The cold blizzard tore past Alzer as he struggled to flap his black-feathered wings. Freezing cold seeped into his bones, and each breath left a trail of white mist.
Before him loomed the legendary Eternal Freezing Mountain — where the Snow Phoenix, one of the four legendary deities, had fallen. It was immense, so vast that Alzer looked no larger than a speck of dust against it. Despite the brutal temperature, he refused to give up. He endured the cold and kept his wings beating.
Suddenly, a massive fireball came hurtling toward him. Alzer's expression shifted instantly as he wrenched his direction and dodged. The fireball struck the treeline and exploded, carving out a large crater and leaving behind a wake of charred timber.
He exhaled slowly, turning to look behind him. A silhouette was closing in at lightning speed. In an instant, it resolved into a blue-robed young man who hovered in the air, eyes fixed on Alzer.
The young man had golden hair and a pair of golden eyes. An elegant smile rested on his face. His lips moved, and a voice slid directly into Alzer's mind. "Just give up and let me kill you. You know the Royal Court will never permit someone with a dark magic affinity to live."
Alzer let out a long sigh. "It seems you hid your true ability, Almond."
Almond — the blue-robed man — narrowed his eyes and replied with indifference. "That's thanks to you. You concealed your ability, so I concealed mine. It seems the years I spent training in secret have finally paid off."
When Alzer heard this, memories of their rivalry surfaced. Both had been exceptionally talented, and both had entered the Royal Court at a young age. In truth, Almond had known all along that he practiced dark magic — Alzer had told him so long ago, fully prepared to be captured at the time. Strangely, Almond had never exposed him, which had left Alzer utterly confused.
"I'm very curious," Alzer said, steadying his gaze on his long-time rival. "Why expose me now, and not back then?"
"Where is the Book of Chaos?"
The question landed like a stone. Alzer finally understood what was happening. He smiled bitterly. "Where did you hear about that?"
"As the Prince of Uyzher Kingdom, I have my ways," Almond replied, his tone carrying little pride in the fact.
Alzer nodded and said nothing further. He opened his palms and muttered in an ancient tongue. A black magic circle materialized from nothing, and from its surface rose a black book wreathed in crackling demonic lightning.
He took hold of the book as the magic circle dissolved. He looked at his old friend with a teasing smile. "Is this what you want?"
The moment Almond laid eyes on it, undisguised greed flickered across his face. His gaze locked onto the Book of Chaos as though glancing away would cause it to vanish. Then he met Alzer's teasing smile, and confusion crept into his expression. "Why are you smiling?"
"Hehe — do you think I have no way to protect myself? How foolish." Alzer's demeanor shifted, something colder rising beneath the surface. "As a mage who wields one of the nine forbidden elements, I have survived more calamities than you can imagine. Did you really think I concealed my affinity this long by luck? Naive."
Without waiting for a response, Alzer flipped through the book to a specific page. He raised his arms and chanted an ancient incantation. The sky darkened. The blizzard intensified into something ferocious, uprooting trees and triggering a rolling avalanche.
Almond's expression broke. "Not good!"
The words had barely left his mouth when a bolt of demonic lightning split from the churning clouds and struck him with blinding speed. He shrieked in pain and dropped from the sky like a kite with a severed string.
Alzer pressed the advantage, hurling bolt after bolt of demonic lightning down at him.
Almond's body crashed into the snow below, black smoke curling off his frame. His robes were burnt and shredded, his hair wild and disheveled.
Before he could recover, Alzer spread his wings and launched toward the mountain peak. But the moment he moved, a crescent-shaped ray of light sliced across his arm. He lurched downward — and a second ray cut through his leg.
He slammed into a tree trunk. Blood poured into the snow. Alzer looked up and saw a group of figures suspended in the sky, each one armed with a sword — and each one a perfect copy of the other, down to their black-and-white hair pulled back in identical knots.
"Sword Saint!" Alzer screamed.
