Chapter 220: The Death Of An Elder |
Before anyone could react, Kal drew a complex series of interconnected symbols on his scroll.
The symbols flew out of the scroll and converged on the Headmaster with startling speed, wrapping around him like chains of living light.
Hiron's eyes widened fractionally, the first sign of surprise he had shown. He moved to counter, blood runes flaring across his skin, but the binding was already complete.
"Temporal Stasis Array," Kal explained, his brush still moving to reinforce the pattern.
Within the glowing matrix, Hiron stood frozen, not physically immobilized, but caught in a pocket of altered time. His movements continued, but at such a drastically reduced pace that he appeared almost statue-like. Only the glacial shift of his expression from surprise to cold fury revealed he wasn't completely stopped.
"This won't hold him for long," Kal cautioned, already turning his attention to the remaining elders.
With that, new symbols expanded outwards, forming a dome that encompassed the entire battlefield. Within its confines, the very nature of reality seemed to shift subtly. Colors became more vivid, sounds more distinct, and the flow of time itself seemed to acquire a strange elasticity.
"What is this?" Elder Jirok demanded, his formations faltering as they encountered this altered state of existence.
Kal didn't answer directly.
When he breathed life into it, the effect was immediate and devastating.
Storm clouds materialized within the dome, dark and heavy with unnatural energy. Lightning, not the yellow-white of natural electricity but the pure blue of concentrated celestial power, arced between the clouds, seeking targets below.
Elder Jirok, recognizing the threat, hastily erected a barrier formation.
The first lightning bolt struck it directly, shattering the protection as if it were made of glass.
The second bolt found the elder himself, engulfing him in azure fire.
Unlike Jun's dramatic end, Jirok's demise was almost anticlimactic.
The lightning consumed him in an instant, leaving nothing behind but a shadow scorched into the stone floor, the perfect silhouette of a man with his hands raised in a final, futile defense.
"Two down," Elder Avery observed coolly, though her composed exterior couldn't completely hide the flicker of fear in her eyes. "Your techniques are as deadly as the stories claim."
She glanced at Molric, who was watching the proceedings with an expression that hovered between curiosity and growing alarm. "Stop analyzing and start fighting!" she snapped. "Or would you prefer to be the next exhibition in his gallery of execution?"
Molric stroked his beard. "On the contrary, my dear Avery, analysis is precisely what's needed here." He turned his attention to Kal. "You mentioned knowledge worth any price. What specifically are you seeking?"
Kal regarded him thoughtfully. "You already know, Elder Molric. Your experiments with hybrid energy, combining aspects of both suns into a single working, they're closer to the truth than anything either order has achieved in centuries."
"And yet still fundamentally flawed," Molric admitted without hesitation. "The energies resist harmonization. Every attempt at true fusion results in explosive destabilization or complete energetic collapse."
"Because you're missing the crucial catalyst," Kal replied. "A binding agent capable of maintaining the integrity of both energies simultaneously."
Avery had heard enough. "This academic discourse can wait until after we've dealt with our uninvited guest," she declared, activating another series of fire runes.
This time, however, her technique manifested differently, rather than external flames, the runes generated heat from within, turning her entire body into a conduit for pure thermal energy.
The temperature around her rose exponentially, air igniting spontaneously as it entered her field of influence.
Down below. stone melted, forming a steadily expanding pool of lava. Her hair, now literal flame, writhed around her head like a corona.
"Impressive," Kal acknowledged, readying his brush once more. "The Living Flame technique. Few practitioners survive its activation, let alone maintain control."
Avery didn't waste breath on a response.
She simply charged, leaving a trail of molten destruction in her wake. Where Jun had relied on speed and Jirok on technical precision, Avery's approach was overwhelming force, a strategy that had served her well against countless previous opponents.
Kal met her advance calmly, his brush creating a series of layered barriers as he retreated strategically. Each barrier slowed Avery's progress only marginally, but the cumulative effect bought him precious seconds to prepare his counter.
