Chapter 576: Albert is holding back.
The sky resembled a battlefield of fire and thunder.
Black clouds tore apart in swirls, illuminated by the brutal flash of lightning that ca not from nature, but from the clash of titanic forces. The air was so saturated with power that space itself vibrated, distorting like glass about to shatter.
Albert hovered above the cutting air currents, his entire body tense. His breathing was controlled, but his golden gaze held a fierce determination.
In his hands, finally, was Byako, the true blade—not the restrained weapon he used to fight with, but his essence unleashed. The blade glead like polished ivory, with a cut that seed to tear even the light. Her aura burned silver and white, making the surrounding sky glow with an almost sacred glow.
On the other side, Scathach twirled the fiery spear as if it were an extension of her body, each movent leaving a trail of red light and pulsating shadows. Her eyes were embers of fury, her body filled with wild, uncontrollable energy. The wind around her scread, cutting like invisible blades.
“Scathach!” Albert roared, his voice rising above the thunder. “Stop this irrationality!”
She didn’t respond with words. The only sound was the sharp scream of the air being torn apart by the spear as it thrust forward.
Albert lifted Byako in a perfect arc, blocking the thrust. The impact was deafening, a boom that reverberated through the clouds like concentrated thunder. Sparks of white and crimson exploded from the point of contact, scattering like a fiery rain. The pressure of the collision pushed them back, opening a tunnel in the sky of pure force.
Scathach spun in the air, using the recoil to create a follow-up attack. Her body was a blur, the spear slashing at unpredictable angles. Albert parried the first, the second, the third—each block accompanied by an explosion that distorted space and shattered chunks of cloud.
“You don’t hear !” he shouted, deflecting the fourth blow with a blast of white energy. “If you keep this up, you’ll lose yourself completely!”
The answer ca as a guttural, almost bestial scream, and a downward strike that split the air into two visible halves. Albert spun Byako with both hands and counterattacked, the clash emitting a flash so intense that for a mont the entire sky turned white.
They separated by a few ters, floating above the abyss of wind they had created. The silence lasted less than a second.
Scathach advanced again, her entire body exploding with brute force. Albert moved in response, the two eting in the center with blows so fast that human eyes could never follow. The blades and spear collided like teors in succession, each collision creating shockwaves that swept across the miles.
On the ground, the forests bent like grass in a gale. Distant mountains trembled.
“Stop!” Albert roared again, blocking a sideways strike that nearly sliced through his defenses. “I don’t want to fight you!”
“DIE THEN!” Scathach scread, and with a monstrous montum, she launched the spear in a vertical arc.
Albert dodged it by a hair’s breadth, the slash missing close enough for the wind to tear at his cloak. He retaliated with a horizontal slash from Byako, the silvery glow nearly blinding. Scathach crossed her spear to parry, and the impact created a sphere of energy at the point of contact, which exploded in all directions.
White and red lightning danced around them, slicing the sky in incandescent lines.
Albert took a deep breath, focusing all of Byako’s energy into his blade. A column of light rose into the sky, splitting the clouds. He advanced, each step leaving a flash like flaming footprints.
“Final warning, Scathach!” his voice sounded like a sentence.
She responded with a fierce cry, raising the spear above her head. The spear pulsed with red energy, each beat synchronized with her raging heart. In the next instant, they collided again—a vertical strike against a horizontal one.
The clash produced no sound, only a silent shockwave that pushed the clouds miles away, revealing the starry sky beyond. Then ca the explosion, so loud it shook the world below.
They were both thrown back, but without hesitation, they charged forward again. It was a duel without pause, without hesitation. The blades sliced through the air with sharp sounds, each blow a step closer to the limit.
The air was filled with screams, not just theirs, but the world itself reacting to the clash. Thunder roared, the wind howled, and each impact shook the horizon.
Albert blocked a downward strike and spun Byako, using Scathach’s strength against her, launching her upward. She spun in the air, regained her balance, and fell upon him like a crimson bolt of lightning. He raised his sword high, and as the spear struck, a burst of pure light engulfed them both.
“SCATHACH!” he bellowed, trying to break through the storm she had beco. “Co to your senses!”
“I think you better take action,” Albert’s own blade spoke, the Spirit of the White Tiger Byako. He was holding back, but he had already realized… It was useless. “Knock her out,” he told Albert.
The flash faded only to reveal Scathach already coming again, her expression consud by pure fury, as if every trace of sanity had been erased.
The spear burned so hot that the very air around her seed to burn, distorting like tal in a brazier.
Albert felt the weight of Byako’s recomndation vibrate in the blade in his hands.
The White Tiger spirit rarely spoke with such urgency—and when it did, it ant the situation was already dangerously out of control.
“She can still stop…” Albert muttered through clenched teeth, but his golden eyes couldn’t deny what he saw: each of her blows was faster, heavier, more desperate.
It was pure fury in control.
“It won’t stop, not like this. Either you take her down, or she’ll destroy everything around her—and you with it.” Byako’s voice sounded like a distant roar, echoing in the center of his mind.
The next attack ca like a red thunderclap. Scathach twisted her spear in a spiral that tore through the sky, creating a vortex of flaming energy that began to pull everything in—wind, clouds, even light itself.
It was more than offensive: she was shaping the entire battlefield to crush him.
Albert had no choice. He advanced against the current, slashing against the flow with Byako.
Each step was like wading through a hurricane. The air pushed him back, the strain on his muscles was absurd, but he kept going, the silver blade shining brighter with every ter gained.
Scathach roared. There was nothing human in that sound anymore.
The spear descended in a perfect arc, aiming for his head. Albert spun Byako around on high guard, blocking—the impact was so brutal that a shockwave swept across kiloters, tearing away chunks of cloud and shattering the silence with a boom that sounded like the end of the world.
He retreated half a step, only to propel himself forward.
A horizontal slash, lightning-fast, forced Scathach back for a mont. But she didn’t stop. She spun around and lunged again, the spearhead coming from below. Albert dodged it by a hair’s breadth, the heat of the weapon searing the side of his face.
The entire sky was now illuminated by two colors: the incandescent white of Byako and the bloody red of spear. Each ti they t, a burst of light swept across the entire world, blinding the world for brief seconds.
“Scathach!” Albert roared again, trying to summon whatever shred of reason remained within her.
But what ca was only more force.
She lunged in such rapid succession that it seed to multiply in the air. Five strikes in less than a second, each coming from a different angle, all aid to kill. Albert blocked three, dodged a fourth, but the fifth grazed his shoulder, leaving a searing line of pain.
He retreated a few feet, breathing heavily, as Byako pulsed in his hands. “She’s beyond. End this now.”
Albert clenched his fist, his eyes glowing a deep gold. “Then I’ll do it my way.”
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