Chapter 216 - Sirius Federov, The Strongest

"You act so uppity as if you're some sort of creature above us feeble humans. You're the incarnation of a sloth itself, right? Then in reality, you're born from our worst qualities. Not something I'd exactly be proud of."

Watching the result of his own magecraft hanging just below the clouds, his words were spoken softly. The leakage of blood seemed to halt, that which was running now dried upon his skin as he once more raised his hand to the air.

"Kill you! Eat you! I'll kill you!——"

"I guess you're not listening anymore. Guess you only like talking when you're in control. Anyway, I didn't expect that spell to finish you, so I prepared something else."

The belligerent monster fell silent not by hearing those words leave the man's lips, but by the change in the surrounding winds. A constant downpour had filled the nightly skies until that point, but suddenly—it came to a halt, the raindrops froze amidst the vacant winds. 

Through the unnatural sense of sight it possessed, Sloth focused this sense on the droplet of precipitation just before its sight. In its glossy, clear form, tiny, yet prominent lines of magenta electricity bounced around the interior of the droplet. 

His mana…it's running through the rain, what's the meaning of this…? Sloth thought. 

"By "prepared", I mean "made up on the spot", so it's rough work at best."

Desperately trying to escape from the confines of the unrelenting center of unnatural gravity, Sloth clawed at the sphere that attempted to cage it in, finding more matter soon replacing whatever it managed to knock away. 

Pushed to such lengths, the mind which ascended into true sentience began to rapidly devolve back to its primal roots as the looming threat of death set in. 

Focus. Feel it. Bend it to your will, your desires. 

Letting a cold breath escape from his slightly parted, light-pink lips, Sirius turned his hand slightly as the winds far above him cracked. A singular point, sitting amidst the black, rain-filled clouds secluded itself from the grasps of the gaseous entities. 

Point one. 

The small section amidst the clouds contorted the space around it, spinning and turning the emptiness around itself. The point sat above the airborne mass of rock, soil, tree, and Sloth, emitting from it a crescendoing hum. 

With the initial point set into space and reality, birthing itself into existence under the hand of the enlightened man, the next ones seemed to come as smooth as butter. Like an array of stars forming a constellation, these obscure, enigmatic points connected their forces, contorting and spinning the absent, stagnant space into a rapid whirlpool. 

Amazing. Pushing my mind to these new limits, stretching out the cylinders of my brain as I weave into existence, birth into this world anew, grand magic--I feel on top of the world. It's just like the first time; I feel like I'm drowning in utter elation, the world is mine to spin at this very moment, my enemy is nothing but a testing ground for this new level I've reached. 

With this, there's no stopping us now--Argonauts, adventurers, knights, the whole damn nine-years--we'll take Mastorn back from that clown of a king! 

"What the?!...What is this?!"

Sloth was even more helpless to its compromised position, holding on with all of its strength to the brittle edges of the torn open exterior of the sphere it inhabited, watching as the space around it violently spun. On all accounts, it looked like a tornado without the obscurity of the clouds giving it form, simply space itself violently spinning. 

"Phew. Step one complete. Step two should be a bit easier…"

Muttering to himself with a sly smile, Sirius snapped his fingers as a flash of purple radiated from each point. Within a moment, lines of the same tinted lightning shot out, spreading across the length and width of the space claimed by the points. 

What now sat in the skies would be nothing sort of a cataclysmic force by the eyes of any others; the messily-crafted masterpiece of the ascended mage. The hum it produced shook the fabric of space, emitting a vibration that felt as if the heart of the world was beating with crescendoing anxiety. 

"I'll call this: "The Principle Spear of Heaven and Earth". Kind of a mouthful, but it fits doesn't it?"

Looking up at his new creation, the radiance of his outstretched lightning gave a visual form to the spell; resembling more of a rapidly spinning drill than a spear, the size it possessed was nothing short of a mountain, hanging in the skies alongside the stagnant raindrops. 

Even the beast itself, posed with certain death, couldn't help but look upon its radiant, grandiose form in utter awe. 

"...You're no different than me! You...You're a monster yourself!"

"There's a reason for that."

"...Huh?"

The calm response from Sirius amidst the formation of utter destruction crafting itself into the space of the once vacant, nightly skies, took the creature's attention. 

"You're the incarnation of sin, no? Humanities' sin, that is. We went over this before; we're really not so different, you and I. Give it another few evolutions, and I'm sure you'd develop into a real human. Unfortunately for you, I'm not going to see that through to the end."

