Chapter 228: Armageddon
An overwhelming golden radiance, so intense it seemed capable of erasing everything and anything in existence, erupted within a chamber of the Separate Dimension. It burst forth with the force of a dying sun, shaking the very fabric of space and threatening to obliterate all that stood in its way.
Through the blinding brilliance, a man emerged, stepping forward as if the entire world were bowing before him. His eyes shone with a calm azure hue, glimmering like the endless skies themselves, and his hair, the same striking shade of blue, sat upon his head as though Crymora had personally crowned him with its finest creation, declaring him the most extraordinary talent it had ever birthed.
Standing at an imposing height of eight feet, his frame towered like a giant among mortals. The air bent and distorted around him, as though the mere fact of his existence demanded reverence and obedience.
It was none other than the First Sun, Malrik Wargrave.
The moment his form became visible, his radiant blue eyes shifted to the side where Asher knelt. His brother’s body trembled violently, sweat dripped from every pore, and blood seeped from every orifice, staining the floor beneath him. The ever-present smile that usually graced Malrik’s lips vanished in an instant.
His eyes, once radiant like the heavens, turned glacial, frigid enough to freeze the very flow of time itself. His face hardened into an expression so cold that it seemed capable of halting existence altogether.
The atmosphere itself stilled when Asher’s weak gaze lifted and met Malrik’s blue ones. Without a flicker of hesitation, Malrik flashed across the chamber, materializing at Asher’s side in the span of a single heartbeat. Solar energy blazed to life in his palm, he poured it into Asher’s broken body.
The effect was immediate.
Asher’s convulsing body stilled as warmth surged through him. The blood trickling down his face evaporated into golden mist, sweat disappeared, and the pain that wracked his mind and body was replaced by a soothing embrace. It was as though a divine force had wrapped around him, shielding him from the cruelty of this world, promising safety in the midst of despair.
At the side, Cindralis, ever the composed Sovereign of this realm, remained seated, yet her neutral, apathetic mask had fractured. Her eyes flickered with unease.
This Separate Dimension was her pride, her domain, a fortress that few in all existence could breach. To invade it required brute force beyond the norm, and even then, she would sense it immediately. And yet Malrik, the First Sun, had entered not by breaking, but as if stepping into his own dwelling. He had walked in with effortless ease, as though the laws of her dimension bent themselves to welcome him.
How? the thought seared through her mind.
"Big Brother..." Asher’s weak voice broke the silence.
Malrik’s gaze remained locked on him, calm but cold. Asher could see it, the fury boiling behind those frozen eyes. Malrik Wargrave, the First Sun, was prepared to annihilate the Star Academy itself. He would stride over corpses and reduce everything here to ashes if that was the price for his brother’s suffering.
He asked no questions. He sought no details. He did not care for truth or fault. His youngest brother had bled, and that was enough. That was all the proof he required.
Then it came. A cataclysmic eruption.
Solar energy exploded outward from Malrik in a titanic wave. The chamber, the earth, the skies of the Separate Dimension, none were spared as the golden inferno expanded without restraint.
Instantly, every living being within the Separate Dimension felt it. Death. Fear. Dread. Annihilation. Catastrophe.
One by one, without resistance, every figure dropped to their knees. The air became searing, suffused with flames that threatened to consume the world itself. Buildings shuddered, then shattered as though some unseen titan had crushed them with a single blow. The earth convulsed violently, fissures and chasms tearing open and yawning towards the heavens. The sky itself blazed in golden-orange brilliance, drowning all in a radiance that resembled the end of days.
Malrik moved.
Without sparing a glance at Cindralis, his hand drifted with effortless elegance to his soul-bound weapon. Solaris, the katana eternally hanging from his waist, sang as he drew it. The hiss of steel sliding against its scabbard roared like thunder in the hearts of all who heard.
And then, with no hesitation, no fear, Malrik struck.
His body blurred into a streak, faster than thought, faster than lightning, faster than anything mortal eyes could follow. Solaris arced toward Cindralis’ neck, an apocalyptic strike carrying the weight of a world-ending cataclysm. One attack, designed to end it all.
But Cindralis was no feeble Sovereign. She had not even risen from her throne. Her body remained poised, serene, calm, as though the very concept of being moved without her will was impossible.
With a single thought, reality bent. Space reshaped itself, folding and twisting in her command, forming a wall between her and Malrik’s blade.
The collision was cataclysmic. Solaris met the wall of space with the force of a supernova. And yet, like a hot blade slicing through butter, the katana carved through it effortlessly. The wall collapsed as though it were nothing but parchment before the First Sun’s wrath. The blade, unhindered, streaked toward her neck, centimeters away from ending her reign.
But she vanished.
In the final instant, Cindralis dissolved into a streak of sapphire light, evading the strike with ease. Malrik’s blade met only empty air and space.
The aftermath was devastating. A concussive blast detonated, pure golden-orange fury erupting outward. A torrent of sword marks and explosions carved the landscape into ruin, a storm of radiant madness shredding everything within a twenty-kilometer radius into absolute annihilation. Nothing remained but smoldering fragments of what once was.
Cindralis’ form reappeared above, high in the heavens. Her long black hair danced in the winds of destruction, her black eyes sharp and calculating. She hovered like a goddess among mortals, sovereign and supreme, her presence resonating with the domain itself.
As the creator of the Separate Dimension, she could see and feel everything that transpired within it. Every breath, every tremor, every life, it was all connected to her. And what she witnessed below made her frown.
Malrik, with nothing more than his presence and restrained fury, had wrought devastation. Buildings lay in ruin, countless injuries spread among the inhabitants. Some bled profusely, others had already collapsed into unconsciousness, while many trembled violently, their wills shattered.
She realized, despite his wrath, he had held back. His fury was controlled, his presence restrained, deliberately so. If he had unleashed himself without thought, the Separate Dimension would already have been a graveyard.
’I underestimated him,’ she admitted inwardly.
She knew Malrik well. Once, he had been a student within these very walls, training beneath this same dimensional sky. But the man standing before her now bore little resemblance to that youth. He was no longer here to learn. He was here to destroy.
Her mind flickered back to the moment Solaris had cleaved through her spatial defense like paper.
’He is still obsessed with his siblings,’ she thought, eyes narrowing. Her gaze swept over the ruin below, and only word came to mind: Armageddon.