No conversation was necessary between Pantos and Ludger.
Pantos was not the type to talk much.
Ludger was the same—if there was no necessity, he did not open his mouth.
For two such men, there was only one way to exchange greetings:
To clash with strength, man to man.
If anything, this method suited Pantos far better than it did Ludger, who was, after all, a mage rather than a born warrior.
But Ludger was more than willing to go along with it.
Kwaang!
Pantos landed on the ground where Ludger had been standing a moment before.
With a grinding roar, the earth split apart in jagged fractures, even overturning patches of ground.
A powerful gust blew Ludger’s hair back.
Even considering Pantos’ massive size, producing this much force was far beyond common sense.
“You’ve grown stronger since last time.”
Of course.
It had been three years since the Holy War—Pantos wasn’t someone who would have done nothing during that time.
Ludger immediately drew mana and constructed a spellform.
Threads of magic rose around him, weaving flashy geometric patterns, projecting a complex spell.
Chunks of stone materialized in the air.
A barrage of sharpened boulders fired toward Pantos like cannons.
Paaang!
The projectiles broke the sound barrier, producing sonic booms—
but just before they reached Pantos, his fist crushed the incoming magic.
One. Two. Three.
Pantos smashed every flying spell with his fists, then leapt toward Ludger again.
The impact sent shockwaves rippling across the unstable ground like a disturbed lake.
As he flew toward Ludger, Pantos raised his harpoon and swung it down like a massive bludgeon.
“Ater Nocturnus.”
The shadow-beast surrounding Ludger moved.
Two beastly arms of shadow burst out of his shoulders and caught Pantos’ harpoon.
Kuuung!
A crater sank around Ludger.
Even blocking the blow had produced a shock great enough to deform the environment.
Ludger extended his staff toward Pantos.
A blizzard erupted from its tip—
from within that frigid storm, the massive maw of an ice dragon manifested, lunging at Pantos.
Pantos shook free of Ater Nocturnus’s grip, then swung his harpoon overhead like a windmill.
A fierce storm roared along the path of the weapon.
Ludger read something inside that wind.
Kwooooooooosh!
The ice dragon that was about to swallow Pantos was instead caught in the storm and shredded apart.
The fragments of shattered frost spiraled around Pantos like a waterspout—
and then turned direction, rushing toward Ludger.
More savage, more razor-sharp.
“Lutus Commander’s swordsmanship, is it.”
Pantos, through his battle with Lutus and afterward, had grasped the principle.
Though unlike Alex or Lutus, Pantos’ way of using it was rough, wild, and brutishly raw.
Where Alex and Lutus precisely sensed the flow of power and exploited openings—
Pantos simply used overwhelming brute strength to forcibly twist the existing flow of power.
Yet the core principle of the technique was the same.
That was why he could perform such outrageous feats as reversing a spell’s direction.
Ludger lightly tapped the ground with the tip of his foot.
That alone caused a massive wall of flame to erupt, breaking through the earth.
Not mere fire—
a surge of magma mixed with molten ground.
Chiiiiik!
The cold storm collided with the magma surge, producing thick white steam.
The moment Pantos’ figure was obscured—
PAAANG!
He burst through the steam, already closing the distance to Ludger.
He had slipped through the perceptual blind spot created while the steam rose.
Behind him, a tunnel-like path had been carved through the fog—
but Ludger had anticipated the move.
He drew the sword-stick hidden within his staff.
Harpoon and sword-stick collided.
KWAARAAAAANG!
The shock blasted surrounding debris outward.
Czzzzzk!
The cracked ground screamed; parts of the terrain flipped over.
The cliff they fought on shook dangerously.
But ignoring the instability, Pantos thrust his harpoon toward Ludger.
PAPAPAPAPANG!
A five-hit thrust in an instant.
The air split, producing five consecutive sonic booms.
Ludger infused the sword-stick with powerful mana and calmly deflected each strike.
Blocking head-on was impossible due to their difference in raw strength.
Instead, Ludger redirected the force outward each time.
Even so, the attacks were so strong they rattled his «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» body—
but he blocked them using his vast mana and Ater Nocturnus.
His shadow absorbed a portion of the physical shock.
As Ludger deflected the fifth strike, he pulled harder to break Pantos’ balance.
Pantos’ massive body would not budge easily, but in a battle between powerhouses, even small shifts could be fatal.
Ludger swung his left hand.
Iron cubes appeared in the air, assembling into the shape of a whip.
The whip lashed out, coiling around Pantos like a serpent.
Ater Nocturnus grabbed the whip with both arms and yanked with brute force.
KWAANG!
Pantos was lifted off the ground and slammed into the earth.
The attack did not stop there.
His body flew up again—then crashed into the ground on the opposite side.
Quang! Quang! Quang!
Like an earthquake, the ground trembled and the cliff shuddered.
Just as Ater Nocturnus raised the whip again—
The whip tore apart.
“My joints were getting stiff.”
Pantos shredded the metal whip midair and raised the claws of his right hand.
His savagely spread fingers grasped at empty air—
Something was coming.
Ludger sensed it instantly, and Ater Nocturnus swelled to shield him.
Immediately, Pantos swung his arm.
Along its path, something invisible flew out.
...!
Ater Nocturnus’ two arms visibly warped under the impact.
The blow was so powerful that even the magic beast—nearly immune to ordinary physical force—was shaken.
“Spirit, is it.”
Recognizing Pantos’ attack, Ludger muttered quietly.
Spirit.
The innate mystical power possessed by beastkin.
Similar to mana wielded by mages or aura used by knights—yet different.
