Chapter 520: Ten Thousand Steps Into Madness (4)

With a savage roar, Iris threw a punch that materialized into a colossal flaming fist.

It shot forth with terrifying speed, crashing into V and burying him deep into the ground.

"Milena Maiden," Iris called out, "I’ll deal with his flames. Don’t hesitate—kill him with your next strike!"

She gave a sharp nod.

As soon as they exchanged glances, V burst out of the crater, targeting them both.

Milena immediately closed the distance at sonic speed, clashing with him in a frenzy of sword strikes. Their blades moved so fast, they left afterimages behind.

V’s body spewed black fire without pause, but Iris was there to intercept and contain it all.

While V was distracted fighting Milena, Iris suddenly appeared on his right and delivered a blazing punch straight to his face.

The blow sent V flying ..only to be stopped cold by Milena, who slashed his chest with a swift stroke from her extending claymore.

"He’s tough!" she muttered, the strange black armor dulling the blow’s impact.

"Then don’t stop! Let’s crush him with everything we’ve got!"

Like a red meteor, Iris dove in, unleashing a relentless flurry of strikes upon V.

From the front and rear, V was completely surrounded.

He tried to react, but a piercing sonic wave suddenly struck his ears, scattering his thoughts into disarray.

The Empire’s mages had begun chanting spells, while soldiers tightened the perimeter around the battlefield.

There was no escape for V...caught between two SS rank monsters.

His blood spilled. His bones shattered.

V’s mind went blank.

"At this rate... I’ll fail..."

He would fail again. And this time, he wouldn’t be the only one to die—all the other rats would perish too.

His mind raced, desperate to find a way to survive.

Moonlight Blade couldn’t save him—Milena had a legendary weapon of her own.

His black fire was neutralized by Iris. Even the Berserk State didn’t give him the upper hand ..his opponents were monsters.

His armor held up, but it was slowly cracking. Their attacks were getting through.

All his power... felt utterly meaningless.

At this rate, death was inevitable.

Yet for some reason, his mind didn’t formulate a strategy ..it wandered into old memories, fragments that never left him.

There was a saying among the Ultras. One known by all who belonged to that brutal world:

"Heroes aren’t born out of nothing in the Ultras ..they are forged."

They weren’t chosen by some divine being. They weren’t like the Empire’s champions.

In the Ultras, heroes were made from zero.

From the rat pit... a rat would one day become a hero. And that was V.

He had always been thrown into the pit, ever since he was a child.

Thrown in with monsters of every kind, locked in until only one remained.

And the one rat that survived... was always V.

Every time Gavid Lindman came to inspect the pit, he’d find V ..still breathing ..surrounded by corpses.

Why did V fight with such ferocity? Why did he always struggle to survive?

Why didn’t he just die and end his suffering?

"Because he has a reason."

Sitting beside Mergo, Gavid raised a glass of wine ..poured by the drunken old man himself.

"Lindman, did you send your dog to die?" Mergo asked as they both looked up at the sky.

Gavid smiled absentmindedly.

"Maybe he really will die this time."

Hearing that, Mergo laughed.

"Maybe? You really think he has a chance?"

"He doesn’t have a chance... but he has a reason to live. Everything that boy lives for... is right here in my hands."

Lindman stated with certainty.

"He doesn’t have the right to die. Not yet."

"You seem to be placing a lot of hope in him," Mergo said, puzzled by Lindman’s words.

"You don’t know what that boy is capable of. V is the pinnacle of our kind ..of the Ultras. No one like him has emerged in three full centuries."

"It’s easy for you to say that, considering you’re his mentor," Mergo muttered, sighing, but Lindman chuckled.

"Mentor? What nonsense. I’ve never taught that boy anything."

"...What?" Mergo blinked in confusion, while Lindman smiled, eyes drifting toward the sky.

"He learned my style on his own. I simply let him see it once... and he mastered it. That’s the kind of monster he is...one who will either die today or awaken and show this world a new kind of horror."

In this world, nothing mattered but strength.

There was no place for the weak. No place for cowards. No place for those who refused to fight.

Now, trapped between two monsters, V felt death crawling toward him.

His head was on fire.

No matter what he did, he couldn’t turn the tide.

Iris and Melina were tearing him apart mercilessly.

’Why...?’

Bleeding profusely beneath his broken armor, V staggered as the thought echoed in his mind.

’Why can’t I defeat them?’

’I made a pact with one of the strongest demons... I trained, survived monsters of every kind... they called me the greatest hero in the history of the Ultras... and yet I still lose. I keep failing!’

I’m going to fail again... and if I fail, everyone else dies.

