Chapter 224: The World is Watching
"NO!"
Leon moved.
He didn’t think about stamina. He didn’t think about reserves. He simply refused to accept the outco.
He sprinted, placing himself between the Knight and Lyra.
The spear thrust forward.
Leon raised his sword. Block.
CLANG!
The impact was crushing. Leon’s boots skidded backward, carving grooves into the stone. His arms scread in agony. The Void Knight was stronger. Much stronger.
The Knight pressed down, the bone spear inching closer to Leon’s face. The black aura of the weapon began to eat away at Leon’s golden light.
"Leon!" Lyra cried out.
"Run..." Leon gritted out through clenched teeth. "Get... back..."
I can’t hold it. The thought was cold and absolute. My fla is going out.
The darkness pressed in. He felt the cold of the void seeping into his skin.
And then, he rembered the library. The book he had read just hours ago. The journal of his ancestor, the First Lionheart.
’The fla is not a shield. It is not a wall. Fire consus. Fire breathes. To make the fla brighter, you do not push harder. You feed it.’
Feed it what? Leon had wondered then.
Now, looking into the void, he understood.
He stopped trying to push the darkness away. He stopped trying to maintain the purity of his barrier.
Instead, he let the darkness touch him. He let the despair, the fear, the pressure of the Void Knight’s aura wash over his own core.
And then, he ignited it.
He used the enemy’s pressure as fuel.
"I..." Leon whispered.
The fla around him changed. The bright, stable gold flickered, then turned a blinding, intense white.
The heat spiked. The stone beneath his feet began to lt.
"I AM A LIONHEART!"
ROAAAAR!
A pillar of white fire exploded from Leon’s body. It wasn’t just mana; it was a physical force.
The Void Knight screeched as its dark aura caught fire. The white fla didn’t just burn; it purified. It ate the void mana greedily.
Leon swung his sword.
[Lionheart Style: Solar Prominence]
A wave of white fire, shaped like a roaring lion’s head, engulfed the Knight. The elite monster disintegrated instantly, its armor turning to ash.
The shockwave blasted the remaining stalkers back.
Leon stood in the center of the crater, his hair floating as if underwater, his eyes glowing with white light.
He took a breath, and the fire settled, coating his blade in a dense, humming layer of white plasma.
"Form up behind ," Leon commanded. His voice was different. Deeper. Calm.
Lyra stared at him, her mouth agape.
"Leon... what was that?"
"A breakthrough," Leon said, looking up at the sky where the real battle was raging. "Now let’s clear the trash."
[Sky Island – Mid-Air]
Falling is a peaceful sensation, right up until the mont you realize you’re going to hit sothing.
The wind roared in my ears, tearing at my clothes. I was in freefall, plumting down the side of the Central Spire.
Below , the city was a map of chaos. Fires burned in the luxury district. The red barrier pulsed overhead.
But my eyes were fixed on one thing.
Ten ters below , tumbling end over end, was the black Scabbard.
And trailing behind it, like a homing missile made of light, was the Holy Sword.
It was catching up.
"Co on," I grunted, tucking my arms in to increase my velocity.
I activated [Swift Step] in mid-air, using a falling piece of debris as a platform to kick off.
Whoosh.
I accelerated.
I reached out my hand. My fingers brushed the cold leather of the Scabbard.
Got it.
I grabbed the sheath mid-fall.
At that exact mont, the Holy Sword arrived.
It didn’t attack . It sought its ho.
With a tallic SHING that rang out even over the wind, the blade slid perfectly into the Scabbard in my hand.
THOOM.
The mont the sword was sheathed, the violent, chaotic holy energy vanished. The blinding light was snuffed out, contained instantly by the dragon-leather.
The weapon went dormant.
"Heavy," I gasped. The weight of the thing nearly pulled my arm out of its socket.
Now I had the Sword. I had the Scabbard.
I also had a new problem.
I was still falling. And the ground was rushing up fast.
"Nox!" I shouted ntally.
...Master is crazy...
My shadow expanded. From my back, two massive, spectral wings of darkness erupted—Nox manifesting his [Shadow Flight] ability through our bond.
They weren’t strong enough to fly, not with my current mana, but they were enough to glide.
I swooped out of the freefall, banking hard around the spire, clutching the sealed Excalibur to my chest.
I looked down at the Honour Hall plaza below.
The battle between Cessias and the Void Walker was escalating. Gravity was warping.
But sothing else caught my eye.
Far below the floating island, on the surface of the barrier that caged us in, a ripple appeared.
Sothing was hitting the barrier from the outside.
Sothing massive.
BOOM.
The red sky shook.
A crack appeared in the impregnable SS-Rank barrier.
Through the crack, a single, brilliant beam of violet light pierced through, striking the Void Walker in the shoulder.
The demon howled, its concentration breaking.
I narrowed my eyes as I glided toward a rooftop.
"Finally," I whispered. "The cavalry."
One of the Seven seats of the Council had arrived. And they didn’t knock.
_____________
The sky over Sky Island didn’t just crack; it shattered.
