Chapter 469: Godhand’s Blessing
Wincent straightened, his breath slow and controlled. The orange veins in his mechanical arm dimmed, then flared again—brighter this time, hotter, until the metal itself began to glow like a coal pulled from a forge.
He raised his free hand. Mana gathered around his palm in thick, visible streams, drawn from the air itself, from the ground, from the pulsing barrier at the edge of the domain. The energy coiled into his mechanical fingers, sinking into the joints, feeding the arm until it trembled with barely contained power.
Then the arm changed.
The metal rippled. Plates shifted and realigned, the smooth surface splitting open as segments unfolded and locked into place. The fingers elongated, tapering into curved, crimson-tipped points. The palm widened, the joints thickened, and the entire arm swelled with mass, layered in overlapping plates of dark metal veined with molten red light. Steam poured from the seams in thick, hissing jets. The air around it warped from the heat.
When it was done, the arm no longer looked human. It looked like something carved from a nightmare—a weapon shaped for one purpose only.
Ignis’s grin didn’t fade, but her eyes narrowed. The flames along her shoulders flickered, then steadied.
"So that’s the real thing," she said. "Not just a fancy prosthetic."
Wincent flexed the arm once. The joints clicked into place with a sound like a blade being drawn from its sheath. The red glow pulsed along the length of the limb, casting long shadows across the cracked grey plain.
"This is the God Hand," he said quietly. "The arm that tears through space itself."
He looked at her, and for the first time, there was no calm in his expression. Just cold, quiet intent.
"I only use it when I have to. You should feel honored."
Ignis rolled her shoulders, flames surging up her arms until they burned white at the edges.
"Honored? I’ll show you honored when I break that arm off."
She launched herself forward, wings snapping wide, and the grey plain erupted beneath her feet.
Ignis closed the distance in an instant. her fist already cocked back, wreathed in white-hot flame. The air screamed around her. The ground cracked beneath every step.
She swung.
Wincent raised the God Hand.
The crimson-tipped fingers spread wide, and the air in front of him twisted. A vortex of invisible force spiraled outward from his palm, catching the flames around Ignis’s fist and ripping them away. The fire didn’t scatter. It didn’t fade. It was pulled—dragged into the God Hand like water into a drain.
Ignis’s eyes widened. Her punch landed, but the fire was gone. The impact was just flesh and bone against metal. The God Hand absorbed the blow without flinching.
"What happened to my flames?!"
The God Hand pulsed, veins of crimson light brightening as the stolen flames swirled inside the metal. Steam hissed from the joints. The heat radiating from the arm doubled, then tripled, until the air around Wincent shimmered like a mirage.
Then he spoke one word.
"Return."
The God Hand snapped open, and a lance of pure white fire erupted from his palm.
It wasn’t Ignis’s flame anymore. It was something more compressed, refined, purified. The fire had been stripped of its wildness and reshaped into something divine. The beam tore through the air with a sound like a god’s roar.
Ignis barely twisted aside. The beam grazed her shoulder, and even that glancing touch seared through her scales, drawing a sharp hiss from her lips.
She landed in a crouch, smoke curling from the wound. Her eyes, wide for just a moment, narrowed again.
"You... you took my fire."
Wincent lowered the God Hand. The crimson light pulsed along the arm, steady and strong.
"I told you. This domain bends to my will." He flexed the fingers, and the air around him hummed. "Your fire is just another resource."
He raised the God Hand again. The ground beneath his feet cracked under the sudden weight of his presence.
"Godhand’s Blessing"
The words were quiet, but the effect was immediate. A faint golden aura wrapped around his body, layer over layer, coiling like armor made of light. The steam from his arm thickened, then thinned, as the divine energy stabilized his body, sharpened his senses, and amplified everything he was.
His speed. His strength. His reaction time.
The God Hand had taken Ignis’s fire and turned it into fuel.
Wincent straightened, the golden aura pulsing with each breath. The God Hand gleamed, its crimson tips now edged with white light.
"Now," he said. "Let’s see how long you last."
Ignis pushed herself up slowly. Blood dripped from her shoulder, sizzling where it hit the ground. Her flames flickered, weaker than before. The God Hand had taken more than just her fire—it had taken her momentum.
She spat blood onto the ground and grinned.
"God Hand? Don’t make me laugh." She pointed at the arm with a flame-wreathed finger. "Look at that thing. That’s not a god’s hand. That’s a devil’s hand."
Wincent’s expression didn’t change. The golden aura pulsed around him, steady and calm.
"You’re wrong," he said quietly. "This is the power of a god."
He didn’t wait for her answer.
He moved.
The God Hand carved through the air, and a trail of frost followed in its wake. Ice crystals bloomed across the ground, spreading outward in jagged veins. The air turned cold and the flames along Ignis’s arms flickered and shrank.
Her eyes widened.
"What—"
She backpedaled, wings snapping open, but the frost was faster. It crawled up her legs, her thighs, her waist. Every step she took left her slower, heavier. The fire in her blood screamed against the cold, but the God Hand’s stolen power was being twisted into something opposite.
A spear of ice materialized in Wincent’s grip. He hurled it without breaking stride.
Ignis twisted aside, but the cold had slowed her too much. The spear grazed her hip, and frost spread from the wound, locking her muscles.
"You can use magic too?!" she snarled, flames sputtering around her fists.
Another wave of ice erupted from the ground, and another, and another. Each one forced her back, step by step, until her heels hit something solid.
The barrier at the edge of the domain.
She was cornered.
Wincent stopped a few paces away, the God Hand gleaming, the golden aura steady. Frost clung to his shoulders, his breath misting in the cold.
"It’s over," he said.