Chapter 41 - Chapter 41- Ascension of Madness

After Halo was blasted into the main chamber, crashing through marble, pillars, and sacred stone, the Dark Paladin's final strike sent him hurtling out into the courtyard beyond. Helios didn't even get the chance to reach for him. The instant Halo vanished from sight, Helios surged forward to exploit the opening, but Belanor moved first. Their weapons collided in a violent deadlock, Helios's blade pressing against Belanor's ceremonial war-club, raw mana crackling between them in snapping arcs of red and gold. Stone split beneath their feet. Air warped around their locked arms. Now locked in place, neither man yielding an inch, Helios found himself staring directly into the eyes of the one who had orchestrated the entire city's suffering. No more distractions. No more interruptions. Only Helios. And Belanor. Helios pushed off the clash first. With a sharp twist of his wrist, he broke the deadlock and leapt back, boots skidding across shattered marble. His blade dropped low, ready, eyes locked on Belanor's every movement. But Belanor didn't follow. The High Priest stood exactly where Helios had left him, club resting against his shoulder, shoulders relaxed, expression carved from stone. No pursuit. No rage. Not even a hint of urgency. Only calm… the kind that made Helios's instincts flare. Dust drifted between them. The chamber groaned under the weight of distant destruction. Helios steadied his stance. Belanor simply watched him, as if waiting. A slow, deliberate breath filled the silence. Both men knew the fight would continue, but something else had to be said first. The air thickened. The tension coiled. The conversation was inevitable. Helios exhaled. Belanor lifted his chin slightly. And the world went still as one of them finally opened his mouth to speak… Helios straightened, golden light simmering beneath his skin, pride coiling around him like a rising sun. His voice wasn't loud, but carried a certainty that made the broken chamber feel smaller. "I walk the path that cowards call delusion. Every dream begins as the impossible. Every miracle starts as madness. If the world calls me unreasonable, then let it, because I am the one who turns the impossible real." His blade lifted, humming with heat. "I am the roar that answers the cries of the innocent. The light carved into the heart of darkness. The will that refuses to bow. Hope incarnate… and the nightmare of every tyrant who thinks himself untouchable." The chamber brightened as his pride swelled into something ancient. "If fate demands a throne, then hear me. I will carve the road to it with my own hands. Not for glory… but for those behind me. Their fallen dreams… their future hopes… I carry them all." Helios settled into his stance, eyes unblinking. "So struggle. Struggle with everything you have. Because on this day, I decide how the sun rises." Belanor did not flare with power. He deepened, quietly, ominously, like a cathedral door closing on the world. "Brave child… walking the road to ascension with mortal legs." He took a single step, and the stone bowed beneath him. "Since the first dawn, no soul has stood in the true heavens. Not saint, nor king, nor even god." His ceremonial club angled slightly, a gesture that felt almost respectful. "Yet you speak of thrones and tomorrows." A faint, controlled smile crossed his face. "The throne above creation is empty for a reason." His gaze sharpened, divine and suffocating. "If you insist on climbing… know this, those who rise beside their dreams are fated to fall beside them. Your path is noble… but nobility is the shortest road to ruin." His presence pressed inward, warping the air itself. "So come, Helios. Let the sun test the heavens." Helios surged toward Belanor, sword in hand, mana pulsing violently through his limbs. Belanor raised his staff, voice echoing through the shattered chamber. "Leechstorm Cataclysm." A dark-purple magic circle bloomed behind him, then another, and another, until the air throbbed with corrupted light. As Helios continued his charge, massive leeches, each the size of a house, erupted from the circles in a crashing wave. Helios roared, weaving through the living onslaught. One leech lunged; he slipped past it and slashed across its side, carving it open in a spray of blackened ichor. More of the creatures surged from the portals. Helios leapt, landing atop one of the titanic leeches, sprinting along its back while dragging his blade through its flesh, splitting it open from spine to gut. A whole pool of leeches swarmed beneath him. From Belanor's perspective, it looked as if Helios was swallowed alive. But Belanor was wrong. Inside the mass, Helios tore through them like a man possessed, steel flashing, mana flaring, black flesh bursting apart around him. Belanor leveled his club-staff toward the frenzy. "Hexpiercer Volley." Six magic circles appeared midair and rotated toward Helios before unleashing a rapid storm of dark needles. Helios