NOVEL NEXT Chapter 102: The Usurper's Resonance
The Iron Cathedral was no longer a room; it had become a pressurized chamber of absolute-zero mana. Vane's feet were locked into the metal floor. The iron beneath his boots had buckled and fused under the weight of the collision. He was leaning into the spear, his muscles screaming as he poured every ounce of his remaining mana into the star-steel shaft. The star-steel remained whole, a singular line of silver light that refused to bend even as the obsidian-black ice on Isaac's chest absorbed the impact.
Vane's vision was blurring. A thick, metallic scent filled his nose as blood began to leak from his ears. He was at the absolute limit of his Rank 3 mana core. He could see it now: the "Door" Isaac had spoken of. It was not a physical thing, but a conceptual threshold in his mind. It was a gateway that separated the physical laws of the Elite from the mythical laws of the Sentinel.
He was touching it. His hand was on the handle. He could feel the pressurized, high-density mana of the next rank vibrating just beyond the wood.
Vane roared, his voice a guttural sound that tore at his throat. He tried to force the handle. He tried to shatter the threshold with the sheer weight of his will. He pushed his Internal Pulse, Grade B into a rhythm that threatened to rupture his heart. He wanted to cross. He needed to cross.
But the door did not open.
The handle refused to turn. The mana in Vane's veins, no matter how refined, was still limited by his current rank. The quality of his mana was sharpening, becoming more crystalline, but it lacked the conceptual mass required to shatter the lock of the Sentinel rank. His body, built in the slums and forged in the villa, was still a Rank 3 vessel. He was a commoner standing before the palace gates, and the gates were telling him that he was not yet ready to enter.
Isaac did not move. He stood behind his mantle of black ice, his sapphire eyes watching Vane's struggle with a look of genuine, unfiltered shock.
"You've reached it," Isaac whispered. His voice was barely audible over the screaming wind of the mana-storm. "You've actually reached the same ceiling as me."
Isaac had spent his entire life being told he was the greatest talent in the history of this world. Now, he was looking at a boy who had reached the same mana rank as him. Vane wasn't just a talented student anymore. In terms of pure mana talent, he was Isaac's equal.
"But you can't go through, can you?" Isaac asked. There was a trace of regret in his eyes. "The door doesn't care about your effort. It only cares about the foundation. You have the quality of a King, Vane, but you don't have the refinement to turn that handle."
Isaac raised his hand. He didn't use a strike. He simply flicked his fingers, and a wave of compressed spatial pressure hit Vane's chest.
Vane was launched backward. He did not slide; he flew. His body crashed through a frozen iron pillar before slamming into the far wall of the Cathedral. The impact was so violent that the star-steel spear was nearly knocked from his hands. He slumped to the floor, his vision flickering between silver and black.
'Is this it?' Vane thought.
The fire in his marrow was dying. His mana core was a dry well. The silver motes around his shoulders were flickering out like dying embers. He looked at Isaac, who was walking toward him with a slow, inevitable pace. Isaac's black ice armor was still untouched. The Silver Fang, the pride of Senna Valerius, had failed to leave a single scratch.
Vane's hand tightened around the ash-wood shaft of his spear. He could feel the Usurper authority deep in his soul. It was not a quiet thing. It was a predatory, starving entity that lived in the center of his heart. It was vibrating with a violent, jagged resonance. It was looking at Isaac's perfection. It was looking at the gap between them.
And it was screaming for more.
'I can't open the door,' Vane realized. His breathing came in ragged, bloody gasps. 'I'm not a Sentinel. I'm just a rat with a stolen spear.'
He closed his eyes. He reached into the "Library" of his authority. He bypassed the Grade C skills. He bypassed the utility spells. He went to the very bottom, to the "Locked Vault" where the filtered memories of Senna Valerius were kept. He didn't look for a technique. He looked for a soul.
'If I can't be a Sentinel,' Vane whispered in his mind, 'then I will steal the one who was.'
The Usurper authority erupted.
Vane's body jerked as if hit by a lightning bolt. A sound like a thousand voices whispering at once filled the Cathedral. The silver mana didn't just return; it changed. It didn't sparkle. It didn't hum. It became a solid, translucent mist that began to coat Vane's skin in a jagged, spectral armor.
[New Skill Unlocked: Perfect Copy (Grade S)]
Isaac stopped. He stood five meters away, his hand raised to deliver a final pulse of frost. He watched as Vane's posture began to shift. Vane's shoulders squared. His grip on the spear changed from a student's tension to a veteran's ease. His eyes, which had been filled with a desperate fury, became cold and distant.
Behind Vane, the silver mana began to cohere. It formed a tall, regal silhouette. The figure held a spear that looked identical to Vane's star-steel weapon. It was the ghost of Senna Valerius in her prime, her gaze fixed on Isaac with the weight of a hundred battles.
Isaac felt a coldness that had nothing to do with his own magic. His breath hitched in his throat. For the first time in his life, the Monarch felt a genuine, primitive shudder of fear.
"The General..." Isaac whispered, his hand trembling as he looked at the phantom standing behind the boy from the slums.
Vane raised his spear. He didn't look like he was in pain anymore. His Rank 3 body was being piloted by the ghost of a War-God.
"Sixty seconds," Vane said. His voice was not his own. It was a calm, low resonance that carried the authority of a commander on a battlefield.
Isaac took a step back, his obsidian armor flickering as he realized the duel had just transformed into something lethal.