Power of Runes

Solareth prepared his attack, the sneak formation he had been carefully weaving into the air during their clashes. Step by step, strike by strike, he had built it meticulously, without drawing attention, and now the pattern was complete. After a few more exchanges, when the last piece of his work fell into place, he was finally ready to activate it.

Then something completely unexpected happened.

His body froze. Every part of him stopped, as if the world itself had halted alongside him. Not a single stone trembled, not a ripple of mana stirred in his surroundings. Everything hung in absolute stillness, suspended in a frozen moment. Only Orien remained unaffected, moving freely through the suspended world.

What is this?

His mind instantly raced back to Ash, recalling the boy's words about his strange encounter with...

...Time stop? But how? I made sure the seal had enough energy to sustain itself...and even our domains are deployed, how is this possible....?

A cold weight pressed down on his chest as the sound of footsteps echoed unnaturally through the silence, each step resonating with a deliberate menace.

"..I do not like it when someone meddles in my fights. I do not care if you were once a god, but do not cross the line that separates us," a low, commanding voice spoke, carrying a threat that seemed to vibrate through the very air around him.

Another voice followed, sharp yet unnervingly calm. "You were taking far too much time, so I had to intervene. I did not expect you to be this weak, incapable of killing someone like him. How do you expect to achieve your goal if you are this helpless?"

As the words faded, a black heart bound in chains appeared, hovering beside Orien. The chains shook violently, cracks snaking across them until they shattered in a sudden burst. Despite the violent energy, the heart itself did not grow in size, held deliberately in check, as if its true power were being consciously suppressed.

Orien floated slowly toward Solareth, who remained suspended midair, powerless and trapped. The black heart drifted alongside him, a silent testament to the danger Orien contained yet chose to restrain. Coming face to face with Solareth, Orien spoke in a low, deliberate voice, "If I had wanted to, I could have killed him easily. But finding someone worth sparring with has become rare these days, and I was enjoying myself, using only a fraction of my abilities. You ruined that moment."

The silence that followed pressed down with suffocating weight, each second stretching like a tangible force.

Solareth's mind raced, frantically searching for a way out, but the usual strategies that had always carried him through now seemed impossibly distant.

"Oh well. This fight has consumed too much time, time that I doubt you wish to waste. You remember the deal we struck, do you not?" The voice emanating from the heart carried from every direction at once, impossible to locate, yet undeniably present, its tone cold and unyielding.

"I do," Orien replied, his gaze sharpening as he looked back at Solareth, every flicker of his eyes hinting at the quiet danger beneath his composed exterior.

He turned his attention back to the heart, his voice barely above a whisper, though it carried iron weight, "Release the time."

"Are you certain you want this?" the heart asked, its voice like distant thunder, resonating in the stillness.

Orien's gaze locked onto the heart, an aura of unrelenting pressure radiating from him, as if his stare alone could crush the blackened chains. Sensing the intent, and knowing its restrained state, the heart had no choice but to obey.

Time resumed its flow.

The moment it did, Solareth struggled to move, forcing his limbs into action.

...My energy...

He attempted to teleport away, his body lurching midair, only to find that his mana refused to respond. It was as though his own power had been sealed within him, leaving him utterly helpless.

Deprived of his energy, Solareth fell heavily to the ground, the impact resonating through the earth beneath him. Before he could recover, Orien appeared without warning, his presence looming over him like a storm ready to break.

"Did you do this?" Solareth asked, his voice steady but laced with strain, the desperation behind it carefully hidden. He poured every ounce of his mental strength into stirring the mana within his body, yet nothing responded.

"It is useless," Orien replied, calm and measured, almost with a hint of disappointment. "That is one of my eye abilities. Even though you possess special eyes yourself, I am surprised you never employed them. Nor did you revert to your original beast form. Was there a reason for your restraint? I am genuinely curious..."

Solareth, at that moment, felt certain that no matter what he tried, death awaited him. His mana refused to answer his call, and the chaotic mana in the surroundings made it impossible to draw power from the environment.

Even if he tried to exert his will, the turbulence was too strong to bend. His mind, dulled and sluggish from exhaustion, only made it worse.

..Looks like, I am going to die.....

