Scorching magic gathered in Aiden's palms, and a thick pillar of fiery light erupted forth. It instantly melted the dense cluster of stone spikes beneath his feet into molten slag. Simultaneously, the massive recoil launched him back into the air, easily escaping the range of the stone forest.
Suspended in mid-air, Aiden didn't pause for a moment.
He held the Fire Spirit Sword II in a reverse grip as the flames on the blade surged wildly once more. Transforming into a blazing whirlwind, he proactively charged straight toward the Goliath.
A truly epic duel of fire and stone officially commenced.
Aiden moved like a fiery phoenix dancing around a mountain peak. With every swing of his sword, he left a charred gash on the Goliath's granite-hard skin, sending out sparks like volcanic magma.
The friction between the blade and the rocky skin produced an ear-piercing screech. The intense heat even distorted the surrounding air, creating rippling waves.
The Goliath, on the other hand, was like a moving volcano. Every punch it threw carried the terrifying power to shatter city walls.
Wherever its fists passed, rock walls crumbled and air billows rolled.
Its massive body seemed clumsy, but every step it took caused localized earthquakes, attempting to disrupt Aiden's balance with the shockwaves.
Aiden sometimes dashed close to the ground, dodging fatal attacks by a hair's breadth between the giant's swinging arms and trampling legs.
Other times, utilizing the impact of fire explosions, he leapt high into the air to launch fierce slashes from above, aiming squarely for the giant's neck, joints, and other relatively vulnerable areas.
"Gospel!"
During a momentary gap between evasions, Aiden seized the opportunity and unleashed a super-short chant.
Alfia's magic, Demon Lord Valion, reappeared. An invisible sonic blast erupted instantly, striking the Goliath squarely in the chest.
Thud!
The sound resonated deeply like a struck giant bell. The Goliath's massive body staggered from the blow, and a deep, caved-in crater appeared on the rocky skin of its chest.
However, despite the immense power of the sonic wave, it still failed to penetrate its terrifying physical defense.
Reeling from the pain, the Goliath became even more frenzied.
Opening its massive maw, a highly compressed orb of energy rapidly formed in its throat before being violently expelled.
It was an energy blast with the power of a siege engine. Wherever it passed, even the space itself seemed to slightly collapse from the scorching heat.
Aiden's pupils contracted; he could feel the danger in this strike.
"Captain, catch!"
At that moment, Jeanne hurled a shield at him. Aiden's eyes lit up. He spun around, caught the shield, and raised it defensively.
The energy blast smashed brutally against the shield, erupting in a deafening roar.
A raging energy storm swept in all directions, blowing Tifa and the others—who were clearing out the lesser monsters in the distance—steadily backward.
Aiden was pushed by the massive impact, skidding across the ground for over ten meters, his feet plowing two deep trenches into the hard rock.
When the energy dissipated, the shield before him was covered in cracks, on the verge of shattering entirely.
The battle had reached a stalemate.
Although Aiden's attacks were fierce, the Goliath's defense and regenerative abilities were simply too astonishing.
Conversely, while the Goliath's attacks were lethal, they were consistently neutralized by Aiden's agile footwork and endless array of tricks.
Both sides were wearing each other down, competing to see whose stamina would outlast the other.
But Aiden knew he couldn't drag this out any longer.
Maintaining Everlasting Flames for a prolonged period was a massive drain on his Mind, not to mention the frequent use of [Alpha Inforce].
He had to find an opportunity for a one-hit kill—an opening that could completely slay the Goliath while preserving its core Magic Stone.
His gaze swept rapidly over the furiously roaring giant as his brain worked at an unprecedented speed.
Where is the opening?
Just then, the Goliath also seemed to run out of patience.
It let out an earth-shattering roar. The crimson patterns across its entire body suddenly lit up, and its massive physique expanded yet another size, its strength and speed significantly enhanced.
Abandoning all superfluous movements, it adopted a mutually destructive stance and launched the most frenzied charge toward Aiden.
Now.
A glint of sharpness flashed through Aiden's eyes.
