Chapter 403
This young body of Ilux would become the absolute possession of Xavier XVII, an empty vessel ready to be filled entirely by the soul of the legendary king, without protest, without criticism, and without the stubborn presence of an independent will.
'I will repay it. Not as your vessel, but as myself.'
Time had moved forward, leaving behind the chaos of the room and bringing them into a wider and far more somber arena.
An empty field stretched beneath a dark night sky, illuminated only by pale moonlight that occasionally slipped behind fast-moving clouds.
The imaginary clock pointed to half past twelve in the morning—a time when the world slept most deeply, the perfect moment for a confrontation that should be witnessed by no one.
In the middle of that expanse, two figures now stood facing each other.
Ilux, in his original body, his breath forming white mist in the cold air, his eyes radiating a tension that had shifted from anger into frozen focus.
And before him stood Xavier XVII.
The physical presence of the legend here was not merely an illusion or projection.
It was a manifestation that was real, tangible, and filled with an almost physical presence.
His solidity displaced the night air, and his posture stood straight with an authority that instinctively demanded recognition.
The reason behind Xavier's physical appearance lay in a complex and ironic symbiosis.
Ilux's consciousness, without fully realizing it, had become the perfect sanctuary of recovery.
Every day Ilux lived in stability, every second he refrained from pushing his power to the brink of total exhaustion, had given Xavier's wounded consciousness the opportunity to heal and gather back the fragments of his scattered strength.
Especially since the final great battle against Aldraya, the former master, Ilux had unintentionally entered a long period of "rest."
His immense power was no longer constantly invoked, giving Xavier space within the subconscious to absorb more energy and consolidate himself without disturbance.
That energy was not wasted.
It was stored, refined, and woven again into threads of existence that now allowed him to stand here, in this silent field.
The result was an appearance that almost disturbed the laws of nature.
The physical form of Xavier standing before Ilux showed no traces of the despair or suffering of thousands of years.
He appeared healthy, whole, and fully capable, as he once had at the peak of his glory long before the tragic joint suicide with Myra Astrielle ended his first physical life.
His muscles were firm beneath clothing that seemed like memories given form, and his eyes burned with the light of leadership and power that had long become myth.
This was Xavier in his purest and most dangerous form.
A hero king who had regained his weapons of war and was now aiming them at the one person who should have been his ally.
'The one who falters first will lose what remains.'
The situation unfolding in the night field was a complicated and dangerous paradox of power.
Although Xavier had successfully manifested his own physical form, creating a body separate from Ilux, a bond deeper than mere physical separation still tightly bound them.
That bond was a thin yet powerful thread of consciousness that had once been united—a psychic and spiritual connection not entirely severed by this manifestation.
As a result, their deepest resources, the elemental powers that served as both inheritance and weapon, were still evenly divided between them.
Both Ilux and Xavier now held control over the five fundamental elements.
Fire that destroys, water that shapes, earth that supports, air that liberates, and the vast and mysterious cosmic element.
Yet that control was incomplete.
Their power was split like a great river divided into two smaller streams.
Each held only half of the total potential they could have accessed if they stood alone as a single, whole entity.
The ability known as Perception Alteration—the subtle weapon capable of manipulating the reality perceived by senses and mind—was also divided equally.
Each possessed only fifty percent of its full strength.
This division created a bitter and unique equality on the battlefield.
Neither side possessed an inherent advantage in terms of the type of power.
Both Ilux and Xavier commanded the exact same repertoire, merely scaled to half of its maximum capacity.
This would become a pure battle of skill, cunning, and willpower.
"Synchronization of the Five Elements!!"
The duel began without warning, yet with a carefully calculated initiation.
Ilux moved first, but his motion was nothing like a burst of rage or a spontaneous explosion of force.
Instead, his opening attack was a cold and measured academic statement, a pure expression of his background as a student of the Star Academy.
This was knowledge made manifest, not instinct.
Every component reflected years of study, thousands of mental simulations, and a solid theoretical foundation.
It was not a finishing move meant to end everything instantly, but an extremely sophisticated field test—a diagnostic probe designed to gather vital data before the true battle began.
The visualization of the attack was astonishing, even to eyes that had witnessed wonders across many worlds.
Ilux did not merely hurl a crude combination of the five elements.
He synchronized them with stable and elegant precision.
Fire did not appear as a raging sea of flames or violent orbs, but as a field of invisible thermal pressure—a pure vector pushing and heating space in a controlled manner.
Water did not surge as a destructive wave, but as a transparent pale-blue conduction network, serving as both a medium for energy transmission and a dampener against potential counterattacks.
Earth did not form walls or massive spikes, but instead became a complex geometric pattern beneath their feet—an anchor stabilizing the local reality so that the other elements could operate with absolute precision.
Air did not transform into a storm, but into invisible channels distributing energy to every corner of the formation with perfect efficiency.
And the cosmic element, the most abstract and dangerous of them all, was inserted only faintly—like a thin invisible varnish whose purpose was simple yet profound.
To force reality itself to acknowledge and "record" the existence of this attack within its laws.
From a distance, Xavier observed the approaching formation with a cold recognition.
Ilux's first attack appeared beautiful.
Too beautiful for a battle.
Its shape resembled a slowly rotating colossal sigil or a layered stellar structure that continuously metamorphosed with perfect fractal patterns.
Every line of energy was clean, every transition between elements seamless, without wasted power or emotional contamination.
There was no trace of violence or chaos within it.
It was precisely that neatness and meticulousness that made it threatening in a different way.
This was a "polite" attack—a question posed through the language of pure power, whose answer would determine the tone of the entire battle that followed.
Behind that deadly geometric beauty lay two extremely clever testing purposes.
First, Ilux needed to determine whether Xavier, in this newly manifested form, was still bound by the fundamental laws of cause and effect governing every sector of the universe—including the four-dimensional reality in which they now stood and beyond.
Or whether, as the child of two extraordinary beings and the father of the gods, he had already transcended those laws.
To be continued…