From his scroll, he selected a third painting, this one depicting a winter landscape, a frozen lake surrounded by snow-laden trees.
As he breathed life into it, the temperature within the dome plummeted. Frost formed instantly on every surface, spreading outwards from Kal in a wave of absolute cold.
When it met Avery's heat, the resulting collision created a screaming wall of steam and ice shards.
The opposing forces struggled for dominance, neither able to completely overwhelm the other.
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In the center of this elemental chaos, Avery pushed forward through sheer determination, her body now nothing but a humanoid outline of pure flame.
"Fire melts ice," she gritted out, each word sending embers floating from her mouth. "A basic principle even novices understand."
"True," Kal agreed, continuing his strategic withdrawal. "But ice can cool fire, given sufficient volume." He gestured to their surroundings, where the frozen landscape from his painting was steadily expanding, covering more and more of the battlefield. "And this isn't ordinary ice."
The cold intensified, dropping to temperatures that shouldn't have been physically possible.
Where it touched Avery's flame-body, the fire didn't simply extinguish, it crystallized, turning into bizarre formations that retained the appearance of flame while becoming solid and brittle.
Avery realized the danger too late. She tried to pull back, to retreat from the advancing cold, but the process had already begun. Starting at her extremities, her flame-form crystallized rapidly, the transformation racing inward toward her core.
"No!" she cried, her voice distorting as her throat froze mid-word. "This isn't—"
The crystallization completed with a sound like breaking glass. Avery stood frozen in mid-stride, her expression of shock and defiance perfectly preserved in transparent crystal.
For a moment, there was absolute stillness.
Then she shattered, not in a violent explosion, but in a gentle cascade of crystalline fragments that fell like snow, glittering with captured firelight before melting away to nothing.
Silence descended on the battlefield.
A thunderous crack announced the collapse of the temporal prison.
Hiron stepped forward, the last vestiges of the binding matrix falling away.
His eyes burned with fury as he assessed the situation, three elders dead, only Molric remaining, and the academy in ruins around them.
"Three elders," Hiron noted quietly. "Three of the most powerful practitioners in our order, eliminated with efficiency that borders on artistry." He inclined his head slightly toward Kal. "Your reputation, it seems, was not exaggerated."
"Their deaths bring me no pleasure," Kal replied, and the weariness in his voice suggested he wasn’t lying. "Especially when they could have been avoided."
"By surrender?" Hiron asked. "By abandoning principles our order has upheld since the beginning of time?"
"By accepting what you already know to be true," Kal countered. "The war between our factions has never been about ideology, not really. It's about maintaining a status quo that benefits those in power while ignoring the collapse happening around us."
He gestured toward the horizon, where an odd distortion was visible even at this distance. "The barrier between worlds thins. The breach widens. And while we fight each other, the true threat grows unchecked."
Elder Molric stepped forward, his curiosity apparently overcoming his survival instinct. "This catalyst you mentioned, the one capable of stabilizing the fusion of energies. What is it?"
Kal met his gaze directly. "Not what, Elder. Who."
Understanding dawned in Molric's eyes. "A vessel," he breathed. "A living conduit capable of channeling both energies simultaneously without corruption or degradation." His excitement visibly mounted. "Is that even possible? The physiological demands alone would be extraordinary, not to mention the spiritual architecture required to—"
"It's possible," Kal interrupted. "In fact, it already exists."
Hiron's attention sharpened noticeably. "Explain."
"There are individuals," Kal said carefully, "rare souls capable of resonating with both suns simultaneously. Most die young, unable to control the conflicting energies. Others hide their abilities, fearing persecution from both orders." He paused momentarily. "And some can be created."
Molric's eyes widened. "Created? You mean—"
"I mean your experiments weren't entirely theoretical, were they, Elder Molric?" Kal's gaze hadn't left the eccentric Skybound. "The hybrid plants, the modified animals, they were all preliminary steps. Establishing baselines before attempting the ultimate fusion."
