Chapter 485: Golden Wrath

Wincent pushed himself up from the crater, his arms trembling. His coat had burned away. Patches of skin across his chest and shoulder were blackened and cracked, steam still rising from the wounds.

He stared up at the hole above him, where golden light still poured down like a second sun.

"What... what kind of dragon is that?" His voice came out hoarse, disbelieving. "This makes no sense. Mana can’t burn. It’s energy. It’s not physical. It can’t just—"

He stopped. His eyes widened.

The air around him was getting hotter again. The stone beneath his feet began to glow.

"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck."

He slammed his palm against the ground. The God Hand flared, and the mana around him twisted, bent, obeyed. He pulled it in, compressed it, forced it into a new shape.

"[Absolute Zero Domain]."

A wave of frost exploded outward from his hand. The tunnel walls turned white. The water at his feet froze solid. The heat in the air shattered into crystals and fell like snow. For a single breathless moment, everything was still.

Then the ice started to hiss.

Wincent looked down. Steam curled off the frozen ground, thin at first, then thicker. The frost on the walls began to weep. Droplets ran down the stone, and where they touched the golden light that still poured from above, they vanished in puffs of vapor.

"It’s already melting."

He thrust the God Hand forward, and the air in front of him cracked. A tunnel of distorted space opened, leading upward, away from the flames.

Wincent burst through the surface, the cracked tunnel collapsing behind him.

He raised his arm and thrust it forward.

Mana gathered around him, pulled from the air. It compressed into a spear of white light and shot toward Ignis.

The spear struck the golden fire that surrounded her and burned. The mana dissolved into wisps of light and vanished before it could even touch her.

Wincent’s arm hung uselessly at his side. He wouldn’t accept it. He couldn’t grasp why his attacks kept failing.

"This is impossible!! My power is absolute!! I am a god!!"

Ignis tilted her head. Her golden eyes were cold, and the flames around her burned without a single tremor.

"Annoying insect."

She opened her mouth, and a torrent of golden fire erupted from her throat. The flames roared across the plaza, swallowing the ground, the rubble, the air itself.

Wincent raised the God Hand. The absorption field flared. The fire hit it and kept going. It wrapped around him, clung to his skin, burned through his armor, and sank into his flesh.

"Aaahgghh!!!"

He screamed pitifully, but he still refused to give up.

"I can still absorb it! I just need more time!"

He dropped to his knees and pressed both hands against the ground. The God Hand pulsed wildly, drinking in everything it could reach.

The fire did not go out, nor did it slow. It kept burning, swallowing everything in its path.

Wincent’s hands trembled and his vision blurred as his cracked skin began to peel away.

"Just a little more... just a little more..."

Ignis watched him struggle while her flames burned brighter and her voice dropped to a whisper.

"You still don’t understand."

She raised one hand, and the fire around Wincent condensed, compressed, and tightened like a noose.

"You were never a god."

The fire blazed golden and unbearably hot, tearing a scream from Wincent’s throat.

"AAAAHGGGGGG!!! IT BURNS!! IT BURNS SO MUCH!!"

Wincent’s voice tore through the plaza. His body was a torch. Golden fire clung to his skin, burned through his flesh, and sank into his bones. The God Hand sparked and hissed, its crimson veins flickering wildly as it tried to absorb the flames.

But then something changed.

His right hand turned red. The energy inside it grew wild, surging, trying to break free. But Ignis’s flames kept burning through it, clashing against it, refusing to let it settle. The two forces ground against each other, neither giving ground.

And yet, on one side, the hand began to adapt. The flesh twisted, the veins shifted, and something inside it started to change. It was trying to survive the golden fire.

Wincent stared at it. His cracked lips curled into a grin.

’Yes... yes, this is it. If I combine both energies now... if I merge them here... I’ll become a god. Just a little more....’

He threw his head back and laughed. The sound was broken, manic, echoing across the ruined plaza.

"AHAHAHA! LOOK AT THIS, YOU DAMN DRAGON! DO YOU SEE? DO YOU SEE THIS POWER?!"

The flames around him didn’t stop. They burned brighter. But Wincent didn’t care. He raised both arms, the God Hand pulsing with white light, his right hand pulsing with red.

"I AM THE BEGINNING AND THE END!"

"I AM THE HAND THAT SHAPES FATE!"

"I WILL BECOME A GOD! I WILL SURPASS ALL OF YOU! I WILL—"

The two energies collided inside him.

Then his body began to glow. His skin shone like cracked glass, light spilling through the fractures. His eyes burned too bright. His veins lit up like molten wires beneath his skin.

Selena, Garrick, and Gill arrived at the edge of the plaza. Selena stopped first, one hand pressed against the wall, sweat already dripping down her face. The heat was immense. The air shimmered.

"What a terrifying fire..." she muttered.

Garrick’s eyes swept across the scene. Wincent writhed in the flames, struggling to merge the two forces inside him, desperate to push back against Ignis’s golden fire.

"Are we too late?" Garrick asked, his voice low.

Then Gill, his face etched with disappointment, spoke.

"That man... he’s done something reckless."

Wincent raised his hand, light spilling from his fingertips. His voice boomed across the plaza.

"LOOK AT ME! I WILL MAKE YOU ALL KNEEL BEFORE ME!"

Selena watched him for a long moment. Then she let out a tired breath.

"Yeah," she said quietly. "We’re too late."

Garrick glanced at her. "What?"

Selena didn’t look away from Wincent.

"That man is already dead."