Chapter 25: Raiga, the Heretic and Aspiring Godslayer vs Sir Lancelot, the Most Powerful Divine Champion Who Ever Lived

There was no longer any need for words.

Everything they had learned was more than enough to understand why they had to fight. Dwelling on it any further would have been repetitive and pointless. They both knew that, so instead of continuing to talk, they lowered their closed helmets over their faces.

One of the greatest duels in history was about to begin.

And Emi would be the only witness to such a legendary feat.

“Divinity: Tizona’s Roar!” Sir Lancelot did not hold back. He skipped any attempt to analyze his opponent and attacked with everything he had from the very beginning. His entire suit of golden armor erupted in a matching glow, currents of mana exploded around him, and the ground of Olympus fractured beneath his power. The drifting ashes vanished, replaced by sparks of energy that seemed ready to explode at any moment.

Sir Lancelot unleashed a powerful slash aimed directly at the Heretic’s neck. He moved faster than lightning, leaving a brilliant golden trail behind him.

“Dark Arts: Wall of Fire!” Black flames erupted from the ground in an attempt to protect the Heretic. The technique had worked against the Minotaur, but not against Sir Lancelot. His entire body passed through the wall completely unharmed, forcing Raiga to block the incoming strike with Malakor before attempting to retreat two steps and regain his footing.

Lancelot did not allow him to.

He continued attacking with a relentless series of slashes and thrusts aimed at strategic points: the center of Raiga’s breastplate, his left armpit, his neck, and the visor slit of his helmet. Raiga blocked every strike with tremendous difficulty, Malakor moving like a shooting star across the night sky, darting from side to side and always barely managing to stop the knight’s assault.

Sir Lancelot is incredibly fast. Raiga can’t counterattack. All he can do is defend himself.

Emi struggled to follow the Marshal’s assault. Her untrained eyes could barely keep up with the fleeting movements of the two combatants. At that moment, Raiga and Sir Lancelot were the two most powerful mortals in the world, surpassing even the Prophet and the Divine Champions of previous eras.

This was the closest the world had ever come to witnessing a battle between gods.

“AAAAAAAGH!” Raiga could not find even the smallest opening to counterattack. The Marshal’s strikes were absurdly powerful. Blocking them shattered his wrists and fingers over and over again. Without the constant reinforcement provided by his draconic armor and Dark Arts, he would have lost his limbs during the opening moments of the battle.

He remained composed, constantly searching for an opening that could turn the fight around. But it was anything but easy. Sir Lancelot continued his relentless offensive without showing the slightest hint of exhaustion. He was giving everything he had, rupturing his own lungs from the strain and regenerating them almost instantly. Sir Lancelot was no longer thinking about tomorrow. If destroying his own body was necessary to win, he would do so without hesitation.

There was no future for him.

Raiga, on the other hand, still had a mission to accomplish and a peaceful life to live beside his beloved Emi. He could not afford to fight with the same suicidal recklessness as the former Marshal.

“Dark Arts: Dragon’s Roar!” The same technique that had nearly knocked out the Dark Witch merely pushed Sir Lancelot backward. It caused no actual damage, but it finally stopped the relentless assault that had continued for almost four uninterrupted minutes. “AAAAAGH!”

The Heretic did not waste the opening.

Two seconds were all Raiga needed to launch himself into a full offensive. Malakor carved a downward arc toward the knight’s left shoulder. At such close range and at that speed, dodging should have been impossible. Only a true monster could have blocked such an attack.

And yet… Sir Lancelot stopped the blade.

Tizona and Malakor collided once again, releasing dozens of black sparks that stood in stark contrast to the knight’s golden aura.

What a monster!

Raiga resumed his offensive.

Malakor began glowing crimson while the Heretic’s dark mana increased by fifty percent. Raiga pushed his body to its limits and launched more than thirty consecutive attacks: slashes, thrusts, pommel strikes, and bolts of black lightning. He swung his cursed sword again and again, but he was no longer aiming directly for a killing blow. The battle instincts Sir Lancelot had developed throughout his military career allowed him to react almost instantly to any obviously lethal attack.

So Raiga adopted a different strategy.

Instead of targeting vital areas, he attacked the golden armor itself, gradually weakening Lancelot’s defenses.

CLANK, CLANK.

Sir Lancelot took two strikes directly to the breastplate. He felt neither pain nor discomfort, but still retreated to inspect the damage. His armor remained almost pristine except for two noticeable dents in the center of the cuirass.

He’s trying to weaken my defenses. I won’t allow it.

During the next exchange, Lancelot did not allow a single strike to land against his full suit of armor. He realized Raiga had stopped trying to kill him with one overwhelming attack. This new strategy was harder to counter and, in some ways, far more exhausting.