For once, Molric seemed at a loss for words. "My research hasn’t progressed to the stage of applying it to a human…”
"If it did, you would create an abomination," Hiron said flatly. "A violation of natural law and an insult to both celestial bodies we were created to serve."
"Or," Kal interjected quietly, "he would create the bridge needed to heal the divide that threatens to consume our world."
The tension between the three reached a breaking point.
The dome Kal had created earlier was beginning to destabilize, the altered reality within it fluctuating unpredictably.
"Enough talk," Hiron decided. "Whatever truths may lie in your words, Kal of the First Light, they cannot erase the blood already spilled. Three elders lie dead by your hand. Countless disciples have fallen. The academy itself stands on the brink of collapse." His eyes began to glow with increasing intensity. "These actions demand answer."
Kal nodded, a gesture of acceptance rather than agreement. "They always do."
The Headmaster moved with a speed that defied comprehension.
One moment he stood twenty paces away, the next he was directly before Kal, his hand closing around the Lightweaver's throat. Blood runes activated across his arm, channeling power directly from the red sun above.
Where they touched Kal's skin, the flesh began to blacken and crack, corruption spreading outward like poison through veins. The Lightweaver's blue eyes dimmed momentarily as he struggled against both the physical grip and the spiritual assault accompanying it.
"Your mistake," Hiron said softly, "was coming alone."
Despite his seemingly hopeless position, Kal smiled. With effort, he raised his brush hand. "I'm never alone."
The brush moved once, drawing a single stroke down the center of his own chest. Where the bristles touched, his white robes parted, revealing the skin beneath, and the elaborate painting inscribed directly on his flesh.
It depicted the great blue sun.
As Hiron watched, the painting began to move, the celestial bodies rotating faster and faster until they blurred into a single swirling vortex of purple energy.
Power erupted from the living canvas, knocking Hiron backward with such force that he crashed through multiple walls before coming to a stop. The entire academy shuddered under the release of energy, already damaged structures beginning to collapse entirely.
Elder Molric, seeing his opportunity, turned to flee. He made it three steps before Kal appeared directly in his path, moving with the same impossible speed Hiron had demonstrated moments before.
"Running won't save you this time, Elder," Kal said gently. "It never does."
Molric's scientific demeanor crumbled, replaced by naked fear. "My research," he cried out, “it could be the key to everything! If I die, all of that progress dies with me!"
"I know," Kal replied, genuine regret in his voice. "But some knowledge is too dangerous to exist in the wrong hands."
His brush moved with finality, drawing a simple circle in the air before Molric's face. The elder stared at it, transfixed, as it began to rotate slowly, gathering speed until it became a swirling vortex of blue energy.
"Wait!" Molric cried. "At least tell me, was I right? Is the fusion possible?"
Kal hesitated, then nodded once. "Yes. But not the way you imagined."
The vortex collapsed inward, drawing Molric with it.
Unlike the violent deaths of the other elders, his passing was almost peaceful, his body simply folded in on itself, compressing smaller and smaller until it vanished completely, leaving nothing behind but a faint scent of ozone.
The dome Kal had created earlier shattered completely, reality reasserting itself with a thunderous crack that echoed across the academy grounds.
The Lightweaver stood alone amid the destruction, his white robes now stained with blood and ash, his posture showing the strain of the prolonged battle.
From the rubble where he had landed, Headmaster Hiron emerged unscathed. His robes were torn, but his body showed no signs of injury. The blood runes across his skin pulsed with renewed intensity as he assessed the situation.
"Just you and me now," he observed, walking calmly back toward the center of the battlefield. "As perhaps it was always meant to be."
Kal nodded, his blue eyes meeting Hiron's red ones across the distance. "One more time," he agreed softly.
The red sun overhead seemed to pulse in anticipation, its bloated form casting the ruined academy in a bloody light.
In the midst of destruction, the two Rank 8 practitioners faced each other.
The final confrontation was about to begin.