Chapter 305
Chapter 305: Cuckolding the Goddess of Justice
Heim Horn gazed at the shattered Twilight Expanse, his expression grave.
He led the Mages forward across the fractured floating rocks, directing his phantoms to flash through the sky above. Countless Phantom Doppelgangers touched down on the floating rock surfaces.
The instant they made contact with the stone, Heim Horn and a phantom merged their bodies together, swapping positions entirely.
Many Mages followed close behind Heim, their various Magic Power drives churning beneath them—sand and dust flying, flames flickering, currents of water swirling……
They moved with the same swift pace and landed on this floating rock island.
Looking all around, what had once been a scene of chaos had been washed clean here by an endless purifying force, leaving no trace of its original state.
Everyone stepped across the floating rocks and continued to thread their way through the floating boulders below the Twilight Expanse.
The deeper they descended, the more ferocious the scorching heat became.
The rocks beneath their feet shifted gradually from warm to scalding, and even the massive boulders began splitting apart with fissures from the extreme temperature.
The air itself boiled, making Heim Horn feel a searing, scorching sensation—as though the blood inside him was about to be completely vaporized.
It was like an active volcano, churning here with the fury of magma.
Many Mages still followed behind Heim Horn, despite how terrifyingly harsh the conditions were.
Yet the deeper they went, the fewer Mages were able to keep pace with Heim Horn.
The wind currents around them had also turned violently savage—enormous gusts sent even Heim's legs, planted on the floating rocks, wrenching backward.
Even with Magic Power shielding the body, it was difficult to resist the terrible scorching and the storm.
He continued to channel his Magic Power, leading the Mages further downward.
Before long, an enormous floating boulder appeared before Heim.
That great floating rock had even taken on a reddish hue, and the extreme heat left him feeling somewhat dazed.
He steadied himself, fixing his gaze ahead.
This was a wide open floating plain of rock. Heim had an intuition: Viktor was here.
He channeled his Magic Power and flew up onto the floating rock.
The moment he landed on the plain, he looked around.
The figure in the black Coat was nowhere to be seen.
What met his eyes instead was a powerfully built Dwarf.
And a massive forge assembled from components.
It was Ryan Kent.
He was bare-chested, one hand gripping iron tongs, clamping down on a piece of red-hot stone iron.
His other hand gripped a heavy hammer, driving it down again and again on the iron anvil.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The clanging sound of iron striking iron echoed continuously, vibrating the surrounding air and sending it shattering apart.
Blue flames spilled out from the Formation beneath him, climbing up along his white beard.
At the tips of Ryan's white beard, blue flames burned—like an enraged beast roaring without cease.
His powerfully built muscles gleamed with sweat as the heavy hammer struck down furiously on the blazing iron plate.
The forge before him seemed to have come from the depths of hell itself, burning with crimson flames, thick smoke and soot bubbling up from within.
The glow of the fire tinted Ryan's skin scarlet, even the finest beads of sweat evaporating in an instant.
Among all the Mages present, the moment they laid eyes on him, every single one fell into stunned silence.
There was no Mage among them who didn't know the name Ryan Kent.
He was the most renowned forgemaster of the Dwarf clan.
And simultaneously, a world-famous Artisan Mage.
Very few had ever personally witnessed Ryan Kent in the act of forging.
It was said he always carried with him a forge and a hammer.
Legend had it that his forge was kindled from natural furnace fire that grew deep within snowy mountains—a flame that would never be extinguished.
That hammer of his was said to have come from the broken-off ram's horn of some divine being, buried in a land of frost and wind.
Ultimately, it had been retrieved by Ryan Kent and forged into a powerful smithing hammer capable of shattering any material.
With these 2 items in hand, combined with the forging mastery Ryan Kent took pride in—
Whenever he chose, wherever he was, he could work with what was around him.
Even a fragment of stone iron could be forged in his hands into a blade more resilient than any carried by a Kingdom warrior.
And this time, the Mages witnessed it in a genuine and literal sense.
Placed in an extraordinarily harsh environment.
Around him, nothing but scorching, all-consuming magma, and the raging fury of a storm.
Yet within the encirclement of those 2 forces—
He stood like one who refuses to break between heaven and earth, his roaring hammer pouring out every ounce of defiance within his heart.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
His combat power might not match most Council Members in the Council.
But he was without question the most revered forgemaster.
【Indomitable Blue Flame Forge】
Ryan Kent.
Heim Horn watched Ryan Kent.
He said nothing—only looked on in silence.
Ryan was swinging the hammer in his hand, striking again and again at the crimson stone iron, stirring up terrifyingly intense heat and sending sparks flying.
That crimson scorching substance—
It was clearly the hottest magma, the kind that could only be retrieved from within a volcano.
