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Chapter 258: Blooming the Flower (9)
Inside the subspace.
The mages, who had stepped into the white void where nothing existed, were bewildered for only a mont.
“We should step back.”
“So that we don’t interfere with the proof of the sacred color, I understand.”
At Andre’s words, the mages withdrew to the rear.
After confirming that they had put so distance between them, Kudel spoke.
“You seem quite nervous.”
“……”
Lloyd didn’t answer.
But he couldn’t help but agree with Kudel’s words.
Right now, he was nervous.
‘This is the second duel.’
Just a few days ago, in the first duel… he had suffered a crushing defeat.
‘I felt the wall.’
An unbearably high and thick wall.
His attacks hadn’t worked, and Kudel had swallowed his flas whole.
Even when he used World Liberation, he couldn’t even catch a glimpse of Kudel’s world.
That was the kind of overwhelming gap it had been.
“I’m looking forward to it. What entertaining sight will you show today?”
“……”
Clench.
At Kudel’s mockery, Lloyd clenched his fists tightly.
The sneer that had flown at him as he fled like a beaten dog that day still rang in his ears.
“Well then, let’s finish quickly and head back.”
Kudel grinned.
Seeing that, Lloyd bit down hard on his lip.
‘He’s doing this on purpose.’
Originally, Kudel’s demand was to seize Lloyd’s flas.
But within a few days, the conditions had changed.
His intent was all too transparent.
‘He intends to tornt to the end.’
First, he would order Lloyd to forge the Flower of Refinent at the Red Tower.
If he refused, endless torture would follow.
If Lloyd endured even that, only then would Kudel finally take his flas.
The clear malice in his gaze made Lloyd feel sick.
“……”
At the sa ti, fear gripped him.
Because he wasn’t sure he could win.
On the other hand, the visions of what would happen if he lost kept replaying endlessly in his mind.
If he could, he might have run away right then.
“Mr. Lloyd.”
It was then.
At the soft voice, Lloyd turned to see Oscar nodding.
“It’s fine to waver. Just rember what you should believe in.”
“……”
Lloyd’s eyes widened slightly.
Do not waver, never be nervous—those were the words drilled into him countless tis when he first entered the army.
But what he heard now was the complete opposite.
‘It’s fine to waver?’
Normally, he would have dismissed it as a trivial comfort and erased it from his mind.
But now, he could understand the aning.
‘Even if I waver a thousand tis, it doesn’t matter.’
The ember of a dream resurrected from the depths of mory.
If he held onto that to the end, no matter how many tis he wavered, the result would not change.
His trembling fists grew still.
“Hoo.”
With a heavy exhale, he let his tension flow out.
“Alright then, let’s finish this quickly.”
Because he had a place he must return to.
“Hm.”
Realizing that Lloyd was no longer nervous, Kudel squinted one eye.
He didn’t like it.
But to keep trying to rattle him with words would be unsightly.
“……Co.”
With his hands behind his back, Kudel yielded the first move.
Lloyd didn’t hesitate.
Exploding flowers—Fla Petals—instantly encircled Kudel in the shape of a ring.
“Oh, this is……”
Just as Kudel was about to show off his knowledge of magic—
“Explosion Wheel.”
Boom!
A massive detonation erupted before he could finish, shaking the entire subspace and raising a colossal cloud of dust.
At the blast site rose flas as tall as a building.
“……Soone was speaking. Where did you learn such rudeness.”
With a low voice, the flas vanished instantly.
Or rather, it was more accurate to say they were “sucked away.”
Not a trace of soot remained on Kudel Redmane’s crimson robe after he absorbed all the fire.
“Ha, to absorb the opponent’s flas.”
“As expected of the Red Tower Master… worthy of being called the master of all flas.”
Kudel chuckled as though nothing had happened.
“It’s good that you started strong. But is that all?”
“……”
He was right.
Explosion Wheel was the strongest, most powerful spell Lloyd could use.
If it didn’t work, there was no stronger magic left to cast.
“I see.”
Lloyd nodded slowly.
Just like in the last duel, he felt it with certainty.
“……What is it that you see?”
“That with flas, I can never defeat you.”
“Keuk.”
Kudel Redmane laughed darkly.
“Correct. But realizing that now—what do you intend to do?”
“……I’ll return it first.”
Lloyd grasped his chest tightly.
With a pained expression, he forced out stifled groans.
Then he pulled sothing from within and tossed it before Kudel.
“……”
Kudel’s eyebrows twitched hard as he looked down at it.
He glanced back at Lloyd and asked,
“Are you sane?”
“I’m fine. As you can see.”
Lloyd’s face was drenched in sweat, but his expression was refreshed.
“……Do you even know what you’ve just done?”
"I perford the 'Fire Snatching' myself, so how could I not know? Ah, in this case, it should be called 'Fire Shedding.'"
Not stolen, but discarded by his own hand.
Lloyd had spat out the essence of all the flas he had built up over sixteen years.
He even sealed the circuits used for fla magic.
“I can’t make sense of this.”
Kudel shook his head.
He never imagined the man would be mad enough to abandon his flas voluntarily.
[Translator - Night]
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“Because you couldn’t beat with flas, you threw them away entirely?”
He had thought Lloyd clever.
But wasn’t this the height of foolishness?