noticed the attack instantly. Without hesitation, he allowed one of the giant leeches to swallow him whole, using its armored hide as a shield. The needles tore the creature apart from the outside, sparing him. As the leech's body collapsed, Helios split it open from within, bursting out in a shower of shredded flesh. He didn't stop. Mana surged into his blade, and with a sweeping slash he cut the air itself, sending a barrage of flying mana blades screaming toward Belanor. Belanor didn't speak. His mana flared violently as he swung his staff upward, raising a massive earth wall that swallowed the attack in a thunderous crash. Gripping the staff with both hands, he vanished, teleporting to the cathedral's doorway behind Helios. Helios's instincts screamed. Instinct took over. He hurled his sword backward without even turning his head, the blade passing within inches of Belanor's arm, close enough to draw blood. Belanor snarled, a raw, guttural sound that cracked through the air, and vanished. Helios barely had time to turn before Belanor reappeared behind him. CRACK. The club slammed down onto Helios's collarbone, the force blasting him to one knee and sending a shockwave through the marble floor. Pain flared white-hot across his chest, but Helios grit his teeth, forcing air back into his lungs. This is it, he thought, eyes narrowing. This is my chance. If I get inside his guard, if I take that damn staff, he loses everything. Another blow came swinging, but this time Helios caught it on his forearm, muscle trembling against the impact. He's faster than he looks… but close-quarters? That's my territory. Helios shifted his stance, coiling like a spring. I'll break his rhythm. Strip the staff from his hands. And once he's disarmed, Belanor is nothing. Belanor didn't chant. Didn't gesture. Didn't call a spell. He just moved. The staff snapped toward Helios's jaw like a steel whip, CRACK! Helios barely dipped under it, but the second strike came immediately, the butt-end driving into his ribs. THUMP!! The impact knocked the breath clean out of him, lifting him off his feet before he crashed onto his back. Belanor was already on him. He drove the staff downward; Helios rolled, marble exploding where his head had just been. Belanor followed with a sweeping kick that Helios couldn't avoid, his shin smashing into Helios's temple, sending stars across his vision. Helios staggered, dizzy. Belanor didn't let up. He swung the staff horizontally, WHAM! It caught Helios in the liver, folding him over. Before Helios could fall, Belanor grabbed him by the face and slammed him against a pillar hard enough to crack the stone. Helios's legs buckled. Blood dripped from his mouth. Everything rang. Belanor's voice was low, cruel, almost disappointed. "Hand-to-hand with me? Foolish." He thrust the staff toward Helios's throat, Helios slapped it aside at the last second. Belanor twisted, reversing the grip, the staff spinning in a deadly arc aimed for Helios's temple. Helios ducked, barely. The staff passed over his hair, and Helios tightened his stance. Belanor thrust again. Helios caught the staff under his arm, locking it in place. Pain flared, his shoulder nearly dislocated, but he held it. Belanor's eyes widened. Helios grinned through blood. "Got you." He drove his forehead into Belanor's nose, CRACK! Belanor reeled backward, stunned. Helios didn't give him a breath. He stepped in, gathering every ounce of mana left in his fist, twisting his hips, THOOM!! His punch buried itself in Belanor's stomach. Deep. Clean. Devastating. Belanor's eyes shot wide as the force blasted him off the ground, the air around his body warping, distorting. Before his back even hit the floor, his form tore open in a burst of warped mana, and he vanished, teleporting away in a panic for the first time since the fight began. Helios stood there, arm shaking, chest heaving, blood dripping down his chin. Helios slapped himself across the face, hard. "MOVE!" he barked at himself. He sprinted across the ruined chamber, diving for his sword, and snatched it just as Belanor's fireball tore toward him. Helios swung. The fireball split cleanly in half, exploding behind him. Belanor rose into the air, hovering with cold fury burning behind his eyes. "Now you've done it… you damn beast." Helios's muscles swelled, mana flooding his veins. He leapt, using the cathedral wall as a springboard, launching himself toward Belanor's height, but something unseen smashed into him midair. BOOOOM!! Helios was blasted straight down, cratered into the stone floor. He groaned, coughing dust from his lungs. "You can use spells without chanting…? What a pain…" Belanor lifted his staff, and his free hand. The ground rumbled. Two massive walls of earth erupted on both sides of Helios, trapping him in a narrowing corridor. More magic circles flickered to life above him, six at first, then dozens. Belanor's voice boomed: "Hexpiercer Volley!" Helios looked up at the storm of death