Chapter 487. Stolen Power Always Feels Like That

Chapter 487: 487. Stolen Power Always Feels Like That

The transformation that followed was not merely a change; it was an assault. Dark energy erupted from Alden in a visible, concussive wave that tore through the air like a physical blow.

The stone beneath his boots didn’t just crack; it shrieked, spiderwebbing outward in jagged patterns as the sheer pressure of his presence pulverized the masonry.

When Alden finally lifted his head, the man was gone. His hazel eyes had been consumed, replaced by twin voids of featureless, pulsing violet windows into a dimension of pure, unadulterated malice.

The air itself grew viscous, thick with the metallic tang of ozone and something rotting, something ancient.

Several veteran guards, men who had faced siege engines and wyverns without blinking, found their knees buckling, their instincts screaming at them to flee from the wrongness that now occupied the space where a prince had once stood.

"Now," Alden said.

The voice was a nightmare, a dual-layered echo that seemed to vibrate not in the air, but directly inside the skulls of everyone present. One layer was Alden’s desperate rasp; the other was something deeper, guttural, and impossibly cold.

"Let us see whether a simple academy instructor can survive real power."

William did not flinch. He did not retreat.

Instead, he rolled his shoulders with a deliberate, lethal grace, the movement sending a ripple through his corded muscles.

With unhurried ease, a terrifying display of composure amidst the supernatural storm, he drew Aetherion from its sheath. The blade sang as it left the scabbard, a clean, silver note that cut through the discordant hum of the Umbral Concord.

He settled into a ready stance, his feet planted wide, his center of gravity low. His eyes narrowed, not with fear, but with the analytical coldness of a predator reading the wind.

He was studying the way the violet light licked at Alden’s skin, searching for the fracture point in the corruption.

"Stolen power always feels like that," William said, his voice cutting through the supernatural din like a scalpel.

He spoke almost conversationally, as if he were critiquing a student’s posture during a morning drill rather than facing a walking apocalypse. "Big. Loud. Impressive to anyone who’s never actually had to fight something real."

His lips curled into the smallest, coldest smile, a smile that promised nothing but pain. "And it’s always rotten at the core."

"Let’s find out exactly how rotten yours is."

The confrontation ignited.

Alden didn’t move so much as he teleported through sheer force of will. One moment he was ten paces away; the next, he was a blur of violet shadow crashing into William’s guard.

The impact sounded like two boulders colliding.

CRACK.

William’s blade met Alden’s corrupted fist. A shockwave of displaced air exploded outward, sending dust and debris swirling in a violent halo.

William’s teeth gritted as the dark energy from Alden’s arm burned against Aetherion’s holy steel, sending sparks of purple and silver cascading across the courtyard like dying stars.

’Too fast,’ William’s mind hissed. ’He’s not using muscle; he’s using momentum from the void.’

Alden snarled a wet, inhuman sound and twisted his wrist. The dark energy coiled around William’s sword arm like barbed wire.

"Die in your delusions, instructor!" Alden roared.

He swung a leg in a vicious arc aimed at William’s ribs. William ducked, the air whistling overhead as Alden’s boot shattered a nearby stone pillar instead.

CRUNCH.

The stone disintegrated into powder under the supernatural force.

William retaliated instantly, spinning on his heel to drive the pommel of Aetherion upward toward Alden’s jaw. Alden caught the strike with his palm, but the force of the blow sent a spray of blood from Alden’s nose—blackened, corrupted blood that sizzled when it hit the ground.

"Is that all?" Alden taunted, his violet eyes flaring brighter. "You fight like a man clinging to a corpse!"

Alden unleashed a burst of raw magical energy from his free hand. A lance of violet light tore across the courtyard.

William threw himself sideways, rolling across the blood-slicked stones as the magical bolt struck the ground behind him.

BOOM.

The explosion threw William forward, but he twisted mid-roll, using the momentum to spring upward. Aetherion aimed directly at Alden’s throat.

Clang!

Alden met the blade with a barrier of solid shadow. The collision was deafening, SHING THUD as steel bit into darkness.

Blood splattered from where the magical feedback burned Alden’s own forearms. The prince’s face contorted in a mask of rage, his veins standing out like black ropes beneath his skin.

