Chapter 588: Fierce Battle

“So? Can you turn back now?”

Standing in the middle of the road, the Archbishop of Canterbury asked slowly.

One street. Two zones. Three same-rank powerhouses.

King Indra had only just set foot in this city. He hadn’t even had time to take in the grandeur of this mighty place before he ran headlong into the most solid wall imaginable.

It looked like there was no possibility of taking even one more step forward.

Even Canterbury, who knew the inside story, couldn’t help sighing.

“Go back, King Indra. There’s still a chance to turn things around. If you keep being stubborn, and reason won’t work, then we’ll have to use our fists.”

“Tsk, tsk. Six fists against two fists...”

Adolf clicked his tongue in amazement.

Feels like my grandma could come and still have good odds.”

“Beating the few with the many does feel somewhat dishonorable.”

Professor Plang leaned on his cane.

“If possible, I still hope you’ll retreat in the face of difficulty. If you want to seek death, why not go straight to the Academy and challenge that person?”

“...”

Facing their warnings, King Indra didn’t answer. He only fell silent.

Those cloudy eyes with no focus slowly swept over the three of them.

Then he closed his eyes.

All things returned to stillness.

No one spoke anymore. Everyone waited, holding their breath with patience.

As if a full century had passed.

And yet as if only an instant had gone by.

He opened his eyes again.

“I said it before.”

King Indra finally spoke.

His voice was steady—without fear, without cowardice.

Or perhaps it was simply him stating a decision he had already made.

“Whoever blocks me...”

“I kill.”

Buzz.

A dazzling light suddenly flooded the district.

A brilliant crown rose above King Indra’s head.

It seemed forged from diamond and glass. Inscriptions of sun, moon, and stars circled it, and the illusory reflections of all things in the world flowed back into it.

As the radiance bloomed, boundless majesty erupted from the old man in his tattered robe. He looked unchanged, and yet in that moment, it was as if he had stepped beyond the human—ascending toward a higher existence in a supreme, consummate sublimation.

The phantom brilliance loomed. The entire city looked small beneath his feet.

He raised a hand toward Adolf and lightly pressed down.

Thoom.

Like a midnight bell.

Like the tremor of a heart.

In an instant, the entire space congealed, as if everything within it had been gripped in his palm.

Everything in that region seemed to freeze—strangely, like it had been mounted into a photograph. Adolf, too, was locked in place, that flippant expression still stuck on his face.

Then—

Creaaak, creaaak—along with the sound of something shattering, the inn Adolf stood in, and even the broad streets around it, collapsed in an instant like a sandcastle hit by a wave, turning into fine powder that danced on the night wind.

Including Adolf himself.

Everything was annihilated under that infinite might.

But seeing this, King Indra showed no joy at all—as if he’d sensed something.

“Damn it—there are three of you, and one of you is a mage, but you lock onto me first? What, you picking on the soft persimmon?”

Another brilliant crown rose.

“Another” Adolf stomped in fury as he stepped out of space, completely unharmed.

He casually tossed the flower—now only a bud—into the cold night wind, then stared at King Indra with a sneer. In his eyes, multicolored light brewed, like an entire starry firmament and silver waterfall gathered within.

The Star-Seer’s Eye.

These eyes carried an innate ability to see through the flow of any power. It was said to be a blessing from some god. This special power had given Adolf the title of “Mage Killer” back when he was still in his prime. It was said that no female mage over thirty was a match for him in a single exchange—so much so that this pure martial artist earned enormous respect even within the mage world.

And after Adolf stepped into the Crowned realm, those eyes stopped being merely “seeing through.”

Under their gaze, the battle qi circulating around King Indra—cultivated through decades, even centuries of bitter training, operating in some profound, mysterious way—suddenly became like headless flies, scattering in chaotic dissipation.

King Indra’s technique collapsed right at the root and could no longer take effect.

All-Methods Collapse.

That was the terror of those eyes. For any carefully “constructed” power, they could influence it at the most basic layer. The more precise and complex it was, the more it was affected—like a building with its foundation pulled out: no matter how magnificent, it would ultimately crumble into a handful of dust.

Most mages couldn’t even cast in front of Adolf.

That was the dread of the “Mage Killer,” the Stargazer Adolf.

But...

Faced with that influence, King Indra’s gaze remained calm.

Because he wasn’t a mage.

He was the purest kind of martial artist—a Crowned one.

If he couldn’t use anything too elaborate, then...

King Indra stepped forward. The ground shuddered violently.

Then he extended his palm—still as blunt and direct as ever—and pressed down at Adolf.

That hand was withered and ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) sallow, like the hand of an old farmer baked by sun and years in the fields. Deep grooves cut through the palm, telling of time’s hard weathering.

Yet under the weight of that ordinary, scarred hand, wind, air, dust, earth, stone, the ground...

