MIGHT AS WELL BE OP

Chapter 850: Pride

Lucian stood calmly upon the incandescent surface of a star, the searing heat and cosmic radiation around him meaning nothing to his composed figure. He felt no need to rush toward any enemy; after all, why should he move toward them when they could so easily rush toward him?

A small, almost serene smile rested on his lips as he faced an eleven-winged Angel towering in golden radiance before him. Before this moment, he had effortlessly wiped out hundreds of ten-winged Angels. Although ten-winged Angels were undoubtedly planetary-level entities, feared and revered across the Divinora Galaxy, Lucian Darkheart regarded them as nothing more than ants beneath his feet, insignificant and unremarkable in every sense.

Yet as he stared at the eleven-winged Angel now floating opposite him, he understood immediately that the difference between a ten-winged Angel and an eleven-winged one was no different from the difference between a mere drop of water and a boundless, all-devouring ocean. One was impressive; the other was an overwhelming force of nature.

The eleven-winged Angel’s golden gaze bore down upon Lucian with unrestrained disdain, the kind a noble might show a filthy commoner. But Lucian did not react. He simply watched, his breath steady, his expression unchanging, while echoes of other distant battles continued to erupt across the surrounding cosmic expanse with devastating impact and unimaginable force. Suns detonated in the distance, comets shattered, and cosmic dust spiraled chaotically, but his focus did not unchanged.

In the next instant, both Lucian and the Angel bent their knees ever so slightly, muscles tightening, bodies coiling with lethal readiness. Then, like two arrows released from the strings of celestial bows, they shot forward with blitzing, reality-breaking speed. Within a fraction of a second they were upon each other, katanas drawn, each blade thirsting for the other’s existence, the star beneath their feet trembled in madness.

With calamitous force, their blades collided, sending tremors rippling across the star’s surface. The cosmic winds screamed violently around them. Black eyes met golden ones. And then, in less than a passing thought, they vanished. Their bodies dissolved into blurring afterimages, phantoms of movement streaking across the fiery surface of the star in frenzied patterns.

Strength against strength.

Speed against speed.

Katana against katana.

None halted. None paused. None spoke.

They simply moved, guided by instinct, honed skill, and the dance of the blade.

The Angel’s wings beat with thunderous force, each flap generating shockwaves as he propelled himself forward with meteoric speed. He attempted to keep pace with Lucian, who moved as though he were the very inventor and embodiment of speed itself. Another metallic blast detonated between them, yet despite the endless exchange, the Angel could feel it: the human before him was getting faster and faster, adapting with terrifying fluidity.

Still, the Angel did not panic. His white, sculpted muscles tightened with ease, and all twenty-two of his radiant wings unfurled even wider, expanding like blades of holy destruction as he accelerated. His strength and velocity surged to meet Lucian’s rising ferocity.

With ruthless intent, the Angel’s katana tore toward Lucian’s left eye in a lethal thrust. But Lucian had already perceived the attack long before it reached him. He merely sidestepped as though it were the simplest motion in the Galaxy. The space where his head had been erupted with a violent shockwave, cosmic air bursting apart in raw force. Lucian countered immediately, his retaliatory strike swift, controlled, and fatal in purpose.

The Angel twisted his katana just in time to block the counter, but Lucian effortlessly altered the trajectory of his attack mid-motion. His blade shifted from its original target, the neck, to a new target: the Angel’s shoulder.

And like a hot knife slicing through butter, Lucian’s katana pierced the Angel’s white flesh. Golden blood splattered across the star’s molten surface, only to evaporate the very next second. Neither combatant reacted. The wound sealed instantly upon the Angel’s skin, but Lucian did not care. He pressed forward with unbroken resolve, the faint smile on his lips never once disappearing.

His blade arced toward the Angel’s neck once again, but the Angel’s response was swift and precise. He bent backward with supernatural flexibility, causing Lucian’s katana to cut through empty space, missing by mere inches. However, the Angel had no intention of receiving attacks without replying in equal measure.

His golden hand blurred, so rapidly that for a moment, it appeared to glitch within reality, and instantly millions of golden sword lines materialized in the air around him. They layered together, an interconnected net of divine blades that collapsed upon Lucian with annihilating force.

Lucian’s black eyes gleamed with keen appreciation. His opponent had attacked; therefore, he had to reply. His grin widened. His arm blurred in an identical fashion, and moments later, millions of black sword lines appeared above him, arranged in the same squared, interwoven pattern.

With a single glance and a single motion, he had analyzed the Angel’s attack, replicated it perfectly, and then reproduced it with insulting ease.

Both attacks surged toward each other, colliding like two colossal battering rams. The impact released a titanous burst of golden and black sword energy, swallowing the surrounding space in uncontrollable madness. Cosmic winds turned wild as two contrasting energies, one golden, the other black, spiraled through the air in violent waves.

The force slammed into the star they fought upon. The celestial body could not withstand even a fragment of their unleashed power. In an instant, the star shattered, erupting into its own catastrophic cascade of energy and molten debris.

Through the storm of blazing dust, shattered solar fragments, and swirling cosmic smoke, Lucian and the Angel burst forth once more, one still smiling, the other blazing with fury and disdain.

The Angel’s body dripped with traces of golden blood. Though no wound remained visible, Lucian knew his replicated sword technique had struck true, damaging the Angel before his regeneration erased the evidence.

”You dare copy my attack, you lower being?” the Angel snarled, his voice icy, condescending, trembling with divine outrage. He was furious that Lucian, whom he viewed as an inferior existence, had not only copied his katana technique, but executed it better and even wounded him with it.

Nothing could be more degrading.

Lucian, however, had no interest in verbal exchanges during combat. He might speak before battle as a precursor, but once the blades began to move, he fought only for the joy of chaos, not for debate or measured dialogue.

He was a warrior, not a lawyer.

In a blink, he closed the distance between them. Space folded and vanished as he appeared in front of the Angel, his katana already in motion, streaking toward the Angel’s waist like thunder splitting the night sky, intent on cleaving him in half.

But the Angel was no simple opponent. His pride demanded he not be the first to abandon pure swordsmanship for any other form of power.

He moved. His katana shot upward in a streak of gold, matching Lucian’s strike with blistering speed. Yet as their blades were mere inches from impact, Lucian shifted mid-motion once again, adjusting the attack in real time as he redirected toward the Angel’s neck.

For a fraction of an instant, the Angel felt his life flash before his eyes. Pride was nothing before death. Pride could not preserve life. He had been outmatched in the realm of pure swordsmanship, but so what?

Fear of death overcame divine arrogance.

As Lucian’s katana closed in, centimeters away from severing his head, an enormous surge of faith energy erupted from the Angel’s body like the explosion of a dying star. The golden force bore down upon Lucian with catastrophic pressure. He was forced to abandon his attack and shift into immediate evasion, vanishing into a blur just as the faith energy consumed everything in its path in a rampaging crescendo of lethal destruction.