Chapter 914: The Crown Bearer
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 914: The Crown Bearer
The moment the word "Repent" left Elinde’s lips, Muen sensed something was wrong. But even he hadn't expected the attack to come so swiftly.
Despite the vast distance between them, the threat felt as if it were right before his eyes.
The killing intent was bone-chilling.
His long-honed death premonition hadn't even finished its alarm before Muen felt that terrifying power manifest against his physical body. He knew exactly where that power originated.
"The Repentant Witch!"
The top-tier powerhouse of the Salvation Society, a Crown Bearer who had once attacked him in Belland, had bared her fangs at him once more—here, in the very heart of the Kingdom’s royal capital!
In the distance, the rain and mist parted.
The witch known as Repentance lifted her gaze, calmly fixing her eyes on his position. Then, she raised a hand and pointed a single finger.
Just one finger.
Muen felt the entire world fall into a sudden, eerie silence. He could no longer hear a single sound.
Everything around him seemed etched into a photograph; even the puddles on the ground ceased to ripple. Muen felt as if he had been instantly locked inside an invisible cage. Though the scenery in his vision hadn't changed, a pressure as heavy as the deep sea bore down on him, ruthlessly crushing him—body and soul.
Pain. Agonizing pain.
That single gesture alone made Muen feel as if his entire body was about to be ground into paste.
"Damn it..."
Muen gritted his teeth, channeling every ounce of his spiritual power to drive the Black Sun within his consciousness space. He didn't dare hold anything back. To hesitate now was to embrace death.
Black flames erupted, surging with a rare, sweeping ferocity that blanketed the space around him. They tore a jagged rift in the invisible cage, finally giving Muen a moment to breathe. He scrambled out of the narrow gap, stumbling as he went.
Crack...
Almost simultaneously, the sound of shattering porcelain rang in his ears. He looked back in horror to see that, with his previous position as the epicenter, everything was beginning to fracture.
The ground... the stone monuments... the trees... even the invisible air itself was splintering. Everything was breaking, everything was shattering, as if the world under that finger was nothing more than a sandcastle—toppled into useless silt by a mere nudge.
And this all-consuming collapse was chasing him with unbelievable speed.
His death premonition flared into a sharp, piercing shriek!
"Shit!"
Having just stabilized himself, Muen didn't have the positioning to dodge again, and his black flames couldn't counter an invisible force of such scale. Without hesitation, he unsheathed Elizabeth and swung the blade with everything he had!
Zheng—!
A flash of blade-light sliced through the dark night.
The light was brilliant, cold and silent like moonlight, yet it carried the full weight of Muen’s strength.
Time Dilation.
Hundred-Stack.
He even integrated the techniques of the Heavenly Fire Draw he had learned from Ariel, pushing the power to a whole new level. Aside from the fact that the haste of the moment prevented him from reaching the move's absolute peak, this was the strongest strike he could currently muster.
In Muen’s mind, even if this strike couldn't truly hinder the Repentant Witch, it should at least disrupt the rhythm of her assault and buy him enough time to escape.
But...
In that moment, all his expectations proved meaningless.
The brilliant blade-light was extraordinarily beautiful, but now, that light—which should have been intangible—was miraculously given physical substance. It was like the moon falling from the heavens.
The moon is high and unreachable. But when it crashes to the earth, it is nothing more than a useless rock.
The lunar arc of his blade-light froze in mid-air, unable to advance another inch.
Crack.
Then, fissures began to spiderweb across the light itself.
"..."
Muen’s cheek twitched.
Before he could even curse again, a vivid, agonizing pain tore through him.
He looked down to see that the arm he had used to swing the blade was also in a state of shattering. Like an insect crushed by a boulder, his long-tempered physical body was incredibly fragile in the face of this power. His bones had been reduced to splinters; only scraps of flesh and skin held the shape of his hand together.
His counterattack had been useless. Instead, he had been severely wounded in an instant.
The gap in power was... suffocating.
"So this is... a Crown Bearer?"
Muen’s heart sank. He forced a bitter smile that looked more like a grimace.
Crown Bearers... those known as the "Heaven-Bestowed Crowns." It was the most unique rank among all realms of power, the stage where the traditional advantage martial artists held over mages was completely reversed.
A casual strike from such a distance was already more than Muen could withstand. He didn't even have the room to resist. The opponent was completely outside his attack range; her current offensive was nothing more than the light pressure of a single finger.
No... in a situation like this, should he consider the distance a blessing?
"Dammit... dammit... dammit! I just wanted to go fishing, I didn't mean to hook a fucking sea monster! It’s not time for a boss-level character like you to show up yet! Can't you go back to lurking in the depths, you bastard?!"
The protagonist hasn't even finished grinding levels yet—how can you villains just ignore the script like this?
Oh, wait. I’m not the protagonist. Never mind.
