Chapter 879 He Who Hates the Stars (2/2)

His shoulder joints were ringing with the brittle sounds of bones regenerating, just as the muscle fiber and arteries that had been pulverized with great power began to close and healed.

”It's my fault.”

Stepping out of the crater, Roland apologized to the black-haired figure earnestly. ”The glimpse of the stars just now stirred my mind and distracted me for an instant.”

”Ever since I have learned from you about the truth of this galaxy and Multiverse, I could not help but think why the world is like this each time I see the stars.”

The smoke dispersed. Two men could be seen in a desolated desert of sand, with almost no light shining over the grey land. In the faraway darkness was the hint of flickering starlight, the only source of light of this land.

If one looked further and watched this dark realm from the distance, one would see a broken planet. Icy winds billowed across the surface of the dead planet, which had part of its crust broken apart by ancient war, while in the distance, the star that was drained of all energy and reduced into a white dwarf whirled slowly in the dusty nebula.

Here was the sixth hundred and eighty-first Abyss, a desolate world that fell in the Final Battle, consumed by the Chaos in the path to its end.

Over the stony wastelands of the shattered planet, Roland took a deep breath and began to gather Holy Light in his body. Before him was a clone of Legendary warrior Joshua van Radcliffe who had lowered his ability to Supreme tier—facing his friend and powerful foe, Roland grasped thin air with both his hands, filling it with Holy Light to conjure a cross-shaped Warhammer in one hand and a shield with another.

”I could never understand why the Multiverse, borne of the Initial Flame is so despair and dark. It is simply inexplicable.”

Even before he finished, the Holy Knight's feet moved, kicking up dust as Roland darted as a streak of light towards Joshua.

While Roland had been slightly maimed due to his distraction before, he maintained his peak form with powerful Holy Light defense and healing—on the almost empty, dead planet, the Supreme-pinnacle Holy Knight's speed reached seventeen thousand meters per second at once, fifty times the speed of light!

Under such velocity, it would not take an instant to cover a distance of one hundred meters, with only a streak of dull grey light visible. The black-haired man's clone, however, simply grinned: facing the grey light that could not be caught with typical observation spells, his own form vanished instantly as well, while explosions erupted one after another over the stony wastelands, the dazzling flash of energies appearing on every corner of the wastelands as if little hills.

Now, both men who were Supreme pinnacle rapidly clashed and exchanged blows at several dozen times the speed of sound.

Waves of violent force burst away from the iron fist, shaking the Holy Knight's body. The gray holy light was impregnable as well, soaking into the warrior's arms with dark strength. Both sides parried and attacked—burning knifehand strike cut at Roland's Holy Light shield, while the warhammer crashed down upon Joshua's shoulder which was covered in metal armor with a dull echo.

”Roland, Brandon challenged me before as well. He wanted to spar with me, and I agreed.”

Just when the Holy Knight directed all his attention and effort into the battle of rapid defense and attack, the warrior's voice echoed clearly beside his ears. ”He wanted to try how sharp and how heavy his blades are through me, to know how strong he was as a Supreme pinnacle and how far ahead he could advance…”

”So, I kicked him into the sun.”

At those words, wild alarms began to ring in Roland's mind. His eyes widened as he hurriedly evaded—but it was too late. Joshua had closed in rapidly, raising his right hand high above and thumped down heavily on the Holy Knight's skull. It was a massive blow as strong as a mountain crashing down from the skies, and if Roland's skull would undoubtedly be broken if he could not parry it.

”Aaaargh!”

To escape that fate, Roland could only quickly raise his hands, drawing two distinct veins of white Holy Light. Growling quietly, he kept his Holy Light Hammer and shield above himself. Then, with a sheet of gray-white radiance that appeared over the Holy Knight's face, an angelic halo appeared over his head as well.

But Joshua's blow had already reached.

Boom!

As their offense and defense clashed, all song vanished.

Unimaginable power promptly crashed upon the stone of the planet's surface, tearing its already split crust. The tides of energy drawn by that great force bent even the light and fire, while the cooling planet's mantle was at once punch through by that power gathered unto a single line. Meanwhile, the Holy Knight's figure that was enshrouded in Holy Knight dragged a long gray trail, hammered deep into the mantle and crashed into the planet's core.

”At the time, the surface of the sun exploded by coincidence. The heat and light of planets engulfed millions of miles in a storm of light—and Brandon cut down the corona, stepping out of the surface of the sun.”

”The glint of his sword was like the Abyss that destroys everything. The Polar Blade determined life, death and cuts down all worlds and all things—even Chaos would meet their end. He achieved his objective, and found what he wanted.”

Deep within the mantle of the broken planet, the core heat had yet to completely dissipated even after the sun had died, with viscous golden-red liquid metal slowly squirming. In fact, before the core's burning heat, there were no magma, stone or liquid. The matter of all substances could not be differentiated here, with even the sturdiest of alloys becoming as soft as oil, yet harder than diamonds.

Nonetheless, in that soft layer of burning metals, a figure slowly stepped out of the golden-red smelt. His head that was almost splintered by the warrior's blow quickly healing amidst gray Holy Light, the first thing to completely regenerate was the Holy Knight's bright and determined eyes.

”It's nothing.”

Using Holy Light to vibrate the super dense metal layer and creating a deafening voice, he said, ”Even I could walk out of a star.”

”Even so, Joshua, Brandon could find what he wanted because he was single-minded. He has a wife and daughters, and with a family he could protect, he does not have to consider other matters. He had placed all ideals in love and kinship, and could advance with incomparable determination even without an answer.”

But I am different.

I want answers.

Endless doubt in his mind, the Holy Knight who suffered blow after blow rose again. He should have found the path that belonged to himself long ago with his innate gifts. But for some reason, Roland forcefully held back that instinctively agitated desire to refine himself after pacifying unrests across the galaxy: the man who was as stalwart as steel in his ideals would never allow himself to be lost.

And before finding the answer in his heart, Roland would never compromise with this world and advance whimsically.