Chapter 179: 『White Light』
The battle between White Light and Carisia mirrored their initial confrontation.
A clash of reflections.
Each laser bombardment was met with a perfectly angled counter-laser, nullifying the attack.
It was meaningless to speculate who would seize the advantage first—whichever side launched an attack was immediately met with magical interference that absorbed the mana behind it.
Due to their overwhelming skill and the boundless mana provided by the Ten Commandments, their magic was delayed but never outright nullified.
The process repeated endlessly: one side’s spell neared completion, the other countered it, and both spells annihilated each other in a burst of mutual destruction.
Under the star-filled celestial sphere, the starlight wielded by the two Archmages illuminated the battlefield below.
“Mana is…”
For now—equal.
This was White Light’s domain, the place where the Ten Commandments of White Light were enshrined and where the mage White Light had spent millennia crafting her dominion. The territory itself actively sought to expel the intruder, Carisia.
Carisia had attempted to wrest control of the domain by leveraging her unique physical constitution, but to no avail. She could feel the mana consumption of her spells escalating exponentially.
And yet, the boundless mana provided by her Artificial Commandments ensured that her reserves not only endured the increased consumption but even replenished faster than she could expend them.
If the battle were to stretch on indefinitely, that balance might shift. But for now, they were equals.
Their power was equal, that much was clear.
When their bombardments collided, the resulting annihilation was perfectly symmetrical—neither side giving way.
If their mana and destructive power were the same, only speed would determine the outcome of their duel.
And in this, Carisia held the advantage.
It wasn’t because Carisia could complete her spells faster.
This was White Light’s domain—its heart. Not even Carisia could hope to surpass White Light here.
But Carisia could discern which attacks she could afford to take.
Around her neck hung a crystal crafted by the priests of Phoibos, granting her limited foresight into the immediate future. It painted a clear vision in her mind: which strikes would kill her, and which would not.
Carisia trusted her body’s regenerative abilities, reinforced by mana, to recover from anything short of a fatal wound.
Thus, she diverted resources away from defense and poured them entirely into offense. Sharper. Stronger.
White Light’s attacks were swift.
But Carisia’s strikes were deadlier.
This reckless strategy fascinated White Light.
Carisia’s combat logic was something White Light would never have chosen. It was an audacious, perilous tightrope act—a deadly gamble at the edge of survival.
White Light observed the precision with which Carisia assessed incoming attacks. Every strike that landed on her proved to be non-lethal, a testament to Carisia’s ability to distinguish fatal blows from superficial ones.
White Light wasn’t surprised that Carisia possessed such a capability.
Even the Blasphemia cultists, such as the Prophet in the Basement, employed similar techniques to glimpse fragments of the future. White Light assumed Carisia had obtained such powers through the cult of the Vanished Gods.
But what did surprise White Light was Carisia’s utter lack of hesitation in allowing herself to be wounded.
No matter how precise her foresight, there was always the chance that an attack could outpace her reaction. Such confidence in her predictions was inherently dangerous.
White Light herself possessed the skill to exploit that vulnerability.
The deluge of lasers she now unleashed was designed to probe Carisia’s reaction speed, firing with time intervals measured in the fractions of fractions of seconds—0.000…1 intervals, pushing the limits of human and magical perception.
Carisia, too, understood that her foresight defenses were being systematically dismantled.
And yet, she did not falter. She clung to her strategy, as if awaiting a decisive variable that would change the flow of battle.
White Light briefly considered the possibility of reinforcements but dismissed the thought.
Carisia could trust no one in this world.
And in turn, no one in this world would trust her.
White Light’s attacks grew more intense.
The starlight bombardment condensed into dozens of beams, aimed to land within infinitesimal time gaps.
Carisia knew she was being tested.
And she also knew that Orthes was approaching.
The clarity of her future visions sharpened with his proximity. The decisive moment drew near.
Three. Two. One.
Boom!
