Awakening the Great Chapter 114

Chapter 114: The Owner of the Footprints

Midra rely sneered.

What more could a human, who had reached the limits of their flesh, possibly accomplish?

Cold severe enough to sever fingers, darkness that shattered the minds of the living. It was a sight repeated thousands, tens of thousands of tis before.

Heroes of the age, noble races, those with unyielding faith—none had been spared from kneeling.

And yet, right now, The One Who Takes Away was experiencing an unfamiliar emotion.

The landscape fractures. Ice crystals trembled finely before crumbling, and mana laced with shadows lost its direction, drifting aimlessly through the air. The power that had extended from its fingertips was being twisted by so unknown force.

[What is this…… this revolting sensation.]

It was drawing all the currents around it toward itself, devouring them.

Shhhk.

The soldiers locked in desperate combat simultaneously turned to look in one direction. A massive vortex was forming. Wind is not sothing the eye can see, but the flow of mana was felt with stark clarity.

At its center stood Calix.

An incomprehensible energy rose from the young man's body. Light and shadow intertwined, and trendous vibrations pierced through earth and sky. Those on the battlefield were seized by such chills and strangeness that they briefly forgot even who they were.

It was as though ti itself had been forcibly seized and stretched.

Midra understood instinctively. Cracks were spreading through the order it had laid down. From the ground underfoot, to the armor encasing its body, even to its very fingertips—the absolute rules were crumbling.

For just a mont, its breath grew short.

Breathing is a constraint of things that possess life; yet this wicked being felt that very sensation. The air turned strangely heavy. The flow of mana had been montarily severed.

[You dare…… defy my power?]

Its voice wavers. The fear of the unknown gnaws at its heart.

It was strange.

The divinity of Kriya drives away darkness. It does not devour it. They clash against each other, and they had never once rged.

But before its eyes stood proof that denied this. Calix raises his sword. Even as he retched blood past his lips, even as his body was painted blue and red throughout, only his gaze refused to perish.

Is this power salvation—or corruption?

For the first ti, Midra's eyes wavered. At so point, the opponent before it no longer appeared to be a re human. Belonging to neither side, yet overwhelming both.

In an instant, both eyes flickered with different colors, and its long, sharp fingers trembled in fine spasms. The order that had blanketed the world had already lost its complete form.

Crunch.

And then, Calix takes his first step forward. Those who had been on their knees began, one by one—to shed the false illusions. They strained to lift their heads and struggled to move their bodies.

"Basim, my son……."

The dwarf Basim wails. And yet, hands shaking violently, he ultimately gripped the axe handle. The agony of having to cut down a beloved one. Because he knew it was a lie—

"Your father…… Truly loves you."

Thwack!

He sends him off.

Imdiately after, his eyes blazed with brilliant light. As though his soul were on fire, an extre rage smoldered all the way through his pupils.

Ssssrk.

Ella crawls across the floor with bloodied hands. She dragged her entire body forward in a desperate attempt to save Marik's life.

"……You wicked thing."

Then Gregor approached, taking his place behind Calix to support him. Part of his shield had broken off from the vicious cold, but he paid it no mind.

"Your end is here."

He himself had not yet broken.

At that, Captain Royce coughed up blood and fully threw off Midra's influence. The unit mbers were rising by their own strength. That alone was reason enough to stake their lives.

Just as Marik's cry had awakened Calix, the Mountain Rabbits gathered one by one at his back as well. One beca two, and then beca all.

There was no need to look back to know. His comrades' will pushed him forward once more.

"Kagracha!!"

And when Kalahim's Barakh finally rose as well, the curtain rose on the second battle.

***

Crack.

In an instant, Calix's silhouette shimrs. He rushes toward the enemy at blinding speed. With each step he took, the ground cracked apart like spreading hairline fractures.

Swishhh.

Wherever the blade grazed, it was as if thin layers of reality's shell had been peeled away—people and horses, dust and faint sunlight, all things splintered like fragnts.

However, the price was clear.

[Abnormal Output Warning! Physical Collapse In Progress!]

[Imdiately withdraw from the battlefield.]

