Chapter 1065

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

The clangor of knuckles and bodies crashing into one another resounded in the air as Gustav and Grey danced across the skies like two birds intertwined in a dance that was too great for mere mortals to behold.

Even though they weren’t literally on the ground fighting, the terrain still bore the destruction of their fearsome skyward clash.

Structures blasted in all directions, crumbling under the force of their blows.

The heavens and the earth bore witness to their devastating confrontation.

If the world hadn’t felt it yet, it was going to feel it by force.

Unrelenting. Unstoppable.

They dashed at one another repeatedly, again and again.

Nothing was going to stop them as they fought.

Nothing could stand between them as even the wind, air, soil, and heavens bent under the weight of their fists.

It was like two different storms of nature colliding.

Sparks flew in the air, not from swords intersecting, but from lightning blazing all around.

The element crackled with intensity as it weaved in between the duo.

Grey threw everything he had learned over his lifetime, yet he was still unable to totally overpower the man before him.

’I need to push him into a large enough clearing for me to use my domain. There’s not much time left anymore before I lose all my mana.’

"What happened, son? Feeling weak?" Gustav taunted as his leg snapped forward with blinding speed.

Grey sidestepped, then seized the leg and yanked the man forward before hurling him away like he was a ragdoll.

Teleporting mid-flight, Gustav repositioned himself directly behind Grey with a heavy metal club swinging toward the Supreme Magus’ head.

Spinning around, a sleek sword appeared in Grey’s hand.

A real sword, and not an elemental conjuration.

He intercepted the metal club, causing another violent shockwave to ripple through the air and ground, tearing deep trenches in the earth as the structures within a dozen meters crumbled to the ground.

Zipping backward, Grey wiped the blood off his mouth as he pointed the blade forward.

"Just so you know, I named this sword after mum, and I will make sure it drinks your blood and takes your head."

"Interesting. Now I wish I had a sword named after my own mother too," Gustav mocked with a slight, taunting smile.

Grey scowled and, almost immediately, slammed his foot into the air and bolted forward with all his force.

Within a beat, his blade lashed from the side, but Gustav tilted his head, letting the weapon tear past him with blinding speed.

Snapping his hand backward, Grey thrust Clara toward the man’s abdomen.

Lifting his leg forward, metal appeared around Gustav’s limb, intercepting the thrust from the mage in a resounding clang.

Though his shoulder throbbed in pain, Gustav smiled through the discomfort that was dealt to him earlier in the form of a gaping hole.

The same hand shot forward like a viper as a metal spear burst forward, but Grey vanished from view and reappeared behind his father with Clara already gone.

And in her place, a massive ki hammer appeared, which he clobbered into Gustav with unrestrained power.

BOOOM!

The earth split apart as Gustav’s body was sent crashing into the last remaining structure, turning it to rubble instantly.

Blood oozed from the man’s nose as he staggered to his feet.

’He is beginning to overwhelm me?’

"Fusion magic: Thunder Gale."

Swinging Clara forward, an ultra-sharp, crescent-shaped blade infused with lightning and wind burst into existence and instantly hurtled toward Gustav with blurring speed.

Metal surged upward, shifting into a solid wall.

The crescent blade slammed into the barrier, which trembled with incredible force.

"Oh father, you underestimate me a lot."

The blade tore through the metal wall with brutal force, as if a fabric was being torn apart.

Due to having too much confidence in his wall, Gustav hadn’t thought to teleport as the blade struck his chest and tore a deep gash across it.

Red mist erupted immediately as the force of the strike lifted the man off his feet, sending him tumbling across the terrain for several meters.

’I can do this.’ Grey hyped himself as he swung his hand upward and the earth ejected Gustav into the air forcefully while the man was looking dazed.

He was still shocked at the fact that his body was bleeding.

He hadn’t expected that he would be pushed this far.

Too far because his mind was beginning to be consumed by intense rage.

Rage that no man had ever known before. Just one straw.

One last straw and he would really lose it.

Lightning wrapped around Clara, causing the sword to increase in length so that now, it seemed like a sword long enough for a giant to wield.

Hurling it downward, a slash so colossally tall that it towered over a hundred meters tore forward.

At that same time, Gustav was just coming to after calming his rage down, only to see the slash a fraction of an inch away from him.

TCHAAAAAK—! BANG!

The whole planet trembled fiercely as the slash tore through the ground.

With how compact the planet was, the slash reached the end of the area with a vengeful storm of lightning strikes smashing into the terrain.

Rocks shattered into the air as the gash across Gustav’s chest deepened and his whole arm was torn along with one of his legs, while his body was sent hurtling a hundred meters away from the force of the strike.

Grey froze in the air, panting incredibly hard as he proceeded to crash onto his knees.

He violently coughed out mouthfuls of blood.

’It’s gone.’

His mana core was empty as he stared at Clara in his hands, proceeding to cough repeatedly as pain and exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him.

But he pushed through with a dark grimace.

"I need to see what’s his condition."