Beastkin used it to reinforce their bodies or merge with their surroundings to hide.
This very power had made them natural hunters since ancient times.
“Ater Nocturnus. Brace yourself. He’ll send several more.”
Ludger warned his magic beast.
The strike that startled Ater Nocturnus was not a finishing move.
For Pantos, it was merely a basic attack.
Naturally, Pantos could unleash dozens of such strikes per second—
even more when applied to his weapon.
Whirrrrrrr!
Pantos spun his harpoon in a dazzling arc.
Each rotation released crescent-shaped Spirit slashes that hammered against Ludger and Ater Nocturnus.
Ludger constructed defensive spells around himself.
In an instant, ten layers of barrier magic—like sturdy fortress walls—formed around him.
Each barrier collided with Pantos’ attacks and shattered,
but new magic rapidly filled the gaps.
“How troublesome.”
Indeed, fighting a mage like this from range was inefficient.
Pantos stopped swinging the harpoon and prepared to throw it instead.
The tip of the harpoon vibrated, generating a vortex.
The Spirit energy on its tip spun fiercely with the refined principle of Lutus’ swordsmanship.
That’s dangerous. A storm compressed to the size of a fist.
Ludger had no choice but to respond with a matching spell.
Magic circles scattered like constellations around him.
Seeing this, Pantos’ lips curled into a deep smile.
His blood boiled.
Yes—this was it.
A battle that made his heart pound wildly, that burned his brain until it felt like it might melt.
A sweetness he believed he would never taste again after the Holy War.
Perfect.
So unbelievably perfect that it felt like all of it might be an illusion.
If this were a dream, let it not end.
If it were reality, then let it never cease.
Come.
My greatest, most formidable adversary—
the first to ever grant me the experience of failure in the hunt.
Pantos hurled his harpoon.
The weapon distorted, transforming into a streak of light.
That was how fast it moved.
Before one could see or process it, the harpoon had already reached Ludger.
At that instant, Ludger’s magic activated.
6th-tier ice magic:
[Thousand-Sea Icebreaker Crash]
With a thunderous roar, a ship with its sails spread charged toward the harpoon.
The legendary vessel—said to have cut through the ice of the northern sea before vanishing into the sky’s ocean—collided with the incoming harpoon.
The storm energy compressed at the harpoon’s tip erupted.
Dense mana and Spirit collided, triggering a mutual annihilation reaction.
The enormous energy burst into light and force.
The shockwave expanded in a dome, evacuating air and creating a vacuum.
The already unstable cliff could not withstand it.
Shattered cliffside collapsed into the raging waves below.
As Pantos hovered above the destruction and prepared to land, he sensed something and turned his head.
In his vision, a black dot appeared in the air.
The dot expanded—then two arms of Ater Nocturnus burst out and slammed Pantos downward.
Pantos raised both arms to block, but he could not prevent himself from being smashed into the collapsing cliff.
KRRRRRRRRSH!
Swept away by the falling cliff, Pantos vanished into the chaos.
Debris struck the water, sending towering plumes skyward.
A thick cloud of dust engulfed the area.
Hovering above, Ludger silently watched the scene.
Just as the shockwaves were fading—
a flash of light streaked toward Ludger’s forehead.
He tilted his head slightly, letting it pass.
“Water?”
What he glimpsed was seawater.
The explanation revealed itself immediately.
KUKWAAAAAA!
The cloud of dust was torn apart, forming massive waterspouts.
Ice-cold spirals of seawater rose high, reaching the gray clouds overhead.
Their number increased rapidly—until nine whirlpools swirled across the sky.
At their center, standing atop broken bits of driftwood on the sea, was Pantos.
Ludger had thrown him down to drown—
but Pantos had instead drawn the ocean upward.
“You’ve grown considerably. You’ve gotten stronger.”
“And you’ve gotten rusty. In the past, you could have ended this instantly.”
“True. Thanks to you, my senses are slowly returning.”
Ludger admitted it.
His senses were not what they once were.
He had spent three years doing nothing.
Considering that empty period, the fact he could still fight like this was remarkable.
To Pantos, that made things even more exhilarating.
He was already so thrilled he could hardly breathe—
and knowing his opponent could grow even stronger filled him with ecstasy.
“Coming.”
At Pantos’ signal, all nine waterspouts surged toward Ludger—
each infused with Spirit.
Beastkin were said to be weak to water—
but not Pantos.
He had already overcome the beastkin’s weakness,
and from the start, he was a mutant of monstrous strength.
“This is troublesome.”
Ludger acknowledged he could not block this with ordinary magic.
His eyes turned red.
Mana burst out around him, forming a thick mist.
Highly condensed mana particles gathered behind him, taking shape—
The radiant form of a tree.
The Tree of Sephiroth.
Ludger did not stop there.
Mana rings encircled the Tree of Sephiroth—
then a second, then a third ring, three in total.
“Ain Soph Aur.”
Nothingness.
Infinity.
Infinite Light.
The immense energy radiating from the Tree of Sephiroth clashed with the nine waterspouts.
They exploded.
The brilliant light vaporized the seawater entirely, disintegrating it.
Pantos extended his hand.
The harpoon, linked by a Spirit-thread, flew back into his grip.
He prepared to charge toward Ludger—
BUOOOOOM!
One side of the ocean swelled into a towering mass.
It was neither Ludger’s magic nor Pantos’ Spirit.
“Oh dear.”
Ludger recognized the presence of an unexpected intruder.
“Seems we were too noisy. Even though this isn’t its territory, it came anyway.”
The swollen sea erupted like a volcano, revealing a massive whale.
