Chapter 136: Into the Inferno
The beam collided with the entity lurking in the shadows, and the moment it struck, the world itself flinched—veiled in blinding light, trembling beneath the sheer force of the clash, as if reality had been slapped across the face by something it was never meant to witness. The impact was so violent the very air screamed—CRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKHHHH!!!—a deafening, bone-splitting explosion that split the sky from horizon to horizon.
Light didn't simply shine—it erupted, bursting in every direction, not red, not white, but a storm of furious color, crimson and silver and gold bleeding together into a divine spiral of madness, so bright it scorched the eyes and cast warped shadows where none should exist.
The elemental realm recoiled like a living creature in agony—fire shot into the sky like solar flares, WHHRRRAAAAWWWW!—shards of jagged ice exploded from the ground and launched skyward like divine arrows, TSSHHHH!—and the earth itself cracked and heaved with a thunderous RRRUMMMMMMBLLLE!, molten lava gushing from the wounds, casting a hellish glow across the battlefield.
Then the wind fell silent—a sudden, unnatural stillness, as if the lungs of the world had been emptied in a single gasp—and with its silence, the elemental balance shattered. Fire no longer danced, it raged. Water boiled. Ice collapsed. The system meant to challenge him had lost its rhythm, and in that beautiful moment of chaos, Sylvaris smiled—because now the disorder was his to exploit, and the gods had no idea what they'd just unleashed.
He could feel it—all of it—every drop of chaotic energy crashing against his body like the judgment of a dying god, and the pain was immediate, merciless. His skin split open under the pressure, raw and torn as ice lanced across him like frozen blades, cutting deep and leaving trails of frost that refused to melt.
Flames licked across his flesh, blistering and wild, branding him with heat that felt like it came from the core of the sun, while the earth itself rose to punish him, smashing into his limbs with such brutal force he could hear the creak of his bones, the warning tremble of a body pushed past its limits. And yet, through all of it—he smiled. Because it was working. Fire and ice, in their rage, had turned on each other, clashing in confusion, canceling out their own destruction as they fought for dominance, and suddenly their blows weren't as sharp, weren't as devastating.
But the earth… the earth remained relentless, unwavering, the only element unshaken by imbalance, and it came for him like a beast that could not be reasoned with. He had no choice now—no time to stand his ground or flex his arrogance. He moved, fast, instinct driving him as he darted side to side, dodging each crushing blow with just enough grace to stay ahead of death. Because the elements, once enraged, would not stop. They didn't care who he was. They didn't care about prophecy or trials or gods. They had awakened—and their only purpose now… was to destroy.
"He's good…" Valoria murmured, her voice smooth with approval, though her eyes gleamed with something darker as she watched him from the heights of her divine throne, the light of a dying sun pouring through her realm as if even the heavens bowed before her. Draped in silver and gold, armor kissed by war and time, she lounged back with one leg crossed, her fingers lightly resting against her chin as she studied him—not with detachment, but with hunger, with amusement, with a growing curiosity that danced on the edge of cruelty. She enjoyed watching him, that much was clear. His strength. His defiance. His beautiful arrogance.
But more than anything, she looked forward to the moment he reached the final trial, to that sacred place she had crafted with her own hands, where he would finally learn what kind of god she truly was. Because she wasn't planning to test him—she was planning to break him, to shatter his delusions of invincibility and make him taste the cold truth that life was not made of simple battles that bowed to resolve.
No, life was chaos. Life was cruelty. And death waited at every turn, cloaked in silence, ready to take even the strongest to the dirt. And if Sylvaris kept walking the way he did, with that sharp grin and reckless fire… then she would be the one to remind him how easily men like him fall.
"Oh?!" Valoria's voice sharpened, surprise flashing across her face like a crack in polished steel, her posture shifting as she leaned forward on her throne, eyes narrowing, locked on the chaos unfolding below. She hadn't expected this—not even she, not the goddess of heroes, who had seen countless champions rise and fall across the seventeen realms. And clearly, neither had the spectators, for all across the divine coliseum, nobles and warriors alike gasped, some rising from their seats in horror, as Sylvaris suddenly spun on his heel and charged straight into the fire elemental. No hesitation. No defense. He ran headfirst into the living inferno, the flames swallowing his body whole in an instant, as if he had stepped into the mouth of a sun.
"What is he doing? Does he have a death wish?" Valoria muttered under her breath, her eyes tracking the blaze as it erupted upward, coiling into the heavens like a divine serpent made of molten hate. "That fire is enough to melt enchanted steel like ice in a forge, and he—he just ran into it… Tch. He's just another suicidal idiot after all… don't tell me he died just like that." Her tone dripped with disappointment, with disdain, her interest flickering out as quickly as it had ignited.
But then—light.
Blinding, divine, unnatural light tore through the sky in a brutal, horizontal arc, followed by a sound so massive it didn't echo—it flattened the world beneath it. The explosion that followed wasn't fire. It was force, raw and unleashed, a roaring blast of white-hot energy that turned the fire elemental into a detonated star. The blastwave thundered outward, consuming everything in its path, and even the water and earth constructs were caught in it, their forms torn open and shattered by the sheer magnitude of destruction. The realm trembled. The sky cracked. The observers clutched the edges of their seats in silence.
And from the center of that light… he fell.
A figure—charred, unmoving, silhouetted against the fading brilliance—dropped from the highest point of the explosion, falling with limbs limp, smoke trailing from his body like a comet descending to its grave. Sylvaris.
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