"Cough cough cough—"
This ti, it was Michael who awkwardly pulled himself out of the ice and frozen earth. But Kevin wasn’t faring much better. Both his sword-wielding arms were completely broken, the two sections of bone jutting out from flesh and blood. Even though the Garuda factor worked diligently to repair them, it ultimately wasn’t easy to set the bones straight. He could only waste the opportunity to press his advantage, watching helplessly as Michael stood up again.
In fact, Michael’s recovery was even a step faster than his. By the ti Michael straightened his body, Kevin’s arms were still in the process of healing.
But Michael gave him another chance.
"Careless..."
He let out a long sigh, his voice devoid of resentnt, sadness, or mockery, as if he were rely reciting these three words chanically.
"I told you, wherever the eclipse can be seen, I am currently immortal. This is a consequence I forcibly established. However, however, Kevin, fifty thousand years, it’s still you... who can bring so different amusent. Alright then, I’ll play with you a bit longer. But isn’t it a bit unfair for you to bully , an unard person, with a weapon?"
Under Kevin’s wary gaze, he raised his right hand, reaching towards the side... But then he seed to change his mind, raising his right hand higher, extending it straight towards the eclipse ring overhead.
"This is!"
Kevin’s pupils contracted. He imdiately understood what Michael was summoning, but he had no way to stop it. He could only follow by raising his head, watching as a small red dot lit up on the pitch-black lunar surface that rcilessly obscured the sun.
Accompanied by a sharp sound of sothing tearing through the air, a thin, thread-like red line pierced the darkness. Kevin lowered his head. Just as he thought, Michael held a red long spear shaped like a fork.
"Alright, now we can play fairly."
The long spear spun several tis in Michael’s palm before being slung diagonally across his back.
Crack—Crack—
Kevin’s arms happened to recover at this exact mont, as if every passing second had been ticulously calculated.
"Hoo—"
Both took a deep breath simultaneously. The scattered white vapor was exceptionally conspicuous against the pitch-black background. Snowfall also arrived inadvertently, but all of it was torn apart by the rushing airflow a tenth of a second later.
Their figures collided, yet they didn’t pierce each other’s hearts as they had fifty thousand years ago. Both seed slightly more rational than back then, though only by a tiny margin.
Weapons clashed continuously. Exploding sparks lted a snowflake that hadn’t yet landed. The one following close behind didn’t even have ti to rejoice before being sliced in half by the rapidly passing red spear.
Compared to the heavy Might of An-Utu, the slender, branch-like long spear was clearly more agile. In Michael’s hands, it twirled, swept, chopped, or thrusted, while Kevin could only constantly shift his footing, using it to maneuver the greatsword and continuously parry.
This certainly wasn’t a simple duel between spear techniques and a two-handed sword. Even if their weapons were swapped, the result would likely be the sa. While a long spear was more fluid and agile, a greatsword generally held an advantage in strength. The spear wielder might achieve a crushing advantage in speed during a short battle, but the greatsword wielder could completely overco it with force—well, that’s how it should have been.
But the reality was the exact opposite. For Michael, who possessed the power of Finality, or even further, was Finality itself, Kevin, even in his Mara state fused with the Hundred Beasts of Brahma, was ultimately lacking in physical prowess.
Therefore, despite Kevin’s repeated attempts to deflect the incoming spear tip, he invariably failed to move it even an inch.
Clang—
The long spear and An-Utu clashed again. Kevin held the greatsword horizontally with both hands, but his knees involuntarily sank, causing cracks to appear in the ice surface where his feet stood, indenting downwards.
Michael’s spear technique was actually just a simple attack pattern. First, a downward chop. Kevin naturally couldn’t parry horizontally, because Michael’s spear was extrely fast. Even if he thrust An-Utu forward a step earlier, the red, twin-pronged spear tip would definitely reach Kevin’s head before An-Utu’s crescent-like blade tip.
Besides, Michael still had one hand free.
He wielded the spear with a single hand, suppressing Kevin’s strength. But he seed unwilling to get caught in this aningless struggle, and also seed to deliberately avoid using his other hand. With a flick of his wrist, the long spear slid along An-Utu’s blade to the side.
