Final Book

3

Hadjar, with his Blue Blade singing the song of the storm, stepped up the attack once more, each swing conjuring silhouettes of the Quetzal bird sharp enough to sever the threads weaving the constellations together. The very air around him turned into a vortex, a storm of energy and mysteries that threatened to consume everything in its path. The lightning, driven by the call of the storm, turned into sword swings that struck again and again at the heart of the enemy. They clashed amid a swirl of constellations that, for a moment, looked not like mere beasts, but like the silhouettes of warriors and mages.

The Guardian retreated for a moment, shining as brightly as Irmaril or Miristal, and constellations streamed down her robes. With every movement of her blade, she wove the night sky itself into beautiful and deadly contours. The constellations she summoned wrapped themselves around the myriad hosts of the heavens, and each of their movements harmonized perfectly with her own, as if the Guardian and her creatures shared a single mind.

Hadjar gritted his teeth as he endured the onslaught of dozens of star giants trying to smash, devour, and tear apart his storm, but the General didn’t even think about retreating.

Chapter 1903

Their battle shook the valley in a mad frenzy. Hadjar’s storm fought against dozens of the Guardian’s glowing constellations, creating explosions of light and sound. The earth cracked and groaned beneath them. For each storm the General summoned, the Guardian responded with a flurry of stars: her celestial creatures were equal to the storm’s power.

It was the least that could be expected from someone who had guarded the way to the Seventh Heaven for centuries. She was one of the most powerful of the Ancients who inhabited the Nameless World, someone who had been born with enough power to stop any intruder.

And yet, amidst the chaos of their battle, there was a certain regularity. Hadjar, realizing that the brute force of his Therna, mysteries, and Rule alone could not defeat his opponent, began to weave complex patterns with his Blue Blade. His attacks became slower and less powerful, but more accurate, aimed at breaking the Guardian’s concentration and forcing her to make mistakes in her endless web of constellation patterns.

The General summoned more and more storms, which turned into whirlwinds and tornadoes, showering the constellations with lightning and the silhouettes of the Quetzal bird, only to be replaced by feints. Hadjar would often act like he was trying to close the distance between them, only to then retreat as quickly as possible and attack from afar. It was all designed to confuse his opponent.

The Guardian, for her part, adapted to the changed battle pattern with no small amount of cunning and grace, as if she, too, had the experience of someone who’d fought countless battles. Recognizing the change in Hadjar’s tactics, she changed her strategy as well: instead of unleashing a barrage of attacks, her constellations took their time to go on the defensive.

The Guardian summoned a Star Phoenix, whose flames were perhaps only slightly inferior to Ash’s own. Once they found themselves inside it, most of the General’s attacks burned away in a matter of moments. A second later, a Star Bear rose up on its hind legs, shielding its mistress and taking the rest of the storm with it.

In this maelstrom of endless attacks and counterattacks, where the forces of the wind and stars collided, everything around them vibrated and shook, and there was no doubt that if this battle hadn’t been taking place here, on the border between mortals and gods, but even in a place like the Land of the Immortals, its echoes alone would’ve destroyed anyone who might’ve dared to witness it.

And so, time passed, and the valley itself remained the sole spectator of their duel. The land, torn apart by the fury of the storm and scorched by the heavenly fire, was riddled with a hundred cracks and dozens of pits. The air was filled with the roar of the storm and the whisper of the stars. The two warriors fought on without a word.

Except that, as powerful as the Guardian was, it was unlikely that she’d come across more than a few people she could fight around here. The General, on the other hand, had spent far more time in battle than he would have liked.

Amid the howling of the wind and the crackling of his own lightning, Hadjar sensed a subtle change in the Guardian. Her movements, once a smooth flow of attack and evasion, suddenly changed their pattern. She was directing her energy, focusing not on the canvas made up of hundreds of stars, but on a single, shining point in the sky. All of the General’s instincts screamed at once that the Guardian was about to use her Law to its fullest.

The Guardian was preparing to unleash a power similar to what Ash had used in desperation. Upon realizing this, Hadjar gathered the full power of the storm, reached out to every corner of it, grabbed each of the lightning bolts, and absorbed them, making his Blue Blade shine as bright as the stars.

The Guardian, however, turned away from the sky and flashed as bright as the dawn. In a single motion, she brought her sword down into a mighty s***h, and an endless ocean of light rained down from the sky. All around her, even fifty paces away, the light pierced, shattered, and turned everything to dust.

Hadjar, who was standing in the shadow of his own blade that was unfurling the wings of the wind, did not retreat. With a roar that echoed the power of the storm, he channeled all his might into his Blue Blade, and his sword became the embodiment of the northern storm. He struck the Guardian’s Ocean of Light with an attack so powerful that it seemed to sunder the air itself. A cascade of piercing lightning bolts and slashing gusts of freezing wind surged out from his blade.