Chapter 368: Role reversal (1)

The Puppet City

A land claimed by the Hollow known as Simon Manus ..

A city he made his lair by transforming its people and all who lived there into puppets, mechanical and lifeless, mere "masterpieces" in his eyes.

Unlike the rest of the Lower Bloodlands, the city retained all the essentials for human life.

But there were no humans left to benefit.

Only hollow puppets wandered its streets aimlessly, stripped of everything that once made them human...

Yet on this day in particular—

A turning point unfolded that would forever mark the long history of this city.

BOOM!

Explosions and clashes rang out nonstop.

Frey Starlight now stood alone, battling an entire army of puppets led by none other than the former Lord—Val.

Both fighters wielded dual swords, focusing entirely on speed, which turned the clash into utter chaos.

Locked in a swirling storm of blades, not even the other puppets could interfere.

Sparks flew wildly from the repeated collisions of solid metal.

In just a few seconds, Frey and the puppet of the old Lord exchanged a terrifying number of slashes with their swords.

It looked like an evenly matched struggle .. But that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Val’s body had taken dozens of dark slashes that pierced through his defenses.

Meanwhile, Frey hadn’t been touched even once—

Dodging and parrying every strike from the former Ultras Lord with refined precision.

His body was cloaked in a strange black glow, almost like a living shadow.

Using precise counters, Frey neutralized Val’s fighting style and took full control of the battle.

His black swords carved dark trails through the air every time they cut into the thick skin of Val’s puppet body, even while fending off attacks from other puppets.

He was fully immersed in the battle thanks to Ascension, giving him overwhelming focus.

Val’s puppet couldn’t speak, but the fury in his red eyes and the twisted rage on his face showed how much he resented the way the fight was going.

Desperate to shift the momentum, Val’s swords lit up with blazing crimson flames—

And without warning, he unleashed a massive beam of fire, vaporizing every building in front of him.

Val continued releasing blast after blast of explosive fire aura, determined to burn Frey alive.

The vengeful puppet cared for nothing else ..

His attacks even incinerated many of the other puppets in his path.

"Is that all you’ve got? Former Lord of the Ultras?"

From within the inferno—

Frey emerged, cloaked in his dark shadow aura, leaping across rooftops at blinding speed.

"No wonder my father killed you so easily."

Furious at the insult...

Val’s puppet launched more flames, trying to chase Frey as he darted around at full speed.

The inferno spread across the battlefield, engulfing half the city and reducing the surrounding puppets to ash.

Gripping his flaming swords again, Val let out a mechanical roar—

A scream of rage—

And in the blink of an eye, the enraged puppet was in front of Frey again.

Their blades clashed in a blazing collision.

Frey with his shadow aura—

Val with searing flames—

They exchanged blows at breakneck speed, sprinting through the battlefield as wildfires raged around them.

The other puppets swarmed in from all directions, their bodies burning and breaking down as they charged, uncaring of their fates.

Yet despite the overwhelming chaos—

Frey dodged and deflected every attack flawlessly, shadow tendrils dancing around him as his dark glow intensified.

Val, however, only grew more furious—

Especially when Frey slashed one of his eyes with Balerion, then followed up with a swift kick that sent him crashing through a building.

At that exact moment ..

The clown puppet and the massive enforcer appeared, aiming to rip Frey apart.

But Frey had seen them coming—

And they struck nothing but the phantom afterimage he left behind.

"Ten Thousand Steps of Shadow: Black Meteor."

With a single slash, a massive wave of black aura erupted—

Reducing both of them to dust.

"That should be enough for the enforcer... and that damn Zombozo."

Descending slowly from the sky, Frey landed, his feet touching the ground as his Hawk Eyes scanned the area for new threats.

And it only took moments—

For those eyes to widen in shock at the number of enemies surrounding him.

From within the flames—

Dozens of clown puppets and giant enforcers emerged, cackling like lunatics as they closed in.

At the same time ..

A nearby building exploded as Val detonated his aura and returned to the battlefield—

His arms now extended into flaming blades of their own.

Frey glanced at the overwhelming number of enemies closing in.