Even space itself—

was compressed, and compressed, and compressed again.

Like forcing a heap of messy clothes into perfect rectangular blocks and packing them into a suitcase that wasn’t very big.

No complicated technique at all.

Just the ultimate, absolute suppression of force.

Compared to the clone Muen had faced back then, the pressure King Indra’s true body exerted now wasn’t merely like a mountain—

it was as if the weight of the entire world gathered in that instant on the surface of that palm.

“Bastards! If you two keep watching like it’s a show, I’m gonna get slapped into a meat pancake!”

Adolf really was crushed by that palm.

And yet another Adolf appeared in a different building. This time he looked a bit more disheveled—his suit mussed badly. When he saw King Indra’s lingering, unshakable gaze sweep toward him again, he clapped a hand to his hat, didn’t say a word, and immediately scurried off in short, quick steps.

Even if they were both Crowned, as a refined man of taste, he was absolutely not good at dealing with this kind of pure brute.

A truly elegant person fights with elegance, too.

As he ran, Adolf flicked out a playing card.

A King of Hearts floated up. The king on it seemed to come alive, transforming into a hundred-meter giant with unmatched might. It raised a sword that looked like stacked diamonds—pixel blocks—and roared as it cleaved down at King Indra.

And then King Indra slapped it to death with another palm.

“...”

Adolf ran even faster.

But after that slap, King Indra lowered his gaze and looked at his own palm.

A line of dark red blood trickled down along the deep creases in his hand—from where that sword strike had cut him just now.

Among countless old scars, that newly added wound was painfully clear, painfully bright.

After all... the other party was also Crowned.

At the same time—

the magic in this area, which had felt eerily quiet from the start, suddenly grew restless.

King Indra lifted his head. Light bursting out of the darkness reflected across his slightly grim face.

“All right. Stop yelling.”

At the end of the street, Professor Plang tapped his cane lightly, soothing Adolf, who was still chattering and cursing nonstop.

“We’re getting ready.”

A hazy chanting rose and fell, resonating as if with heaven and earth.

Behind Professor Plang, countless complex magic circuits layered themselves into being, unfolding like a gorgeous palace, stacking higher and higher. Innumerable spells linked together, intricate patterns flowing like meshing gears, driving that war chariot named Destruction as it thundered forward.

What Professor Plang used was the most basic of combined matrix magic.

It was a spell recorded in detail in the magic academy textbooks—so long as you studied diligently, anyone could use it.

But the only problem was that a so-called combined matrix...

was a special military spell. At this scale, it normally required at least a hundred mages working together to cast it.

Yet Professor Plang alone chanted a hundred people’s worth of magic.

King Indra’s eyes sharpened. He understood the terror of this strike. Even if a Crowned one could suppress a same-rank mage, it was impossible to let a Truth-tier mage unleash freely. So he didn’t give Professor Plang time to keep charging.

The palm he’d extended clenched, forming a fist seal, and he smashed forward through the air at Professor Plang.

The entire street district tore open instantly, as if trampled by a colossal beast.

A bottomless ravine—like it had been plowed by an invisible giant claw—lunged at Professor Plang in the blink of an eye.

“God says: let this place be holy ground.”

Amid the debris and dust where time seemed frozen, Professor Plang didn’t move a single step. He continued chanting in a low voice.

And before him, sacred light descended from the heavens, painting the scroll of a holy domain.

Birdsong and flowers. All living things. Golden milk and honey flowing. Naked men and women smiling as they reclined. All troubles returning to nothingness.

The wounds in the earth were smoothed flat in an instant, as if nothing had happened at all. King Indra’s fist intent turned into a harmless breeze within this world.

“God says: sinners shall go to hell.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s white robes snapped in the wind as he issued the divine decree again.

A phantom of hell rose up. Bones and blades piled into mountains; crimson blood gathered into seas; wailing people sank and surfaced within that sea of blood. King Indra, too, was trapped within it. Chains that bound dragons wrapped around him. Karmic flames roared, burning, seeking to incinerate him and all sin together.

King Indra shook violently, tore free of the chains, and chopped down with a vertical palm, splitting the sea of blood.

“God says: the irreverent shall bow their heads!”

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s tone grew ever more solemn and exalted. Under his declaration, sacred radiance shone in all directions. The Goddess’s phantom came from an endless distance. Any who held irreverence in their hearts—must bow!

King Indra’s body bent, as if he were about to kneel under that holy brilliance. But as the thunder of collapsing mountains rang through every joint in his body, he slowly straightened his spine again—actually resisting that divine majesty head-on.

“You only learn the price of oil and rice once you’re the one running the household. If we keep burning holy light like this, we’re going to be taking a loss.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury stroked his signet ring with a pained look, then glanced to the side at Professor Plang.

“So. Is it done yet?”