The collision between the blinding light and the abyssal darkness catalyzed a vigorous mana reaction that obliterated everything in their vicinity. Both the bodies of Flooding Death and Roel began to disintegrate.

  Wisps of black smoke were leaking from the calamitous monster that had wilfully hastened its maturity process to unleash its strongest attack. It howled frenziedly, but it couldn’t stop the gradual dissipation of its curses. That was the price it had to pay for its burst of power.

  Similarly, the black-haired man who was desperately trying to sustain his ancient gods and the Crown’s Stones with the flicker of life force he had left found his body unraveling under the strain. Bloodied mist was spurting out of his apertures.

  Being Toward Death was a powerful ability that allowed him to turn the tables on his enemy even when he was in an unfavorable position. However, just like how jugs could only hold so much water, the overload of power was starting to hurt him.

  Roel had known from the start that it was dangerous for him to abuse ‘Being Toward Death’, but there was no other way for him to defeat Flooding Death.

  Even when in their immature state, the Six Calamities were far beyond what an Origin Level 3 transcendent could deal with. While Roel possessed the Crown Origin Attribute and the Crown’s Stones, he had to raise his strength to its very limits before he could even pose a threat to them.

  Both parties were putting their all on the line here.

  Flooding Death was depleting its potential as one of the Six Calamities at an unprecedented rate in order to sustain its destructive beam of death, whereas Roel was staking his life on this single strike. Grandar’s fist was like an unwavering boat amidst a dark, stormy sea.

  This decisive battle had become a contest of willpower and a gamble of fate.

  Be it the starry sky, the expansive earth, the unyielding encasement of ice, or the irresolvable curse, everything suddenly seemed brittle at this very instant.

  Roel’s consciousness was slowly fading. Shockwaves swept in his direction, threatening to extinguish the final spark of life he was desperately clinging onto. However, he forced himself to hold on through sheer willpower, knowing that he absolutely couldn’t teeter beyond the edge now.

  Oddly enough, his mind was more active than ever despite his life barely hanging on a thread. In a moment of daze, his thoughts materialized as a meteor shower flashing across his eyes. These comets reflected his motivations, be it the glory of protecting humankind or the honor of having his name go down in history. They sought to fuel his conviction through their brilliance, pushing him to hold on for even a split instant longer.

  Yet, he was so worn out that none of these comets could capture his attention no matter how brilliantly they shone…


  … until the silhouette of an auburn-haired woman appeared before him.

  Memories of the time they had spent together flashed across his eyes. The solemn vow he had made to protect her echoed in his mind.

  Something clicked inside of him.

  The dying embers of his determination blazed with renewed fervor. His dull eyes slowly regained their light. No matter how difficult it was, he wanted to change the future that fate had in store for her.

  This ordeal was something that Charlotte was destined to go through from the moment she was born with the High Elf Bloodline. The high elves’ ability to curb the Six Calamities simply made them far too much of a threat. There had probably been many confrontations between both sides over the long course of history.

  In the scheme of things, Roel was a third party who had gotten in the way of their conflict, but what about it?

  Charlotte Sorofya was the woman he loved. If fate really did exist in this world, their fates were already intertwined together from the moment Charlotte shot the bullet of life into his body.

  If fate had condemned her to a slow decline toward death, he would become the one to shatter that fate. He would prove with his actions that neither the terrifying destroyer of civilizations nor the so-called ‘predestined course of life’ could take her away from his side.

  Amidst the blinding light, Grandar roared furiously as he pushed the fist suffused with frost aura across the flood of curses, parting it into two. With a resounding explosion, the curtains were finally drawn on this decisive showdown.

  …


  The Rosaian guards and Pendorian knights could only stare in trepidation as furious gales of frost and curses ravaged the vast plain. The battle between Roel and Flooding Death went beyond their wildest imagination. Even the reverberations of their clash would have been more than enough to snuff out their lives had they not retreated in time.

