Chapter 522: Inevitbale VIII
The first collision came like the end of a world.
Glothar’s blade, forged of devouring flame, swung down—not as a strike, but as an inevitability, a falling verdict. The air around it shredded into black petals of erased resonance.
Leon stepped forward. His body screamed, cracks glowing white across his skin, blood and light spilling in the same pulse. He raised his hand, not to block, but to fracture.
"Fifth Pulse—Fracture Requiem!"
The resonance detonated outward, a shivering scream that snapped through the void like glass breaking across a thousand thrones. The clash met not in steel, but in meaning: devouring hunger against absolute refusal.
The explosion hurled everyone back. Naval skidded across the void-floor, stabbing his trident down to anchor himself. Roselia shielded Liliana with a wave of flame, though it guttered dangerously. Roman roared, planting himself like a mountain as shards of resonance tore past.
At the center—Leon and Glothar remained locked, the devouring blade biting into a web of fractures, each crack ringing like a bell.
Glothar leaned down, pressing with force that bent the void beneath them. His voice was a growl vibrating through bone."You bleed with every refusal. You break yourself to deny me. How many times can you fracture before you are the silence I devour?"
Leon’s teeth bared, his voice raw, echoing with layers."As many times as it takes—until you choke!"
The cracks in his body widened, light spilling faster. But behind him, the Fifth Pulse carried into his allies, vibrating through their threads.
Milim roared, her flames reigniting, wrapping around her like a sun.Naval’s trident pulsed with tidal force, resonance weaving with Leon’s rhythm.Roselia’s flame, though pulled at by hunger, steadied as her staff blazed defiantly.Liliana’s threads bound the cracks around them, stitching their fragments into a single, trembling but unbroken weave.Roman slammed his fists together, the echo resonating with Leon’s fracture, amplifying its defiance.
The Maw tilted his helm, as if the taste of their unity intrigued him. His blade pressed harder, flames roaring with swallowed thrones."Good. Struggle. The feast is sweeter when prey refuses to lie still."
The fractures in Leon’s arm split wider, bone nearly exposed under light. He knew this was not a duel of strength—it was a test of who could endure collapse longer: his refusal, or Glothar’s hunger.
And the void was shaking like teeth grinding around them.
The void rang like a thousand funeral bells as the deadlock held.
Glothar’s devouring blade bit deeper into the fractures, resonance shrieking as though the world’s own bones were splintering. Leon’s arm buckled, skin splitting in jagged lines of light.
But the Fifth Pulse wasn’t his alone anymore. His refusal had already threaded through them all, and his allies surged forward as one.
Naval was the first to move. He drove his trident into the ground, summoning a tidal surge of resonance that became a wall of ocean crashing down upon Glothar. The wave wasn’t water—it was the oath of seas that refused to drown, the echo of every storm he’d survived.
Glothar’s helm snapped toward him, crimson slits narrowing. The Maw opened wider, drawing the tide inward to drink it whole—only for Roselia to strike. Her staff flared, fire unfurling into a blooming crown of roses. Each petal was a spark that burned with chosen defiance, and as the tide bent toward the Maw, her flame laced through it, turning the hunger into ash before it could consume.
Liliana’s voice cut sharp, threads slicing outward like blades. She caught the fractures splitting from Leon’s body and wove them together, binding the cracks into a lattice that turned breaking into strength. "If you’ll shatter," she whispered, her voice trembling, "then I’ll make even your ruin a weapon."
Roman charged through the chaos, his fists like thunder. He slammed them together, the echo bursting in sync with Leon’s pulse, amplifying the cracks until they weren’t wounds—they were resonant spears. The fractures stabbed outward, stabbing into the devouring blade itself.
Milim appeared above Glothar in a streak of light, her aura roaring like a second sun. She raised her hand high, voice shaking the void:
"Try swallowing this!"
She slammed her flame down like a meteor, her resonance colliding with Leon’s fracture at the exact instant. The impact wasn’t just light—it was refusal made flesh, a heartbeat that burned to exist.
The Maw staggered. His blade trembled, flames sputtering as the resonance stabbed into it. For the first time, his steps ground backward, the void beneath him gnawed apart by his own retreat.
But even retreat was hunger. The black maw behind him widened, dragging their attacks inward, grinding their unity against its teeth. The flames of swallowed thrones bellowed higher, a choir of dying kings crying through the blade.
Glothar’s voice was thunderous, guttural, and yet almost pleased.
"Yes... struggle louder. Fracture brighter. I will savor the moment when all of you collapse into silence."
Leon’s chest heaved, blood pouring down his arm, fractures crawling across his ribs. But the Fifth Pulse flared brighter, carried by the rhythm of his allies striking in unison. He forced a grin, teeth red, eyes burning with cracked rings.
"Then get ready, Maw—because you’ll choke on every single one of us."
The void convulsed, and the clash reignited—Glothar pressing to devour, Leon’s resonance flaring with his allies’ defiance, the balance trembling on the edge of collapse.
The void’s tension sharpened into a wire-thin edge. Every heartbeat felt like a century grinding past, each breath dragged through a throat full of ash.
Leon’s fractures screamed louder, his body bending under the weight of his own rhythm. The Fifth Pulse writhed like a beast desperate to escape its cage—he was barely keeping it from tearing him apart.
Glothar pressed, inexorable, every step a calamity. The devouring blade drove downward, the black fire wreathing it clawing at Leon’s resonance like jaws snapping shut. The Maw behind him roared wider, pulling the battlefield toward oblivion.
"Fall," Glothar intoned, voice echoing like the tomb of creation.
"Even refusal feeds the hunger."
Leon’s knees bent, his resonance faltering—
—when Naval broke formation.