Chapter 120: Still Not Enough
Chapter 120: Still Not Enough
Under the moonless sky, frost swirled around them like drifting ash.
Raven and the blue-skinned knight no longer tested each other.
They fought to kill.
Steel shrieked against steel.
Thrust. Parry. Deflect. Counter.
The narrow street echoed with relentless clashes as sparks sprayed across the dark brick walls.
Raven’s abdomen was split open, blood soaking through his clothes. The wound should have killed him twice already.
It almost had.
Only after activating Rapid Regeneration had the torn flesh sealed enough to let him continue.
Across from him, the alien knight’s left chest was pierced cleanly, dark blood trailing down its armor.
But even wounded, it remained composed.
Raven used everything, like movement spells to slip past killing blows, Ice Breath to freeze the ground and restrict the knight’s footing, and intermediate aura to tighten his spear control.
Even so—
The knight pushed him backwith pure spearmanship.
Simple, direct, and unwavering.
Raven’s breathing grew ragged.
The knight thrust again.
A straight-line strike aimed at his throat, and thenSomething shifted.
The Pathfinder spell activated on its own.
Two faint golden footsteps appeared to his left.
It was clear and certain.
Raven didn’t hesitate and stepped effortlessly.
The incoming spear slid past his shoulder.
The motion felt… natural.
More golden steps appeared.
Not many.
Raven’s Mind Web split cleanly.
One thread locked onto the golden footsteps.
Three others focused entirely on:
The knight’s shoulder rotation, the tightening of grip, and the minute shift in stance before each thrust.
The world sharpened.
Time did not slow.
But his understanding deepened.
Each incoming attack no longer felt sudden.
It felt… inevitable.
And therefore predictable.
The battle stretched into five minutes, then six, and seven
It soon became more than eight minutes of continuous exchange.
The frost melted beneath their feet.
Golden sparks painted the night.
Raven felt it clearly now.
The knight wasn’t overwhelming him anymore.
They were equal.
Then—
A mistake occurred.
Small.
A fraction of overextension in the knight’s right wrist.
Raven saw it and didn’t miss the opportunity.
Without hesitation, he thrust the Frozen Ender with clean and precise accuracy.
The knight’s wrist was severed.
The spear fell from its grasp.
The alien knight retreated a step—
But it was too late.
Raven didn’t waste the opening.
He stepped inside the knight’s guard, and his spear drove forward straight through the neck.
The tip burst out the other side.
Silence fell.
Frost drifted lazily in the air.
The blue-skinned knight collapsed to its knees.
Raven walked closer, breathing steadily despite the blood running down his body.
He looked down at the fallen opponent.
The knight slowly smiled.
Its eyes were calm.
And it spoke softly.
“Hotep Di Neter.”
A sharp whistle sliced through the air from behind.
Raven’s pupils contracted, but it was too late.
A yellow-aura-coated arrow tore through the back of his skull.
The tip burst out from his forehead in a spray of blood.
The world tilted.
Sound vanished.
The illusionary street fractured like shattered glass.
Darkness swallowed everything.
…
Raven opened his eyes.
A forced smile appeared.
“So… there are other enemies, huh?”
The Illusionary World had shown him clearly — even victory wasn’t absolute.
He stood without hesitation.
If he couldn’t clear the illusion perfectly yet, then he would return to Jace.
…
The reception hall.
The corpse of Millie lay motionless on the floor while Jacob had long left the battle.
Solomon stood firm at the entrance, gazing at the figure a few meters away.
Instructor Jace gripped his sword.
“Your wounds are healed?” Jace asked lightly. “What are you doing here at this hour, Patriarch?”
“That should be my question,” Solomon replied, raising his hand and attacking.
The exchange unfolded as it had in the previous loop. Lightning, Lava, Stone skin,chase, spatial shift, and Aura blade forming.
While Raven was distracting, Solomon activated the Armor and cast the Ice Shackles spell.
Ice crawled up Jace’s boots, freezing his legs momentarily.
Raven lunged using the same trick.
Their weapons were about to clash, but he cast ‘Shadow Teleport’ and slipped behind him.
Frozen Ender aimed at his back.
Jace didn’t even turn fully as he calmly rotated his wrist; the sword cut in a smooth arc.
A compressed crescent of green aura formed at the edge.
Raven saw it.
The aura blade was about to detach.
About to decapitate him—
“Solis!”
The word tore out of his throat.
And the world stopped.
…
It was an absolute silence.
Dust froze mid-air.
The flickering flame of Solomon’s fire shield froze like sculpted glass.
