Chapter 519 - 519: Projection

Ragna brought his hand down.

The mini sun came with it, and the air itself seemed to rip apart as it traveled, space folding and tearing in its path. It slammed into the crater where Silva lay, and a massive explosion of light swallowed everything. The ground shook, and the shockwave rolled outward for miles, turning stone to crystal as it went.

The light was too bright to look at, and then it faded.

Ragnar floated above the ruin, his arms lowered. A huge dome of rock and crystal now covered the crater, glittering and still. He watched it for a few seconds, his eyes calm.

'That should be enough for him.'

He was about to turn away when the dome cracked.

CRACK!

A thin line of black light ran across it, and then it burst apart. Black flames blasted out of the rock and crystal, scattering shards in every direction, and Silva shot out of the wreckage and into the sky. His body was covered in crystals that clung to his arms and chest, and they began to fall off him one by one as he rose, shattering in the air.

Ragnar's eyes widened. "You are still standing?"

Silva did not answer. His breathing was heavy, but his eyes were sharp. A dark aura wrapped around him, and his body began to change. His clothes shifted and darkened, the joker of the abyss now floated in the air where Silva had been.

"Zion," he said inside his head. "Is this…"

"Yes," Zion replied. "Now that there is no more interference from the rift and the abyss, you can use it. Go ahead."

Silva reached out, and a deck of cards appeared in his hand. He fanned it once, pulled a single card, and held it up between two fingers.

"Let's see how you like this."

He flicked it into the air.

The card spun, and black portals opened in the sky all around Ragn, dozens of them, silent and wide. Chains shot out from every one, black and heavy, and wrapped around Ragna's arms, legs and chest. They pulled tight and held him in place.

CLANK!

Ragna struggled, and his eyes flashed in disbelief. He could not move.

"What is this?"

"Never," Silva said, his voice low and steady, "ever believe that I would back down. And never believe that I would let you win."

The dark form around him faded, and he returned to his normal body. He raised his sword above his head and drew in a deep breath. Divine energy gathered around the blade, thin streaks of it at first, then thicker, spinning around the steel in a rising current. He pulled in everything he could, every last bit of divine energy he had. The sword began to hum, a deep note that shook the air around it.

He slashed.

SHING!

The world turned black and white as the void slash traveled. Color drained from the sky and the ground. The attack cut through the air, through the chains, and through Ragnar in a single pass, and the entire horizon trembled.

Silva lowered his sword.

That should have been the end. A slash of that magnitude should have wiped him from existence.

Then Silva felt it. His body went empty. For the first time in the whole fight, the energy inside him was gone. His wings stopped moving, and he could not keep himself in the air anymore. He fell.

Halfway down, he looked back up at the sky.

Ragna was still there.

A thick shell of crystal covered most of his body, a shield he had formed in the last second to protect himself. The slash had cut deep into his shoulder, and blood ran down his arm, but he was far from seriously hurt. He was breathing, and his eyes were fixed on Silva.

Silva's eyes widened. He gritted his teeth until they hurt.

'It did not work.'

At that same moment, he felt something vanish. All of his clones, the ones that had been fighting the weeping angels across the land, disappeared at once. He had believed that when he defeated Ragna, the angels would stop. He had been sure of it. But Ragna was still alive, and the angels were still out there, with nothing standing in their way.

'I failed. Everyone is going to suffer because of me. Everyone is going to die.'

He wanted to be above all. He wanted to make sure that no one could ever stand above him, that nothing could ever take what he loved. And here he was, falling out of the sky like a broken thing.

He slammed into the ground.

BOOM!

A massive crater opened beneath him, dust and stone blasting up on every side. He lay at the bottom, unmoving, his vision fading at the edges. He could not lift his arm, and his eyes were slowly closing.

'So this is it…'

"Silva."

The voice reached him through the haze. It was soft and warm, and he knew it instantly.

Ophelia.

"You have come this far," she said. "You can still keep going."

Something warm began to flow through his body. Divine energy, slow at first, and then rushing in like a river, filling every part of him that had been empty. His fingers twitched. His chest rose. He was brimming with it, more than he had ever felt before.

"Take mine," Ophelia said. "Take it, and keep fighting."

His eyes snapped open.

He shot out of the crater like a bullet, wings spread, black flames trailing behind him. Ragna, who had been floating above the crater, was stunned.

"How…"

He lashed out with a volley of blasts. They came in fast, one after another, white beams that turned the air to glass. Silva weaved between every one of them, tilting, spinning, diving. Not a single one touched him.

He raised his hand, and two clones split away from him. They flew apart in opposite directions, and their bodies stretched and changed, becoming massive dragons. They opened their mouths together.

ROOOAR!

Two dragon breaths tore across the sky and slammed into Ragna from both sides. He threw up a wall of crystal just in time, and it took the full force of the attack, cracking under the heat.

Silva rushed in during that moment.

He came in with his sword raised and slashed, and the blade slammed into the crystal. It held. He gritted his teeth and gathered a little energy, and this time he used a quick form of the void slash, one that did not require any time to charge. The blade flashed black.

CRASH!

The crystal shattered into a thousand pieces.

The dragon clones did not let up. They kept unleashing breath after breath, flames and black fire pouring over Ragna without stop, forcing him back. Silva pushed forward through all of it, every step cutting closer, until he saw the opening.

He drove his sword into Ragna's chest.

The blade sank in all the way to the hilt. Ragna's eyes locked on his, and for a moment, everything went still.

Silva breathed out, thinking he had won.

Ragna smiled.

"It is only for now," he said softly.

His body cracked, and then it crumbled into dust that scattered in the wind.

It had only been a projection.