Chapter 591: 591. I Love Clashing Magic and Physical Attack! (Exaggerating)
A new, frantic light ignited in Verakis’s eyes. It wasn’t the light of hope—hope was dead in this plaza—but the light of a man who realized he was the sole witness to the greatest lie in history.
’If I die here, the truth dies with me,’ he thought, his heart hammering against his bruised ribs like a trapped bird. ’I have to live... I have to tell them!’
’I have to tell the Legion that the monster has so many identities and is among them!’
"You won’t... get away with this!" Verakis roared, forcing his broken body upward. "The truth will burn you, Rex! Even if I die, the truth will survive!"
Rex tilted his head, a gesture of mock encouragement. "Then show me, Dante Verakis!"
"Show me the strength of a man who has nothing left to lose!" Rex smirked. "Give me your best shot. Don’t disappoint me."
Verakis didn’t hesitate. He reached deep within himself, beyond the energy and the soul, tapping into the ancient, forgotten layers of the universe.
He tapped into primordial working magic, the raw, unrefined essence that predated the gods and the Reincarnators. It was magic designed to unmake, to strip away the divinity of any Reincarnator and reduce them to mere mortal flesh.
"PRIMORDIAL DECONSTRUCTION!" Verakis screamed.
A wave of colorless, terrifyingly pure energy erupted from him. It wasn’t merely a blast; it represented a fundamental shift in reality.
The air itself appeared to peel away. The ground beneath Rex didn’t merely crack; it transformed into a primordial soup, losing its solidity entirely.
The magic surged toward him, a tide of absolute negation crafted to dismantle his very concept of existence.
But Rex didn’t even flinch.
With a casual flick of his wrist, Rex activated his Elemental Mastery. The colorless wave hit an invisible barrier of compressed air, swirling into a violent vortex that redirected the primordial energy upward into the clouds.
Then, with a swift motion of his fingers, he activated Energy Manipulation, seizing the raw, unrefined energy and twisting it, refining it, and transforming it into harmless, flickering sparks.
"Is that it?" Rex teased, his voice cutting through the roaring magic. "Primordial magic again?"
"A bit heavy-handed, don’t you think?"
"It feels a little... cheap as always." Rex raised his arms. "A little like a chicken looking for a way out of a fight by using a shortcut."
The humiliation cut deeper than the physical pain. Verakis gasped, his lungs searing.
He had unleashed his ultimate trump card, the magic capable of slaying gods, yet Rex dismissed it as if it were merely a parlor trick. A cold, paralyzing dread began to seep back in.
Rex was too powerful. He was not just a monster; he was the master of everything.
But the truth was still screaming in his mind. ’Tell them! Tell them!’
"SHUT UP!" Verakis screamed, his fear transforming into a suicidal, frantic rage.
He charged.
He charged through the blood-soaked ground.
He charged through the scattered debris.
He charged through the very air that felt heavy under Rex’s command.
Clang!
Verakis swung a fist reinforced by primordial force, but Rex caught it with a single hand.
Boom!
Rex slammed a telekinetic pulse into Verakis’s chest, sending him reeling.
Crash!
Verakis lunged forward with a desperate strike, but a wall of hardened wind met him.
Thud!
Rex stepped into his guard, a heavy, calculated blow to Verakis’s gut that sent him sprawling.
Clang!
Verakis rose, his movements becoming a blur of desperate, unrefined strikes.
Boom!
Rex countered every movement with a rhythmic, devastating pulse of pressure.
Crash!
Verakis swung wildly, a whirlwind of primordial energy and raw desperation.
Thud!
Rex parried, deflected, and struck, a relentless cycle of dominance.
Clang!
Verakis lunged again, his eyes wide, his breath a ragged sob.
Boom!
Rex met him, a crushing wave of force meeting a desperate surge of magic.
Crash!
Verakis hammered at the air, trying to find a gap in the perfection.
Thud!
Rex struck, a heavy, rhythmic, punishing blow that echoed through the ruined plaza.
It was a chaotic dance. A series of frantic, lunging assaults paired with cold, calculated counters. A blend of primal fury and telekinetic precision.
A struggle between a man fighting for survival and a man who almost ascended to godhood toying with him.
Clang!
Boom!
Crash!
Thud!
Verakis was fueled by pure instinct, his body battered and broken, his magic a sputtering flame. Yet he continued to charge forward, delivering strikes and screaming defiantly into the abyss that was Rex.
The rhythmic brutality of their physical exchange shifted as the very atmosphere began to scream. The air grew heavy, ionized by the sheer density of the magical output.
Verakis, realizing that his physical strength was a mere pebble against a mountain, forced his energy to coalesce into elemental forms. He was a master of the foundational triad: Wind, Stone, and Water.
"STORM OF THE FALLEN!" Verakis roared.
