Chapter 484: Fire That Burns Everything

On the other side, Wincent stood alone at the edge of the ruined plaza. The white aura around him pulsed in slow, rhythmic waves, each beat sending faint tremors through the shattered stone beneath his feet. The God Hand hummed softly, its crimson veins now laced with threads of violet and gold, remnants of the energy he had absorbed.

He raised his mechanical arm and watched the light dance across its surface. His fingers flexed slowly, then clenched into a fist. The air around him warped, bending inward as if drawn toward the arm itself.

A faint smile crossed his lips.

"Just a little longer..."

His voice was quiet, almost reverent.

"Once this settles... once the last piece falls into place..."

He tilted his head back, gazing up at the burning sky. The fires had begun to die down, but the smoke still curled upward in thick, twisting columns, painting the clouds in shades of ash and ember.

"...I will become invincible."

The God Hand pulsed again, brighter this time. Wincent lowered his arm and turned his gaze toward the distant crater where Alice and Azrynn had fallen.

He took a slow step forward, the ground cracking beneath his heel.

"The age of gods is over. A new era begins tonight."

The white aura flared, wrapping around him like a cloak of light.

And somewhere in the distance, a dragon’s fire flickered weakly in the dark.

Ignis was still on her knees in the center of the crater. She could only watch as Wincent approached, his shadow stretching long across the shattered stone.

He stopped at the edge of the crater and looked down at her.

"Still alive? Impressive." He tilted his head. "But pointless."

He raised the God Hand. The crimson veins pulsed. The air around him twisted, compressing into a single, dense point of light at his fingertips.

"I’ll end this quickly. Consider it a mercy."

The light grew brighter. Ignis stared at it—the same attack that had broken Alice, the same power that had torn through Azrynn’s defenses. The memory of their broken bodies flashed through her mind.

Something inside her snapped.

Her fingers dug into the cracked stone. Her teeth clenched. Her eyes, dull and defeated just moments ago, now burned with fury.

’No.’

She didn’t want to die here. She was useless but she refused to let this man walk away after what he had done.

’I won’t let him hurt them again.’

She lifted her head. Her gaze locked onto Wincent, and her eyes blazed with pure, undiluted rage.

A single spark flickered at her core and golden flames erupted from her body.

The fire coiled around her arms, her shoulders, her wings, spreading outward in waves that melted the stone beneath her.

Wincent’s attack shot towards her and golden flames engulfed her completely. The compressed light vanished, burned away in an instant as if it had never existed.

Wincent looked at her in disbelief, and his foot pulled back on its own.

"What... what is this?"

The golden aura radiating from Ignis pressed against him, heavy and suffocating. His white aura flickered, struggling to hold against the heat. He took another step back, then another.

Ignis rose to her feet. Blood still dripped from her wounds, but the flames didn’t care. They burned brighter with every breath, every heartbeat.

She raised her head and looked at him. Her voice came out low, trembling with barely contained fury.

"I won’t forgive you."

The golden flames roared higher. They spread outward from Ignis in waves, licking across the shattered stone, melting debris, turning the air itself into a shimmering haze of heat.

Wincent was still dozens of paces away, but he felt it. The heat pressed against him like a physical weight, sinking through his skin, his armor, his bones. His white aura flared, struggling to hold the flames at bay.

But the mana that fed his barrier began to burn.

Wisps of white light curled off the aura and dissolved into the air, eaten alive by the golden fire. The barrier flickered. Cracks spread across its surface like fractures in glass.

Wincent’s eyes widened. His voice came out sharp, disbelieving.

"My barrier... is burning? How is that possible?"

He raised the God Hand, the crimson veins pulsing wildly as he tried to absorb the flames. But the fire didn’t bend. It didn’t yield. It burned through the absorption field like it wasn’t even there.

For the first time, genuine fear flickered across Wincent’s face.

And in that moment of disbelief, Ignis was already in front of him.

She moved faster than he could track. Her fist, wreathed in golden fire, drove into his chest before he could raise his guard.

The impact was devastating.

Wincent’s body launched backward like a cannonball, tearing through the air, crashing through walls, through stone, through the shattered remnants of buildings. He smashed into the ground and kept going, plunging through the earth itself until he crashed into the underground sewers beneath the city.

He hit the bottom hard, his body carving a crater into the stone floor. Water and debris splashed around him. Steam hissed from the God Hand, its crimson veins flickering weakly.

He pushed himself up, coughing blood, his vision swimming.

And then he felt the heat continuing to build, growing stronger and burning hotter than before.

He looked up, and a wave of golden fire was pouring down through the hole above him, spiraling toward him like a living storm, filling the tunnel, lighting the darkness with blinding light, and roaring with the sound of a thousand suns.

Wincent’s hands moved quickly and he began gathering mana around him. He began chanting his spell and trying to block the attack.

"[Fortress of the Eternal—]"

But the fire was too fast.

"Damn it—! I didn’t make it—!"

The golden flames crashed down the tunnel and engulfed him whole.

Ignis watched from above with a cold expression. When she sensed that her opponent was still able to withstand her attack, she began to intensify her flames even further, even though doing so would burn away her own existence.