Chapter 31 : The Heart of the Sun

Rowan Calder and Elden Morven stood facing each other high above the arena, their auras of power radiating into the surrounding space. The air between them twisted and distorted beneath the pressure of their opposing forces, while faint ripples spread through the sky as though reality itself were struggling to withstand their presence.

After everything they had experienced together, after years of rivalry, countless battles, and an endless succession of victories and defeats, the day they had both anticipated had finally arrived.

Elden broke the silence first, a familiar smile spreading across his face.

"I always knew this day would come."

Rowan returned his gaze without a hint of hesitation. "Indeed. A fitting stage for us to settle once and for all who is the better one."

Neither of them needed to say anything more.

The moment their words faded, the final battle began.

Rowan moved first.

The air around him surged as he unleashed a torrent of flames, sending them roaring toward Elden in a blazing wave. The fire tore through the sky, illuminating the arena with fierce orange light as the temperature rose sharply in its wake. Against an ordinary opponent, such an attack would have been more than enough to force an immediate retreat.

Against almost anyone else, that opening attack would have been enough to force an immediate retreat.

Elden didn't even attempt to dodge.

The instant the flames touched his body, the darkness surrounding him opened like the mouth of a ravenous beast. In the blink of an eye, it swallowed the entire attack, consuming the fire so completely that not even its heat remained. A few thin strands of black smoke drifted between the two combatants before fading into nothingness.

Rowan clicked his tongue inwardly.

Right. I'd almost forgotten how annoying that ability is.

The darkness around Elden deepened, devouring the light and warmth in its vicinity until his figure seemed to stand within a void that had swallowed a fragment of the night sky.

His devouring ability was troublesome, to say the least. As long as he could continue consuming the fundamental energy permeating the surrounding space, his reserves would never truly run dry.

And against a mage?

The more power his opponent unleashed, the more fuel Elden received.

In other words, attacking him recklessly was practically the same as feeding him.

A cold smile appeared on Elden's face as he extended one hand toward Rowan's chest.

Darkness erupted from his palm.

It was no ordinary blast of black energy. The force seemed to erase whatever it touched, stripping away the very existence of the things caught in its path. Space warped before it, and layers of air shattered like invisible sheets of glass as the attack surged toward Rowan.

Rowan's eyes widened for an instant before he twisted in midair and raised his left arm.

"Earth Barrier!"

Dozens of layers of rock materialized before him, forming one after another in rapid succession. Powerful currents of air compressed them together, reinforcing each layer until they became a colossal wall of stone suspended in the sky.

The wave of darkness struck.

The entire arena trembled.

The first layers of rock disintegrated, followed by the second and third, each crumbling as effortlessly as sand beneath a rising tide. The darkness continued to advance, consuming everything in its path. With every layer Elden devoured, the aura surrounding him grew denser, while the stone barrier gradually lost its color, turning black before dissolving into the darkness gathered around his hand.

Rowan's expression twisted.

"Damn it! Deconstructing elemental structures is just cheating!"

He quickly understood that meeting the attack with brute force would accomplish nothing. Every additional surge of energy he poured into the barrier merely gave Elden more material to consume. The stronger his defense became, the more effectively he was feeding his opponent.

It was an absurdly frustrating ability.

Fortunately, Rowan had never been the sort of man who insisted on solving every problem by pushing harder against it.

Just as the wave of darkness broke through the final layers of his barrier, Rowan was no longer there.

Elden's smile faltered.

"...Huh?"

He glanced at the empty space before him.

"Where did you go?"

The answer came from behind him.

"You rely so heavily on your ability to devour things that you've forgotten something important. A battle isn't always decided by whoever possesses the greater amount of energy."

Elden spun around, but Rowan was already standing behind him, one palm pressed against his back.

"Freeze!"

The temperature plunged below zero.

Ice spread across Elden's body in an instant, creeping over his limbs and locking his movements in place. At the same time, enormous currents of wind coiled around him, compressing the frozen layers and tightening the restraint until his entire body was trapped within a prison of ice and compressed air.

Rowan didn't stop there.

He raised his other hand toward the heavens.

Clouds gathered overhead, rapidly thickening as electrical charges accumulated within them. Blue flashes illuminated the horizon, and thunder rolled across the sky with increasing intensity. The atmosphere darkened beneath the approaching storm, creating the impression that some ancient calamity was preparing to descend upon the battlefield.

"I won't let you absorb this attack."

Rowan closed his fingers.