descending toward him and… Grinned. "Guess it's time to show my special technique." His mana flared as he spun his sword in his hand, feeling the weight, the balance, then hurled it at a precise angle. CLANG, CLANG, CLANG, CLANG!! The blade ricocheted violently between the stone walls, faster and faster, forming a spinning barrier of steel. Each pass intercepted the volley of needles, deflecting them, shattering them. The sword wasn't just protecting Helios from above, its pattern kept his entire back covered, making it impossible for Belanor to teleport behind him again. Helios laughed through the storm. "This attack won't work on me anymore. I've already seen it." Belanor's face twisted in disgust. "If I were you…" he snarled, "I'd thank your family tree, Helios." Belanor slowly turned his staff toward the distant corridor where Bow had once fought the Dark Paladin. "What fascinates me about magic," he said coldly, "is that anything… truly anything… is possible." The corpse twitched. Then snapped upright. Flesh bubbled. Bones cracked back into place. The fallen Paladin staggered forward as a towering zombie, its empty sockets burning with Belanor's mana. Helios smirked. "A two-on-one? That's a little mean." The last of the Hexpiercer needles struck his ricocheting sword barrier and dissipated. Helios snapped his fingers, shifting his stance. He angled the sword perfectly, CLANG!! It slammed into the ground and rocketed back upward with terrifying force. The blade carved straight through the zombie from bottom to top, splitting it cleanly in half. Helios snatched the sword out of the air as the two halves fell. But Belanor only smiled. He pointed at the ground beneath the bisected corpse. A massive magic circle ignited, its runes crawling across the marble like living fire. The zombie regenerated instantly, flesh knitting together, bones fusing, organs stitching back into the grotesque whole. Before Helios could react, the creature wrapped him in a crushing bear hug, locking his arms to his sides. Belanor's voice thundered: "EXPLOSION!" At that same moment, high above, Bow stood on the cathedral's spire. He had been preparing to leap, but the explosion hit first. KA-BOOM!! The cathedral erupted from the inside out. Flames. Debris. Shattered stone. A hurricane of rubble shot into the night sky. Bow staggered, startled, but his instincts clicked instantly. Stick to the plan. Move. The entire structure beneath him began collapsing from the detonation. Bow's legs swelled with power, veins glowing red-hot. He bent them, BOOM! And leapt with colossal force, launching himself upward like a rocket. Mana surged into his fist, burning violently. "BIG BANG!!" His arm expanded, musculature bulging, his mana output spiking to near-uncontrollable levels. He drove his fist straight toward the great crystal that powered the barrier. SHATTER!!! The crystal cracked, splintered, and then broke apart completely. Below, the citizens watched in horror as the cathedral, once sacred and eternal, erupted into a flaming ruin. Burning rubble speared through the sky, collapsing into streets, houses, and shops. Screams echoed through the city as fire rained down from the sky like shooting stars. Helios staggered, barely able to keep his balance as he pushed himself upright. Above him, Belanor hovered in the air, mana blazing off him in twisted waves. "THIS IS MY GLORIOUS POWER!" Belanor roared, laughter erupting from him, wild, broken, triumphant. Then, unexpectedly… Helios laughed too. A low chuckle at first… then a rising, unstable howl that matched Belanor's madness. "Hey, don't leave me out, man!" Helios barked between insane bursts of laughter. Both of them cackled like lunatics, their voices echoing through the ruined cathedral. Then Belanor suddenly stopped. He bit his lip hard enough to bleed. Because Helios wasn't laughing from confidence… or bravado… or arrogance. He was laughing through pain, burn marks seared across his skin, blood dripping down his forehead in thin crimson trails… and yet his smile only widened. For the first time since the battle began, Belanor felt fear. Helios wiped blood from his eye, still grinning like a demon. "You know what's funny?" he said, voice shaking with adrenaline. "I finally figured out how to move the earth without spells. Turns out all you need…" His mana exploded outward, violent and erratic, tearing cracks into the ground beneath him. "…is a strong imagination." Helios's smile sharpened. "Belanor, get ready!" He took one step. BOOM! The ground broke beneath him. Helios launched himself forward at blinding speed. Belanor fired spells left and right, dark bolts, fire bursts, razored mana waves, but Helios weaved through them, adapting with every motion. He was beginning to feel mana. To shape it. To understand it. A memory flashed in his mind, Malvek's voice echoing: "This is creation. I used my mana to pull hydrogen and oxygen from the air and shape it into water. Once created, you can command it… make