Chapter 363: Initiation

Eryndor spoke in his ghostly voice, "Ghost Sword, Third Form, Spectral Pencer."The Knight made the motion of stabbing twice with his massive sword. Yet, the speed of his sword movement was so fast that it turned to a blur, almost as if he was holding a lightweight rapier in his hand and not a massive bone sword covered with writhing flesh, a sword that was almost as long as the height of that very Knight.

But no Death Energy shot out like a piercing beam; instead, nothing happened from the visibility of the naked eye. But Sophia had already chanted another arcane magic, the moment Eryndor became visible, "Radiation Magic, Absorption barrier."

A layer of energy, made of glittering, unstable atoms of countless isotopes, created a thin barrier covering both of them. But not soon after the barrier of radiation was conjured, it instantly shattered, like the breaking of a glass, from the two consecutive piercing gestures from the Dread Warden. But neither of them was able to see what hit the barrier, and before they could realize it, they were hit by a powerful spiritual attack that rattled both of their minds to the extreme.

Especially, Sophia, she coughed up a mouthful of bright red blood, drops of it came out of her nose, ears, and even her eyes had traces of blood coming out of them. She gritted her teeth and muttered in difficulty, "Radiation Magic, Internal emission."

Destructive radiation power burst forth from inside her body. Sophia’s body glowed in a glittering light as all remnants of foreign spiritual substance started decaying and decomposing within her. As she finally regained internal stability.

While Sophia was busy erasing her spiritual status abnormality from within, Gareth did not remain idle. With a mighty battle cry, he cast off his own Elemental magic, "Elemental Magic, Flaming Body."

The mighty forger put his entire body aflame, as if he had become the very embodiment of the scorching flame, embracing it with all his existence. The scorching fire, unfortunately, did not spare even its own caster; it was burning the whole body of Gareth, all while he was still burning through his life force.

The flame lit on his whole body, also destroying the remnants of the spiritual attacks from Eryndor, as he charged forward. Meeting the Knight head-on, completely giving up on his defense. The real trump card of this fight was the Valkyrie; he knew it very well. As long as he fended off Eryndor for long enough and helped in the process of the valkyries’ breakthrough, he would burn even his soul for that scenario to occur, if necessary.

As a master forger, Gareth obviously had the most excellent affinity with fire and metal among all the Elements in his Elemental Aspect.

And now, since he was burning off his very body, the fire had become so intense that it was burning away the unshakable dark death energy wielded by the Knight.

Swosh,...

Clank...

Creak....

Bang....

Crang....

Bang....

Bang...

One after another in a matter of seconds, countless clashes of the giant swords were exchanged between Eryndor and Gareth. One was like a flaming human, burning alive; the other was the carrier of Death, burning in the blue-cold power of the undead flames.

The Scorching red flame of Gareth represented the burning, tumultuous life, while the Death Knight covered in the blue fire represented the cold, eternal embrace of Death. A death that was perhaps not Death but more like an abominable torture.

It was life vs Death, even if that Death was a false one.

The range of destruction from the clash between the two powerhouses continued to grow. And Sophia jumped right back into the battle without a second of delay, Gareth serving as the tank, while she was a long-range shooter, dealing damage from afar with her radiation magic.

Playing the role of the perfect supporter within this fight, using her radiation magic with peak efficiency, first, Sophia fired an invisible beam of gamma rays, directly targeting the ethereal core of the undead Knight. Then she followed that attack with a Particle cannon, firing a mix of supercharged isotopes.

Then she added two more final attacks, which her reservoir could still accommodate, Energy Refraction, emitting a special type of molecular vibrational waves, that made it harder for the Knight to control his energies, to be precise, the energy controlled by Eryndor started to flow in a different direction than what he was intending, unnoticeably lessening the power of his strikes.

The last magic she had cast on the Dread Knight was Ionic Disruption. With that, not only did the Death Knight start to lose his directional control of the death energy from the previous castings of the Valkyrie, but on top of that, just the particles of death energy started to behave abnormally, as if being destabilized by something from within.

But despite all of it being powerful forms of magic, unfortunately, their effect remained minimal. The very fact that those magic attacks were even affecting the mighty undead warrior is a wonder in itself. Because fundamentally, it was supposed to be downright impossible for her to affect him, as the qualitative difference in their existence was too great.

But Sophia did not lose hope; her expression showed nothing but pure determination because she knew very well what she was working towards: the power of radiation magic. Using it in such a life-and-death scenario was far more potent than she could have ever thought possible.

Because the true power of her radiation was not in its immediate destructive force, but in the minor adverse effects that slowly compounded, accumulating into something... powerful. But the Knight, not realizing any of those effects, ignored her attacks, as none of them was able to have any significant impact on him.

Instead, the undead had to keep his focus on Gareth, who was now matching him blow for blow for the first time. The Knight had no choice but to focus on the Elemental Warrior who had enshrouded his entire existence in the bright scorching flames, burning his very body and life to stand on equal ground with him, even if it was temporarily.

The ground quaked from their violent clash, as blue and bright red scorching flames clashed. Equal in power and might, but contradictory in their source. A half-kilometer radius all around them had become a land of devastation from the constant slashes of Death Energy and the Scorching Fire.

The Death Knight moved in impossible angles, suggesting postures and forms that were biologically impossible for humans. Despite the knight being of humanoid skeletal structure, he was currently an undead, unbound by the limitations of any living creature.