A laugh escaped him.
“Foolish. Pitifully foolish. Do you really think this will let you reach ?”
Lloyd didn’t respond.
He didn’t know if abandoning flas would let him win, but one thing was certain—he would never reach Kudel by clinging to them.
“If you want, you may absorb it.”
At Lloyd’s words, Kudel grinned, then crushed the fla essence beneath his foot.
“Do I look like a fool?”
No matter how tempting, he wasn’t foolish enough to pick up such a thing in a duel.
He didn’t believe Lloyd would act without reason.
Watching him, Lloyd muttered,
“Good. I’m glad you didn’t trust until the end.”
“……What?”
Even as Kudel asked, radiant light burst at his feet.
It was the move Lloyd had prepared, even at the cost of discarding his flas.
“The na of the spell… yes. Smouldering Resentnt, aged sixteen years.”
Boom!
The fla essence exploded, erecting a massive pillar of fire in the white space.
Kudel, standing atop it, was hit directly.
“Graaah!”
A ragged scream tore from his mouth.
He could absorb and absorb—but the sheer volu of sixteen years of accumulated fla essence could not be absorbed all at once.
‘Now, the next phase.’
Lloyd didn’t lower his guard.
Of course, he hadn’t assud this single move would end the fight.
After all, his opponent was Kudel Redmane, the master of flas.
“Hooo.”
Closing his eyes, Lloyd focused, drawing forth the power to unleash his own world unlike ever before.
“Ghhk!”
As the fire pillar subsided, Kudel strode forward.
His crimson robe was riddled with holes, embers still eating through it.
“……I acknowledge it.”
The burns on his face quickly healed back to normal.
With eyes blazing with fury, he glared at Lloyd.
“In nearly twenty years, you’ve given the most joy.”
“I’m honored.”
“Yes, be honored.”
Kudel’s mana flared like flas.
Cracks spread across the white subspace.
“O-Oscar!”
“Ghh… I’m holding it!”
Oscar hastily pulled more threads of space together, trying to keep the subspace from breaking apart.
That mad old man had grown monstrously strong over twenty years.
From the rifts leaked crimson light and the howling of stellar cores.
“Since the war’s end, you are the first to witness my world.”
Throne of the Sun, Solar Regia.
Above all their heads rose a massive red sun.
Its rays did not rely shine downward, but moved like living creatures, dominating the space.
“……”
The ground beneath their feet was like obsidian.
As though molten sand had hardened, the earth mirrored the red sun above like a black mirror.
It was as if two suns existed simultaneously, in the sky and on the ground.
At the center of that obsidian plain, upon a blazing throne of crimson fla, sat Kudel.
Clad in his crimson robe, he looked every bit a god ruling over the world.
“……”
From his throne, he looked down on Lloyd.
His eyes asked: against a world like this, what could a re insect like you possibly do?
“So this is your world.”
Truly, it was overwhelming.
Every breath seared his lungs; his skin dried out as if all moisture was stripped away.
Even his mana felt as though it were evaporating under that sun.
“……If I had seen this world when I was young, I might have bowed down.”
“It’s not too late even now.”
Kudel spoke, extending one last hand.
“Bow before now. Forge the Flower of Refinent and dedicate it. Do that, and I will pass all I have onto you.”
Lloyd shook his head.
From his body, tiny sparks of mana sprouted like seedlings.
“I refuse. If I inherit that, I’ll truly never be able to go ho.”
“……I see.”
Kudel withdrew his hand.
With cold eyes, he pronounced judgnt.
“Very well. Begone.”
Rumble!
The sun fell.
Its massive weight plumted from the sky, and Andre cried out.
“No choice. I’ll intervene! We must stop this—”
“No.”
Oscar hastily cut him off.
Staring at Lloyd’s back, he continued.
“It’s not over yet.”
“But that spell is beyond what Lloyd Schultz can withstand!”
“Is it, really?”
“You fool! This isn’t a ga! What do you trust in—”
Andre was shouting, veins bulging, when half the obsidian plain disappeared.
“World Liberation—Eternal Bloom.”
In place of the obsidian appeared desert sand. Kudel scoffed.
“Useless. With that world, you can’t even stand against .”
He had already shattered that world just days ago.
He hadn’t even needed to summon his own then.
“……”
Lloyd looked down at the sand swallowing his feet.
As the massive sun descended, he closed his eyes.
‘Rember.’ Newest update provided by novel fire
Normally, it worked once out of ten tries.
But that didn’t matter.
‘It’s okay to waver.’
The answer was within him.
If he trusted in it and kept moving straight ahead, then even if he wavered a thousand tis, he would eventually arrive.
“……”
A breeze blew.
It swept away the clouds covering the sky.
Sunlight poured down—not the searing, destructive sunlight of Kudel’s sun, but the gentle warmth of a spring day in a forest.
Then the wind scattered the sand on the ground.
Beneath it was fertile soil, a vast field of rich earth.
At so point, a small flower had appeared in Lloyd’s hand.
“Eternal Bloom.”
This was the place where his dream ca true.
A realm where flowers never wither, yet forever bloom.
Holding his old friend, Sydney, Lloyd aid at the sun and whispered softly,
“Bloom—Cradle of All Things.”
[Translator - Night]
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