"Hey!"
"Hiss—"
Friction created a shower of sparks. Kevin quickly withdrew his left hand to prevent it from being severed by the spear. Without the support of the other hand, the greatsword naturally couldn’t remain horizontal and began to fall towards its tip.
The long spear swept across. Michael’s body twisted along with it. By the ti Kevin plunged his sword into the ice to steady himself, the spear tip had already rotated a full three hundred and sixty degrees, attacking from Kevin’s right.
Fortunately, he was sowhat familiar with this sequence, having shifted his center of gravity to the left a step ahead. Faced with the current situation, he seized the opportunity to dodge half a step to the left. The spear tip grazed the tattered cloth of his torn shirt and struck heavily against the Might of An-Utu.
This ti, Kevin’s strength was no longer suppressed. The greatsword, plunged downwards into the ice, wasn’t easily moved. Although Michael was physically stronger, he was only wielding the spear with one hand.
But he still had the advantage of speed. Why bother with a contest of strength?
The spear tip was quickly retracted. Just as Kevin was about to pull out his greatsword, Michael thrust forward with his spear again. The twin-pronged spear tip struck An-Utu’s blade, delivering an impact force incomparable to a single-pronged spear—Kevin, leaning on An-Utu, slid back over a hundred ters across the ice plain, carving deep marks, before barely halting his retreat. But he had just raised his head when he saw Michael attacking again, without even a mont’s pause for breath.
"Tch! Rise!"
An-Utu instantly burst into raging flas. Kevin held An-Utu in a reverse grip and swung it upwards with all his might. The flas traced a crescent shape in mid-air. Michael seed to have crashed into this crescent himself, his body easily bisected, the severed edges even showing the charred blackness left by the celestial fire’s devastation.
"Ugh!"
Kevin’s eyes widened in disbelief at the scene before him—was it that simple? Could it be, his long-cherished desire to kill Michael, was it truly this simple?
Could it be that fifty thousand years ago, this single sword strike was all that was needed to end everything?
Ti slowed, slowed, and slowed further, finally seeming to stop completely. This was the so-called mont of victory, also the thing Kevin had been most infatuated with from beginning to end. But now, Kevin stared blankly at Michael’s bisected corpse falling to either side, without a shred of joy in his heart.
Quite the contrary, what flooded his entire body like a tide, like countless hands reaching up his body to ultimately clutch his throat, was an unspeakable absurdity and sorrow.
The things he had regretted for countless days and nights were now achieved in such a simple, such an unbelievable way. It was hard not to find it absurd, and hard not to wonder if the sa could have been achieved fifty thousand years ago, if only his own despair and retreat hadn’t led to a worse outco, hadn’t led to i’s death and the world’s Samsara.
As for sorrow... how could he not be sorrowful? Was the one he killed rely a simple enemy? No, not at all. He killed the comrade he had pursued for fifty thousand years, the family he had once promised to walk towards the future with, and also the object of his search for answers for so many years.
Killing Michael, he certainly longed for it day and night, but it didn’t an he would be happy, would enjoy it, would feel avenged, would feel his wish fulfilled.
What appeared afterward was an even more desperate emptiness.
After all, the last thing he urgently wanted to do out of his own volition was finally accomplished. But... but...
It was like that scorching noon, when he was alone, practicing shots on the basketball court at Chiba Academy. He certainly had athletic talent, but it was more about overwhelming opponents with physical prowess. Technical skills like shooting, it wasn’t that he was untalented—it was more like he was completely clueless.
He was unwilling to be like that; he couldn’t accept being like that. He could certainly beco an indispensable presence on the team with his extre physical strength and breakthrough ability, but if that decisive shot wasn’t made by him, he always felt sothing was missing. He always felt it wasn’t a true victory, at least not the victory he wanted.
That’s why he had to compete with himself, why he trained alone on the basketball court under the scorching sun, even forgetting his appointnt with i... But the result of so-called diligence making up for lack of skill was that he didn’t make a single shot the entire morning.