This was the flaw he had been waiting for—the moment the opponent abandoned defense for an all-out attack.
"[Alpha Inforce]!"
He roared in his heart, activating one of his most core skills.
In an instant, the entire world seemed to hit pause.
The roaring giant, the flying debris, the turbulent air currents—everything plunged into absolute stillness.
Only Aiden's mind transcended the binds of time in this moment, operating at an incomprehensible speed.
The elapsed time of the battle was forcefully "retrieved" by him.
The trajectory of every sword swing, the ballistics of every fiery bombardment, the roaring of every sonic blast... from the beginning of the battle until now, the power contained in every single attack began to infinitely stack under the skill's effect, converging like rivers flowing into the sea.
"Gospel!" He chanted again. This was the starting point of the stacking.
"Gospel! Gospel! Gospel!" Countless voices from the "past" overlapped, forming a resonance beyond imagination.
The air began to vibrate violently, emitting an ear-piercing hum—the manifestation of sound power compressed to its absolute limit.
"Ride Upon This Wheel of Flame."
"By This Blade's Glow I Grasp."
The magic of Everlasting Flames was pushed to its absolute limits. Pure white, scorching flames completely engulfed the Fire Spirit Sword II. The terrifying heat caused the space around the blade to melt and collapse.
Finally, under his will, these two entirely different forces—both pushed to their absolute limits—began to fuse madly.
Sound and fire, vibration and heat, invisible destruction and tangible incineration. They intertwined, clashed, and ultimately merged into a completely new, unprecedentedly terrifying form on the blade of the Fire Spirit Sword II.
The longsword in Aiden's hand was no longer a sword.
It had transformed into a beam of pure "light," condensed to the extreme.
The core of that light was a profound white, while its outer layer was wreathed in visibly vibrating rings of golden sound.
The paused world resumed its flow.
Facing the Goliath—now close at hand, charging with the momentum of annihilation—Aiden slowly raised the "light" in his hand.
"Vanish."
A blade of fiery light, impossible to describe with words, erupted from the tip of the sword.
There was no sound, no heatwave, not even the slightest leak of energy.
It was simply a perfectly straight beam of light—a light representing absolute "vaporization" and "annihilation."
The beam of light struck perfectly above the Goliath's abdomen.
There was no explosion, no shockwave.
Bathed in that light, the Goliath's massive, mountain-like upper body silently and completely decomposed and vaporized from the atomic level, like snow under a blazing sun, without leaving behind even a speck of ash.
And that terrifying beam of light, after vaporizing the Goliath's upper half, did not lose a single ounce of its power.
It pierced through the thick rock walls of the 17th Floor, tearing unhindered through the strata below.
The Dungeon, 18th Floor, the safe zone—"Town of Rivira."
A group of adventurers who had just finished exploring the middle floors were resting by the lake, sitting around a campfire bragging about the day's achievements.
"Haha, today was a huge haul. We killed three Minotaurs alone."
"That's nothing. Our team ran into a rare Almiraj. That thing was so fast it almost got away."
"Speaking of which, hasn't the Dungeon been a bit too quiet lately? It's been a long time since anything major happened."
"Quiet is good. Safely making money is the way to go..."
Before he could finish his sentence.
Without any warning whatsoever, a blindingly white beam of light—one that felt as if it could pierce straight through the soul—violently erupted from the massive ceiling made of countless crystals not far from them.
The beam of light descended at a speed beyond comprehension, instantly striking a mountain formed of countless crystals.
The entire 18th Floor trembled violently. A bottomless, massive crater was forcibly blasted into the indestructible crystal mountain.
Every adventurer in the town—whether they were resting, trading, or flirting—stopped all their movements at this moment. Like deer caught in headlights, they raised their heads to stare at the hole in the sky that still radiated terrifying residual power, their faces written with blank bewilderment and sheer horror.
"Wh-what was that just now?"
An adventurer asked, his voice trembling.
No one could answer him.
----
Support this fanfict by leaving Positive Review, Comments, and Power Stones.
For Advance Chapters:
> Patreon.com/NegativeTranslations