it move… change… attack." Helios's eyes went wide. He shouted into the storm of spells: "THE ANSWER WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME THE WHOLE TIME!" Belanor raised his staff, eyes wide with divine fury. "HEAVENLY ARSENAL! BEAMS OF HEAVEN'S LIGHT!" A deafening hum filled the air. Dozens of magic circles snapped into existence around Helios, above him, around him, and even under his feet. Helios only grinned, wild and unhinged. The beams fired. Lances of holy light erupted in every direction, tearing the cathedral apart. Helios bent the earth beneath him, shaping it like clay under his feet. He slid through cracks in the beam pattern, twisting the ground to throw himself sideways, backward, upward, moving through impossibly thin slivers of space. The beams kept firing, but Helios was too fast, too fluid, too unpredictable. He leapt into the open air, "RISE!" he commanded. A pillar of earth exploded upward, carrying him with it. Helios stabbed his sword into the side of the pillar and rode it like a lift, climbing higher and higher as more beams of heavenly light tried to snipe him out of the sky. One beam struck the column, BOOM! The entire structure shattered into floating debris. Helios dropped, landing on a chunk of broken stone midair. He steadied himself, eyes locking on Belanor… Then he sprang, launching off the rock like a cannonball fired from a warship. Belanor's pupils shrank. Fear crept up his spine. Helios shot toward him like a meteor. Belanor screamed: "RADIANT LIGHT!!" He thrust his staff forward. A massive beam of concentrated light slammed into Helios mid-flight, blasting him backward and hurling him across the battlefield. Belanor didn't let up for a second, he kept firing, beams streaking across the sky, each one forcing Helios farther and farther away. Helios tried to regain control. But then, a circle flared beneath him. Belanor snarled: "Got you." A spell had materialized directly under Helios's feet, a trap meant to catch him midair. Helios saw the trap trigger beneath him, the spell circle flaring open like a blooming flower. He reacted instantly. He slammed mana into his sword and drove it down. The blade overloaded the circle, short-circuiting it in a burst of sparks and broken runes. Helios grinned. "I know how to beat this guy now." He hit the ground running, literally, charging forward as more magic circles sparked around him. Belanor tried to activate them instantly… But Helios was already moving. He spun his sword in his hand, the ricochet technique flaring to life. Before the spells could even fire, Helios would strike the circles mid-formation, shattering their structure. His sword bounced from point to point, CLANG! Two circles destroyed. KRACK! Six gone. SHATTER! Thirteen in a single run. Helios cut through the cathedral like a storm, disabling Belanor's spells before they could manifest. Belanor's eyes widened in panic. "TIER SIX MAGIC!" He raised his staff skyward. "I SUMMON… ROT TITAN!" The ground split open. A colossal undead monster, giant, towering, stitched with extra limbs, dragged itself out of the earth. Grotesque, rotting, and impossibly huge. Belanor screamed: "HOW DID HE ADAPT SO QUICKLY!? HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!?" Helios didn't stop. He charged straight for the titan. As the creature reared back, Helios hurled his sword upward like a spear. The blade struck the titan straight in the head, burying deep. Because the sword was already overflowing with Helios's mana, he commanded it with a single order: "Expand." Mana detonated outward inside the titan's skull, a shock that stunned the massive undead, freezing its movements. Helios sprinted, leapt, and landed on one of its giant, multi-jointed limbs. He ran up the rotting flesh with insane balance, reached the head, and yanked his sword free in a spray of necrotic ichor. Then he looked toward Belanor. A sick, twisted smile stretched across Helios's blood-covered face. "Hey, Belanor…" His voice was low, wild, almost amused. "Is this what it feels like… to be so powerful?" Belanor's breath hitched. His panic surged so violently that his magic collapsed. The Rot Titan convulsed, then fell apart in a heap of rotting limbs. Belanor swung his staff in desperation, but Helios was already there. CRACK!! Helios's sword came down like a guillotine, slicing the staff in half with one brutal strike. Belanor didn't even have time to scream before Helios grabbed him by the collar and ripped him out of the air, slamming him into the marble floor with bone-shattering force. Belanor's body bounced off the ground. He scrambled backward, dragging himself with trembling hands. "HOW!? HOW?!" he shrieked, voice cracking. "How did you find this much power?! How did you find peace? I took your parents, your life! I SHOULD HAVE SCARRED YOU FOREVER!" Helios's manic grin slowly collapsed into a cold, heavy frown. He stepped toward Belanor, each footfall deliberate. "You don't understand a