Chapter 120: Shattering of Crowns
The air quaked with fire.
Aldric’s fury boiled over, his voice no longer words but roars of flame. His hands spread wide, and from the orbit of his will, burning orbs coalesced—compressed suns, miniature stars crammed into spheres the size of shields.
Their light scalded the eyes, their heat bent the very stones of the courtyard. One by one, they detonated outward, collapsing walls, vaporizing soldiers who strayed too near.
The palace groaned under the assault. Marble cracked, towers leaned, banners of Solaris turned instantly to ash.
Lan stood amidst the storm, motionless at first, like a figure untouched by the mortal law of destruction. Shadows swirled at his feet, a tide awaiting command. When the first blazing sun streaked toward him, he raised a single hand. Darkness bent, condensed into a rippling barrier that drank the flame whole.
The second sun he split with a single cut, Sword Intent slicing through fire itself, cleaving the explosion in half. A third he let near, only for tendrils of Shadow to coil around it, constrict, and smother its light into silence.
[ Shadow Law ]
The clash was not equal. It was the collision of desperation against inevitability.
"Do you mock me, boy?!" Aldric thundered, his form glowing brighter, his frame swollen with flame-fed might.
His body was a furnace, veins glowing gold beneath his skin, the crown of Solaris blazing above his head like a sun that refused to die.
Lan answered only with steps forward, Devil’s Lie dragging across stone, rust hissing against heat.
"Mock you? No, i just want you to understand the futility of your resistance."
His pale grey eyes caught the dancing flames, but within them shimmered a faint crimson—like embers of some older, darker fire.
Aldric hurled another orb. Lan blurred—Dark Step flickering him past the blast. His blade whispered through air, and one of Aldric’s gravity wells, anchors of condensed flame meant to crush him flat, cracked and fell apart beneath a single swipe of Severance Touch.
The king staggered back, disbelief scrawled across his weathered, flame-lined face.
"That—" Aldric spat blood, fire streaming from his lips. "Impossible!"
Lan tilted his head, the faintest curl of a smile tugging his mouth.
"Impossible? No. Do you feel it now? The resignation of a dying man." He lifted Devil’s Lie, the blade blacker than it had been moments before, veins of shadow writhing along its surface.
The sword seemed hungrier, its aura sharper, as though drinking Aldric’s indignation.
"Your lies," Lan said, voice cutting through the roar of flames, "are plenty."
He advanced.
Each step pressed weight against Aldric’s spirit. It was not only shadow, nor sword—it was something more potent, something that could not be reasoned with.
Lan’s Spiritual Will uncoiled like storm pressing against the soul itself, unseen yet suffocating.
Aldric fought back with rage. His aura erupted, flames flaring so brightly the courtyard became a daylight of fire.
The ground ran molten, rivers of glowing stone streaming between shattered pillars. Still, Lan’s Will pressed deeper. Invisible chains clawed toward Aldric’s essence, seeking to pull, command, break.
The king roared in defiance, knees bending as if carrying a weight more terrible than stone. His fist swung, flames twisting into a hammer of fire meant to annihilate.
Yet, in that moment, it slowed—his fury stuttering, his strength flickering beneath Lan’s invasive grip.
A single heartbeat of faltering. That was all Lan required.
Sword Intent bloomed like a silent scream.
Devil’s Lie cut once, and reality bent. The swing did not merely slash; it carved the world within its reach.
The strike sheared flames, cleaved molten stone, and buried deep into Aldric’s side. Flesh parted, and blood spilled forth, steaming as it struck the broken courtyard.
The Solaris King staggered, breath ragged, crown slipping loose, eyes wide not with pain but disbelief.
"You—" he choked, clutching his wound. His voice trembled, not with weakness but the shattering of certainty. "You cannot... defeat me. I am the Sun."
Lan tilted his chin slightly, shadows spiraling behind him. His pale grey gaze fixed on the king, cold, merciless.
"Then burn as one."
The battlefield was ruin now. Flames had eaten away at the walls of the palace courtyard. Towers toppled, the night sky above blackened with smoke.
Fire and shadow battled across every surface, neither yielding, yet one inexorably devouring the other. Soldiers who still lingered, huddled against the wreckage, whispered among themselves, their voices trembling.
"The king... he’s bleeding."
"No—he cannot bleed."
"He’s... losing."
Their disbelief carried weight, as though their faith itself was collapsing along with the palace walls.
Lan advanced again, Devil’s Lie trailing a shadowed arc across broken stone. His expression remained unchanged, calm and cold, only the faint crimson gleam in his eyes betraying the enormity of what stirred within him.
Aldric straightened despite his wound, flame bursting anew, the last storm of a king unwilling to bow.
His crown had slipped from his head, vanishing into rubble, yet his body blazed brighter, as though he sought to prove that crown meaningless—that he was the crown.
Lan raised his sword.
Shadows rippled upward, threads weaving into a vast expanse across the sky. They thickened, blackened, until the heavens themselves seemed to bleed darkness.
Just like when he first arrived.
Crimson light glimmered faint within the shadows, each flicker forming the shaft of a spear. One became ten, ten became hundreds, and soon a thousand black spears shimmered above the ruined capital, poised to fall like divine judgment.
Soldiers who refused surrender turning to flee though there was nowhere to run anymore. Even the bravest stared upward with faces gone pale.
Aldric roared, flames lashing higher, his aura swelling to meet the descending doom. "I am Solaris! The crown shatters only when I will it!"
Lan’s voice, soft yet absolute, slid through the chaos. "Shall I strip away the last of your illusions, old man?"
The courtyard froze in tension, time tightening like a bowstring drawn taut. The ruined palace, the desperately escaping soldiers, the bleeding king—all held beneath the looming storm of darkness.
Above, [ Rain of Dark Judgment ] formed in silence, black spears trembling, awaiting the command of the boy who stood unmoved by his father’s crown or fire.
His hand lowered.