Chapter 285: The Order Is Still Alive
Iron stood in the middle of the flower-draped, semi-open peristyle gallery, slowly closing the distance between himself and Edriac.
The elite guards grew extremely tense. Every knight gripped the hilt of his sword tightly, waiting for the slightest movement to spring forward. Step by step, Iron drew closer and closer to them.
Suddenly, a figure materialized a few steps away from Edriac.
He was clad in a red jacket and a high top hat, holding an elegant staff in his hand.
Iron froze in his tracks. His gaze locked onto the carved staff. In the next second, Lucius slightly relaxed his fingers, and the staff tumbled toward the floor with a clatter. But the moment it touched the ground, the hard wood and metal instantly lost their structure, turning into a red, viscous ooze. The liquid didn't even spread across the surface — it began literally seeping through the marble, flowing somewhere down into the depths.
Iron fixated on this sight for a fraction of a second, and in that exact same moment...
SWISH!
Lucius materialized right beside him and slashed Iron's neck with a sharp whistle. His head flew off to the side instantly, and a thick spray of blood erupted from the ruptured arteries, soaking the white slabs of the gallery.
"Ahem! Ha-ah... ha-ah..."
Iron jolted back violently, shuddering with ragged, spasmodic breaths. His eyes darted wildly. His chest heaved to the frantic beat of his heart.
What the hell... What the hell was that just now?! flashed through his mind.
The guards, noticing that Iron had frozen strangely for a second, were just about to charge in when suddenly...
To their right, in that exact same spot, Lucius Feramir materialized out of thin air.
A truly monstrous aura rolled off him, causing the elite knights to freeze instantly. Their legs felt rooted to the marble, and in terror, they began slowly turning their heads toward Feramir.
Iron, still coming to his senses from the vivid vision he had just experienced, fixed his gaze on Lucius and thought heavily to himself:
He...
And at that exact moment, Lucius relaxed his fingers. The staff dropped from his hands, fell to the floor, and right before everyone's eyes transformed into a red ooze that began seeping through the marble.
Iron fixed an astonished glare on the mass spreading across the marble.
And in that moment, as Lucius materialized right beside Iron, raising the staff above his neck, Iron bent backward sharply, bracing his palms against the floor slabs.
SWISH!
The staff sliced through the air with a whistle right above his chest. A flicker of surprise flashed across Lucius's face, his eyes widening slightly.
Wasting not a single second, Iron pushed off the floor and brought a powerful two-legged strike down from above — right onto the raised staff.
In the final fraction of a second, Lucius tossed the staff from his right hand to his left. Iron's legs sliced through empty air with a dull hum.
Pushing off the floor with his hands, Iron sprang to his feet instantly. Lucius, using the momentum from switching the staff to his left hand, delivered a crushing side-blow toward Iron's head on the spin.
Iron opened his palm instantly. A sword materialized in mid-air.
CLANG!
A metallic ring and a shower of bright sparks illuminated the semi-open gallery. The blades crossed.
Feeling colossal pressure, Lucius pulled his staff back and leaped backward with a single light bound, clearing the flower-draped opening and landing right on the smooth grass of the inner garden.
Edriac, standing behind the guards' backs, watched the unfolding battle and stuttered out in panic:
"Lord..."
"Shut up," Lucius said in a cold tone without turning around.
Edriac pressed his lips together instantly and took a panicked step back.
Lucius fixed an intent look on Iron, tilting his head slightly to the side, and said with a smirk:
"Well, well... It's been a long time since I met mages this strong."
Silence fell over the gallery at once. Only the light rustle of the wind swaying the leaves of the bushes in the garden could be heard.
"Tell me your name," Lucius asked.
Completely ignoring the question, Iron materialized directly behind Edriac that very second, bringing his sword down toward the ruler's neck. The distance shrank at breakneck speed — mere centimeters remained. But the moment the blade crossed the barely noticeable edge of the dense barrier surrounding Edriac, a sensitive motion sensor triggered. Space collapsed, and Edriac vanished out from under the descending sword.
SWOOSH!
Iron's wide strike hit empty air.
The engineer froze for a second, looking at the empty spot in bewilderment, his face twisting with boiling rage.
