299. A Blazing Apocalypse

The sound barrier broke. Particles of light exploded from the White Wing’s fingertips as her pale spear – the replica Spear of Annihilation – collided with Sinder’s chest. An invisible barrier only appearing to block the spear protected his heart, causing shreds of flaming pages to burst as he was flung hundreds of meters backwards.

“I didn’t expect you to reemerge so soon as a Faux Angel again SINDER!” The White Wing’s complexion burst with emotion. Her voice was accompanied by a maniacal chuckle. She clicked a button on her pocket watch as she lunged forward, disappearing before Carpalis’ very eyes.

}{ Spatial Entanglement }{

The sound barrier broke multiple times over, creating shockwaves that sifted the leveled remnants of the city like the waves of a sea. An artificial cityscape soon began to rise from the earth, painted in a permanent hue of green. Carpalis’ Faustian Bargain collided with Frost, swatting him like a miniscule bug as she rapidly grew to a colossal scale.

|| The Dealer of Hands ||

Carpalis’ Zone of Influence clashed with… Sinder’s.

It became clear that the prevailing identity that overruled Frost was not her own, but of a previous iteration. One that carried the combined woes of both, brought back into the realm of the living as a living embodiment of an apocalypse.

When two Corrupted Zones clashed one did not dominate over the other. In short, both existed at the same time. Apocalypse-classed Corrupted were beings of such might, and woven by existential nightmares that only Beholders could stand toe to toe with them.

Frost had become such one entity.

But more than that, this was a Corrupted born directly from Frost.

< “It all returns to ashes…” >

Sinder muttered in his deeply distorted, masculine voice.

“You’re the first Faux Angel born from whatever broken dreams you allowed to eat at you! When we thought those created by the Advent of Wrath were bad, you conjured something none of us could deal with! I know you can hear me in there, SINDER!” The White Wing carried a personal vendetta against it.

She appeared as quickly as she disappeared right in front of Sinder – the Crowned – as she punched the false Spear of Annihilation into his chest, as if hoping it would pierce his heart. It caused the Golden Hand behind to buckle. An Angel like the White Wing was on par, if not stronger an ordinary Beholder.

The force caused the barrier and the tip of the spere to erupt with fireworks in the form of colorful sparks. The embers set the top of buildings alight before the White Wing clasped onto the spear as hundreds of falling feathers pointed at Sinder and began to riddle his body like knives before she grabbed him by the throat.

“No doubt you’re the real thing. That Primordial Factor can’t be touched with a fake apparatus like this. Like Elysia, you need to be eliminated, Sinder. This world is not yours to destroy again!” The White Wing then threw him downwards, her feathers dragging him along as she clicked her pocket watch again and again, clashing his fists.

They were like bolts of lightning, shredding all that stood in their path as glass shattered as far as a kilometer away by the sheer force of their combat. The White Wing possessed a power reminiscent of the Hyperlinks, allowing her to teleport at will.

However, this was only possible so long as she was able to click a certain button along her rapidly ticking pocket watch.

“It was supposed to happen much later! To think those subterranean hearts took the initiative! To spin your inevitable defeat into a prophecy that would bring them all TOGETHER!”

With each consecutive clash, Sinder took more and more damage. It reach a point where he had lost over 100,000 million HP in the mere span of a single minute.

Crowned | HP: 400,000,000

However, as she prepared ahead of a time a dome of feathers which were primed to converge into a Frost who collided with the Faustian Bargain –

– A flaming explosion rendered these feathers down to a molecular level.

< [What Doesn’t Kill You…] >

< … further bellows the flames in one’s heart! >

They became a molten slag. All three of her tails, which were formed along her back like a second wing, caught alight as she backed off from what was akin to an erupting volcano. A shell of flames surrounded Frost as Carpalis rapidly retracted her hands up beyond the clouds, watching the buildings melt like candlesticks to a bonfire.

Not even Carpalis’ closed eyelids could stop the light from entering her eyes. It was an explosion of flames that lathered liquid fire into the world. One droplet landed on the arm of the White Wing and it left behind a blackened mark.

A shield made of multiple layers of her feathers was erected as she backed off instinctively, gripping the watch in one hand like her life depended on it. The immediate 10-kilometer vicinity was hit with a severe heatwave, enough to cook one’s lungs from the inside out if the air was breathed.

Thankfully, from their knowledge, no one was present to have to endure such a fate.

“Anyone I told the tale of 70 billion dying marked me as a liar. I wish I never did, or else this false prophecy wouldn’t have spiraled out of control.” The White Wing uttered through clenched teeth.

Crowned

HP : 550,000,000     ATT DEF : 1,000     MAG DEF : 1,000

“CARPALIIIIIIIIIIIIS! SINDER’S HEALTH RETURNED! Dogs shouldn’t be able to learn new tricks. Not the ones that prey on others!” The White Wing screamed through a feather, which transmitted her voice across the countless others that polluted the skies like false stars.

Her voice was amplified for Carpalis to hear as she sent her Faustian Bargain downwards, phasing through the phantom city.

|| Dealer of Hands – Diamond Suit ||

The blue ring fitted along Carpalis’ Faustian Bargain glowed, becoming the moon of their eternally plunged night. The coloration of her hand changed from blue to anodized blue. It was an offensive Skill that temporarily hardened her golden hand, allowing it to take a purely physical form.

