It was beginning to make sense what the Tower Lord meant by another world.

The barrier created solely for Roderon Edelvine would never permit his death.

However, this was also a barrier that would never have been activated without my consent.

“The Tower Lord said that he couldn’t kill you inside this place.”

“Ha! You’re next, old man!”

As he gestured into the air, dazzling gemstones began to rise one by one, glowing in a spectrum of colors.

A crimson ruby.

A deep blue sapphire.

A golden topaz.

A lush green emerald.

And finally, a violet amethyst.

“Are these tributes you plan to offer your king?”

“Hah, let’s see how long you can keep up that noble act. Burn my enemies to ashes.”

As the amethyst shattered, an all-too-familiar power manifested.

A linguistic spell woven through gemstone magic.

The moment the incantation ended, the rest of the gemstones shattered in unison, bursting into radiant light.

‘I’ll handle this with magic for now.’

The attack was menacing but not fatal—at least, not immediately. Magic alone should be enough to counter it.

My artifacts deployed all at once, and a staff found its way into my grip.

They say a master doesn’t rely on tools.

But when those tools happen to be among the most powerful relics in existence, that saying doesn’t quite apply.

Among the artifacts in my possession, many were defensive, but they were all designed for knights, warriors—those who engaged enemies up close.

Not a single one was meant to block magic.

And for one simple reason.

“Even the wrath of the heavens is but a mere spear in my hands.”

Magic is best countered with magic.

The gemstone-based incantation, enhanced by incomplete linguistic spells, clashed against my elemental magic, reinforced by relics of the highest order.

“Pierce through.”

When his first attack failed, Roderon swiftly changed tactics.

Singular focus.

Countless gemstones floated into the air before shattering, merging into an enormous spear.

This one is dangerous.

In a battle between mages, dodging an attack isn’t an option.

If you had the agility to evade a mage’s strike, you wouldn’t be a mage—you’d be a master of martial arts.

That meant I had only two choices: block it or counter it.

‘This is going to be difficult.’

Even if Roderon was merely a toy in the hands of the Tower Lord, a Grand Magus was still a Grand Magus.

In pure mastery of magic alone, I was still beneath the Tower Lord.

And compared to Roderon… I wasn’t particularly superior, either.

Then again, he was a 300-year-old monster, so it wasn’t exactly surprising.

‘Not that it matters.’

“Your spear will never reach me.”

“Nonsense. My spear will pierce right through you.”

Fire. Lightning. Ice. Earth. Wind. Water.

The swirling elements coalesced within the spear, blending together until they fused into a single entity—a shimmering weapon of ever-shifting colors.

“Ten Thousand Forms?”

“Yeah, just a rough imitation of the Tower Lord’s technique.”

For a mere human to see and mimic the greatest magician’s ultimate spell in a single glance—Roderon was undeniably a genius.

Then again, without that level of talent, he would never have dared to challenge the Empire in the first place.

“Even now, I offer you a choice. Swear fealty to me. Your crimes are great enough to warrant the extermination of your entire bloodline, but I will grant you mercy…”

His talent was tempting enough to extend an offer.

But the arrogant fool didn’t even wait to hear me out before hurling his spear.

Tsk.

The spear of light tore through space the moment it was launched, folding the distance in an instant and arriving right before my eyes.

Chizizizik—!

With a sharp, crackling sound, it began to dissipate.

“I told you, didn’t I? Your spear will never reach me.”

A predictable outcome. My lips curled into a smirk, while Roderon’s face hardened.

Unless he fancied himself Arhan, a descendant of dragons, that is.

The words of a mere Edelvine king—what power could they possibly hold before an emperor’s decree?

Still, at least he wasn’t a complete fool. Instead of blurting out a pointless why, he silently floated even more gemstones into the air.

“You know it’s useless.”

He didn’t respond. He merely continued to raise gemstones, unwavering.

Before long, the entire barrier was filled with them.

“I’ll show you the pinnacle of gemstone magic.”

“That so-called pinnacle… is just an overwhelming number of—oh?”

I was about to dismiss it as a mere numbers game.

But then, Roderon reached out, and all of the gemstones began to merge.

It was a sight to behold—an entire barrier’s worth of gemstones compressing into a single, minuscule gem.

These weren’t just ordinary gemstones.

Each and every one of them had been imbued with amplification magic.

And if all those amplifications were stacked into one…?

Even a Grand Magus had limits to how much power they could channel.

But this—this was enough to be called the ultimate form of gemstone magic.

The gemstones, once shimmering in every conceivable color, lost their hues as they fused into one.

In the end, only a single, crystal-clear diamond remained.

There was no complex high-order sorcery within it.

No profound truths or intricate formulas.

Just an unfathomable, incalculable amplification—a bomb beyond measure.

“Die.”

Not an incantation.

Just a declaration of intent.