Muen grabbed his nearly severed arm, pouring black flames into it to rapidly regenerate the flesh. At the same time, taking advantage of the fact that his strike had at least slowed the spread of the cracks, he fled with desperate speed.
Elizabeth rattled beside him as his Alchemy Domain expanded to cover his body, masking his presence. A further optimized Illumination Spell warped the light around him, allowing Muen to vanish completely into the shadows.
Shadow Step!
Muen’s figure flickered as he bolted from the open graveyard, diving into the narrow streets nearby.
But even at his maximum speed, even with every concealment method at his disposal, Muen still felt that gaze locked onto him. He couldn't shake it. Even the speed boost from Time Dilation wasn't enough.
No, perhaps in the eyes of a Crown Bearer, the "speed" he had gained was merely the difference between a snail and a tortoise!
Crack...
The fissures extended through the darkness once more. The shattered zone wasn't particularly large—it didn't even fill the narrow alleyway—but those cracks followed Muen with surgical precision.
It was like an ink line being drawn from afar; the moment it touched him, he would be erased from existence.
"Motherfucker..."
He narrowly avoided another cluster of cracks, but the shockwave shattered his entire shoulder blade. Muen stumbled, nearly collapsing in a heap.
He rolled into another street, channeling black flames to heal while feeling his death premonition and heartbeat racing without the slightest sign of slowing down. He finally couldn't help but scream a curse.
"How can a Crown Bearer just open fire in the middle of the city?! With a commotion this big, where are the Kingdom’s powerhouses? Are they all fucking dead? If any of you are still breathing, get out here and do something!"
Even if the Salvation Society had compromised the Kingdom’s upper echelons, they couldn't possibly control the entirety of Saint Bran Phazesia. This was a metropolis of millions!
It had only been a few days since the incident at Notasia Fortress confirmed the Society’s infiltration. Where were the experts? Where were the various organizations and factions? Where was the Great Cathedral of the Church?
Muen couldn't understand. Unless the royal capital had already been completely wiped out, how could a Crown Bearer of the Salvation Society be so brazenly playing a game of "squash the ant" in front of millions of people?
Did they cast some mass illusion and hypnotize the entire city?
Questions piled up one after another, but Muen had no time to think. The cracks that seemed capable of destroying all things pursued him like maggots on a corpse.
Muen contorted his body, using bone-shrinking techniques to narrowly evade the next strike. He dove into a nearby residential building, hoping the complex terrain would help him lose the Repentant Witch.
At this critical juncture, Muen’s cognitive faculties were pushed to the breaking point. The physical agony and the mental strain of overdrawing his spiritual power ravaged his nerves. At times, he was dodging purely on physical instinct.
It was only when he caught his breath that he realized ducking into a residence wasn't a great choice.
"I hope no one’s home. I don't want to drag innocents into this."
He spread his perception, confirming there were no signs of life nearby. Only then did he breathe a sigh of relief.
As Muen prepared to resume his desperate flight, he noticed that his death premonition had weakened significantly. He looked back cautiously; the cracks were nowhere to be seen.
It seemed the buildings had finally blocked the Repentant Witch’s line of sight. Or perhaps Muen had entered a more prosperous district of the capital, and her actions had finally drawn the attention of an equal powerhouse, forcing her to hesitate.
"Am I safe for now?" Muen muttered.
He couldn't let his guard down yet. Next...
"Wait."
Just as Muen began to plan his final escape, a thick, acrid stench of burning suddenly assaulted his nostrils.
No, it hadn't just started. He had been so focused on running for his life, with every sense and thought dedicated to the act of fleeing, that it was only now—with the witch’s assault paused—that he had the luxury to perceive his surroundings.
"What is that smell? Is the house on fire?"
Without stopping to rest, Muen followed the scent and quickly found the source.
He pushed open the main door of the house, and then... he saw it.
Fire.
A roaring, raging inferno.
The flames were incredibly bright, nearly illuminating the entire night sky. It wasn't just this house that was burning, as he had first thought.
It was many houses. Dozens of them.
Reflected in Muen’s constricted pupils, the entire district seemed to be drowning in a sea of fire. Parts of it had already been reduced to ash, leaving nothing but crumbling ruins and charred timber.
Further away, terrifying explosions rang out one after another, deafeningly loud, making the very ground tremble.
Wailing.
Screaming.
Burning.
Destruction.
Everywhere Muen looked, he saw a scene akin to the descent of the apocalypse.
"How... how did it come to this?"
The scene before him was so violently at odds with his memory of the quiet, ancient capital that for a moment, he felt as if he were trapped in a dream.
No.
Muen snapped out of it quickly.
This wasn't a dream. The wounds the Repentant Witch had left on his body were still healing, the pain vivid and real.
So...
Was this the "reality" he had been so desperately searching for?