The magma was struck again and again, molded again and again.
Already blazing hot, the magma, beneath blow after blow—
Seemed to be burning the very air around it to ash.
As one hammer fell, he reached out and seized a mass of pitch-black chaos from beside him.
The energy of the Chaos Dragon Scale seemed to cling to his hand; he pinched off a fragment of it, and Ryan pressed it into the iron being forged.
Each enormous strike made the space crack apart with sound waves.
The great metal mass, beneath collision after collision, gradually began to take on a shape.
Heim Horn watched Ryan absorbed in his forging, staying silent throughout.
Then Ryan Kent reached once more into the forge nearby and drew out a piece of steel shot through with swirling storms.
He gripped it with the iron tongs and fixed it to the anvil.
Seeing this storm-swirling steel, the many Mages were even more profoundly shaken.
They had never even seen this material before, let alone where it might have come from.
Ryan Kent had no intention of answering their questions. He simply continued swinging his smithing hammer, his focus absolute.
Heim Horn knew—once Ryan Kent began forging, he became intensely serious.
He would no longer pay attention to any sound around him.
Though Heim had no idea what Ryan was actually forging.
Viktor's staff?
No, no, no—how could a staff be made in a crude, hammering way like this?
So what on earth was Ryan actually crafting?
At that moment, a cool, unhurried voice spoke from nearby.
"You've come to ask about the Goddess of Justice, I take it?"
Heim Horn spun around sharply.
At some point, Viktor had appeared standing right beside him.
He had both hands in his pockets, the iconic Crow perched on his shoulder.
The Coat behind him continued to flicker with patterns of alien-colored light.
Now the red that represented flames, now the cloud-white that represented wind.
Clang! Clang!
Ryan's forging sounds continued to resound without pause.
Viktor's voice too, accompanying the hammer strikes, rose between the 2 men.
"The Goddess—I was the one who summoned her."
Heim was momentarily stunned, finally pulling his thoughts together, then asked in disbelief:
"Viktor, do you even understand……"
"What this kind of action—what kind of impact this will have on our Council?"
The Goddess of Justice appearing among the Council would naturally become associated with the Council.
Even the Council's own Mages had begun to believe the Mage Council was already the Goddess of Justice's Church.
Then what would the rest of the world think of this?
This directly undermined the founding purpose of the Dark Archmage's opposition to the Goddess of Justice.
It was precisely because the Goddess of Justice's fanatical, extremist justice that countless people could not accept her.
And so the Dark Archmage had stolen the Goddess of Justice's divine power, to weaken her influence over human society.
And through the Mage Council, had carved out a different path of justice.
Justice—yet a justice that ran contrary to the Goddess of Justice's own.
And yet……
What Viktor had done had invisibly amplified the Goddess of Justice's influence.
Then, for those who later joined the Council, were they pursuing the Council's justice—or the Goddess of Justice's justice?
The 2 were, after all, not the same thing.
Viktor spoke calmly:
"I know."
Hearing that answer, Heim Horn was rendered completely speechless. His head seemed filled to the brim with dense blue static, and he fell into a tangled state of complex turmoil.
Why?
If Viktor understood all of this, then why had he done such a thing?
Just then, Viktor suddenly said something utterly baffling.
"Heim, you should know."
"I have a Fiancée."
Heim suddenly froze. His eyes turned toward Viktor, trying to find his answer there.
But it was already too late.
Under the astonished gazes of everyone present, the ground began to split apart, the cracks spreading wider and wider.
Terrifying air currents surged with scorching heat, shooting straight up into the sky.
Beneath the cracks, boiling magma surged violently upward, flames dancing wildly—like a writhing mass of golden serpents.
A colossal crimson claw, carrying blazing rock with it, rose slowly from within the fissure.
Rolling magma cascaded down, and the extreme heat surrounding it, accompanying the emergence of the great claw, seemed to grow even more terrifying.
【Scorched Earth】
In that moment, every Mage's gaze converged on Viktor.
No one thought anymore.
Perhaps because the blazing heat had scorched their minds senseless.
Perhaps because the beast that had suddenly appeared filled them with even greater despair.
Even though that great beast showed not a trace of hostility toward them.
Yet even in this extreme environment, Ryan Kent remained wholly unaffected, absorbed in his forging.
The heavy hammer continued to pound the anvil, the dull resonance of metal striking metal reverberating through the air.
With the beast's emergence, the temperature grew exceptionally scorching—as though the flames within the great forge behind Ryan Kent had grown all the fiercer.
His entire body glistened with sweat, his bronzed skin looking all the more formidable in the crimson glow.
The reflection of the flames even shone within the depths of his eyes.