The figures dissolved into smoke, leaving only a single individual behind — the true body from which every clone had sprung. Sword Saint offered no words. He raised his arm and swept it forward, unleashing dozens of streaking sword lights.
Alzer tried to rise but his arm and leg had already been severed at the joints. As the sword lights bore down on him, madness lit his eyes. He clenched the Book of Chaos in his remaining hand, shut his eyes, and chanted two words in reverse: "Noitcurtsed! Noitanracnier!"
His eyes snapped open. A colossal purple magic circle erupted across the ground beneath him, intricate patterns blazing across its surface, and from its center a pillar of violet light punched through the sky.
The sword lights arrived a heartbeat later, tearing through Alzer's flesh. Body parts were sent tumbling through the air. Blood sprayed. His organs were now visible to the open air.
Alzer groaned through clenched teeth and refused to fall. He dropped to his knees, pressing his remaining hand flat against the ground. "Go…"
The pillar of light continued to expand, its brightness climbing until Alzer's entire body was swallowed in purple radiance. His control over his limbs slipped away. Sensation drained out of him one layer at a time — until all five senses were gone. He stared into a void his mind could no longer populate with a single thought.
High above, Sword Saint watched the scene with visible surprise. He had not expected the man to survive those strikes. His attack had not been at full strength, true — but even at a fraction of his power, a single slash from him could fell a lich that had half-transcended into Immortality.
He turned his gaze to the young prince lying crumpled in the snow. After a moment, he spoke. "It seems you exposed your dear friend over the Book of Chaos he carried. A sinister man."
Almond did not answer. He lay still, his thoughts churning over what would come next. Getting his hands on the Book of Chaos was no longer possible — not with Sword Saint standing over him. He had known from the moment he saw the book that he wouldn't be able to suppress his own greed. He exhaled slowly. His plan had unraveled. He had been too impatient. If he had waited — bided his time after confirming that Alzer had acquired the black book — none of this would have gone this way.
"Wait… 'After confirming'?" Almond's expression shifted as something clicked. As the Royal Mage and one of the kingdom's most powerful figures, Sword Saint would already have had access to that intelligence. According to Almond's own sources, Alzer had obtained the black book two years ago. So why had Sword Saint only moved now? And there was another detail: his sources had noted that Alzer had made a series of unusual mistakes over those two years — errors that could each be linked to the strange nature of the book. The accidental opening of the Alchemical King's Tomb, for one — a feat that should have required a treasure of mythic-tier or higher.
Before Almond could follow the thought further, movement caught his eye. Alzer's abdomen was distending. His veins bulged visibly beneath the skin. His body was swelling — thickening — until he had ballooned into something almost unrecognizable.
"Not good!" Almond realized it then. He tried to push himself upright, but the pain from the demonic lightning still had his body pinned.
Sword Saint's eyes narrowed. Without hesitation, he grabbed Almond and launched skyward, putting distance between them and whatever was about to happen.
"Hmph." Alzer watched them go and said nothing. In his current state, movement was impossible — so he would wait. He had no other choice. And his wait was not wasted. Gold-colored ancient patterns began spreading across his bloated body, each one luminous and precise.
"Explode!"
Bang!
The moment the word left him, his body detonated. A shockwave ripped outward through the snowfield, obliterating the purple magic circle and snuffing the pillar of light in an instant.
Sword Saint pushed his speed to its limit. It wasn't enough. The shockwave caught him, ripped him off course, and sent him crashing into the trees. Almond dropped to the ground. Sword Saint steadied himself after a few minutes, then flew back toward the point of impact.
What greeted him stopped him cold.
Alzer was gone. In his place was a crater vast enough to swallow thousands of people — and its floor was soaked through with blood. Far more blood than any single human body should have been capable of producing.
Sword Saint stared at it for a long moment. Then, quietly, he murmured: "It was… the Destruction to Reincarnation."