He let out a quiet sigh, his face expressionless—

Until his eyes lit up with violet light once more.

"So be it... Come at me."

As if waiting for that command ..

The clown puppets, their bellies split open into massive maws, charged in alongside the enforcers, who leapt forward with thunder-charged fists.

And leading the charge—

Val, the vengeful Lord who wanted nothing more than to kill Frey.

There, amid the blaze ..

The Puppet City turned into a blood-drenched hellscape ..

But instead of red, it was blue.

Blue from the puppet blood, and the severed limbs that now littered the battlefield.

Surrounded by countless enemies...

Frey’s skin began to crack, releasing a violent surge of violet light that blasted every puppet around him away.

"Ignition!!"

Without warning—

Frey detonated his aura, releasing it as a towering pillar of darkness that swallowed the battlefield, obliterating every puppet it touched.

The Ignition caused a quake that shook the entire city..

And even tore open the skies above with the sheer scale of its destructive force.

From afar—

Clana Starlight, still fleeing the city, stopped in her tracks.

Her eyes widened in terror as she gazed at the colossal explosion swallowing a huge portion of the city—

An explosion that left it more devastated than before.

"Frey..."

She whispered his name unconsciously ..

The man who had stayed behind, facing an entire city alone...

Just to protect her.

The blast had engulfed Val ..

But it didn’t kill him.

The puppet of the former Lord barely managed to escape the explosion’s core, struggling to suppress the dark aura that was corroding his body.

So preoccupied was he with resisting the Ignition’s aftermath—

He didn’t notice Frey descending from above, his twin swords ablaze with furious violet fire.

"Ten Thousand Steps of Shadow: Infinite Darkness!!"

With a roar, Frey unleashed a beam of dark aura directly into Val’s face, launching him backward.

The impact sent Val crashing through buildings, his body grinding against the shattered ground.

As a result—

Val’s outer shell was completely torn apart, exposing what lay beneath.

Panting heavily, fatigue finally beginning to set in, Frey felt a deep disgust as he laid eyes on Val’s internal structure.

The former Lord’s veins looked like tangled wires, his organs a grotesque fusion—

Half human flesh, half translucent sacs pulsing with glowing energy.

The previous attack had destroyed Val’s right arm ..

But he replaced it immediately with a two-meter-long blade.

The old Lord of the Ultras let out another scream before launching himself forward again.

Frey met him head-on, and the two collided violently inside a massive crater—

Surrounded by rubble, fire, and unrelenting devastation.

Their afterimages blurred as they clashed, destroying each other with reckless abandon.

Val’s burning aura turned the battlefield into a furnace ...

So intense, in fact, that nearby puppets melted under the rising heat.

The inferno drew every breath of oxygen from the air.

Frey had to hold his breath to avoid suffocating in the hellish storm created by the vengeful puppet.

Despite the heat, the exhaustion from Ignition, and the mounting tension—

Frey still held the upper hand.

Shadow adaptation allowed him to deflect every one of Val’s attacks flawlessly.

"Ten Thousand Steps of Shadow: Mirage!"

As he activated the Mirage technique, a thousand copies of Frey materialized, surrounding Val in a bewildering illusion.

Val couldn’t tell which was real—

And before he could react, all the clones slashed simultaneously, unleashing a torrent of black strikes that engulfed the entire battlefield and tore him apart.

"This... isn’t good."

Watching the battle from afar—

Simon Manus smiled, yet beads of sweat formed across his back.

All of this... because of one boy.

"This kid’s a real monster..."

Stunned by the overwhelming power Frey displayed at such a young age, Simon Manus finally began to grasp the true danger of the Victoriad’s hero that had fallen into their hands.

"If we let him grow unchecked, he might surpass even Abraham Starlight..."

A boy just eighteen years old, yet already fighting on par with Lords and Hollows—

Compared to the sheer potential of that child, Simon realized they were nothing but small fish swimming beside a shark that could devour them at any moment.

"This isn’t funny at all... kihihihi."

Adjusting his hat, Simon turned his attention back to the battle displayed on the screens.

"But I wonder, Frey Starlight... how much longer can you endure?"