Chapter 96

The wind blew hard across the western coast.

I stood on the edge of a cliff, my coat blowing behind me, watching the dark shapes coming closer, six powerful enemies from the Alvarez Empire.

Wall Eehto. Jacob Lessio. Neinhart. Ajeel Raml. Bloodman.

And Irene Belserion.

I felt excited. This was what I'd been waiting for. Not the usual small fights with guilds that gave up as soon as they heard my name. No, this was different. These were the people everyone feared. These were the ones who thought no one could touch them.

They landed with a heavy thud. Their power changed the air around them. Wall's eyes scanned me, glowing blue. Jacob looked at me with clear dislike.

Ajeel cracked his knuckles loudly, while Irene stayed calm, like a statue, watching me.

I let the wind blow through my hair and raised my hand.

"Turn back," I called, my voice clear over the wind. "I don't want to kill you."

The silence felt heavy. They all studied me, looking for weakness, but they wouldn't find any.

Jacob laughed. "You stand alone."

Neinhart chuckled. "One man against six of the Spriggan 12? How silly. You must be crazy."

I smiled, feeling that familiar wildness in my thoughts. "Oh, I'm definitely not well," I said, my smile growing. "But I'm merciful. That's what this is. Mercy. I'm giving you a chance to leave. Now. If you go, I'll let you live."

I could feel how proud they were. They didn't take me seriously.

Wall moved his huge body, his arms changing into weapons, blades, guns, and missiles came out from every joint. His voice was cold and machine-like. "Chance of target winning: less than 0.00002%. The odds are against you."

"Let's raise that number a bit," I said quietly as I stepped forward. "Just so we're clear... once we start, there's no going back. No mercy. No second chances."

My hand moved, and Chastiefol appeared in the air behind me, glowing gold and sending energy through the air.

"Your choice," I said coldly. "Run. Or die."

Sadly, they threw away my kindness. Poor fools.

They didn't realize this wasn't a fight, this was their end.

Ajeel moved first. The sand under his feet began to spin wildly, rising like an angry wave. His magic showed its power, sandstorm after sandstorm spinning in the air. The sand danced, ready to cut through flesh and bone.

"You think a spear can stop me?" Ajeel mocked.

I watched the sandstorm come closer, the wind howling as it twisted the ground. It was beautiful in its destruction. His sand magic was strong, but I wasn't impressed.

I made Chastiefol vanish, then quickly brought it back. Form One: Lance.

The spear shot forward with a power that made the air crack. It cut through the sandstorm like lightning, aiming for Ajeel's chest.

Ajeel's eyes widened. He quickly made a huge wall of sand to block it. The sand wall took the hit, but the force cracked the shield. Dust flew as it started to break under Chastiefol's power.

"You're fast, I'll give you that," Ajeel said, smiling. But his victory was short-lived. With a wave of his hand, the sand rose higher, covering the spear. "But it's still not enough."

I didn't move. "Then let's see how much more you can handle."

I vanished in a blur, moving so fast the battlefield shifted with me. My hand grabbed Chastiefol again, and this time, I aimed for the heart of his sandstorm.

Form Three: Scatter.

The spear broke into a dozen smaller weapons, each one cutting through the air with deadly force. Sand flew everywhere as Ajeel tried to make new walls to protect himself.

But his magic was failing. The sand disappeared, eaten by the anti-magic energy around me.

Ajeel looked shocked. He tried to make more sand, but the world turned against him. The spear cut through his defenses, slashing his chest and leaving a deep wound.

"Impossible..." Ajeel gasped, stumbling back.

I stepped closer, smiling as I closed in.

"There is no escape," I said quietly.

With one quick move, I pushed Chastiefol right through his chest. The spear burst out of his back in a flash of gold light, and his body fell to the sand, dead.

"Who's next?" I turned to them.

—

Wall's mechanical optics pulsed crimson, recalibrating as he scanned the battlefield strewn with Ajeel's broken form. He processed the speed, the power, the efficiency. And still, he advanced.

"You dispatched Ajeel," Wall stated flatly, each word a monotone analysis. "But that does not compute to superiority. Your probability of survival—0.000001%."

Neinhart stood behind him, a crooked smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Numbers, numbers. Always so clinical, Wall. But you... you're interesting, Aiden. So full of chaos. Of despair. Let me peel that mind open and show you every corpse you've buried."

They moved at once.

Wall's legs launched him forward with a sonic boom, his arms already shifting into twin plasma cannons. Neinhart raised his hands, casting his Historia of the Dead spell, phantoms of warriors long past bursting from the ether, their hollow eyes filled with unnatural rage.