The temperature surrounding Elden rose violently, only to plunge back toward freezing in the very next instant. The cycle repeated at an absurd speed, generating enormous fluctuations in pressure and temperature. Air expanded and contracted, the ice around Elden groaned under the strain, and the surrounding space trembled as Rowan forced the elements into a rapidly escalating state of instability.

Then the lightning descended.

KRAAAAAAAAAA-KOOOOOOM!

Light swallowed everything.

The heavens shook beneath the impact, and shock waves burst outward in every direction. A vast cloud of steam and dust billowed across the arena, obscuring the combatants and turning the battlefield into a churning mass of white vapor and scattered debris.

Rowan remained suspended in the air, breathing slightly harder than before, his gaze fixed on the center of the explosion.

He had deliberately combined all five elements, switching between different forms of energy to keep Elden from focusing on any single one. The violent changes in temperature, pressure, and elemental composition were meant to overwhelm his opponent before he could adapt.

It was a calculated gamble.

It was Rowan's best chance to end the battle before Elden's devouring ability became even more dangerous.

But then—

Slow, deliberate applause emerged from within the smoke.

Clap.

Clap.

Clap.

Rowan's body stiffened.

The smoke parted, revealing Elden standing almost exactly where the explosion had struck. Parts of his clothing had been destroyed, and several wounds marked his body, but his aura had not diminished.

If anything, it had grown stronger.

The black energy surrounding him was denser than ever, so concentrated that light began bending around its edges in unnatural ways. The space around him seemed to sink inward, as though an invisible abyss had opened beneath the surface of reality.

Elden raised his head.

The smile on his face was unlike any Rowan had seen before.

"Impressive."

He paused, glancing at his own palm as though examining something interesting.

Black fissures began spreading through the air around him, extending farther and farther until they seemed to reach across the sky itself. The cracks were not merely visual distortions. They resembled wounds in the fabric of space, spreading through the surrounding reality as Elden's power continued to rise.

"All the elements depend on primordial energy to take shape," he said calmly. "What do you think will happen if I devour that energy?"

The next instant, the wind died.

The clouds stopped moving.

The remaining flames scattered across the battlefield flickered and went out, while the fragments of rock suspended in the air lost their luster and crumbled into black dust. The arena, which had moments ago been consumed by a storm of elemental destruction, fell into an unnatural stillness.

Rowan felt something tugging at his power.

It was subtle at first, like a distant current pulling against his body. Then the sensation grew stronger, and he realized that the five elements he had commanded for so long were beginning to slip away from his control. The energy that allowed him to manipulate fire, water, earth, wind, and lightning was being drawn out of the surrounding space before he could gather it.

For the first time since the battle began, a genuine chill ran down his spine.

Elden was not merely absorbing his attacks anymore.

He was consuming the very energy Rowan depended upon to control the elements.

A quiet laugh escaped Elden's lips. He spread his arms, and the darkness surrounding him gathered into the shape of two enormous wings that stretched across the sky.

"Now..." His voice carried through the unnatural silence. "Show me how you'll fight when you're no longer capable of using your power."

Rowan clenched his fists and took a deep breath.

For a moment, he remained still, feeling the pressure of Elden's ability pressing against him from every direction. The elemental energy around the battlefield was being consumed at an alarming rate, and continuing to rely on his usual methods would only make the situation worse.

Then the tension disappeared from his face.

A small smile replaced it.

"Who told you I rely on the five elements alone?"

Elden's laughter stopped.

For the first time since the battle began, he felt that his senior brother was concealing something far more significant than anything he had revealed so far.

Rowan took another deep breath.

Then his heart began to beat.

The sound was not particularly loud, yet Elden felt it deep within his soul, as though a colossal heart were beating somewhere beyond the boundaries of the world itself.

The space surrounding Rowan trembled.

Its layers rippled with increasing intensity, and thin threads of golden light began seeping through the cracks that appeared across his skin. The light was faint at first, barely visible against the pressure of the two opposing auras, but it grew steadily brighter with every passing moment.

Another heartbeat.

BOOOOM!

An invisible wave swept through the void.

The lines of space bent around Rowan's body, curving toward him as though the surrounding reality had suddenly acquired a new center of gravity. For a fleeting instant, he seemed to cease existing as an ordinary being within the world. Instead, he appeared to have become a point around which the world's very laws revolved.

Elden's eyes widened.

"What the hell is that?"

Rowan raised his head. His eyes were now glowing with brilliant golden light, and the pressure radiating from his body had changed so dramatically that even the surrounding darkness seemed to hesitate.

"You can call it my trump card."

He paused, a weary smile crossing his face.

"The Heart of the Sun."