He shot again and again, disappointed again and again. But failure couldn’t crush him; it only made him more resilient, only made him crave the final, true victory even more. This almost aningless madness continued until he made his first shot of the day—standing right under the basket.
Then, Su and i arrived. It was a holiday; they had arranged to have a al together. What did Su and i say back then? Kevin’s mory was exceptionally hazy; he could no longer accurately grasp those words. But he rembered saying sothing extrely childish, sothing like the "mont of victory"—a victory that had no past, no future, existing only in that instant. He seed to recall saying sothing like that.
Afterward, Su urged him to leave the sports field. He agreed verbally, but his body defiantly stood outside the three-point line, closed his eyes, and casually tossed the ball, mimicking the posture of a star player on TV.
However, when he opened his eyes, he saw the basketball swishing through the net and landing softly—Swish!
His throat tightened. He turned excitedly to call out to Su and i, wanting to share this mont of victory with them... But there was no one behind him.
To this day, had all this truly happened, or did it only exist in his constantly blurring mory, a mory constantly losing its boundary with fantasy? He really couldn’t figure it out, nor did it matter.
His current mood wasn’t entirely the sa as back then—back then, he could still feel a mont’s joy from making the shot. Now, even that insignificant joy no longer existed.
But generally, there was still a commonality: the endless emptiness truly won after the so-called "mont of victory."
Everything he truly wanted to achieve out of his own one hundred percent volition was successful. What followed would be a long, arduous journey of living for Project Stigma, for i, for everything in the past, a journey worse than death.
But... but...
"But ah, Kevin, what makes you think victory is such a simple matter?"
Kevin looked up at the sound. Michael’s bisected body still hung in mid-air. His own hands still gripped An-Utu high above his head. Every wisp of fla was as still as solid ice, as if only his gaze transcended ti.
And, of course, Michael’s voice.
The next mont, the severed ends of Michael’s two halves suddenly began to writhe. One after another, large and small tumors sprouted, each bearing Michael’s features.
Until hundreds, thousands of "Michaels" spoke in unison:
"Kevin, oh Kevin, you are ultimately sowhat self-righteous. However... you actually feel sad for my death, that’s really surprising... and also quite heartwarming."
Regardless of his Elysia-like tone, Kevin pursed his lips. After confirming he could speak, he rely replied coldly:
"I should be immune to ntal influence."
"Oh?"
All the "Michaels" opened their mouths into an "O" shape simultaneously, their expressions playful.
"I told you, Kevin, you’re sowhat self-righteous. What makes you think everything happening now is just a hallucination under ntal influence?"
"Is that so."
Kevin wanted to nod, but seed unable to.
"And then?"
"Tsk!"
Michael clicked his tongue, and then ti reversed once more.
"Don’t forget, Kevin. Under this eclipse ring, you cannot kill . Of course, even without this precondition, the result wouldn’t change."
Ti flowed backward. Everything replayed itself, only this ti, Michael’s body stopped at an unbelievable angle, at the point where the leaping flas were about to lick his bangs.
"Hmm, is that so?"
Kevin raised an eyebrow, but the voice didn’t co from his mouth. Of course, he hadn’t learned voice mimicry; he likely couldn’t produce a girl’s voice.
Michael turned his head in so surprise, seeing a girl with a resolute expression. The girl was unard, rely forming a sword seal before her. Her long hair flew with the wild wind. It was unclear if it was dyed by the snow, or if it was like this at this very mont; her head full of black hair had turned into pure white silk, just like her na—Ling Shuang (Clear Frost).
Her eyes were spirited yet rciless, rely staring at Michael with extre indifference.
Then, she slowly and firmly uttered words that weren’t particularly obscure:
"Divinity is the apex of change, subtly encompassing all things, indescribable by form—Taixu Sword God!"
There was no sword in the girl’s hand, but an even more resplendent greatsword, so massive it almost obscured the entire sky, descended from above. Airflow parted to either side along the blade’s edge. And where the blade’s edge pointed was Michael, and only Michael.
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