His body loosened with that thought, a strange calmness settling over him. He even managed a faint smile as he replied, "I thought you did not deserve to face me in my beast form. That is all. As for my eye abilities, most of them are not suited for combat. What about you? Why did you hide your powers? And how did the seal on that demonic heart break? What is your goal? Why are you doing this?"

"That are a lot of questions you have there. But..." Orien's hands blurred. His claws elongated, sliding through flesh as they pierced into Solareth's chest, curling tightly around his heart. "....You are going to die anyway, so let me tell you."

The sharp nails dug deeper, and silver blood spilled from the wound, running down Solareth's chest while a line of it escaped the corner of his mouth.

"As I said, I wanted to stretch myself a little. Even when I fought human Saints, they were far too weak. I could have killed them easily, but doing so would have only alerted my father. You see, his goal is simply to conquer this planet. Nothing more, nothing less. I do not know why he is so obsessed with it, but if he had the power to step in directly, he would have already done so long ago."

With his other hand, Orien wiped the blood from Solareth's chin, tasting it on his tongue. His eyes lit up as an expression of pure ecstasy crossed his face.

"Anyway, my goal is different. I want the path of the Abyss to open. For that, I need three things. The first is this heart you were sealing. The second was your daughter. It could have worked even if I had only killed you and your wife, but once we discovered that your daughter was special, we decided to use her instead. And the third... well, the preparations for that are being made even as we speak."

Solareth's eyes constricted at his words, but he forced his expression to remain still. Inside, however, his heart grew heavier as he realized just how far the madness of the demon in front of him was willing to go.

"Oh, there is one more thing I need, perhaps the most important of all—sacrifices. Fortunately, those are easy to come by." Orien's lips curved into a faint smile as he spoke, as though it was nothing more than a trivial detail.

"You know if you succeed, this world will become nothing but a land of death, and everything will be swallowed by the Abyss. Why do you want it to open....."

Solareth's words trailed off, his voice breaking as he felt something pierce his heart even deeper.

****

The mythical beasts were powerful enough that even if their most important organ was destroyed, they could still live on, enduring until the wound healed naturally or mending it with their own strength. This was possible only because of their will, the force they imposed upon themselves to replace what was lost and keep their bodies functioning.

And to kill someone of higher rank, one needed more than just power. The attack had to be imbued with their own will, a force capable of crushing the opponent's. Right now, the strike that Orien had delivered was filled with his will, leaving no room for survival.

"That was already enough that I answered your questions, just shut up and die!!"

As those words left Orien's mouth, the smile on Solareth's face only widened, even as the light slipped from his eyes. His body relaxed, falling limp, and before Orien's eyes, his form began to change.

Orien pulled his hand free, his claws stained with silver blood, and ran his tongue across it. He took a slow step back, watching as Solareth's body shifted into the form of a unicorn.

"Well, he died before I could even tell him how I escaped the seal," the floating black heart said, its voice carrying a strange sense of satisfaction.

Orien turned his head slightly and asked, "Tell me. Even I do not know how you escaped."

"It was nothing difficult. The chaotic mana in this place had weakened the artifact bit by bit long before you arrived. I was always exposed to it, so the seal grew fragile over time. When you came here, it was already weakened enough that I could corrupt it completely. Normally it would have been troublesome, but that bastard was too busy fighting you to notice my power creeping all over the seal."

"That is how I broke it so easily."

"I see." Orien's reply was calm as he walked toward Solareth's corpse, intending to store it. Yet just as he neared, the lifeless body shone with a radiant rainbow hue that burst outward before vanishing entirely, leaving not even a trace behind.

The surroundings fell into silence. For a brief moment, nothing moved, but an overwhelming killing intent lingered in the air like an invisible weight pressing on everything nearby.

"Looks like he had already anticipated his death after seeing his daughter's body, and may have set up a power that would activate when the time came," the black heart murmured.

Orien stood still, his eyes fixed on the empty spot where the body had been, then sighed. "It does not matter. He would have gone to his wife. I just need to find and kill her too. Simple as that." He looked down at the silver blood staining his hands, the faintest glimmer of a smile tugging at his lips.

With this, Visionary will be able to find their location quite easily...