All the other weaker rats..

every one of them...would die.

Everyone had placed their hopes on him.

"You’re the hero, V. You’re our best. You’re the strongest. We’re counting on you."

Heavy.

It was all so heavy. Every single burden thrown onto his back.

Do this. Do that.

Everything he had done until now was fulfilling someone else’s desires.

And now, he was dying doing just that.

Why?

All that strength he’d built... was meaningless.

WHY?!!!

V screamed, unleashing everything he had. But despite his desperate struggle—

His enemies completely overwhelmed him.

In the end, he simply wasn’t that kind of monster.

As his final moments neared, V trembled, remembering a feeling he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

Fear.

"I’m going to die... and so will the others because of me..."

We’re all going to die.

With trembling limbs, shattered armor, and eyes crying blood ..

V could barely stand against the merciless onslaught of his foes.

With chattering teeth and a terror that gripped his soul ...

V wept.

"We’re going to die. We’re going to die. We’re going to die. We’re going to die. We’re going to die. We’re going to die..."

"I’m going to die..."

Not because it was his choice ..but because it was theirs.

His strength wasn’t enough.

"I’m not that kind of monster..."

In his final moments, he realized how weak he truly was.

Melina’s claymore was a breath away from severing his neck. Iris’s fist, a heartbeat from piercing his chest.

And in that final moment ..V remembered only one thing.

Amid all the fear and dread of death ..

A single sentence resurfaced in his mind.

"Go ..and don’t come back until you’ve become a monster on par with Frey Starlight."

That’s what Lindman had told him. Words that echoed in V’s ears over and over again.

Ah... I get it now.

With lifeless eyes, no one could tell what he was seeing.

V gripped his sword tighter.

"All I have to do... is become Frey Starlight."

Then ..everything would be alright.

If he were Frey, neither of those two would have ever trapped him.

That kind of strength... that’s what he needed.

He finally understood.

And in that moment—V vanished.

Between Iris and Melina, he completely disappeared without a trace.

Neither of them even understood how he moved.

Far off in the battlefield, he reappeared ..his hand reaching down to pick up a second sword from the ground.

A completely ordinary sword, now held in his left hand.

His Moonlight Sword, in his right.

He hadn’t done anything... just picked up another blade.

But somehow... his aura changed completely.

To veterans like Iris and Melina, who were finely attuned to such shifts ..

"His gait... his expression... his presence... everything’s different."

"What... just happened?"

Even his very presence had changed.

It wasn’t something that should have been possible.

That stance ..they had seen it before, both of them ..but neither wanted to believe it.

And then, V moved.

"Ten Thousand Steps of Shadow – Supreme art: Eternal Blackout."

With a single motion of his blades—everything around him was severed.

Thousands of dark slashes erupted from his body, consuming the battlefield in a merciless wave of destruction.

Melina and Iris immediately fell back, their faces frozen in shock.

But V had already appeared between them.

That speed...!

"Ten Thousand Steps of Shadow – Eternal Darkness"

BOOOOM!!

With a deafening explosion, V unleashed a flurry of lightning-fast strikes that overwhelmed his enemies completely.

His blades became heavier, faster...

His style transformed. His entire form of combat .. it all shifted.

He had become something else entirely.

"Frey Starlight..."

He had always been their ally. That’s why they never truly considered it.

But how terrifying...

To imagine Frey as the enemy.

"Crush him! Use everything you’ve got!"

Iris roared, launching forward with all his might, followed by Melina in perfect sync.

Both lunged to end V before he escalated any further.

But they froze.

They froze the moment they saw the stance he assumed.

Augmenting his depleted aura with black flames drawn from his demonic pact—

V prepared to unleash the one attack that would make them regret stepping anywhere near him.

"Ten Thousand Steps of Shadow: Frey Starlight’s Style—"

"Evade it! NOW!"

Iris shouted ..but it was already too late.

"Nameless Judgement."

In that moment ..everything went dark.

The gates of hell flung open, and a roaring torrent of black fire swallowed everything in its path.

The attack didn’t just consume Iris and Melina..

It kept going ..ripping through ranks of the imperial army like a tidal wave of damnation.

A calamity.

A massacre that turned the battlefield into a living inferno.

In less than a second, thousands were incinerated ..mercilessly erased.

And there ..within the storm of black fire, death, and ruin..

Walked a single youth, wielding twin blades.

The sword he had borrowed had shattered under the force of the blow, so V replaced it..

His right hand still held the Moonlight Sword, and in his left...

He now gripped a golden claymore—taken from Melina’s corpse.

There, in the heart of that cursed inferno...

The most terrifying monster among the Ultras had awakened his true potential.