The Heretic’s attacks were no longer precise, but deliberately erratic. He was not trying to destroy Lancelot immediately, only inflict minor damage and allow it to accumulate over time. It was a risky strategy, but a relatively effective one against powerful fighters like Sir Lancelot.

Damn it. I’m still on the defensive. I need to regain some space and attack, or I’ll exhaust myself just trying to block him, the Marshal thought, his mind working at incredible speed.

Raiga, however, was not attacking at full strength either.

He chose to conserve his energy during the erratic assault and wait before committing to another direct killing blow.

Black flames continued dancing around the knight. Raiga had covered two fronts: his sword controlled the space directly ahead, while the flames moved dangerously along both sides, heating Lancelot’s armor and gradually reducing his speed.

“Now!” Sir Lancelot unleashed a burst of energy that threw Raiga four meters backward. The Heretic never saw it coming. He had not even noticed the currents of energy gathering around the Marshal.

He was simply sent flying.

“Shit!” Tizona traced a downward arc toward the black helmet.

At that speed, dodging was impossible.

Blocking was impossible as well.

Rather than waste time on useless thoughts, Raiga attacked from below. Malakor shot upward in a single straight trajectory toward the center of the golden breastplate.

CLASH.

Raiga received a devastating blow to the head that dented his dragon helmet. Sir Lancelot, however, did not escape unharmed either. The Heretic’s cursed sword pierced the cuirass—not completely, but deeply enough to leave a significant wound across his abdomen.

“Not yet!” Raiga retreated, pulling Malakor free from his opponent’s armor as the blade once again erupted in dark flames.

This man is trying to kill me. He abandoned his future and his entire life just to complete his mission. Why am I still conserving my strength? I need to give everything I have if I want to kill him. This battle won’t end in my favor if I keep fighting for tomorrow.

His draconic power erupted to its maximum.

Raiga felt his muscles scream. Every part of his body wept blood and pain from the overwhelming amount of energy he forced into his limbs. His senses sharpened, and beneath his helmet, his hair turned red, the same color once possessed by dragons when they still freely walked the earth. The natural brown of his eyes became an inhuman gold. None of these changes could be seen beneath his helmet, but Sir Lancelot did not need to see them to understand that the battle had just reached another level.

“Very well, Raiga! Put your life on the line!” Sir Lancelot overloaded his armor with raw power as well.

He tore his own bones apart just to withstand the increase in strength.

The duel was about to reach its ultimate stage.

At the peak of their abilities, Raiga and Sir Lancelot had already crossed the boundary separating mortals from something greater. They moved at the speed of sound, their sword strikes piling one upon another. Emi could no longer follow the battle with her naked eyes. Not even her glasses allowed her to appreciate the magnificent martial display unfolding before her.

“AAAAAAAH!”

“AAAAAAAH!”

Both warriors roared in unison as they exchanged killing blows.

With every impact, the rocks of Olympus trembled. Some could not withstand the enormous concentration of magical energy and simply vanished into the air as though they had never existed.

“Dragon Judgment!” Raiga shouted.

“Divine Death!” Sir Lancelot answered.

Malakor’s blade was once again surrounded by dark flames, but this time tiny bolts of crimson lightning flowed across it at incredible speed. The mana had been compressed with such force that it was visible to the naked eye. Tizona, meanwhile, retained its pure and beautiful white color despite the absurd amounts of energy surging through it. The weapon acted like a natural lightning rod, becoming increasingly powerful with every passing second.

CLANK, CLANK, CLANK.

Malakor versus Tizona.

Heresy against sacred power, two opposing swords wielded by warriors whose paths were fundamentally incompatible.

After seven hundred and forty-two clashes of steel, both Raiga and Sir Lancelot retreated six meters.

It was just enough distance to catch their breath.

“Emi, you should move farther back.” Raiga removed his helmet. His golden, murderous eyes reflected an almost merciless savagery. The Heretic summoned a blood-soaked heart larger than a watermelon, its veins clearly visible from where Emi stood. The raw organ was then consumed by black flames, shrinking until it was roughly the size of an apple. “Sir Lancelot, Divine Champion, I’m going to use everything I have. You’d better do the same.”

Raiga ate the roasted heart.

He bit into it once, chewed three times, and swallowed.

“My gods, grant me your strength one final time!” Sir Lancelot became surrounded by auras of different colors. Red, gold, gray, brown, and green—each represented a different deity. The gods bestowed their ultimate protection upon the knight, placing everything they had on their final Champion.

“Dragon Heart!” Raiga’s dark energy spiraled completely out of control. Consuming a dragon’s heart was the ultimate affront against the gods. If his title as the Heretic had ever been in doubt before, now he could wear it with pride. He defiled everything that had once been considered divine, joining himself with a beast regarded as an enemy of Order.