He slammed his hands into the blood-soaked earth. From the ground, massive pillars of jagged stone erupted like the teeth of a titan, surging toward Rex.
Simultaneously, he whipped his arms in a circular motion, summoning torrential currents of pressurized water that spiraled around the stone pillars, turning the assault into a crushing, liquid landslide.
To cap it off, he exhaled a howling gale of wind, a localized hurricane designed to drive the stone and water forward with the force of a falling moon.
It was a masterpiece of elemental coordination, a relentless, grinding wave of nature’s fury.
But Rex merely stood in the center of the approaching apocalypse, his eyes glowing with a terrifying, kaleidoscopic light.
"Coordination is fine, Verakis," Rex whispered, his voice carrying over the roar of the storm. "But you are playing with the scraps of the world while I... am playing with the source."
Rex didn’t just manipulate elements; he authored them. Through his elemental magic creation, he bypassed the limitations of the natural world.
As the stone pillars neared, Rex didn’t just block them; he transmuted them. With a violent surge of his will, he commanded the very molecules of the approaching rock to shift.
The stone didn’t break; it turned to molten lava mid-flight, the sudden heat turning the water into a blinding, scalding steam.
"ELEMENTAL OVERLOAD!" Rex commanded.
The clash was cataclysmic. Verakis’s wind was met by a sudden, impossible vacuum as Rex summoned a localized void, swallowing the gale whole.
The water, intended to drown the earth, was instantly frozen into jagged lances of ice by a flash of absolute zero, only to be melted a second later by a pillar of pure, white-hot solar flame.
The sky above the plaza became a chaotic tapestry of conflicting forces. Verakis threw everything he had: a cyclone of water and stone and a torrential rain of earth, but Rex was a god of the spectrum.
Where Verakis used the wind, Rex used lightning, lashing out with arcs of violet electricity that tore through the air like serrated blades. Where Verakis used the water, Rex used the very concept of heat and cold, turning the battlefield into a swirling vortex of steam, ice, and fire.
The magic didn’t just clash; it fought for dominance. The sound was a deafening, continuous roar: the hiss of steam meeting fire, the crackle of lightning meeting stone, the thunderous boom of colliding pressures.
The ground beneath them was being pulverized into fine dust, caught in the crossfire of a war between a man trying to command nature and a man who commanded the very essence of the elements themselves.
Verakis felt the sheer scale of the gap. Every time he channeled his wind, Rex turned it into a vacuum.
Every time he summoned the stone, Rex turned it to liquid or gas. It was like trying to fight the ocean with a cup; no matter how much he poured, the sea remained unbothered.
"Is this the limit of your ’truth’?" Rex shouted through the cacophony, his silhouette flickering amidst a storm of fire and ice. "The elements are not your allies, Verakis!"
"They are my tools!"
The clash reached a fever pitch, a blinding explosion of light and elemental fury that threatened to erase the very memory of the plaza from existence.
"I’ve had enough of fun... let’s end it here because there are a lot of people who are waiting to be killed by me!"
The grand scale of the elemental war suddenly collapsed into something much more intimate and terrifying. The roaring storms and pillars of fire didn’t fade; they simply became the backdrop for a predator’s game.
Rex’s eyes lost their kaleidoscopic shimmer, settling into a cold, singular focus. The playful mockery that had once danced in his gaze was now absent.
He was getting serious.
"You’re working so hard, Verakis." Rex’s voice drifted through the air, seemingly from everywhere at once. "But you’re fighting a ghost now..."
Pop.
Rex vanished. Verakis, gasping for air amidst the steam and embers, spun around, his eyes darting wildly. "Where—?!"
Pop.
Rex appeared behind him, a mere inch from his ear. Before Verakis could even react, Rex was gone again.
Pop.
A heavy kick slammed into Verakis’s ribs, the force of it sending a jolt of agony through his entire frame. Verakis stumbled, his vision blurring.
He frantically raised his hands, chanting a desperate incantation. "STONE SHIELD!"
A thick slab of granite erupted in front of him, but Rex was already gone before the magic could even solidify.
"Is this the great defender of the Legion?" Rex’s voice mocked him from the left. "A man who hides behind rocks because he’s too afraid to look the truth in the eye?"
Pop.
A punch caught Verakis in the jaw, snapping his head back. Verakis spat blood, his mind beginning to fray.
The sheer speed was impossible. It wasn’t just rapid movement; it was as if Rex was simply deciding to be in a different location, bypassing the very concept of distance.
"You’re pathetic," Rex whispered, appearing directly in front of him, his face inches from Verakis’s terrified eyes. "You’re not worthy to become a Legion!"
"You’re not even a warrior!"
"You’re just a frantic little insect, buzzing around in a jar, hoping the hand doesn’t crush you!"
"SHUT... UP!" Verakis screamed, his voice cracking with panic.