The remaining guards, seeing their ruler vanish, charged at him with furious shouts:
"You bastard! What did you do?!"
Without even looking at them, Iron spun his sword with a fluid, barely perceptible movement.
The blade effortlessly sliced through weapons, steel armor, and the flesh of the attackers. The knights didn't even have time to scream — their bodies sprawled onto the floor, and a massive pool of blood spread instantly beneath Iron's feet.
Lucius, standing in the garden, watched this with genuine relish. A wide smirk spread across his face, turning into a laugh.
Calming down after a moment, he shook his head:
"You really are interesting."
Iron whipped his head toward him and hissed:
"Where is he?"
Lucius froze for a fraction of a second, then drew himself up to his full height and answered calmly:
"Don't worry, he's in a safe place."
In that same second, Lumon's even voice resonated in Iron's mind:
"Subject's exact coordinates cannot be determined. Additional time required for calculations."
Iron clicked his tongue in annoyance, staring intently at Lucius:
"Tell me where he is, and you won't die."
Lucius spread his hands and sighed sympathetically:
"I'm sorry... but I can't tell you that."
In that exact same moment, Iron completely negated the coefficient of friction on the patch of grass directly under Lucius's feet. Losing his footing, Feramir slipped and fell down. Iron teleported directly above him immediately, bringing his blade crashing down from above.
But in the last second, Lucius uncurled the fingers of his right hand. Space warped, and he vanished. Iron's sword plunged deep into the ground with a thud.
The friction coefficient returned to normal that very second.
Lucius materialized on the other side of the garden. He opened his mouth to say something, but suddenly broke into violent coughing.
The air around him froze over instantly. The surrounding moisture, plants, and roof tiles were rapidly covered in frost and a translucent crust of ice. Lucius felt freezing frost starting to form right inside his throat and lungs immediately, and without wasting a moment, he bounded onto the gallery roof and executed a rapid leap, moving up along the sloped roofs.
But Iron had already appeared right before him.
Without giving Lucius a chance to catch his breath, Iron spun around, thrusting his arm out. Through direct thermodynamic manipulation, he released a massive torrent of invisible, ultra-high-temperature radiation. Everything around — tiles, stones, metallic roof decorations — melted in the blink of an eye and turned into glowing magma. The directed stream of liquid fire surged straight at Lucius.
Lucius immediately yanked his top hat from his head and thrust it forward. The hat sucked in the entire colossal stream of thermodynamic fire with a whistle and a roar.
Iron stopped the impulse and immediately threw his hand upward. Dozens of blinding lightning bolts struck down from the clear sky above Lucius with a crackle.
Lucius, dodging and balancing on the edge of the roof, muttered through gritted teeth:
No...
In that exact same second, Iron extended his fingers, trapping Lucius in a crushing gravitational vise. Feramir gasped as he felt the monstrous weight of his own flesh begin to crush his internal organs, and at the final fraction of a second, he teleported deep inside the castle.
"This isn't just magic..." Lucius exhaled, materializing in a dark corridor.
Iron instantly saw his location through his scanner. The space around Lucius compressed once more, and colossal pressure crashed down on him, intending to flatten him. But Lucius vanished again—this time appearing right behind Iron's back.
Yet he instantly froze in mid-air.
Iron immediately raised his blade over him, but Lucius executed another instantaneous jump, shifting right in front of him on the edge of the roof.
A smirk spread across Lucius's face once more:
"Physics manipulation..."
Iron had already sharply pulled his arm back for a new strike, but Lucius, smiling broadly, unexpectedly said:
"Iron Everfall..."
Iron's eyes widened in shock instantly. His arm froze mid-motion.
At that very moment, massive vines burst out from Avers Castle with a violent crash, shattering the cornices. Fresh blood dripped in thick drops down their stems.
"Well, well," Lucius continued, spreading his hands, "I didn't think our meeting would be like this..."
Iron swallowed with difficulty, suppressing a storm in his thoughts, and growled through his teeth:
"How do you know my name?"
Lucius sneered, raising his staff slightly in a defensive stance:
"Alpha Resource, right?"
Iron closed the distance with an incredible burst and brought dozens of crushing blows down on Lucius.
"How do you know that?!" he roared.