The collision of White Light’s mana and the Artificial Commandments created a grinding resonance that tore through their circuits.
Mages connected to the Commandments felt as if their mana circuits were being shredded from the inside out, nerve endings burning with searing pain.
But for Carisia, this was the moment she had been waiting for.
Carisia knew she was inferior to White Light in nearly every way.
Her resources were nothing compared to those of the Ten Towers. Her experience, though unique, paled in comparison to White Light’s millennia of existence.
But there was one thing she was certain she surpassed White Light in:
The sheer number of failures and the depths of suffering she had endured.
Her life with Orthes had been a harrowing struggle for survival, filled with agony and loss.
The pain of her bones shattering, the thirst of slowly dying in the Screaming Desert, the regret for what had been lost.
White Light, who had spent centuries ruling from the heavens, could never understand the full weight of such torment.
With a feral grin, more savage than ever, Carisia pushed through the pain.
Her body, overwhelmed by mana and searing agony, began to move.
She suppressed the rampaging mana, forced her spasming muscles to obey her will, and controlled every motion of her body down to the finest detail.
Pain sharpened her focus. Reflexive responses to external stimuli were ignored—her movements were now entirely directed by her mana and mind.
Carisia ran.
White Light fired relentlessly, but her shots were uncharacteristically imprecise. Whether due to the lingering pain from the mana clash or Carisia’s unexpected speed, it was impossible to tell.
Carisia didn’t care.
Right now, all that mattered was smashing that face.
Her black gauntlet gleamed with golden light.
This was close combat, a style Carisia hadn’t used even once since the start of the succession war.
Every decision had been made to lure White Light into exposing a vulnerability.
Carisia’s approach, so similar to White Light’s, was meant to convince her opponent that she was nothing more than an imitation.
But Carisia’s true specialty wasn’t bombardment or curses.
Part of her body dissolved into photons, shedding mass and transforming into pure speed.
It was a technique inspired by a whimsical question from Orthes: “Can you kick at the speed of light?”
Much like Sprigo and Talo had fused their bodies with their attributes, Carisia had achieved a similar feat.
Her charge left a streak of white light in its wake, too fast to appear as anything but a single glowing line.
As she reassembled her body mid-flight, her gauntlet collided with the very space in front of White Light’s face.
The collision twisted the air, forming a searing white-hot plasma sphere.
White Light reacted in an instant, dismantling the plasma’s magical structure and layering protective wards across her body.
But Carisia’s gauntlet plunged into the unfinished plasma, triggering a surge of mana that completed the spell.
The black gauntlet, now blazing with radiant power, delivered an uppercut aimed at White Light’s face.
The strike connected.
A blinding flash engulfed the area as White Light’s face was struck by the full force of an Atomic Arm.
For a moment, Carisia thought she had won—
But pain exploded in her abdomen.
She looked down to see a pristine white shoe embedded in her torso, an elegant, almost aristocratic design that seemed utterly out of place in battle.
The shoe’s heel had fired a concentrated laser, carving a perfect hole through her body.
White Light’s head, which had been obliterated moments ago, was already restored.
She dropped her staff and raised a fist.
To Carisia’s horror, White Light conjured an Atomic Arm of her own—seamless, needing no external devices or equipment to support it.
The punch was direct, elegant, and lethal, aimed straight for Carisia’s heart.
Carisia barely managed to block with her right arm.
The resulting explosion knocked her to the ground.
White Light spoke as she watched Carisia struggle.
“They all make the same mistake, assuming ancient mages are weak in close combat.”
She smiled faintly.
“I killed the Mage King with these hands.”
Carisia could feel her regeneration failing.
White Light’s mana lingered in her wounds, preventing them from closing.
Still, she layered defensive wards around herself, buying time.
Not yet.
White Light smiled as she prepared to deliver the final blow.
The stars above and below converged, forming a radiant halo.
The light gathered at her fingertips, a force capable of annihilating any defense.
But before she could strike, a door opened.