Parallel Memory

Chapter 698: The Convergence

The moment the Emperor stepped beside me, the atmosphere changed.

Not just around us.

Inside us.

His presence didn't merely radiate power—it reshaped the space itself, bending pressure and mana currents toward a singular point. The dimension, already fractured from the relentless battle, shuddered as if refusing to withstand the union of two incompatible worlds.

My breath caught.

This was it.

The beginning of the Unison Raid.

A technique forbidden, dangerous, and nearly forgotten—not because it was weak, but because it was too strong. Too demanding. Too unforgiving. A gamble with everything on the line.

The Emperor didn't speak.He didn't need to.

Aamon's roar echoed through the collapsing palace, long and thunderous, as streams of dark mana curled around him like serpents preparing to devour the sky. His aura writhed violently, tearing cracks in the crumbling terrain.

He was preparing a final blow.

Which meant we had only seconds.

I exhaled, steadying my trembling hands.Frost seeped from my fingertips, dancing across my daggers.Shadow pooled beneath me like a second heartbeat.

And then—I reached inward.

Not toward Dragon Force. That power was gone.Not toward some blessing or borrowed strength.Just… me.

My natural mana.

Thin.Fragile.But honest.

Ice mana rushed first—cold, sharp, instinctive as breath on winter mornings. It crystallized along my arms, forming spectral patterns like frost-kissed feathers, mirroring the wings I couldn't summon anymore.

Then shadow mana answered—fluid, elusive, always trying to slip between my fingers. It curled around the ice like ink absorbing into snow, staining it with ripples of dark light.

Opposites.Contradictions.A pair that should have rejected each other.

Yet somehow… they didn't.

Not this time.

Because I wasn't forcing them.I wasn't demanding power.I was letting them exist—freely, naturally, as two halves of my identity.

Frost and shadow intertwined, spiraling upward like twin streams.

The Emperor's eyes flickered, acknowledging the energy forming in my palms.

"Your dual art contains symmetry," he said quietly, aura vibrating in resonance with mine. "Chaos and stillness. Cold and void."

His own mana began condensing—pure destruction, refined into crystalline darkness.

"But symmetry alone is not enough," he continued. "You must compress it. Restrict it. Refine it to its smallest, sharpest form. That is how you imitate cataclysmic destruction."

My heart rattled in my chest.

"Is that even possible for human mana?"

"It is not about species," the Emperor said. "It is about will."

Will.

Not strength.Not talent.

Just will.

I swallowed hard and forced myself to listen—to feel.

The Emperor raised his blade slightly. A thin bead of condensed destruction hovered above it, swirling and contracting like a miniature black hole. The pressure around it bent the air.

"Match my rhythm," he commanded.

So I tried.

I shifted my stance, aligning my breathing with his.Slow.Steady.Deliberate.

Ice compressed in my left hand—shrinking from a swirling vortex into a tight, crystalline core.

Shadow condensed in my right—folding inward, collapsing on itself like a dying star.

The resistance was immediate.

My veins burned.My palms trembled violently.Mana tried to burst free at every pulse.

Dual Arts were meant to expand—To spread across the battlefield.To envelop, to distort, to overwhelm.

Not to compress.

Not to imprison themselves inside a tiny, focused sphere.

But I forced them anyway.

I pressed them together slowly—Frost and shadow spiraling closer, threads tightening, merging like light losing itself in darkness.

My vision blurred.

Sweat dripped down my cheek.

My knees shook.

But the energy began taking shape.A small orb—barely the size of a marble—formed between my palms. Frost coated its surface, but shadows writhed inside, folding and unfolding like a living void.

It was unstable.Untamed.A flickering storm in miniature.

But it was working.

Something like cataclysmic destruction—yet undeniably mine.

Aamon's voice erupted across the battlefield.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?"

He tore apart pieces of the dimension with a sweep of his arm, darkness roaring around him. He was panicking. He felt the shift. Felt the threat.