"I will peel the flesh from your bones!" Alden screamed, the dual voice echoing off the palace walls.

The fight escalated from a duel into a slaughterhouse of magic and steel. Alden’s movements became erratic, teleporting short distances in bursts of violet flame, each appearance accompanied by a sickening pop of displaced air.

He struck with claws of solidified shadow that tore through William’s tunic, leaving bloody furrows across his chest.

William answered with precise, devastating strikes, each swing of Aetherion sending ripples of purifying light that carved through Alden’s dark constructs like hot knives through wax.

Blood, both crimson and corrupted black, began to paint the courtyard.

A broken rib cracked audibly as Alden drove an elbow into William’s side, but William didn’t back down; he grabbed Alden’s throat with one hand, his fingers digging into the corrupted flesh, while his other hand drove the point of Aetherion inches from Alden’s heart.

The two men stood locked in a deadly embrace, breathing each other’s fury, the air between them screaming with the clash of opposing cosmic forces.

Alden’s response was not spoken; it was unleashed. He surged forward with a velocity that defied physics, blurring the very space between them until he became nothing more than a streak of malevolent violet light.

The first strike wasn’t a punch or a blade; it was a concentrated detonation of Umbral energy. The air itself seemed to combust as the blast slammed into the courtyard where William had been standing a heartbeat earlier.

BOOM.

The stone disintegrated. A crater yawned open where William’s boots had been planted, sending jagged chips of shattered rock hissing through the air like shrapnel.

The heat rolled past William’s shoulder in a scorching wave, close enough to sear the fine hairs on his arm, and he felt the secondary shockwave rattle his bones long after he had already spiraled away from the epicenter.

William had anticipated the displacement. With a tight, controlled burst of wind magic, he pivoted midair, carrying his momentum sideways and upward in one fluid motion.

Alden’s follow-up strike, a vicious, overhead hammer fist wrapped in necrotic shadow, caught the flat edge of Aetherion.

CLANG SHHHH!

The impact was seismic. A shockwave of displaced air exploded outward, and the stone beneath William’s boots spiderwebbed as he absorbed the brunt of the force.

The dark energy coiled around Alden’s fist, hissed, and spat where it met the holy steel, producing an ugly, corrosive sound—the sound of something unnatural trying to eat something divine. A faint black smear of corruption clung to Aetherion’s silver edge.

’Corrosive,’ William noted grimly, his mind working with the detached precision of a surgeon even as his muscles screamed from the impact. ’It doesn’t just hit; it decays.’

’If that blade touches my flesh, I won’t just bleed; I’ll rot.’

The courtyard became a theater of controlled chaos. They traded blows across the space in a rapid, devastating exchange that sounded like artillery fire.

Alden was a hurricane of uncontrolled rage, his attacks carrying a raw, destructive force that should have been impossible for a human frame to support.

Each swing of his corrupted limbs sent waves of violet pressure crashing through the air, cracking walls and pulverizing pillars.

William, however, remained the eye of the storm. He refused to meet Alden’s brute force with his own.

Instead, he met it with mathematics: angles, timing, and the cold, lethal economy of movement. He danced on the razor’s edge of annihilation, letting Alden’s monstrous power crash against empty air.

Every time Alden lunged with enough force to level a building, William was already gone a half step to the left, a subtle roll to the right leaving the Prince to overextend, his momentum carrying him dangerously forward.

"Is this really everything your precious artifact gives you?" William asked.

His voice was infuriatingly calm, cutting through the cacophony of shattering stone and hissing magic. He deflected a wild, desperate downward strike that cratered the stone a mere hand’s width from his boot.

The wind from the blow nearly knocked him off balance, but he steadied himself instantly. "I’ve trained children who hit harder than this, and they at least had the decency to learn proper footwork first."

The taunt landed harder than any physical blow. Alden’s face contorted, the violet voids of his eyes flaring with a murderous intensity that made the air around him vibrate.

A vein in Alden’s temple throbbed black, and a wet, guttural snarl tore from his throat.

’He’s losing control,’ William realized, his grip tightening on Aetherion. ’The power is feeding on his anger, and his anger is feeding the power.’

’He’s not fighting me anymore; he’s fighting to keep from being consumed.’