And protected by that powerful armor, which negated most of the attacks done to his body. But Gareth, unfortunately, did not possess such a defensive item. The worst part was that Gareth had only advanced to the 4th phase just a few hours ago. Even the sword he was wielding was an Archon-grade tier three artifact.

If Gareth, as a swordsman, had a proper sword of the fourth tier, he could have given an even better fight to the Knight than he was able to show now, as his very weapon of choice was holding him back.

In response to the inhumane swordsmanship of the Dread Warden, Gareth did not fall short; the forger had also dedicated his entire life to both forging and wielding the way of the sword, with flawless precision. Especially, as he got more and more used to his strength as a 4th phase seeker, and getting better in mid-battle as he was now able to match the colossal strength of the Knight.

When their clash seemed to have reached the absolute peak, Sophia had to be careful just not to be hit by the residual energy of the clash between the two powerhouses, but this was precisely the moment when she had to step forward and break the ongoing tempo.

She muttered, "Radiation Magic, invisible frequency."

The Knight, in the midst of the heated clash, muttered to his opponent with a trace of excitement, "Yes, warrior more, give me more excitement, fight harder and harder. I did not have such a good fight in ages. You are a warrior worthy of my respect. An opponent worth admiration."

Gareth, blocking the slashes of death energy, responded in rage, "Shut your damn mouth, you bastard, you talk about killing children, do not talk to me about honor and respect. The only thing you deserve from me is Death."

But Eryndor wasn’t bothered by that statement, dodging the attacks of his opponent, he only chuckled, "You talk big, human warrior, when you are letting a child risk her life to help you in the fight. Just this alone shows me the integrity and true face of your race. A race surviving on the shoulders of the valkyries for every generation."

Gareth replied coldly, his flames growing hotter in response to his emotions, "If humanity had a racial aspect of our own, then you lot would have seen what we humans are truly capable of."

The Knight only laughed, his blue flames also becoming darker and colder, "Excuses, worthless excuses. If you continue to say such stupid things, I do not think I will be able to respect you any further. It doesn’t matter what opportunity you are given or not."

"There had been many powerful races in this continent before any of the current ruling forces; they were strong enough to pose a challenge against even the demons and dragons in their prime. Asking for fairness is the behavior of the weak-willed ones."

"The world will never be fair, it never was, and it will never be. If you want to be the strongest, you have to carve your way forward and create your own advantages. There is nothing more and nothing less."

Gareth’s angered face receded, and absolute determination took over his face as he stated,

"Yes, and that is exactly what we will do."

"We??" questioned the Knight, almost forgetting about the Valkyrie, whose magic had been nearly ineffective against him.

Suddenly, the hollow, skeletal face of the undead seemed to change expression as he finally noticed something disturbing: he couldn’t sense the Valkyrie for almost the last 5 minutes. The Knight spread his senses wide, trying to pinpoint where the Valkyrie was.

The forger, using that moment of disturbance in the mind of the Knight, landed a few attacks on him and sent him flying backward 50 meters. Eryndor planted his feet on the ground, stopping his body from sliding further backward.

Just as he was about to glare at Gareth, something hit his skull, the only uncovered part of his body, a soft punch. Barely having enough strength even to make him flinch. Multiple more of those punches followed. Yet, there was absolutely nothing in front of him. Nothing that his sunken eyes could see, at least.

The Knight let out a chuckle, "So, that’s where you are, Valkyrie.

But it seems I have expected too much from you. Your worthless magic is useless against me. It barely tickles my armor. I hoped for nothing. Let me end this farce."

Eryndor moved his hand as he stabbed forward, piercing straight through the stomach of the Valkyrie, painting the ground red. As the invisible body of Sophia became visible again in his sight.

As he stated, his tone filled with disappointment and pity, "So, that is how this generation of Valkyrie ends. I wonder if humanity could survive through this generation. I doubt the demon race would protect the humans any further. In fact, they might be the very ones that end it."

Sophia coughed up a mouthful of blood, blood coming out of all of her orifices, her teeth completely bloodied and in pain, life-threatening to leave her body as her eyes dimmed. She could survive a wound like that if a standard weapon had pierced her. But the sword of Eryndor was sipping away the very life from her, as the most potent form of the death energy invaded her insides.

Eryndor heard the murderous scream of the Elemental warrior from 40 meters away, as he was rushing in this direction with every ounce of his strength, like a beast that had finally snapped.

Ignoring Gareth, Eryndor muttered to the Valkyrie one last time, "Goodbye, Valkyrie. Trust me, it’s better to embrace true Death than to live as a puppet. My instructions were to bring you back alive if possible, originally, but in that scenario, you would have been experimented on endlessly. But the least I could do is give you a swift death, as a show of honor, since you gave Death to my mount."

Finally, Sophia looked up at the Knight, showing her bloody teeth and cold, reptilian red eyes. She showed a crooked, ominous smile and muttered, "You talk too much, and you’re late, Eryndor."

Like hitting the final nail in the coffin, she exclaimed internally, ’Radiation Convergence.’

Suddenly, a small crack spread on the skull of the mighty death knight, as his eyes widened in disbelief. Dizziness spread through his entire spirit, almost knocking him to the ground.

But with a force of will, he shook off that status abnormality and the small crack in his skull, which also healed instantly, along with all the radiation energy that had slowly built up and affected his skeletal body, being negated.

But the deed was already done; the requirement was met. Sophia had done minor damage to the Knight. She chanted, grinning so wide it looked like nothing less than a smile of the devil, "Radiation Magic, Half-Life Shift."

Finally, the notification which she had waited for so long came, Prime Nexus whispered, flashing a message at the corner of her retina,