The violet beam that had pierced the SS-Rank barrier from the outside wasn’t a simple spell. It was a declaration of war against the physics of the barrier itself.
KRA-KOOOM!
The sound was like a planetary bone breaking. The red, venous do that had caged the city shuddered violently, and the tear created by the beam began to widen, forcibly ripped open by two massive, spectral hands made of violet energy that reached in from the outside world.
I skid across the slate roof of a residential tower, the soles of my boots smoking from the friction of my landing. I clutched the Dragon-Leather Scabbard to my chest, the Holy Sword dormant but terrifyingly heavy inside it.
"Nox, wings off," I gasped, my mana bottoming out.
The shadow wings dispersed into mist. I rolled behind a chimney stack, chest heaving, and looked up.
Through the widening tear in the sky, a figure descended.
He didn’t fly; he walked on the air as if it were solid stairs. He wore the flowing, deep violet robes of the Grand Council, embroidered with constellations that moved across the fabric in real-ti. He held a staff topped with a singularity—a black hole contained in crystal.
Councilor Vane. The Master of Gravity. One of the Seven.
"Filth," Vane’s voice bood, amplified by magic so that it reached every corner of the island. "You dare cage my sky?"
He pointed his staff at the Void Walker.
BOOM.
Gravity around the faceless demon increased by a factor of fifty. The floating debris—cars, statues, rubble—slamd instantly to the ground, flattened into pancakes.
The Void Walker shrieked, its shadowy form compressing. It raised a hand to counter, but City Lord Cessias, seeing his opening, thrust his World Tree staff forward.
"Light of the First Dawn!" Cessias roared.
A beam of pure white light pinned the demon against the invisible wall of gravity.
The battle of the SS-Ranks had shifted. The humans were pushing back.
[The World Outside – Global Broadcast]
The chaos wasn’t contained to the island.
Thousands of miles below, and across the entire continent, screens were lighting up.
The "Skyfall Incident" had interrupted every channel, every stream, and every crystal-comms network. News drones, deployed by the Hunter Association and dia vultures the mont the barrier appeared, were circling the island like gnats, zooming in through the cracks in the red do.
[BREAKING NEWS: SKY ISLAND UNDER SIEGE]
[SS-Rank Demons Confirm. Council Intervention Imminent.]
[Live Feed: Sector 4.]
In the opulent drawing room of the Lionheart Estate, the patriarch of the family stood before a wall-sized projection. His hands gripped the back of a velvet chair.
On the screen, a young man wreathed in blinding white fire was carving a path through a horde of black beasts.
"Look at him," the patriarch whispered, his stern face cracking into a fierce, predatory pride. "That is not just fire. That is the White Fla. The Apex Ignition."
He turned to his aides. "Get the press team ready. If Leon survives this, he isn’t just an heir anymore. He is the Hero of the Generation."
In the cold, steel office of the William family, a different mood prevailed.
Duke William stared at the sa feed. He saw Leon shining like a star. Then, the cara panned to Eric, who was fighting bravely, his light magic precise and lethal, but... dim.
Compared to Leon’s white inferno, Eric looked like a candle next to a lighthouse.
.
"Second," the Duke muttered, crushing his wine glass. Red liquid stained his glove. "Always second. Fight harder, boy. Do not let the Lionheart eclipse you."
And in a small, cluttered apartnt in the rchant district of Selorn, a middle-aged couple clutched each other on a worn sofa.
"I can’t see him," Michael’s mother whispered, scanning the chaotic wide shots of the city. "Where is he? Is he safe?"
"He’s smart," his father said, though his voice trembled. "He’s hiding. He’s a survivor. He’s not crazy enough to be on the front lines."
[Sky Island – Sector 4 Alleyway]
"Sorry, Dad," I muttered to the wind, imagining the look on his face if he could see now. "I’m definitely on the front lines."
I was crouched in the shadow of a water tower, watching the plaza below.
The dia drones were buzzing everywhere, tiny silver spheres zip-lining through the air. They were focusing on the flashy battles—Leon’s white fire, Alastor’s silver slashes, Vane’s gravity wells.
"Good," I whispered. "Keep watching them."
I looked down at the Scabbard in my hands. It was the most important item in the entire ga lore right now. If the caras saw holding the sealed Excalibur, my life as an "Extra" was over. I’d be drafted by the Church, the Council, or assassinated by the Cult within the hour.
I needed to hide it.
My dinsional pocket? Too low-rank. The Holy energy of the sword disrupted spatial magic. It wouldn’t fit.
I scanned my surroundings. I was on a roof overlooking the rear of the Hero Honour Hall. The Hall itself had been blown open by the initial ritual blast.
My Quantum Analysis Mind highlighted sothing in the rubble of the Hall’s vestry.
A heavy, lead-lined chest used for transporting unstable mana crystals. It was sitting in the ruins, cracked but intact.
"That’ll do," I hissed.
I activated [Swift Step], dropping from the roof into the alley. I moved through the shadows, avoiding the patrols of Void Stalkers that Leon hadn’t cleared yet.
(To be continued)
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