With that single word, Roderon gripped the newly formed diamond and clenched his fist.

A gem that seemed unbreakable against any attack turned to dust in its master’s grasp.

“Eternal, unyielding ice—shield me. May it never melt, never shatter.”

And then, an enormous explosion erupted.

———————————————————————

In the end, my barrier shattered.

“Kuh…!”

For the first time in a long while, I coughed up blood from internal injuries.

But ultimately, I didn’t die.

Unlike me, Roderon was unscathed. Yet his expression darkened.

He must have realized now—if even his trump card couldn’t kill me, then he had no other options left.

“Roderon, last king of Edelvine. I believe I’ve given you all the courtesy you deserve. Now, be broken.”

The barrier that stretched over the empire vanished at the command of the land’s rightful master.

As I stepped out and surveyed my surroundings, the scene before me was grim.

The King of Tamiel lay dead, his head severed.

Beside him, a charred corpse—presumably a silver-haired mage—was barely recognizable.

A knight wielding a crimson greatsword still clung to life, bleeding profusely as he struggled to remain standing.

“Your Majesty…”

“Vern…”

Perhaps he had endured solely to look upon his lord one last time.

When the Red Greatsword Knight saw me walking alongside Roderon, he let his guard down completely, shifting his gaze toward his king.

And in that fleeting moment of weakness—

The Duke of Fael took his head.

Thud.

As his final retainer fell, his severed head rolling across the blood-soaked ground, Roderon finally bowed his head in defeat.

“It’s over now, Roderon.”

“… In the end, Edelvine could not surpass Arhan.”

His voice was hollow.

I simply nodded in silence.

With his head still lowered, Edelvine let out a hollow laugh.

“… Ha… ha…”

“In five hundred years, no one has ever inflicted such a wound upon the empire as you have. Take pride in that, and die well.”

“Hahaha…”

Seeing him resigned to his fate, I raised my staff, preparing to grant him a swift and dignified end.

As a final gesture of respect for a worthy opponent…

“Ah… hahaha. Hahahaha. Hahahahahaha! Hahahahahahahahahaha!”

“…What?”

Had he gone mad?

For all his arrogance, he had at least carried himself with some dignity until now.

“Tsk. Roderon, last king of Edelvine. Do not disgrace yourself any further.”

“Disgrace? Yes. That’s exactly what this is. A wretched disgrace. To fail like this—all because of my damn pride.”

…What?

The moment he spoke those words, a black mist began to swirl beside him.

A foul, unnatural mist—one that exuded a sense of corruption and foreboding just from sight alone.

“Your Majesty!”

At the first sign of the mist, Duke Fael swung his sword, but he was too late.

The black mist engulfed Roderon before the blade could strike.

“Arhan… you accursed descendant of the black dragon. Edelvine has failed. But I will not.”

“…Who are you?”

The being standing before me was no longer Roderon Edelvine.

“It doesn’t matter, you damned lizard’s spawn.”

The thing wearing Roderon’s skin reached out toward me.

Yet something held it back—its hand halted in midair, unable to fully extend.

“Not yet… Ending Arhan is my right, not yours! I have not failed—not yet!”

The black mist condensed at his command, solidifying into a black gemstone.

A gemstone that shimmered with a dark, almost paradoxically luminous glow—something that defied all known laws.

“I am Edelvine. I am Roderon Edelvine.”

As if reaffirming his own identity, he floated the gemstone before him.

Though it still carried that ominous, cursed aura—

It was undeniably a gemstone.

“I have shown disgrace, Arhan.”

“Yes. You have, Edelvine.”

“I will hold nothing back. I will use everything at my disposal to kill you and burn the empire to the ground.”

“If you can, that is.”

The black gemstone, brimming with the essence of death itself, had transformed into a spear aimed directly at me.

That was no ordinary Edelvine gemstone magic.

There was divine power embedded within it.

The ominous black energy wasn’t a construct of magical formulae.

No, it was the very essence of its wielder’s mana itself.

Not the refined aura of a master, but raw mana infused with the unique will of its owner?

That… That should have been impossible.

There was only one kind of energy I knew that carried its owner’s nature like this.

Divine power.

It was a sacrilege to even compare this dark, foreboding energy to Kiriya’s divine radiance, but the essence was eerily similar.

“This is the Empire. No god shall ever reign above the Emperor.”

At my words, the black energy flickered—waning slightly, though not disappearing entirely.

Would a mere spell be enough to stop that spear?

No.

Then how?

Divine power, in the end, was simply mana infused with the will of its wielder.

Kiriya’s was bright and serene.

This was ominous and dark.

As the spears of death flew toward me, I did not cast a spell.

Instead, I simply drew upon my own mana and let it flow around me.

My mana shimmered with a deep royal violet—the symbol of the Arhan Imperial Family.