  Perhaps due to having inherited the Mother Goddess’ superior strength, the Six Calamities possessed unfathomable high-order powers that even gods were unable to neutralize. Ordinary transcendents couldn’t hope to protect themselves against their offense at all.

  Roel had staged the battlefield with Flooding Death to be as far away from the Diamond Rivière as possible, but the shockwaves arising from their clashes still caused significant damage in the carriage’s vicinity. In fact, if not for the Sorofyas’ Jewel Magic, all of them might have already lost their lives by now.

  As a matter of fact, the evil cultists from the Saints Convocation had already made their escape. All that was left were a couple of corpses that no one was going to claim.

  The Rosaian guards held their jeweled shields up away from the carriage, forming innumerable layers of barriers to firmly keep out the deadly curses and biting frost. The Pendorian knights were also seeking shelter from the disaster with them. All of their eyes were nervously fixated on the intense clash of black and white in the far distance.

  They knew that the outcome of the battle between Roel and Flooding Death would determine their fates too.

  Should Roel fall in defeat, the ancient monster would surely turn its demonic claws toward them next. Even in a severely weakened state, there was hardly any doubt that Flooding Death would be able to easily kill all of them with its higher-order power.

  There was no one here who was oblivious to the stakes involved in the battle. They watched as the two conflicting forces clashed numerous times before eventually culminating into a decisive, earth-shattering collision.

  Boom!

  A deafening explosion reverberated at a completely different scale from those before, nearly bursting eardrums. It was accompanied with unbelievably powerful gales mixed with bits of curses and frost, forcing everyone to lower their bodies.

  Kurt immediately activated his gigantification and planted his tower shield on the ground, tanking the brunt of the impact for the crowd. Selina and the others lodged their weapons into the ground to stop themselves from flying away. Grace and the other high transcendents who had arrived later did everything they could to protect the carriage.

  The sustained explosions threatened to burst the crowd’s eardrums, and the intense light completely irradiated the night sky. It took several seconds before these overpowering stimuli started to subside.

  Kurt and the others anxiously turned to the direction of the clash despite their flash blindness and the persistent ringing in their ears. They could vaguely see that darkness had returned to the area where the two forces had previously clashed, but none of them dared to make a move.

  After a moment of silence, the Rosaian guards and Pendorian knights finally returned to their feet and got back in formation. The magicians quickly made use of this opportunity to repair the barriers.

  But even after a long time had passed, there were still no more explosions or shockwaves. It slowly dawned on them that the frightening battle of epic proportions might be finally over.

  The crowd instinctively began squinting at the darkness, dying to know who had won the battle. Grace also looked over with a hesitant look in her eyes.

  Roel had sternly told her prior to the battle that under no circumstances should she approach his battlefield. If he lost the battle, she was to immediately take Charlotte away and seal her off in a crystal made out of Crystal Magic. That was the only way Charlotte could survive the ordeal.

  The decisive battle appeared to have come to an end, but none of them was able to confirm the victor. Even Stuart and his unique eyes were of little help here.

  “That region is completely engulfed with the mana of the Six Calamities. Even my eyes are unable to see through that.”


  Grace and the others fell into a dilemma.

  If Roel won the battle, he would definitely be in a severely depleted state and in need of urgent help. However, if it was the ancient monster who survived, recklessly approaching it right now could draw its attention to the carriage, thus placing Charlotte in immediate danger.

  Inside the Diamond Rivière, the condition of the auburn-haired woman who looked as if she could pass away at any moment suddenly started improving. Her ghastly pale complexion was swiftly regaining a reddened glow.

  With the lifting of the curse, Charlotte’s High Elf Bloodline was finally freed from its suppression. It immediately released a huge gush of life force that quickly repaired her deficient body. With the recovery of her body, the mana she harnessed within her started swiftly increasing too.

  With the recovery of her constitution, the weak sleeping spell that Roel cast on her naturally dissipated. Her eyelashes fluttered for a moment before her eyes shot open.