Warning sounds poured from the Neural Accelerator. The reinforced skeletal fra barely held on, and with every movent, muscle tissue tore and burst. Blood and sweat mingled and stread down, and with every breath, a pain like his chest being ripped open surged through him.

Even so, he does not stop.

THWOOOOM!!

Gray lightning erupted from his fingertips. Speed impossible to follow with the eye. The alien force wrenched the entire expanse of air.

CRAAACK!!

The defensive barrier Midra had hastily deployed shattered into ice shards and evaporated on the spot.

From the aftermath, the cold air broke apart and scattered like glass. A silence that left no room for even breath pressed down on the battlefield. Cutting through that stillness, the blade drove down like a thunderbolt.

It was a strike aid at the enemy's forearm.

[You……!]

Hairline cracks spread across the ice armor. Blue-tinged fractures fanned out like a grid, and through the gaps, dark red blood erupted.

Midra's eyes glistened with shock and hatred.

It saw blood. It had been wounded by a re human, a wretch with a finite lifespan. It strikes back again, but there is nothing to catch on its claws. With its power to dominate space now shaken, it was only now beginning to feel the difference in speed.

By then, Calix's vision was sared with dark crimson lines.

'Next movent—left. The ice crystals will form upper right.'

He harbors no other thoughts. He had completely released the thread of reason, to the point where even his identity as a human grew faint. He simply followed on instinct wherever his Bloodline Ability pointed.

mory, sensation, and will tangled together and lted. His body broke apart, and his consciousness staggered as if it would snap—but all the more so, the 'gray' mana surged violently.

Shadows and cold poured from all directions, but left only shallow wounds.

Slaaash!

Once again, he slices through the monster's flank.

Midra senses danger and rages, but before that, the Mountain Rabbits' combined assault cos first. Not one of them was unscathed, yet they clung to it to the very end, relentlessly.

"Die—!!"

The dwarf Basim grabs hold of Midra's left leg and holds on. When his axe blade snaps off, he pulls out an iron rod barely two hand-spans long from his hip and drives it in.

Bang!Scrrrk.

Gregor's shield blocks the enemy's right hand. Imdiately after, he is pushed back several ters from where he stood, but Royce was there in ti to brace his back and hold firm.

By then, Barakh drives a blade into the opposite hand. It is to buy even a brief mont for their allies.

[These lowly creatures!]

The tenacious resistance of the weak.

However, in the end, the single most irritating thing was one.

"Calix!!"

The young man did not hear his comrades' calls. He only fixed his eyes on the target that had to be killed. He circles to the flank to slice the inner thigh, and in a flowing follow-up motion, severs the ankle joint.

The instinctive warning that ti was running short was upon him—

He had to hurry.

***

Midra senses a strange heat. Gray lightning searing the eyes, reverberations tearing through skin, resonating sounds shaking the ears.

The borders of all five senses collapse.

Thud.

At the end of it, strength drains from its right leg and it collapses to one knee.

An unbearable surge of humiliation washed over it.

The helpless prey had bared its teeth. A premonition that if its throat were caught, it might face annihilation. The rules it had set in place were being mocked by a single aberrant force.

As the proclamation that had settled over the world was torn to shreds, it could no longer call them its own.

Only one thing could explain this.

[……Chaos.]

Yes, that must be it.

This wicked being that had traversed countless ages had, at last, identified the unknown. It was the power once wielded by a certain man from ages past.

And therefore—

[I will kill it. Here and now…… it must be severed.]

The sprout had to be cut.

Above all, just looking into Calix's eyes gave it certainty. He had not been aiming for the head. Even as he dealt minor blows, his gaze had been sharply fixed on Midra's chest.

He knew where the 'Core' was.

No—if anything, this was fortunate. Because it held only infinite potential, there was still room to act.

Soon, Legion Commander Midra opened its mouth.

[Anomalies are not permitted.]

In that voice, there was no longer mockery or contempt. Only the instinct of a beast that had detected 'danger', and the desperation to bury its fear.

And at that mont.

Sshhhhhhhhh.

A chilling ripple spread outward.