But I didn't take my eyes off the forming sphere.

My heartbeat aligned with the Emperor's.

My breathing matched the rhythm of destruction.

My mind… slipped.

For a moment, I was no longer on the battlefield.

Inside My Mind

Everything was white.

A cold, empty horizon stretched infinitely around me. Ice beneath my feet. Shadow in the distant sky. Snowflakes drifting like the remnants of forgotten dreams.

I stood alone.

No Emperor.No Aamon.No collapsing palace.

Just me.

A human who wasn't supposed to be here.A side character who wasn't supposed to matter.

But in this empty inner world, I confronted the truth:

I did matter.

Not as a chosen one.Not as a destined hero.Not as a vessel for some ancient blessing.

But as Zero Elea, who had survived everything not because he was strong—but because he refused to break.

The ice around me cracked under my step.The shadow answered like a loyal companion.

My mana wasn't huge.My mana wasn't special.But it was mine.

And it would obey me.

I reached out. Ice solidified under my fingertips. Shadow wrapped around my wrist.

And the two collapsed together—Not fighting.Not clashing.But accepting.

Frostbinding.Shadowfreezing.The harmony of cold and void.

My internal world shined.

And a voice cut through the silence:

"Return."

The Emperor's voice.

I opened my eyes—

Back to Reality

The sphere in my palms had stabilized.

Small.Cold.Silent.

Too silent.

Its pressure was terrifying.

Even the Emperor blinked once, faintly impressed.

"You have done well," he said. "Now—match me."

He raised his blade.

I raised my sphere.

Our auras pulsed once—twice—then fused.

The sensation was indescribable.

It wasn't like sharing mana.It wasn't like channeling.It wasn't like resonance.

It was more intimate.More terrifying.More binding.

My mana began synchronizing with his destructive essence—like two rivers forced into the same narrow canyon.

Ice cracked.My arms shook violently.

But I held on.

The Emperor's presence pushed deeper, aligning our energy flow, correcting my rhythm, forcing my mana to compress in perfect ratio with his.

For one instant—

One impossible heartbeat—

Our power matched.

Destruction and Dual Arts intertwined, orbiting each other like twin comets collapsing into a single trajectory.

Aamon felt it.

His head snapped toward us.

His eyes widened in genuine fear.

"STOP THEM!"

He threw his arm forward, a tidal wave of dark mana exploding from his palm, tearing through the battlefield.

The Emperor stepped in front of me.

His sword rose.

My sphere glowed.

Under the thunderous collapse of the sky, the Emperor of Destruction finally stepped forward—slow, deliberate, a living eclipse advancing through the fractured haze of mana and smoke. His presence alone twisted the battlefield, dragging the air downward as if gravity itself bowed to him. Zero felt the shift instantly. This wasn't the Emperor testing Aamon. This was the Emperor deciding the fight.

Aamon tensed, wings flaring with a violent recoil of corrupt mana, but he couldn't hide the sharp flicker of unease.

The Emperor raised one hand.

Dark energy flooded the world.

Not ordinary darkness—this was destruction given shape, a primordial force that swallowed sound and light as it gathered in a growing sphere above his palm. The ground quaked. Black-red fissures spiderwebbed outward. Even the devils on distant fronts froze, instincts screaming.

"Cataclysmic Destruction."

The words were spoken quietly, yet they reverberated like a world-ending decree.

Zero steadied his breath, frost aura flaring as he pulled his own power together. He and the Emperor—two forces that should never align—now stood shoulder to shoulder, facing a common enemy who threatened everything.

The Emperor's sphere expanded, pulsing with annihilating energy that made the horizon blur. Zero's frost surged in response.

Aamon snarled and gathered his own power, but the two forces forming before him—one of destruction, one of frozen void—promised a convergence he could not afford to let happen.

And then, without a single word shared between them, the Emperor shifted his stance—