thing… do you, Belanor?" His voice was quiet. Steady. Deadly. "Scars heal over time. And I was lucky… lucky enough to meet people who carried me to this moment." Belanor's face twisted with hatred. "Scars don't heal, boy." His voice dripped venom. "It's YOU. Your race. I was right to wipe out your tribe. All of you are monsters." Helios's expression curdled into pure disgust. Belanor lunged with a sloppy punch, Helios simply stepped aside. And then, one clean motion. Belanor's arm hit the ground. The High Priest collapsed, screaming, trying to crawl away on one arm and two shattered legs. Helios didn't chase. He walked. Slowly. Purposefully. He picked up Belanor's severed limb… and slid the ring off the limp finger, the same ring Belanor once forced Helios to kiss in the underground temple. Helios knelt down just enough for Belanor to see it. "Kiss my ring." Belanor, shaking, eyes full of tears and terror, crawled forward. He pressed his lips to the ring, the same humiliating gesture he once used to break others. Helios's voice dropped to a whisper. "Go ahead… and rot." His foot snapped forward. Helios front-kicked Belanor square in the chest. Bone collapsed inward. Air left his lungs in a single choked gasp. Belanor fell, wheezing, barely alive. Helios stepped onto his legs, CRRRAACK!! CRRRAAACK!! Both shattered under his heel. Belanor screamed until his voice broke, left in a mangled heap, unable to stand, unable to flee… Left to rot, exactly as Helios commanded. Belanor dragged himself across the rubble, leaving a trail of blood behind him. His breathing was ragged, broken… desperate. Then his shaking hand brushed something metal. A cup. A chalice. The Chalice of Bedlam. Belanor's eyes widened. Then he began to chuckle. A wet, delirious, pain-strangled laugh. Helios turned, confused, sword still dripping with Belanor's blood. Belanor scooped up the Chalice with trembling fingers and pressed it to the stump of his severed arm. Blood poured freely, filling the cup with thick, dark crimson. His laughter turned into screaming. "PAIN! THE PAIN!" he howled. "My arms… my legs… each lies a bloody ruin!" He stared up at Helios with wild, bloodshot eyes. "HELIOS! VILE LION OF THE D TRIBE! TERROR INCARNATE!" His voice cracked, the words ripping out of his throat. "THERE IS LIFE IN ME YET!" Helios watched warily as Belanor raised the Chalice to his lips, blood overflowing from its edges. "I WILL SOON FEAST UPON YOUR HEART!" He pointed the stump of his arm at Helios. "MARK MY WORDS, LION D. HELIOS, YOU WILL KNOW FEAR!" Belanor lifted the Chalice as high as his broken body would allow. The air warped. The temperature dropped. Something ancient… something wrong stirred. Belanor screamed at the sky: "I OFFER UP MY OWN LIFE!" His voice boomed unnaturally. "MY OWN SOUL! MY VERY BEING!" The Chalice ignited with black and red flame. "I SACRIFICE MYSELF, FOR THE DRAGON OF BLOOD AND BLACK FLAMES TO RISE AGAIN!" The ground shook violently. Magic poured out of the Chalice like molten shadow. Belanor's final scream tore his throat apart: "UMBRAZOR!! THE CURSED DRAGON FEARED BY ALL!!" The Chalice shattered. The world went dark. And Belanor began to convulse. His back arched. His remaining arm slammed against the stone. Veins burst across his skin like black lightning. Then his body swelled. Not like muscle… Not like mana… Like something inside him was pushing outward, fighting to escape. His torso ballooned grotesquely. CRRRAACK!! Bones snapped as his ribcage expanded. Belanor screamed, a sound that didn't belong to anything human, as his spine lengthened and twisted. Black flame poured from his mouth, his eyes, the stumps of his chopped limbs. His flesh bubbled. His silhouette warped. Something enormous pressed against the inside of his skin, stretching it like a cocoon ready to burst. A long, serpent-like shadow formed beneath him, rising through his body. Helios's eyes widened. A scaled limb erupted from Belanor's shoulder. Then another from his back. Then jagged spines tore through his spine. Belanor's voice was now layered, part human, part ancient monster: "I! AM! REBORN!" His lower jaw split apart, elongating into a monstrous snout. His torso expanded again, reshaping into a dragon's chest. Wings formed from torn flesh, dripping shadow. Black flames spiraled around him as the beast emerged. Belanor didn't just summon the dragon. He fused with it. Umbrazor, the Cursed Dragon of Blood and Black Flames, ripped his way into the world through Belanor's mutating body. The cathedral walls collapsed from the shockwave. A massive draconic head, half-skeletal, half-living obsidian, rose from the ruin, Belanor's voice still echoing somewhere within the trembling beast. The newly fused abomination roared, shaking the entire city. Helios stared up, sweating, exhausted, bruised, but still standing. He exhaled. "…Dang." He ran a bloody hand through his hair. "I really forgot about the cup." The dragon's eyes snapped open, twin furnaces of black fire.