Pushing himself to his feet, he began walking forward, prepared to see if his father had survived.

...

Gustav’s body crashed a hundred meters away.

His severed limbs fell somewhere meters away from him.

His frame bounced violently across the terrain with his eyes open like someone who had just seen a ghost.

’Huh?’

With one final bounce, he came to a halt in an incredibly open plain that had nothing.

No mountains, no forests.

Just a wide expanse with Gustav’s body laying there in shock.

’I lost? I-I-I lost? Grey defeated me? Wait, how?! Wh-What’s going on? How can I fucking lose?!’

The fury spilling out of him was so suffocating that the blades of grass around were beginning to tremble under his rage.

’I can’t lose. I can’t fucking lose. Not yet! Not now! Never! Gustav Dawn can never lose!’

His eyes were now turning blood-red as veins began protruding from his neck with how hard he was grinding his teeth.

’Lose? Never! Grey... Grey—I will kill you.’

"AAAAAAAAAAARGH! I WON’T LOSE TO YOU!"

The shout was so fierce that a sinister pressure and wind burst outward with so much intensity that the earth splintered just from the force of the scream.

....

As Grey was staggering toward the direction he had sent Gustav flying, he heard the scream.

Snapping his head in that direction, he immediately swirled Ki around his feet as dread filled his heart.

’He’s still alive? Damn it!’

He darted in the direction of the shout, blurring past trees until he burst into the wide clearing, only then did he skid to a stop.

He was shocked. Confused.

Not understanding what was going on.

He was more confused than ever.

That was because standing on two feet was Gustav, who was undergoing a rapid change that made Grey’s blood run cold.

All the hair on his body stood up, his instincts screaming at him to run as far away from this man as possible.

"Wait. Didn’t your limbs get sliced off?"

"...."

He didn’t understand what was going on or the transformation the man was undergoing.

Then, after a few seconds, Gustav’s voice came out. It was wrong.

Otherworldly. Sinister. All shades of wrong.

Like something that didn’t belong in this world—no, like something that didn’t belong in this realm.

"The third reason I founded the Otherworlders was because I wanted to cause death. Bloodshed. I needed to spill blood so He would be fed. He would be fed and grow so much stronger, such that he would wreak havoc across all realms."

"Wha—?"

"You shouldn’t have awakened the devil in me. Now, I will show you why even Lucifero fears me."

’Luci...’

Grey’s eyes stretched wide in pure, undiluted horror.

’Lucifero? The creator of all Demons?!’

BOOOM!

A shockwave so violent smashed into the Supreme Magus that he was lifted and sent ricocheting across the terrain in pure, indescribable pain.

He gritted his teeth and then slammed his hands into the ground, stopping himself from going too far.

Lifting his head with blood spilling down his mouth, his heart pounded with so much force it seemed like it was about to rip out of his chest.

Because based on what he saw next, he knew he was dead.

What stood a dozen meters away from him was a literal nightmare carved from shadow and storm.

At first glance, he bore the unmistakable frame of a man—broad-shouldered, muscular, and standing with a heavy, terrestrial grace—but the humanity ended at the silhouette.

Towering from his back were two immense, midnight-black wings, their feathers as sharp and matte as obsidian.

Yet, it was the third appendage that defied nature: a central, monolithic wing of raw, blood-red membrane.

It did not beat or flutter; it hung stagnant and rigid, a tattered shroud of gore-colored velvet that draped behind him like the heavy mantle of a forgotten king.

The air around him didn’t just carry the scent of rain; it tasted of hot metal and ozone.

From the knotted bone of his wings, coils of heavy iron chains slithered downward.

They moved with predatory fluidity, winding around his obsidian-skinned torso and limbs like starving vipers, their links clinking with a dull, rhythmic hiss that echoed off the canyon walls.

Then, he looked up.

His face was a masterpiece of terror.

Beneath the curve of two massive, ribbed horns, his eyes shattered the gloom with a haunting asymmetry.

His left eye was a storm trapped in a socket, a vortex of fierce, electric blue that bled light onto his cheekbones.

His right eye was its silent, violent opposite: a flat, viscous pool of crimson that looked like freshly spilled blood reflecting a dying sun.

Raising his hands, the darkness of the ravine flickered.

His forearms were encased in brutal lightning guards—jagged plates of black mineral that groaned under the pressure of the energy they contained.

Jagged bolts of azure electricity danced between the metal and his knuckles, illuminating the faint, silver-scarred runics etched into his skin.

He was the bridge between the inferno and the tempest, a human vessel overflowing with a power that seemed ready to crack the world open.

And then, squinting closer, Grey saw something that made his breath hitch.

A number embedded on his father’s forehead glowed like molten lava.

Number 1.

’Up-Upper Ec-Echelon 1? Father is a literal demon and the strongest one ever?!’

Lifting his gaze in the direction of where Grey lay, his mouth cracked open in a cold smile that made shivers run through the whole of the warrior-mage’s existence.

He was doomed. He knew it.