NOVEL NEXT Chapter 143: It's all his fault...
Everything grew silent. Not the kind of silence that brought peace, but the kind that slithered down the spine, heavy and suffocating, digging into the marrow with a promise of violence. Neither Sylvaris nor the monster moved. Neither breathed. The air itself seemed to hold its breath. But they were both creatures of instinct and fury now, and patience was not in their nature. In the same heartbeat, without a signal, without a word, they moved; one step, and the world cracked.
Their bodies blurred through the air, and the clash that followed was not a fight, but a cataclysm. Two forces that had no right existing in this realm collided with such violence that the earth beneath them split and the sky above wept in thunder.
Sylvaris's blade tore through the wind like a falling star, its edge radiant and screaming, crashing down on the monster's claw with blinding force. But pressure was not the same as power, and though his strike rang true, it was not enough to end it.
When claw met steel, the impact rang out like divine bells, and Sylvaris was thrown backward through the air, his body twisting from the sheer force, his lips bursting open with fresh blood that sprayed like paint across the ruined sky; He landed hard, the backlash tearing through his bones, but he refused to break, refused to kneel; A growl tore from his throat, animalistic and raw, his golden eye blazing, the black one swirling with shadows, and for a brief moment, the last remnants of humanity flickered in his gaze... and vanished.
His breaths grew heavy, each exhale laced with steam and fury, his chest heaving, wings twitching and convulsing as if they were preparing for something far beyond flight—war. And then, without warning, they launched him forward like a crimson bolt tearing across the sky.
His speed surged, skyrocketing past what the eye could follow, and though the monster reacted, its claw lashing out like a storm, Sylvaris twisted through the air, dodging by the thinnest shred of space, and in that moment, his blade connected. It was not a deep cut. Not a clean one. Just a graze. But it was enough. It left a mark, and that mark changed everything. Because in that single bloody streak, the impossible had begun, someone nearly three times weaker in level had done what no soul in history had ever achieved. He had wounded something that had broken through the scale of power itself.
It had to be understood that level 99 was the limit. The edge. The divine ceiling no human had ever passed. Only monsters, demons, and entities born outside of logic had crossed into the triple digits. It wasn't just a power difference, it was an ancient law, a divine seal written into the code of the world, locking sentient beings in place, forbidding ascension.
A few had escaped it, legends whispered in broken ruins, but none had ever returned. And yet here he was. Sylvaris. Not just challenging it, but cracking it. Because his pride refused to kneel. His blood boiled with a command that made even fate hesitate. And the world, ancient and divine and cruel as it was, had no choice. It had to bend to him.
Holy light suddenly ignited along the edge of Sylvaris's sword, a blinding radiance that scorched the darkness itself, bending it into submission as divine force surged through his arm.
The sacred flare became the dominant power, pulsing like a second heartbeat through the blade, but the monster was no pushover, and it had no intention of falling back. A blast of corrupted energy erupted from its core, and in response, black threads began to leak from the ground like liquid fire, slithering and writhing like they were alive, dancing with malevolence.
They shot at him in waves, wrapping around stone, air, and space, chasing his every movement. Sylvaris barely had time to dodge, slicing and cutting through them with holy light flashing from his blade, but no matter how many he severed, more came, endless and consuming. And then the monster moved, disappearing in a blink, faster than his eyes could track, and a monstrous set of jaws came crashing down on his position from above, death flashing in rows of jagged teeth.
"Shit, you stink!" Sylvaris roared, not with fear but rage, and crimson energy erupted from his body, surging like a volcanic burst as mana flooded his veins. The power in his palms exploded outward into the monster's mouth with a blinding flash, slamming the beast mid-air and sending it flying backwards like a meteor hit it from point-blank range. The moment the dust cracked open, his system window screamed to life:
[Your mana reserves are on the verge of exhaustion!]
And he could feel it. Every spell, every swing, every dodge was catching up to him fast. Even though his strength and speed were growing with each second, pushing him to heights he'd never touched before, his body was falling apart from the inside out. Muscles twisted, tore, rebuilt, then tore again, reforming stronger with each heartbeat, but the pain and exhaustion were a new kind of enemy.
His vision blurred. His lungs burned. He was evolving mid-fight, yes, but no matter how far he pushed, the gap between him and this thing still felt like an abyss he couldn't cross. His power had awakened. His blood had remembered. But in this moment, standing in the middle of a broken world with darkness bleeding from the sky, it still didn't feel like it would be enough.
"I'm still missing it..." Sylvaris muttered, his voice cracked and low, each word dragging through his throat like molten iron. "My main core... the one that was ripped out of me like I was never meant to be whole." His chest rose and fell with pain, with fury, with something deeper than grief—injustice. "I could feel that power… in Aureve's memory... it was wilder, stronger… unstoppable. This?" He looked down at his trembling hand, the black and gold aura flickering like a flame starved for air. "This is not it. This is just a scrap. A remnant of what I was supposed to be. A taste of a future I'll never reach."
His breath hissed out like steam, but his next words came sharp, every syllable soaked in venom. "And it's all his fault... Arathor." The name hung in the air like a curse, and the realm shuddered as if reacting to it, his rage crackling with a pressure that could no longer be contained. That name wasn't just a target. It was a wound. A betrayal. A blood debt written into his bones. And as the power in him coiled tighter, burning with wrath and longing, it didn't just shake the trial realm, it threatened to tear through it, to claw its way out and hunt the man who had made him this way, even if it meant tearing the sky apart to reach him.