Even Jace’s aura blade halted at the edge of release, suspended in emerald light.
Time had been arrested.
Only Raven moved slowly.
Each step felt like dragging his body through syrup.
Even his thoughts crawled.
But he moved.
That was enough.
He approached Jace’s unmoving back.
Frozen Ender trembled in his grip.
Raven poured everything into it.
Intermediate aura tightened.
He thrust the spear with full force.
The spear tip struck Jace’s back—
And stopped.
It didn’t even dent the stone-hardened skin.
Raven’s eyes widened.
‘F*ck! Even an intermediate aura can’t pierce his skin?’
He pushed harder, and the aura flared.
The spear trembled violently, and finally, a shallow wound formed.
Barely a finger’s depth.
But it was not enough to reach the heart.
The resistance was absolute.
Jace’s defensive state had not vanished with time.
Raven’s breath grew heavier as he realized that the time stop was reaching its limit.
The frozen aura blade began to move—
Time resumed.
The aura blade completed its arc.
At the last moment, Raven twisted his body with everything he had.
The crescent of green energy grazed past his neck instead of cleanly severing it.
Blood sprayed.
He was thrown sideways, crashing into a pillar.
Pain exploded across his vision—but he was alive.
Jace turned slowly.
For the first time—
His brows furrowed.
A thin line of blood traced down his back where Raven had managed to leave that shallow wound.
“You grow troublesome,” Jace said quietly.
Raven didn’t answer.
Raven forced himself upright.
Blood still poured down his neck, but he slammed a hand over the wound and triggered Rapid Regeneration. Flesh knit. Nerves sealed. The bleeding slowed to a dark trickle.
Though Raven looked steady and calm, his heart was beating wildly.
‘I couldn’t even give him a critical wound even with the Time Stop spell.’ It was hard to accept.
‘Can I really kill him?’ Doubt and a strange sense of anxiety appeared in his eyes.
Across the yard, Jace shattered the ice around his legs with raw force.
Stone fragments exploded outward.
He stepped forward.
Sword leveled.
Intent clear.
Then—
A voice cut through the battlefield like a blade.
“You’ve held enough, Your Highness.”
Solomon.
He stood swaying, blood running from the corner of his lips. Yet his eyes burned brighter than the flames licking the courtyard walls.
He raised his hand toward the sky.
The night answered.
Above them, the darkness split open.
Thousands of molten spears formed in silence.
The air warped under the heat.
Raven’s instincts screamed.
He didn’t question it.
Shadow twisted around his body—
—and he vanished.
He reappeared beside Solomon just as the first spear fell.
It descended like divine punishment.
Jace moved instantly.
His sword flashed upward.
The lava spear split in two, bursting into a shower of molten rain that splattered across stone and flesh.
But there was no triumph in his expression.
Because the sky had not emptied.
Dozens fell, and then hundreds.
Jace’s body hardened under stone skin. His aura-coated blade became a blur — cleaving, deflecting, redirecting. Each spear shattered under his sword.
Each one still burned him.
Another wave descended.
This time, he moved.
He dashed through the yard, abandoning defense for evasion.
It didn’t matter.
The spears followed.
Every step triggered another descent like a web tightening.
For over a minute, molten judgment rained from the heavens.
The knights’ quarters ignited.
The courtyard liquefied.
Smoke swallowed the world.
Then—
Silence.
The sky emptied.
The smoke began to thin.
Through the haze—
A figure stood, charred but still alive.
Jace stepped forward.
Naked skin split open in blackened cracks. His hair was gone. His right arm was nothing but bone wrapped in smoldering scraps of flesh. His sword now glowed with an unstable blend of green and red aura.
He looked less like a man—
—and more like something dragged out of hell.
His eyes locked onto them.
“Even if I die… I’ll take you both with me.”
He moved.
Solomon dropped to one knee.
“It’s his last struggle,” he rasped. “Kill him now… or no one survives.”
Raven stepped forward without hesitation.
Jace arrived first.
The speed difference was obscene.
The blade swung toward Raven’s neck.
‘F*ck! he is this agile at his death door?’ Cold sweat dripped down his forehead as he forced his spear up.
Steel collided.
The impact felt like a mountain collapsing onto his arms.
His bones screamed.
He was blown backward.
He crashed across molten stone, rolled, and coughed blood.
“—Fuck.”
He looked up.
Jace was already there, standing over him.
Sword raised as Raven’s eyes widened in disbelief.
The blade curved downward like a blood-stained crescent moon.
Raven let out a quiet, bitter breath.
‘So this is how it ends.’
The sword fell.
Darkness swallowed everything.
…