Under this intense heat, the fragments of rock across the surrounding floating plain began to crumble rapidly, flames stirring into furious whirlwinds through the air.
Magma even erupted from the shattered stone, floating in the air, striking again and again against the immense body of Gulton.
Endless pillars of fire launched from the plain and pierced the deep-blue sky.
At nearly the same moment, the enormous black silhouette in the sky began to roll and surge as well.
At some point, white clouds had gathered in the sky above.
The clouds converged, a vortex eye forming in the deep-blue sky as heavenly light poured in.
The dragon in the sky tumbled against the headwind through the cloud layer, the violent wind making even the air tremble.
【Storm's Verdict】
Within the forge, the flames seemed to become a mad dragon trapped in a cage, rolling furiously.
The gales rose, and the steel, under the dual assault of extreme heat and storm, seemed to grow even more intensely red.
Ryan Kent seemed to be treating the Scorched Earth and the sky's storm as his own forge.
Hammer after hammer fell, shaping those 2 legendary materials again and again.
At this point, Viktor drew from within his coat the scale covered in pitch-black markings.
The scale rested in his hand with perfect stillness, its jet-black luster flowing continuously.
Heim Horn's eyes went wide as he stared at the scale in Viktor's hand.
That was the scale Viktor had taken from the Archive!
Viktor then looked at the scale and spoke calmly:
"Why can't the Council be the orthodox authority of the Goddess of Justice?"
Heim Horn immediately began to protest:
"The Goddess of Justice's justice and our Council's justice are different things, you should know that……"
"Then why can't the Mage Council's justice absorb the Goddess of Justice's teachings?"
As the words fell, Viktor placed the scale beside Ryan Kent's forge.
Perhaps it was from witnessing this moment.
Perhaps it was from hearing Viktor's words.
Heim Horn's eyes went wide.
His voice fell utterly silent.
At that moment, Ryan looked at the scale and slowly closed his eyes.
He drew a long, deep breath, as though steeling his resolve.
Then from his belt pouch, he produced a bottle of deep-red dragon blood.
He pulled the stopper free. White heat vapor dissipated outward. Ryan looked at it once, then poured it directly onto the scale.
Whoosh—
The terrifying heat vapor fused the scale together with the blazing steel.
Under Ryan's hammer blow after blow, it began to take on an entirely new shape.
The gales suddenly roared to life, the flames turning ferociously savage.
The entire floating island seemed to descend into utter chaos.
The earth cracked. Space scorched.
Yet Ryan's smithing hammer swung only faster.
Heim watched the scale being forged into the staff as raw material, his expression pained, unable to conceal his shock.
In that moment, he thought back to the question Viktor had posed.
The Goddess of Justice's justice and the Mage Council's justice were not in conflict—both were forms of justice.
But at the same time, they were contradictory.
Because the Goddess of Justice's teachings were fanatically extreme, tolerating no evil whatsoever—even driving her followers to become twisted and deranged.
But what Viktor meant was—
Between the 2, only 1 could remain.
Just like the scale being melted into the staff.
Once the Goddess of Justice's teachings were absorbed and swallowed by the Mage Council's influence……
Then the Goddess of Justice—
Would remain in name only.
Tsssss—
The blood poured onto the crimson molten iron, sending up smoke carrying the smell of iron.
In a surge of ink-black radiance, the enormous shape of the staff flared brilliantly in an instant.
Viktor smiled calmly, and at the same time, extended a hand.
"If one must choose which alone is the true truth."
Ryan Kent watched as the just-completed staff slowly rose and flew swiftly into Viktor's waiting hand.
The space around them continued to shudder—whether because of the staff's emergence, or because of the chaos of flame and storm.
The ink-black radiance detonated in an instant, and the staff's true form appeared before everyone's eyes.
The instant they sensed the staff's formation, the 2 sky-piercing colossal beasts simultaneously let out a thunderous roar that shook the heavens.
As though blasting every last impurity completely apart.
Viktor gripped the staff—one end crowned with a twisted bird-head crook, several rings of Formation floating suspended along the center of its body.
The phantom silhouette of the scale continued to wind around the staff, gradually merging with it into one.
He planted the staff's base against the ground, and the scale's phantom image began to sway.
In that instant, Viktor linked with Weija, and blue Magic Power merged together.
A vast ocean of Magic surged suddenly from within Viktor's body, enveloping the countless Mages present all at once.
Viktor gripped the new staff, feeling that terrifying power spread throughout his entire body—as though even the Meridians within him had taken on a few extra measures of surging Magic Power presence.
【Please name this staff】
Accompanied by the vast Magic Power, Viktor's voice, carrying an arrogant and self-assured tone, slowly rose:
"Then—"
"I, am the one and only truth."
【Truth of the Great Prosperity】
【Naming successful】