Blizzard and darkness—their very essence divided the battlefield in two. The mana scattered in all directions converged to a single point. Soon the two forces intertwined, and the shockwave swallowed everything.

Accepting being partially consud by Chaos, it had reversed the flow of its own power.

"Urgh……."

"Damn it!"

The Mountain Rabbits are swept backward as if caught in a storm. They try to dig sword and shield into the ground, but the force was beyond what human strength could withstand.

Gregor is helplessly flung away. Basim tumbled about, cursing, and Royce, who had been directly exposed, lost consciousness and drew shallow, ragged breaths.

The only one who withstood it was Calix alone.

"No……!"

Between them, a wall had been erected.

In the severed landscape, the young man gazed at Midra—alone, yet with eyes unbroken.

Perfect stillness.

A world where ti stretched out, sound vanished, and even breath froze solid. Within it, the monster finally revealed its true form.

Crackle-crackle.

The ice armor lost its color and fell to the ground, the flesh of its chest tore open, and for a mont the polyhedral Core ca into view.

The forr body slumped limp, and a human-shaped form separated and lurched out. Though it possessed skin, bone and muscle were exposed here and there. A grotesque figure. As if to prove that it stood at the pinnacle, it spread one hand to reveal itself.

But that transformation was not for a new battle.

It was a gesture that foretold an ending.

At that mont, an ominous presence that should not exist was felt. An unseen place, beyond the edge of the plains. A familiar yet strange force was drawing near.

[A human's sword approaches.]

An unfamiliar threat grazes the gaps in the order.

[It is already too late.]

And then, blue-black fingers drew a line across the void.

***

Calix looks up at the airborne enemy. The sensation in his hands had gone numb, and his brain's commands no longer reached his flesh.

The air solidified, crushed by the cold. Then light and shadow, sound and warmth, even shade—evaporated entirely. All that remained was ashen nothingness and silence.

The command to stop.

In a domain where no logic held sway, only Midra's will displayed its lofty presence.

[This is your end.]

But thanks to this, his head had cleared. The thread of reason, shoved into a corner of his mind, returned to him.

'Is this the end?'

Every person has a limit. The power newly awakened was formidable, but it was not enough. His entire body had broken down in the anti, and even the Neural Accelerator's warning sounds no longer reached him.

Perhaps facing death, a mont of lucid consciousness had returned.

Yet there was no regret.

'I will not run.'

Calix grips the sword handle with both hands, bites down on his thumb against the hilt to hold it in place. Then he aid the tip of the blade at the single path it had to travel.

Midra's Core.

There is no one who doesn't fear the end. But even when Mountain Rabbits are gone, their footprints remain. In the journey shared with everyone, he had witnessed it. Rather than scattering at the face of crisis, they had always gathered together to stand against it.

This ti was no different.

Tzzzt.

Mana flowing from the core courses through his forearms. Then sothing surges upward, but the word 'Desperate Fla' alone was not sufficient to describe it.

etings and partings, friendship and love, awful jokes and gruff pats on the back, goodwill given without condition—all of it surged up in one tangled, chaotic mass.

It was not a matter of good and evil.

Simply—in order to save the comrades standing at his back.

That earnest wish was loaded onto the sword's form and pressed into a single point.

Crackle-crackle-crack!!

Forces from opposite extres collide.

The command Midra had imposed cracks, then splits apart. Along the path the blade carves, all things that had once been subrged in gray reclaim their original color.

Pale flesh tones, orange spreading like a sunset, brown laden with earth. Beneath bloodied hands and labored breath, color was returned to them, one by one.

But Calix's body had already exceeded its limits.

The armor on his right shoulder falls away. His skin had grown hard and rigid, and his breathing had faded to nearly nothing, like that of the dead.

The sword's tip was pointed toward the enemy, so there was no room to tend to his own body.

In the end, Midra's power bored in as far as near the heart. Targeting Calix's Core, it began to upset the razor-thin balance of forces.

Chaos is, by nature, an unstable power.

He stood on a precarious edge—one where it would not be strange for him to collapse at any mont.

It was precisely then.

The amber crystal hanging on a worn cord at the nape of Calix's neck—began to radiate its brilliance.