"Two at once," I muttered, cracking my neck with a grin. "You boys are making this fun."

Wall opened fire, a barrage of searing blasts lighting up the sky. I dove to the side, Chastiefol materializing behind me, golden and radiant. Form Four: Sunflower Shield. The flower-like shield unfolded in front of me, absorbing the incoming plasma with a low hum.

Before I could retaliate, Neinhart's illusions struck.

Phantom swordsmen rushed in, blades raised. I spun Chastiefol into Form One: Lance, lashing out with a circular sweep that cleaved the illusions in half. They faded like dust in the wind—but more took their place.

"Let's dial it up," I said, raising my hand.

Lightning cracked from above—no, not lightning. Something far more than that.

Zenith Tempest.

My Sacred Gear activated with a pulse of golden light that surged across the battlefield as a ring appeared on my finger. The air warped with dense, divine pressure. At the same time a ring of glowing sigils formed behind me.

Neinhart's grin faltered.

Wall's sensors beeped erratically. "Unknown energy signature. Recalculating—threat level: catastrophic."

My body surged with newfound power, veins glowing faintly with golden streaks of divine storm energy. With a snap of my fingers, a bolt of stormfire arced from one of the Zenith Tempest rings and exploded in Wall's direction. He leapt back—but not fast enough.

His right arm was vaporized instantly.

"System failure—minor," he said, emotionless. He morphed the remains into a new blade.

Neinhart snarled, raising more illusions this time, fallen enemies from my past. I saw the Fallen. I saw Varik. I saw Precht, their faces twisted in suffering. My heart stilled for a second... and then thunder cracked in my chest.

"You think I'm afraid of ghosts?" I asked, voice low and violent.

Zenith Tempest roared to life again this time, the rings flared outward and unleashed a Divine Tempest Pulse, a cascading wave of stormfire and radiant wind. The illusions disintegrated with a shriek.

Neinhart's eyes widened. "No—!"

I was already in front of him.

Chastiefol, now in Form Five: Increase Spear, spiraled with impossible speed, and I drove it straight through his chest. The illusion master gasped, blood spilling from his lips as his magics collapsed like a dying star.

"Real enough for you?" I whispered, twisting the spear.

He choked once. Then vanished into nothing.

Wall surged in behind me, screeching with overclocked fury. I flipped backward, Zenith Tempest boosting me with a gust of divine wind. Wall opened every cannon, releasing a final, desperate barrage of missiles, lasers, and particle blasts.

I raised my hand.

"Judgment Down."

The Zenith Tempest rings aligned and released a beam of condensed divine lightning, massive and blinding, engulfing Wall entirely. His body buckled. Steel screamed. Circuits melted.

When the light faded, Wall stood for a moment—barely a husk. His chest sparked, his joints locked mid-charge.

"System… critical… err… or—"

He exploded in a flash of white-hot shrapnel.

Silence fell. The sand cooled. The storm clouds above faded as the rings of Zenith Tempest gradually dimmed and vanished.

I exhaled, planting Chastiefol in the ground beside me.

"Two down," I muttered, glancing toward the others still watching from the horizon. "Let's see who's next."

–-

The battlefield was scorched, littered with metal fragments and the last flickering remains of Wall's shattered core. Neinhart's illusions had long since been consumed by divine flame, leaving only the smell of ozone and smoke in the air.

And silence.

For the first time, Jacob Lessio, Bloodman, and Irene Belserion stood without words. They had watched Ajeel fall like sand through open fingers. They had seen Wall, the empire's perfect combat automaton, erased in a blinding lance of lightning. Neinhart had been impaled and obliterated like a ghost vanishing at dawn.

Now, standing amidst the wreckage, Aiden lowered his arm. The luminous rings of Zenith Tempest shimmered once more then dissolved into the wind. The divine pressure that had swallowed the desert faded. Chastiefol's spear glinted one final time before vanishing with a flash of golden light.

He stood barehanded, relaxed, calm.

Then he spoke.

"This part... is personal."

Aiden raised his right hand.

Space cracked open behind him—no magic circle, no celestial inventory rift, just raw, tearing distortion—as something impossible emerged. A sword too vast, too ancient, too searing to belong in this world. A blade forged not of steel, but of the wrath of a star.

Laevatein: Calamity of the Sun-Like Sword.

Its appearance warped the atmosphere. The sand beneath Aiden's feet melted to glass. Heatwaves shimmered across the landscape. Even from a distance, it was unbearable.