Lucius barely managed to parry the strikes, taking a step back:
"I'm not really... in the mood to tell you everything," he answered, pushing off the roof sharply and leaping to a safe distance. "But I'll say this: the Order is alive."
Iron froze for a fraction of a second. His voice trembled:
"What... Alive? But I..."
Lucius mockingly pressed a finger to his temple and tapped it lightly:
"Did you completely forget that you destroyed Valerius along with the Academy, and not the Order along with Valt?"
Iron was stunned. His mind desperately fought the thought:
...But Valerius stood higher than the Order!
Lucius gave a contemptuous grunt:
"Are you seriously judging it solely by that...? You're not as smart as you think, Iron."
Inside Iron's mind, thoughts raced at breakneck speed, crashing into one another:
Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why didn't I account for the fact that the Order could exist without Valerius? It's completely logical... And why, damn it, did I forget about them in the first place?!
Lucius exhaled heavily, looking at him with a strange hint of sympathy:
"Were you really so broken that you completely forgot about them?"
Iron fixed a heavy gaze on him. His voice dropped to a blood-curdling whisper:
"Where is Valt?"
Lucius cut him off cold-bloodedly:
"Not telling."
Iron lunged forward, his voice cracking into a roar:
"Where is Valt?!"
Lucius merely repeated with a taunting smirk:
"Not. Tel-ling."
At that very moment, Lucius suddenly felt a sharp, burning prickling right in the center of his chest, as if an invisible needle had pierced him from the inside. He took a sharp step to the side.
Right where his ribcage had been a second ago—and where his right arm ended up after the step—invisible spatial slashes sliced through the air with a whistle. A wet crackle echoed as Lucius's arm just above the elbow was instantly chopped into pieces, blood spurting from the wound.
Lucius snapped his gaze to the spot where Iron had just been standing, realizing he had vanished. He began looking around frantically, and at that moment felt the burning prickling in his chest again. A new salvo of spatial slashes flew at him from all directions. Lucius uncurled his fingers to activate teleportation, but the invisible spatial device in his hand unexpectedly sparked, manifesting in the air and glitching out of service.
Lucius broke into a zigzag sprint, trying to escape the deadly barrage. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Iron's silhouette and tried to wave him off, but another slash swished wildly across his left arm. The fabric of his jacket split open, and the arm hung limply on shreds of skin and muscle, barely held together by tendons.
With the last of his strength, the bleeding Lucius drove the remnant of his staff into the ground on the run.
In that same second, Iron materialized right in front of him. His blade entered Lucius's body with terrifying force, hacking him into several pieces.
Yet in the next moment, Lucius was standing a few meters away from him, slumping heavily onto one knee and clutching his bloody chest. He wheezed loudly and raggedly, staring at Iron.
"Damn it..." Lucius hissed, clenching his teeth. He's even more dangerous than Yan... And on top of that, he hasn't even used his skill yet...
Before he could finish the thought, a cold, emotionless voice sounded right behind his back:
"Did you really think I'd fall for such a pitiful illusion?"
However, Lucius, having anticipated in advance that Iron would be able to dispel the illusion, executed a side roll preemptively, barely dodging the lethal blow. Iron merely clicked his tongue in annoyance. Realizing that he had neither the time nor the desire for this, and with no telling what else he might pull, Iron said cold-bloodedly:
"Full power."
Lucius, hearing those words, swallowed, a smile appearing on his face:
"Bring it..."
In that exact moment, for Iron, everything around first flared up in unbelievably bright, vivid colors, and in the next instant, everything abruptly drained of color. His eyes changed color instantly, turning a gray-white.
His perception of time slowed to its absolute limit. Lucius, attempting to take a step back, appeared motionless, his movements stretched across endless seconds.
Iron drew himself up smoothly and took a step forward. He closed in flush against Lucius without effort, and with one precise, unhurried sweep of his sword, severed his neck. Lucius's head detached slowly from his shoulders, and Iron, for absolute certainty, impaled his heart as well, hacking his entire torso to pieces through and through.
Then Iron slowly closed his eyes. The skill deactivated.
A second later, he opened them. His eyes returned to their normal dark state. The world around regained its familiar colors and sounds.
Iron stood silently in the middle of the blood-drenched garden, staring at the lifeless, dismembered body of Lucius Feramir.