He placed his helmet back over his head.

He felt his bones, muscles, and joints strengthen until they surpassed even magical steel. The surge of power throughout his limbs fed directly into his draconic armor, empowering the entire panoply.

“Die!” The ground beneath Raiga’s feet exploded. His body shot forward like a banshee, and without the slightest hesitation, he unleashed a final slash toward the knight’s neck.

The shock wave forced Emi backward. She had to run and hide behind several rocks that had not yet vanished. Even then, she kept her eyes fixed on the battle. It was her duty to record everything for posterity—a story that, if she survived, would be remembered forever.

“Hm.” Sir Lancelot did not retreat. Instead of fleeing, he stopped the strike with Tizona and immediately counterattacked by firing a beam of energy from his free left hand.

But he missed.

Malakor deflected the attack toward the left, neutralizing the divine offensive once again.

Sir Lancelot then launched himself fifteen meters into the air with a superhuman leap. Tizona erupted in golden light as currents of mana exploded around him.

Shit. It’s all or nothing. Let’s do this!

Raiga followed him.

He overloaded Malakor’s blade with dark flames and pointed it directly toward the sky.

“Divine Punishment!” Sir Lancelot fired a massive beam of energy toward the ground. It was golden, with millions of currents stretching endlessly through its center. He poured everything into that single attack, determined to end the battle there and unleashed all of his divinity without hesitation.

“Dragon’s Death!” Raiga answered with his own ultimate technique.

He pushed both his knowledge as the Heretic and his draconic techniques to their absolute limits. His beam was black, surrounded by flashes of crimson. It was the culmination of fourteen relentless years of suffering, determination, and resilience.

He absolutely refused to lose this fight.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

The collision caused an earthquake not only across Olympus, but throughout the entire world. Global currents of mana erupted out of control while the two techniques fought against each other with equal power, each attempting to annihilate the other. Raiga’s armor disappeared, followed by Lancelot’s, both abandoning their protection to reinforce their attacks one final time.

Four earthquakes later, the collision of energy finally ended.

The black and golden beams neutralized each other.

Sir Lancelot landed back on the ground without his breastplate or sword, completely bare from the waist up. His muscular body, covered in painful but survivable wounds, stood proudly like that of a gladiator from a forgotten age. Raiga still wore his civilian clothes, although they too had been torn apart by the battle.

“I’m out of mana,” Lancelot said.

“Me too.” Raiga sighed. He could no longer keep Malakor materialized, and he did not even have enough power left to summon his usual longsword. “Will you let me pass? We’ve fought with everything we have. It would be a shame if we both died here.”

“No. I’m afraid this battle isn’t over yet. Raiga, after crossing swords with you, I’m truly convinced that you are a good person. The gods were wrong. You never deserved what happened to you. I know this isn’t what you expected, and I cannot ask you to accept it… but I ask for your forgiveness. On behalf of the gods who caused you so much pain, I sincerely apologize.” Sir Lancelot bowed deeply, lowering his head almost to the ground and remaining there for several seconds before standing again and looking at Raiga with profound sadness. “But I still cannot let you pass. Humanity is not ready to be free from the gods. This is not something they forced upon me. I genuinely believe it.”

Emi said nothing.

Like a proper scholar, she remained silent and documented everything.

At that moment, only Raiga and Lancelot existed.

“Do you really believe that? There’s nothing I can say to make you step aside?” Against all expectations, Raiga began to cry.

His eyes lost their golden color and returned to their usual brown.

Bitter tears ran down his cheeks. The pain in his heart had grown so intense that he no longer knew how to handle it. This entire situation was a tragedy. After crossing swords with Lancelot, Raiga had understood firsthand that he was a good man, someone pure of heart whose ideals were every bit as strong as his own.

“I’m sorry, Raiga,” Lancelot declared.

“Mortals deserve to be free and take responsibility for their own actions. It’s time for us to grow up and face reality ourselves. The gods have protected us for too long.” The Heretic refused to abandon his convictions either.

Words could no longer solve anything.

Their beliefs were incompatible.

“Very well! Then let us fight to the death! Right now, I am no longer a Divine Champion, a knight, or the Marshal of the Kingdom. Those titles are dead. My name is Lancelot, and I will fight you as a mortal!”

“So be it. I’m no longer the Heretic, the aspiring godslayer, or a veteran adventurer. I’m simply Raiga, a man willing to give everything for what he believes in. Let’s fight!”

No mana.

No powers.

No weapons.

This would be decided by nothing more than pure determination.

Nothing more.

Nothing less…