Jacob instinctively blinked away, teleporting behind a dune, breathing hard. "That… that's not magic. That's not even real."

Bloodman, unshaken in the face of most mortal threats, took a single step back. The reaper's hollow eyes narrowed. "A weapon of pure destruction… born of no element."

Even Irene, proud and composed, felt her breath catch. Her hands clenched at her sides, nails biting into her palms.

That sword radiated apocalypse.

Aiden gripped the hilt. The moment his fingers closed around it, Laevatein responded with a pulse of fury. The wind died. The clouds fled. The world held its breath.

He turned his head toward the final three.

"You should've run."

He vanished.

No movement. No warning. Just gone.

Jacob barely raised his arms as Aiden reappeared behind him, Laevatein already mid-swing. The air caught fire. Space buckled. Jacob tried to teleport again but it was too late.

The blade cut through dimensions themselves.

A flash of white engulfed the horizon. When it faded, there was nothing left of Jacob but ash floating on scorched wind.

Bloodman rushed forward, tendrils writhing, summoning endless curses and miasma. "You will not pass into the afterlife! I'll drown you in death itself!"

Laevatein responded by screaming.

Aiden swung again, not at Bloodman but at the curses themselves. The sword rejected them, tearing the curse energy apart on a conceptual level. Bloodman froze as his attacks unraveled mid-air.

"That's not possible—! Anti-magic? No—it's worse—!"

Aiden plunged Laevatein through his chest.

The Reaper screamed.

Not because of pain, but because he understood, in that final moment, that there was no soul to collect. No spirit left to curse. Laevatein did not kill.

It erased.

Bloodman's body was gone before it hit the ground.

Now only Irene remained.

She stood alone, the bodies of her comrades strewn across the battlefield like broken chess pieces. The air was heavy, not with sand or smoke, but with the crushing weight of something far more suffocating.

Him.

Aiden stood at the center of it all, calm and unbothered, as if none of this carnage required effort. Chastiefol and Zenith Tempest had long since vanished, replaced by the radiant, molten presence of Laevatein still humming at his side, its sun-like blade now dimmed, yet brimming with power barely restrained.

Irene couldn't bring herself to speak.

It wasn't pain. It wasn't despair. It was something primal.

It was fear.

The kind of fear one felt when looking up at a god. A feeling she had tasted only twice in her life: once under the suffocating presence of August, and again in the shadow of Zeref. But even they—no, especially they—had never brought her to this.

Now, with the battlefield quiet and every member of the Spriggan 12 lying broken behind him, Aiden faced her again. But this wasn't that same man.

This was something else. Something beyond.

And yet—his voice was soft. Familiar.

"Irene," he said. "You knew how strong I was. You knew what I'd do if you stood in my way. Why did you still come?"

Her breath hitched.

"I had to," she answered, voice barely above a whisper. "You think I didn't warn them? I told them what you were. I told them what would happen if they made you their enemy."

"Then why stand with them?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Because I wanted to see it again. The storm I met at the Tower."

His expression darkened, unreadable. "And did you like what you saw?"

"No," she said honestly. "It terrified me."

She raised her blade—not out of defiance, but out of duty. "But I won't run. Not from you."

He didn't smirk. He didn't boast.

He just nodded. And then they fought.

Their battle was unlike the chaos that had come before. It wasn't rage. It wasn't carnage.

It was personal.

Irene's magic clashed against Aiden's sheer overwhelming force. Her blade carved runes into the air, bending the battlefield to her will. She created false skies, summoned storms, rewrote gravity itself.

But Aiden unraveled it all.

His anti-magic didn't simply cancel her spells, it denied them. As if the world itself chose to obey him instead of her.

"Stop holding back," she snarled mid-clash, desperation breaking through her regal poise.

"I'm not," he said grimly. "You are."

With one sweeping motion, Aiden broke through her final enchantment. Her blade shattered. The magic snapped out of the air like a broken dream.

She fell to one knee, panting.

He stood over her, calm, impassive but not cruel.

"Do it," she gasped. "Finish it."

But Aiden didn't move.

"I'm not going to kill you."

She looked up, tears stinging her vision. "Why? After everything, after the people I've killed, after Zeref, after Erza…"

Her throat tightened. "Why are you so kind to me…?"

He looked away for a moment, as if the question pained him more than any blade.

"…I don't know."

She collapsed into the dust, not from pain, but from release. From years of hatred and regret being stripped away in a single moment of impossible grace.

Aiden turned from her, Laevatein vanishing into golden motes. The battle was over.

But for Irene—

—for the first time in centuries, something else had begun.

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