CHAPTER 47: WAR PART 38- THE PRICE OF POWER

"Shit nugget."

That was Lucy’s first thought as he soared through the sky, launched like a broken spear straight toward the colossal pillar of divine fury—a blue flame wrapped in blinding white light.

The wind howled like a beast around him, lashing at his body and whipping his raven-black hair back in wild, chaotic strands. The air clawed at his skin, each gust growing hotter, sharper, more violent.

"He had to throw me into the path of literal destruction! What a shitty mentor," Lucy muttered internally, his head shaking slightly—though whether in disbelief or agony, even he didn’t know.

As he hurtled closer, the light devoured his vision. It was no longer a distant threat—it was here, consuming the sky. The sheer brilliance pierced through his half-lidded eyes, painting his mind white. His skin began to blister. The heat was unnatural—biblical.

Instinct took over.

Wind surged to life around him, responding to his call. He couldn’t fly—not yet—but he could resist. He spun the wind into a dense, swirling sphere around his body, rotating it faster and faster until it screamed like a turbine—a barrier between him and annihilation.

It worked—briefly.

But the divine beam was no ordinary force. As Lucy drew closer, the barrier faltered. The wind slowed, stuttered, then screamed as it ignited. Blue fire licked at the edges of the sphere, white-hot brilliance pressing inward like the gaze of a merciless god.

The heat punched into the orb. The air inside thickened, warped, and boiled.

"It’s like being trapped in a sauna made from the damn sun," Lucy thought, as sweat drenched him in sheets and his lungs ached from the stifling air.

Then—

Impact.

The world disappeared.

Light poured through his clenched eyelids, turning his vision to raw, searing white. His barrier failed entirely, and flames surged inward like starving wolves.

Agony.

Unthinkable, indescribable pain clawed through every nerve ending. Blue fire engulfed his body, devouring flesh, blackening skin, boiling blood. Lucy’s muscles spasmed violently—his nerves screeched.

He couldn’t scream.

There was no oxygen left to scream with. The beam had incinerated every breathable molecule around him, even inside his wind orb. Every gasp was empty. His mouth opened in silent terror, lungs collapsing as nothing came.

Blind, suffocating, and burning.

This was no divine trial. This was execution.

Still, Lucy refused to die.

His hand found his chest, twitching through the pain as he summoned healing. Mana surged through him in frantic bursts, racing to repair what the beam destroyed in real-time—skin, bones, organs.

It wasn’t enough.

The beam kept taking. Every second inside was a second stolen from his lifespan. But he endured, body trembling, vision fading in and out.

Then, at last—

He burst free.

He flew from the other side of the beam like a bullet spat from the mouth of a volcano. The world returned in broken pieces—sound, air, color. His ears rang. His skin—what was left—was still on fire, blue flames clinging to his frame like cursed chains.

With a grunt, Lucy forced mana into his eyes, regaining his sight through sheer willpower. Vision returned in waves of color and blur—until he saw it.

The cliff.

The battlefield.

The armies.

Down below, chaos reigned. Soldiers clashed in a storm of steel and fury, banners whipping in the wind. And amidst the carnage, something stirred in Lucy’s mind—a flicker of knowledge igniting like a spark in dry wood.

A glowing manual appeared before him.

’Infernal Flow – Page 1/67’

Lucy barely glanced at it.

His focus was on the war below- the lives moments from being lost. On the path Vorn had thrown him into, not toward death, but toward purpose.

He clenched his jaw, forcing back the scream building in his chest. The flames still burned. His body still trembled. But he was alive.

And in that moment, Lucy knew:

The gods would rue the day they let him live.

He tore through the sky—a burning blue flame comet trailing heat and death in his wake.

Below, Darfin—who had taken the long way around the divine pillar—paused mid-flight. His brows furrowed as a streak of fire cut across the heavens.

"The human?" he muttered, eyes following the falling star.

On the ground, Tara staggered toward the cliff’s edge, barely upright, her energy spent. Her knees buckled, but she still managed to look up.

Her mouth fell open.

"What the hell is that...?"

Even the Ogre generals, mid-duel, lowered their weapons.

For one strange heartbeat, the battlefield stood still.

"Comet?" they both rumbled, dumbfounded.

But this was no celestial body.

This was Lucy.

And he was in agony.

The blue fire wasn’t just a cloak—it was a predator, gnawing at his flesh every second. His skin bubbled and peeled, and his bones ached as the heat burrowed deep. He had to keep healing, again and again, cycling his mana like a dying engine gasping for life.

’Damn... this sucks. I don’t know how much longer I can hold out,’ he thought bitterly, jaw clenched against the pain that threatened to rip his sanity apart.

But then, he saw it.

The cliff.

He was close.

Close enough to hear the chaos. Voices yelling, steel clashing, orders shouted over the cries of the dying.

And among them—

Her.

Seraphine.

She stood near the cliff’s edge, surrounded by her dwindling forces. Tears stained her cheeks, her voice hoarse from screaming commands that few could hear over the storm of battle. Her divine glow had dimmed, flickering like a dying star as she fought to protect her children.

Even through the fire and torment, Lucy’s heart twisted.

He hated her. Resented her.

But in that moment, he pitied her.

As he rocketed past her, their eyes met—and hers widened in stunned recognition. She knew instantly.

This was the end.

Hovering now, suspended in the air above the battlefield, just feet from the edge, Lucy called upon everything he had left.

Two abilities.

The first: wind.

He summoned it violently, a cyclone forming beneath his feet to brace the landing.

And then—he crashed.

It wasn’t graceful. He tumbled through rock and ash, a meteor slamming into the ground at the very heart of the bloodstained cliff. The impact threw dust and bodies into the air.

The second—atomic radiation.

He wove it through his already flaming, withered body. A new kind of burn ignited from within. It wasn’t just fire now—it was rot. His organs shriveled. Bones cracked. His blood itself hissed and turned black.

The pain was apocalyptic.

Still, he remembered Vorn’s voice. That final gift. That desperate plea.

Endure.

So he did.

He kept healing. Kept his mana moving. Kept the agony from tearing him apart.

And then he felt it.

The wind shifted.

Dozens—no, hundreds—charged toward him. Beaskin, Elves, Ogres, Dragonkin. Warriors of Ithriel. Their blades glinted. Their roars deafened. Rage and hatred burned in every eye.

Lucy didn’t move.

He simply frowned through the blue flames, his body barely holding together. The radiation, the divine fire—they screamed in unison.

But it wasn’t the pain that broke him.

It was what came next.

What he had to do.

Mana surged.

He spun it faster, and faster, amplifying every inch of power left in his broken frame—especially the radiation.

Then, he exhaled.

The world slowed.

Through the stampede, his eyes locked with Seraphine’s one final time.

No words were needed.

She understood.

With a trembling breath and a whispered command, she teleported her surviving children away from the cliff, away from him.

Only Lucy remained.

And the army of Ithriel.

His voice cracked as he whispered, just loud enough for the wind to carry it to Ithriel’s children—

"I’m sorry."

A single tear slid down his cheek.

It evaporated instantly.

Then—

BOOM.

A shockwave of pure atomic radiation exploded from his body, taking the blue flames with it. The earth shattered, the sky turned white, and the cliff quaked.

The firestorm consumed everything.

Bodies vanished. Screams were silenced. The very air ignited.

And as the light faded, as the dust began to settle—

There was silence.

Only silence.