Chapter 583: The Weight of 35 Million Souls

In Noctherra’s lightless sky, titanic forces clashed in a grueling duel that threatened to tear the island apart.

The Golden World Tree shivered without cease, its radiance swelling with every collision between Blattier and Frey—

as if it were trying to say something, to mourn what humanity had become.

A frail race battered by calamity: not only do enemies far stronger than they loom beyond the horizon, but humans slaughter one another to the last—long before the true foe even arrives. Even without the demons, mankind would still wage war upon itself. Such is the fractured, chaotic nature they were born with.

And the fight between Blattier and Frey was the perfect example.

The young lord and prodigy of House Starlight found himself in a brutal bind: even his strongest strikes couldn’t bring his opponent down.

Only Nameless Judgement had managed to wound him; Frey’s other blows simply couldn’t harm an SSS class combatant—one with terrifying durability and explosive power.

But unlike the other techniques of the Ten Thousand Steps of Shadow, Frey couldn’t fling out Nameless Judgement without limit.

He’d already used it three times; there was no room for a fourth.

It was, by any measure, the worst possible position for Frey—yet still he fought on.

His black blades met Blattier’s spear again and again, as many times as it took.

The two of them raced around the island at the speed of light, carving trails of aura and ruin behind them.

Explosions never stopped, and with every clash Frey Starlight reappeared bearing heavier wounds.

Blattier was overwhelming him at this stage, yet Frey’s body kept knitting itself back together, refusing to leave the fight no matter how hard Blattier tried to end it.

The battle dragged on, and the High Bishop’s patience thinned.

He pressed harder, drawing ever more catastrophic power from the multitude of souls burning within him.

As the duel stretched and he unleashed his full might, Blattier began to grasp—bit by bit—the power of the Throne Beyond Existence, the first stage of SSS-class.

With a whip-fast thrust of his spear, Blattier sent a thunderous surge of light-aura roaring forward ..an aura that eclipsed Frey’s and blew a gaping crater through his chest.

The hit was savage, hurling Frey away—but he righted himself midair, set his feet, and stood again.

Panting, he focused his aura around the ghastly hole in his chest ..

then blasted off the ground and lunged back at Blattier with everything he had.

They traded, each trying to swallow the other whole. The cadence turned frantic; the fight grew almost incomprehensible.

With a flick of his spear, Blattier sheared off the arm that held Dark Sister—and Frey didn’t even flinch. He booted the severed hand and blade straight at Blattier, attacking in that mangled state.

The hand caromed off the spear—an attack too paltry to harm him—but Frey vaulted over Blattier, snatched the hand midair, and reattached it as if it were nothing.

His regeneration was monstrous, inhuman. The instant his arm was back, Frey spun in the sky and came down with both swords.

Blattier raised his spear to guard; the weight of the overhead blow drove his feet deep into the earth.

With a sharp sweep of the shaft, he knocked Frey away and flipped the exchange on its head again.

Blattier’s thrusts came in a blur, and Frey could barely keep pace now.

Yes, the great shield Blattier had used earlier was gone—but Frey still couldn’t land a telling hit.

With each passing second, Frey understood more keenly the true gulf between ranks, and how towering SSS-class stood over all others.

Frey Starlight was an outlier—his power already acknowledged as beyond SS+—

but it had not yet reached SSS. The gap was massive.

"I think I’m starting to understand this power..." Blattier said, tightening the vise.

He had only just broken through and hadn’t fully fathomed what was at his command—but, step by step, he was mastering it, shedding the old mindset of an SS-class fighter and adopting a style befitting his new plane.

He poured out a vast tide of aura; light swathed his body and then expanded to a terrifying scale—

and Frey’s eyes widened at what took shape.

"Formation: Tower of God."

The words fell like a curse from the heavens. The instant he spoke them, a colossal hand manifested from nothing and smashed Frey Starlight flat, grinding him into the earth.

The strike covered a staggering span, the island itself quaking under the pressure.

Worse, the hand wasn’t alone. From behind Blattier, light-aura gathered into a towering giant that blotted out the sky.

The giant wore armor echoing Blattier’s own.

Frey Starlight rose from the crater that hand had punched into the land and stared at the thing for a long second.

Blattier walked toward him at a measured pace, and the giant followed in lockstep.

Each footfall sent violent tremors through the ground, and the aura packed into that colossus was so extreme it looked like a walking sun.

Blattier leveled his spear—and in the same instant,

the giant leveled its own and brought it crashing down toward Frey Starlight.

Another annihilating blow, poised to crush him.

BOOOOM!!!!!

The titanic spear slammed down and shook the earth. Blattier narrowed his eyes at the impact point—his enemy wasn’t there.

Frey had vanished, reappearing high above—over the giant itself—using his blink once more. The colossus tilted its head up, its eyes blazing with a pure white light, tracking him.

Frey dropped from the sky at breakneck speed. The giant lifted its hand to swat him from existence.

From afar, Frey looked infinitesimal next to that behemoth—an ant daring a monster that eclipsed it in size and might.

But Frey was anything but ordinary. From within his body, aura surged without end, detonating against the giant.

Violet fissures crawled across Frey’s flesh as the aura tried to tear him apart, blowing everything around him to pieces.

He drew a deep breath and let out a battle-cry that seemed to ignite his very being.

"Ignition!!"

He detonated his own aura—his annihilating technique, a nuclear-scale blast whose radius was so vast it swallowed the giant whole.

The radiant beast vanished inside a pillar of shadow-aura. Even under that ferocity, the colossus resisted, trying to crush Frey and hurl the blast back.

Frey had no choice but to push harder, far harder; more violet fractures laced his body.

"Ignition!!!!"

He triggered it again. Frey doubled the aura he burned to erase the giant.

The column of darkness swelled wider and wider, climbing into the sky.

The explosion was monstrous, trapping both Frey and the giant within.