Its presence was so immense that the pressure it exerted alone crushed buildings as they endlessly rebuilt themselves in cycle of annihilation and recreation. Just mere moments away from colliding with Sinder, a ball of flames was ejected upwards, clashing with the Faustian Bargain.

< [A Million Wicks and One Light] >

< The cleanse begins with the many we discarded. I hoped that it would ignite something from them. Little did I know that I was snuffing them out with my great flame >

< Please note down all of Frost’s attacks! >

Nav said in a prompt directed to the Archivist, causing the White Wing to grin.

“That’s right, Lailah. Or whoever you call yourself now. Feed us your knowledge. Keep us informed!” She yelled, watching an umbrella of molten shower the world.

Those flames were so thinly spread above their world that they reached as far as the mountain of Impuritas, setting multiple mounds alight.

“We only need to hold them down for an hour. Less if they’re fast enough! Do not let Sinder clash with your technology! A Faux Angel is capable of permanently deforming it!”

“Faux Angel to you. But to I and us above – this is a Corrupted!” Carpalis spoke with a strained voice, struggling to keep her hand down before the pillar of flames began to push it back into the skies.

“Tsk. Work. Work… WORK!” A hundred clicks of the pocket watch did nothing as the White Wing flung herself towards Sinder, summoning a swarm of tens of thousands of pale feathers.

They surrounded her like planetary rings as she took one glance down at the watch, only to find that its ticking had ceased. Instead, a black mist invaded its internals as it slightly distorted, like a miniature black hole had formed within its center.

“To think you would interfere with us. Get your Aberrations away from my watch, ELYSIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” It became clear that the mechanism behind the White Wing’s teleportation was tied to her watch.

Somehow, the Aberrations of Elysia were interfering with its mechanism, leaving her incapable of using it as she desperately hid it from plain sight, slipping it deep into her breast pocket.

“I cannot wait until the fruition of G-Z7, you miserable trumpet!” Once again, she stabbed the spear into Sinder’s chest, dealing tremendous damage.

His attack was interrupted, allowing Carpalis’ hand to collapse as though the ceiling of the world had fallen. Both the White Wing and Cinder fell. The Angel clasped onto Sinder, her feathers slashing at him like many intertwining circular saws as she drilled her golden eyes into his furious crimson ones.

“WHERE HAS YOUR VOICE GONE!? Did you also become deaf when you heard her cries, Sinder!? When you ate the girl who wanted to save you –!”

The White Wing defied gravity, placing multiple false Spears of Annihilation underneath Sinder. She was going to use Carpalis’ hand as one giant hammer. Even though she was aware of its futility, she was so caught up in her emotions that her eyes began to glow in the shade of Carpalis’ hand.

“The girl who wanted to save your dream –!”

“AND THE GIRL WHO WANTED TO SAVE THE WORLD YOU – ALL OF US – TRIED TO PROTECT!?”

*Click*

*Click*

*Click*

*Click*

*Click*

*Click*

She pulled out her pocket watch, clicking rapidly until the hands began to move again. At the very last possible second, she teleported out of the 5 kilometer kill zone that was Carpalis’ hand, watching the very foundation of the earth shift downwards as fissures ran into the distance.

Sinder | HP: 410,000,000

Silence suddenly prevailed. Carpalis scrapped her hand in a circular motion, maximizing the damage as the White Wing could have sworn that she noticed abnormal movement in the corner of her eye. She thought she saw healers but dismissed it entirely as she focused solely on the situation that would dictate the fate of the Nex Megalopolis.

“50 minutes left. I can already see movement in the distance.”

Indeed. If one looked closely, they could see the vaporized outline of something huge approaching. In the meantime, small, very faint strands of light began to shoot overhead like shooting stars.

< [What Doesn’t Kill You…] >

Crowned

HP : 550,000,000     ATT DEF : 10,000     MAG DEF : 10,000

“You’re persistent…” The White Wing scoffed before another violent eruption threw Carpalis’ hand back into the air.

“Painful!” Carpalis cried, retracting her hand as the blue coloration fell like deadly hail.

Within the handprint-shaped chasms was an unharmed Sinder, whose enraged breathing became audible despite the immense distance. Their wings expanded and took them to the skies, the wingbeats sending flaming disks in all directions, shaping the land to his whims.

He never spoke a word.

Instead, he showed his flaming fists and directed them to the White Wing, for they would speak all the words in his mind for him.

< [Violence on Violence Action] >

< We shall settle our differences the same way it was always supposed to be done >

And before Carpalis could recover, the two collided fist to fist.

But this time, the White Wing was struck backwards. She was flung like a bullet through several dozen buildings as Sinder gave chase, his wings slicing through the same buildings like a hot knife through butter.

Suddenly, the White Wing found herself on the denfesive, all the while the diamond crystal floating above Sinder’s shoulder began to emit a dangerous glow.

//////// < WARNING > ////////

< UNAVOIDABLE ATTACK >

< [Clubs of the Voiceless] >

< I pretend to not hear them, because I could never live to be faced with such guilt >

And paired with it was another attack, which caused a quarter of the now 15-kilometer city to glow a vibrant green as club-shaped crystals took to the skies.

< [Immortalized Woe – Clubs] >

As if the battle wasn’t hard enough, each and every single one of the crystals began to emit a high-pitched cry.

It mimicked the cries of countless thousands – the many Sinder and Frost had discarded.