"Not enough... you are still far from enough! Show me your strength!" Khaslana growled, forcibly suppressing his surging emotions. His figure became ethereal once more, leaving behind afterimages throughout the hall.
Welt's gravity field was deemed a nuisance to be prioritized for evasion. Thus, all his focus, all his sharpness, turned entirely towards the Trailblazer!
"Whoosh!" "Whoosh!" "Whoosh!"
One after another, desolate slashes came, no longer straightforward, but assaulting from every inconceivable, treacherous angle around the Trailblazer!
Sometimes from directly overhead, sometimes from the shadows beneath their feet, sometimes even cutting through the air from the afterimage they had just left behind from dodging!
Khaslana's figure flickered madly through the hall, each teleport accompanied by one or several lethal arcs of light.
He no longer sought a single decisive kill. Instead, with suffocatingly high-speed attacks, he wove a net of death, intending to test the Trailblazer's limits through extreme attack frequency and bizarre angles.
The Trailblazer gritted their teeth, whirling the flame spear into an impenetrable defense. The scorching spear tip and the icy broken blade collided continuously, erupting in a rapid, piercing series of metallic clangs.
Relying on the combat instinct honed on their trailblazing journey, they perilously parried and deflected attacks from blind spots again and again.
However, the flame spear, forged from unknown materials, was extremely heavy. Each full-power block drained a significant amount of their stamina.
As time passed, their arms began to ache and grow numb, their breathing became labored, and their blocking motions lost the smooth, fluid quality of the beginning. With every clash of weapons, their footing would involuntarily retreat half a step more.
It was at this moment that a roar brimming with fury and resolve exploded like thunder:
"Flame Reaver—!"
It was Phainon! He, along with Anaxa, Trianne, Hyacine, and the others, had already broken through the blockade of those "shattered vessels." With an unstoppable momentum, he charged ferociously into the core of the battlefield!
Sensing the sharp assaulting force from behind, Khaslana had to temporarily abandon his suppression of the Trailblazer. The shattered blade whirled back, with pinpoint accuracy, parrying this anger-fueled strike!
"Flame Reaver, tell me!" Phainon pressed hard against the opponent's blade, his gaze blazing like torches as he demanded, "You clearly possess such formidable power, far exceeding that of ordinary demigods. Why are you still so fixated on seizing the Titans' Coreflames? What is your true goal?!"
"Hmph—" Faced with this interrogation from "this lifetime's" self, Khaslana merely let out a cold, light snort from behind the metal mask.
He offered no explanation. His arms exerted force suddenly. An overwhelming, mountain-toppling force transmitted from the shattered blade, violently shaking Phainon—both man and sword—and making him slide backward several steps before he could barely stabilize his posture.
Having forced Phainon back with one strike, the aura around Khaslana changed again! The four "shattered vessels" that had just been defeated actually reformed beside him at an even faster speed. Though their outlines were more illusory than before, the energy fluctuations they emitted were even more dangerous.
He himself raised the shattered blade high above his head. Destructive energy began to converge and compress upon it frantically. The very air in the Throne of Enlightenment hall seemed to solidify, heralding an earth-shattering blow to come!
However—
"Thud!"
The dull sound of a body being pierced abruptly interrupted this terrifying charge.
An arm composed of the glow of Reason and flowing runes had silently pierced through Khaslana's back, exiting from his chest!
A burst of fragments sparkling with memory-light, like shattered stars, exploded violently from the wound of his impalement. Yet, as if drawn by some invisible force, they rapidly flowed backward, forcibly reabsorbed back into his body.
"A pity… the gathered power still wasn't condensed enough to deliver a fatal blow in one strike." A calm, somewhat regretful female voice sounded.
Behind Khaslana, the complete avatar of Cerces, the Titan of "Reason," composed of light and runes, appeared clearly! Her posture remained elegant, but her eyes were filled with wisdom and resolve.
"Truly, it was all thanks to that clever little one named Hyacine," Cerces's gaze swept over Hyacine, who was not far away, panting slightly from successfully casting her spell.
"While you were locked in fierce combat, she realized the urgent priority was ensuring the Coreflame's safety. She took the risk to first integrate the three scattered Coreflame fragments into one, completing the preliminary activation of the 'Reason' Coreflame. It is precisely by utilizing this re-coagulated, complete authority that I was able to gather sufficient power in this brief time to deliver you this blow."
"Cerces, Titan of 'Reason'… you never truly perished completely?" Anaxa watched this scene that exceeded expectations, shock and confusion flashing in his eyes. But the battlefield was changing rapidly, leaving him no time to investigate deeply.
He seized this once-in-a-thousand-years opportunity, fully activating the alchemical matrix he had been secretly accumulating power in!
*Hum—!*
Complex geometric patterns of light instantly illuminated a corner of the hall. From within the matrix, searing "magic bullets" composed of highly compressed magical energy and alchemical substances shot forth as if possessing life!
They did not fly in straight lines. Guided by the matrix's power, they traced countless unpredictable ballistic trajectories through the air, assaulting Khaslana—whose form was wounded and movements were sluggish for a moment—from all directions like a storm!
With an alchemical barrage covering him from the front and a Titan's avatar delivering a fatal strike from behind, Khaslana seemed to be at an absolute disadvantage.
But at this critical moment between life and death, what was he looking at?
His cold metal mask tilted almost imperceptibly. His gaze penetrated the chaotic battlefield, passed over the whistling barrage, and landed not far away—landing upon "this cycle's" self, Phainon.
He saw Phainon, with urgency and unconcealed concern on his face, pulling the Trailblazer, the girl from beyond the sky, up from the ground, carefully checking if she was injured. And the Trailblazer returned a look indicating she was fine, telling him not to worry.
They… had already become true companions who could entrust their backs to one another.
In that instant, Khaslana's aura seemed to experience a nearly imperceptible loosening. The tangible coldness and determination that had perpetually clung to him quietly dissipated a little.
If that was so… then he could be truly at ease.