"...Wait! Wait! Please, I don't want to die! I don't want to--"

I hate to admit it, but even as I am now, I still fear you, Sloth. More exactly...I'm afraid of what you might become. Just in this short time, you evolved from being helpless against me to surpassing my previous magecraft. If I don't kill you now, who knows if I will be able to in the next hour. It's not just power--you're evolving as a being, growing smarter, more sentient. It's horrifying, really. 

As it pleaded for its own life, desperately clawing at the walls of bunched together material that imprisoned it, its hands bled as its flesh was scraped off from the adrenaline-fueled plight for its life. In those fleeting moments, it finally noticed something--such a small, useless piece of information that stuck out in its mind. 

Ah...his eyes, they've changed. The same shade of that damn lightning of his; the majestic magenta. A perfect balance resides within those jewels; a harmony of emotions all working in unison to achieve the ultimate melody. 

Frivolity, contempt, mercy, judgment, those are the eyes of Sirius Federov; how spectacular. 

"Principle Spear of Heaven and Earth: Spin and Pierce, Rip and Tear." 

The spear without a true, physical form contested as such as it picked up in rotation, spinning with such intensity that the force it generated caused all of the existing rain in the atmosphere to orbit its condition. Serving as the core of the spell, the foundation of lightning discharged a cataclysmic amount of energy, just the frequent, minuscule flickers it unleashed set destruction to the forest below. 

"...Be it as it may that you're a beast born of sin, the incarnation of what we humans hate most about one another and ourselves--you're no different from us in the end. Even if you've frolicked through this world, feeding on whatever you desire without a care, I'm sure you've learned you're just as susceptible to death as the rest of us feeble, weak humans. Die and remember...the only thing you feared in this life was me." 

"Sirius----!"

Farewell, Sloth. Even if I admonish your nature, power, and evolution--I respect it all the same. We both fueled each other's growth, and for that, I am grateful. In the end, your undoing was your very sin; not finishing the job while I was down. 

I guess we're both guilty of that. 

How every slothful we both are. Yet, we fight so hard to exist in a world that we don't belong in, don't we? 

Unleashing into a final display of grandeur, the spear built from the genius of the awakened mage accelerated even further, pushing past what was thought to be its established limits. Holding a size dwarfing that of any mountains that looked upon its form, the magenta drill of rampant energy tore apart the winds, unleashing a storm upon the forest below. 

"Though...That's not quite right, is it? I'd say, as you evolved and shed your skin, you abandoned the very sin that you originated from. I guess you really are human at your core, aren't you?" 

The torque of the spell became so great that the scales of Sloth began to peel away, disintegrating into nothingness the moment its matter parted from its flesh as it sat within the core of the maximum magecraft. Woven into it were the utterances of annihilation; a spell in which only destruction sat as its core intent. A combination of space warped and twisted, lighting stretched and abundant--such a force sat before him. 

I created this. My own two hands. Look at this and tell me you would not believe this to be the work of a god. If I chose to point the spear towards the world, utter destruction would befall its surface. At the very least, this entire mountain range would be annihilated. Maybe with this power, nobody else will have to fight. I can be the one to do it all, save everyone, save them from this damn fate of bloodshed. That's why I was chosen to sit beneath the heavens. Hah...This is no good, I can feel myself being twisted with pride. I guess power really does corrupt all, huh? 

Not me. I don't give a damn about it. If I need to discard it to save them, to see them, I'll do it in a heartbeat. 

He watched with his magenta irises the hallmark creation of his as it spawned tremors below his feet, winds that breathed maledictions against the forest, and such radiance that it was as if a star was born before his eyes. It didn't take long before the intensity of such a spell reduced the monster of sin into nothingness, leaving no matter left within its boundary. 

A rain of magenta particles dances down the star-filled skies, allowing once again the showers to resume as the royal purple illuminated further through the reflective guise of the raindrops. The constant cracks and pops that accompanied the dazzling glow looked as if an array of fireworks had been set off. 

Concluding the hard-fought battle, he swayed side-to-side groggily before finally collapsing face-first into the soil--returning to the slumber he should've resolved to long ago. 

Monster, human--none such things mattered under the impartial watch of the moon's light. It was a limit-breaking fight not only for survival but for growth between two foes, witnessed by none. The blood and sweat shed was not to become a spectacle by the eyes of the many, but for the sake of one's own ascension.