wills that dimmed while he stood broken, cursed by his own weakness. Why should he remain still while others fought? Why should a curse dictate his end? He was alive. He was standing. He was a warrior. And that would not change, no matter what this world chose to take from him. Take my eyes. Take my arm. Take my senses. Take my sword. I will still stand.

I will still fight. My Will will still shine. I… will not fall. He roared, though no sound existed. His heart pounded to a rhythm he could not feel. His blade swung along a path no one else could see. It tore toward the abomination before him again and again. The battlefield shattered. Earth split. Air fractured. He could not see it. He didn't need to. And he felt it. Lukas' Will supporting him. Chiara's attacks intensifying, her force now driving the creature backward under relentless fire.

Her Will was no longer a flickering ember. It was a rising star that had chosen to believe in something greater. And so would he. For until the last shred of hope was extinguished… the fire would not die. And that ember of hope… was the blade he would wield. In the real world, he was battered, torn, an arm missing, cursed. But in his own world… he shone like the vastness of the void itself. Every star within it ignited. Every galaxy turned at the command of the Will that birthed it. In his world…

his word was absolute, and his blade would sever all that stood in its path. He did not need an arm. He did not need a sword. The void itself would be his blade. And every star would mark its arc. Maerwyn's form flared. Her twisted Will surged, wings expanding wide as her sabre carved through the world in a sweeping arc that split earth and air alike. Alonso stepped forward. His ruined body shifted. His remaining hand moved as though grasping the hilt of a sword that did not exist.

Where his other arm had been, the void behind him stirred—darkness coiling, flickering lights clustering—until the silhouette of an arm formed from night and distant stars extended in its place. Chiara's beams struck the creature again. And then the world shifted. Darkness spilled outward. Yet it was not an empty darkness… but one that lived. Lukas' fading eyes widened as he watched it spread across the battlefield.. Ayu blinked through pain and blood, watching the sky vanish, and smiled.

Chiara's focused gaze faltered for a heartbeat as she felt it envelop them, warm and immense, like standing before the cosmos she had once studied beneath distant skies. Now the cosmos needed no sky. For his Will was the canvas. And the void… was his blade. Will Manifest— —Path of Shards And every light that shone… became his sword. Stars fractured into edges. Constellations bent into arcs of killing brilliance.

The whole void descended upon the creature, compressing from every direction as it struggled beneath the weight, its twisted Will erupting in violent flares around it. Its large sabre swung in desperate sweeps, intercepting shard after shard, steel shrieking as countless strikes rained against it. Each impact split flesh. Each flash carved deeper. Wings tore. Armour shattered. Its resistance thinned beneath the endless storm. Chiara's beam followed. One final ray that cut through the chaos.

A focused line of annihilation that pierced straight into its core. For a fraction of a heartbeat the world stilled. Then the core ruptured. Light burst outward— —and the vastness of the cosmos closed in, swallowing it whole. Where Maerwyn, the Fallen Saint, had stood… nothing remained. Then, before them, the rewards manifested in a silent glow. At the same time, the curse that had wrapped around Alonso's eyes unraveled like fading smoke. Light returned.

It reflected in his gaze once more, the torn world around him coming into view. His breathing faltered as the void receded from his form. And as the weight of it all finally settled upon his body— He smiled. They… had won.