Chapter 449: Breaking Point
Kassie’s words hung in the frozen air like a death sentence. Altharion’s smile didn’t waver, but something flickered behind his eyes... Perhaps it was recognition or the first crack in his composure.
He rolled his shoulders, axes spinning once more.
"Maintain what, exactly? I’m simply enjoying a good fight."
Kassie didn’t reply anymore. She simply exploded into more motion.
Her greatsword came down in a vertical strike so heavy the air screamed. Altharion crossed his axes to meet it, but this time Kassie didn’t lock and struggle — she poured everything into the blow, red haze surging like a tidal wave.
The impact drove him down to one knee, the stone beneath him shattering into a crater. Before he could push back, she ripped the blade free and hammered a horizontal cut across his chest. He barely deflected it, the force still spinning him halfway around.
It was as though she was done testing him. And was now ready to break him. There was literally no limit. No limit at all to the Tyrant Empress.
She became a crimson hurricane. Overpowering attack after overpowering attack rained down without pause. She came down on him each time with raw, tyrannical force designed to make him spend everything he had. Her greatsword blurred into a storm of red arcs—each swing carrying the weight of mountains, each collision a thunderclap that shook snow from the peaks above. She drove him across the rim, forcing him to meet every strike head-on.
Altharion’s axes whirled in desperate defense. He parried the first three blows, boots sliding through the snow, but the fourth slammed into his guard so hard one axe nearly flew from his grip.
He sacrificed another summon — yanking a stone beast out of nowhere into the path of her next swing — but Kassie carved through it like wet paper and kept coming. Her blade found his shoulder again, opening a deeper gash. Blood sprayed across the white ground.
"Perhaps if you beg for mercy, I might decide to spare a limb."
Altharion laughed, but it sounded strained now. His pleasant smile had teeth behind it.
"No, thank you."
He vaulted backward, summoning a wall of vine-wrapped horrors to buy a moment’s breathing room.
Kassie smashed straight through the center of them, red haze flaring brighter, her greatsword trailing destruction.
She emerged on the other side already swinging — an overhead smash that forced him to cross both axes again. The shockwave blasted outward, cracking the rim further. His arms trembled visibly under the pressure.
He countered with a spinning double slash, axes gleaming with dark energy.
Kassie met it with a brutal upward strike that lifted him off his feet and sent him skidding across the stone.
Before he could recover, she was on him. A kick to the midsection doubled him over. A pommel strike to the jaw snapped his head back. Then another downward chop that he barely turned aside, the blade biting deep into his left thigh instead.
Whatever he was doing with his spirit, whatever it was that they deployed as their method was failing even more visibly now.
His movements that were once fluid and precise, now carried a desperate edge. Power still radiated from him, letting him match her impossible strength, but it was costing him. Sweat mixed with blood on his face. His breathing grew ragged. Every time he met her full power, something inside him fractured further.
Kassie pressed the advantage mercilessly. She bombarded him with a relentless series of heavy strikes — each one heavier than the last.
A diagonal cut that nearly severed his arm. A thrusting stab that punched through his guard and grazed his ribs.
A sweeping arc that forced him to leap, only for her to chase him mid-air with a rising slash that split the wind itself.
Altharion landed hard, summoning three more beasts at once to shield himself. She destroyed them all in two sweeping blows, red sparks exploding outward like fireworks of carnage.
"I wander if their standards have fallen so low. Hiding behind a human shell."
Altharion’s eyes narrowed.
For the first time, the harmless smile slipped. He lunged forward in a sudden burst of speed, axes carving a lethal pattern aimed at her throat and waist. Kassie didn’t dodge.
She powered straight through the assault, her greatsword smashing into his crossed axes with such overwhelming force that the black blades actually bent for a heartbeat. The impact hurled him backward twenty feet. He crashed through two of his own summons, rolling across the frozen stone and coming up on one knee, coughing blood.
His left arm shook badly now. The divine energy flickering around him — like faint shadows twisting beneath his skin — wavered and dimmed.
Kassie advanced slowly, her greatsword held ready. The red haze around her had only grown thicker, more oppressive.
She was tiring too — blood ran from multiple cuts across her arms and torso — but her eyes burned with unyielding determination.
She knew exactly what she was doing. Every overpowering blow was calculated to force him deeper into the fusion, to make him draw more and more from that well until it ran dry.
Altharion rose unsteadily and said with a raspy voice.
"Impressive... But I’m not finished yet."
He roared and charged, axes spinning in a frenzied double helix. For a brief, terrifying moment, he exploded with even more speed and force.
Matching her speed again, landing a grazing cut across her side and forcing her back two steps. But Kassie answered with a silent roar of her own.
It was a roar of movement and dominion.
She planted her boots and unleashed a barrage — three devastating overhead strikes in rapid succession, each one hammering his guard like the fist of a god. On the third blow, something audibly cracked in his right arm.
He staggered. The luminous aura around him flickered violently.
Kassie didn’t stop at that one blow. She drove forward with a series of crushing blows that forced him into a purely defensive stance. Each collision rang louder than the last.
The rim of the pass was disintegrating beneath them, craters and fissures spreading outward like a spiderweb. Altharion spilled more summons that tried to intervene but she ignored them completely now, carving through any that dared approach while keeping the pressure squarely on him.
His breathing was labored. His smile had become a grimace. The divine power he wielded was breaking under the sheer weight of her assault. And every time he called on it to match her strength, it drained him further.
His movements was slowing down painfully and his parries already grew weaker.
One final, earth-shaking overhead strike from Kassie slammed into his crossed axes. The force drove him down to both knees.
The black blades splintered at the edges. And Altharion’s eyes widened as the aura around him shattered like glass — wisps of white light dissipating into the wind. The tremendous strength that had let him stand against a Calamity vanished in an instant.
Kassie stood over him, greatsword raised high, red haze swirling like a victory banner. Bloodied, battered, but unbroken.
Altharion looked up at her, chest heaving, axes trembling in his grip. For the first time, the pleasant mask had fully cracked.
Then a low, chuckle escaped from him.
"I told you didn’t I? I’m not finished yet."
Kassie frowned and changed the direction of her gaze.
Acommpanied by a terrifying lightning that darkened the sky, some new entrants entered the battlefield.
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