“Lord Blizzard, large cracks have appeared in the northern wall! I’m afraid...”
“Lord Bordote, fireballs have already penetrated the walls and landed inside the academy! They can’t be extinguished at all... I fear only your magic can...”
Bordote was overwhelmed with anxiety. Fireballs flew in from time to time; some were repelled by the magic users on the battlements, while others slammed directly into the walls. Twenty kilometers away from the academy, Calamity class magic users had already begun to clash in succession.
The battle between “Alchemy” Hermes and the magic dragon had grown increasingly intense. Crystals of various styles were visible everywhere in the sky. Hermes, dressed in a black trench coat and top hat, pressed a hand against his hat, the shadow of the brim outlining a grim expression.
“To think it was just such shallow magic as ‘Enhancement’... This magic actually caught me somewhat off guard... How pathetic,” Hermes chuckled. The black crystals behind him began to grow wildly, gradually forming a pitch-black cloak.
“Now, let me show you what true magical alchemy is!”
The sky instantly filled with dark clouds, and a massive black crystal spear slowly began to condense within them.
...
“Where is she?!” Under the immense pressure of thousands of years of gravitational time, the giant bird that blotted out the sun struggled to soar at a low altitude. Its plumage, as rapid as a rainstorm, seemed to have been hit by a slow-motion button, yet this overwhelming attack still caused Clo no small amount of trouble.
Traits of a blue dragon had appeared on her body: a slender dragon tail, pitch-black dragon horns, and a pair of deep blue wings. Her emotions were becoming difficult to suppress, but she was still struggling to maintain her sanity. The pitch-black wounds on her arms healed with difficulty; even with her extremely high resistance to toxins, she felt waves of discomfort at this moment.
“You will see her once you are dead,” the giant bird murmured, its words uttered one by one in the jarring syllables of the ancient language.
“?!!!!!” The power of Desolate Time poured entirely onto the giant bird. Its magic transformed into dots of pale blue light. Under Clo’s distortion, this magic was forcibly turned into a specific kind of time, which cycled around her as a protective barrier.
In the dark forest, a deep blue key was quietly aimed at Clo. This half-dead “withered wood,” Fred, relied on this eerie state of existence to keep his life wandering before the gates of death. Only by acting as a gatekeeper could he wield the power of this key.
In the ancient era, the god “Soul” had relied on this method to trap Jormungandr in the Underworld for thousands of years. From the moment the deity broke free, He had killed “Soul” and forcibly made this key one of His authorities, becoming another primary god holding three authorities.
Although all of this was within the fate glimpsed by this half-dead demigod, he seemingly had not expected that the fate he could foresee would not be fully realized.
A crack seemed about to open in the gates of the Underworld. At that very moment, the world suddenly turned gray and bleak. Even Clo’s figure was forcibly slowed down within this world until she remained almost static.
All of this was what Li Yue saw from her perspective. The black flames of fate enveloped her body. Forcibly driving “Fate” with the divine essence of death—and a borrowed authority of “Fate” at that—Li Yue felt she was only a step away from being completely distorted.
In this instant, the future world constructed by Li Yue through fate rapidly began to catch up with the real world. She needed to complete the past, present, and future of a few minutes from now. She wanted the future she had shaped to become the true future after arriving in the real world.
“The key... it’s time it returned...” Li Yue reached out her hand gently, and the key that had been pointed at Clo landed perfectly in her palm. The long sword of “Death,” the Key to the Underworld, and “Fate.” This time, she would use two of her own authorities to stabilize her sanity and contend against the authority of the foreign god. At the very least, before it was over, she would sweep the board once more.
The destined future arrived in a flash. All the Five Staves and Calamity Warlocks engaged in battle were suddenly covered in black flames. The timeline they occupied was instantly dialed back to the moment they were still massing on the watchtower.
A vast River of the Dead stood as a barrier before them. Beneath the boundless horizon, the “God of Death,” wreathed in fate, descended once more in Her true form.
“There is only one chance. The future I drew... will come.” Li Yue’s figure stepped into that gray world once again.
When She stepped out once more, black flames began to ignite one after another on all the magic beasts flowing with the blood of fallen gods. Li Yue emerged from the cracks of history, walking between the boundaries of reality and illusion, drifting on the edge of life and death, and wandering at the intersection of the present and the future.
The magic beasts stared in shock at their own bodies. Faint cracks appeared on their forms, and the black flames contained within shattered the void, transforming into blood-colored slashes. A series of slashes began to ring out one after another, the splashing blood testifying to the brutality of this massacre.
“A fate-modified version of Witnessing Death...” Li Yue murmured softly, witnessing in silence at the intersection of all things.
This pitch-black blood did not cross the River of the Dead, being thoroughly blocked behind it. In the void, the bronze door engraved with countless skeletons swung open. Countless intertwining branches of the River of the Dead surged out from within, washing away the blood on the battlefield that had been contaminated by “madness” and “corruption.”
“Just come for me... I was affected long before the Twilight anyway.” Li Yue’s face showed no expression of joy or sorrow. Only for a single moment, as her gaze passed through the River of the Dead and met Clo’s pleasantly surprised yet bewildered eyes, did a flash of joy and a flash of sadness emerge.
The time has finally come to this point... Fate...
The black flames on Li Yue’s body slowly began to extinguish. She let out a long, helpless sigh. The red glow on her body began to dim, the gates of the Underworld quietly closed, and the sun, which had been obscured, regained its light. The magic beasts in the forest fled until none remained, leaving no corpses behind. Everything was as it had been at the start, as if nothing had ever happened.
Li Yue’s body began to fall slowly. Even though she was in the air, she felt as if she were sinking into a bottomless, pitch-black swamp, unable to struggle, unable to think, and even unable to perceive the passage of time.
She slowly closed her eyes.
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