Chapter 1905 - 1904 - Fiend Harmony

Lind had not expected the First to be so overt at the end. Still, it bought him precious time to catch up and recover briefly. No matter how he looked to the Bastard, he was running on fumes.

The trick with his harmony helped keep it going but did nothing for his dantian. He had consumed a lot extracting the power of the Bastard. Every step and every strike was both an attack and defense running at the same time.

All of it hiding his true intent of bleeding away the Bastard's power. In the end, it worked but left him with just about nothing. Now, facing the haggard and broken figure, he felt no joy, only the hope it was the end.

A lingering worry stayed with him. For all that the Bastard had used clever tricks and long term planning to exhaust any foe that came against him, Lind had yet to see anything different from the Divine Realm to the Eternal Realm.

The power was there, but only in its raw form. There was no way the Bastard was ignorant of how ascension worked and while his process violated nature itself, one requirement still stood in his way.

The unification of his power still had to flow into his mind and that required something he had yet to see.

It was possible it did not exist but Lind doubted it. The fact the Fiend could become an Eternal Realm, even with breaking the rules, meant he could go to the end. So it existed.

At the final moment, He did not grow over confident. He assumed it was one last card for the Bastard to play. The Fiend floated in the wreckage of his fortress and faced him. The First would stop him from fleeing so only they mattered.

The desperation on the plain looking face was only taken at surface value. Far too many had died thinking they had cornered a Fiend only to become food for their rise.

The Bastard was the original trickster.

Lind built up the last of his power. He used part of it to keep him moving while the rest went into one more summoning of his staff.

The weapon that set him on the correct path so long ago would finish it!

He twirled the emerald staff and then launched himself at the Bastard. Despite his nearly depleted state, the Fiend could still move.

Still, his movements were much smaller and he did not conjure Fiend Qi at all. It proved he was conserving his strength. Lind could not let him.

The staff glowed and forced the Bastard to respond in kind. Yet, he felt a resistance now. He felt something protecting the energy from his attempts to disperse it faster than normal.

Still, it had to fight the pull and his harmonic Qi at the same time. It was still a strain and in their current state, neither could afford to waste energy.

Eventually, Lind felt a chill down his spine. Something was wrong!

The once terrified Fiend now had a blank look on his face.

Lind knew that look! He had seen it many times on so many disciples, friends, and family over his long life. It was the look of enlightenment!

His ash grey arms and legs moved in patterns so smoothly that Lind could barely keep up. His staff was draining him to empty soon and he could not even graze a hair on his enemy's head anymore!

{Something is wrong! We must leave!} The First vanished but Lind did not. He could not. There was no way he could miss his chance after so many died. It would never come again.

He lunged forward but the Bastard suddenly caught it with just one hand. The Qi no longer burned him and Lind had no more to push ahead. His eyes went wide as parts of the fortress dissolved to be absorbed into the Bastard.

"I was wrong. It was not you holding me back. It was not the amount of souls. It was this. I was missing this!" The Bastard's eyes cleared as a dark glow surrounded him but it was not Fiend Qi! It was harmonic Qi!

A vicious shadow appeared that took on the shape of a vortex. It was taking everything in! Lind felt the pull on his very life and hoped everyone had fled far away.

It was now not just souls. It was everything. All energy and matter were his to consume to sustain himself! It was all for his existence and his alone!

"I am finally complete! I can ascend once I recover!" The Bastard was all smiles as Lind stood exhausted before him.

His dantian was completely empty. There was barely anything left in his body.

He looked at that bottomless vortex and knew it was the end of all things if he did nothing.

"Sorry, everyone. It looks like I did not get to say goodbye." His words were not missed as the Fiend cackled.

"What can you do?! You have used up everything but what is keeping you intact. Once that is gone, you will finally, FINALLY, become a part of me! Your harmony means nothing now in front of mine! I won!" Lind felt a flicker of despair but it was followed by confusion.

He was not holding out. He was not keeping dregs of power to stay intact. He just–was. He looked at his pale human hands once more and confirmed there was not a drop of his Path or Intent remaining.

His Essence in his mind was tapped out. There should be no reason he still stood at all! He searched with all he had left in his Talents until he froze.

His Harmonic Core was still bright. It was not dim at all. It was now both dragon and human at once. It was looking up at him with impatience.

Why? Why did he not understand his own Harmonic Core?

He looked up at the Fiend harmony and began to pick it apart. Fiend or not, he was the foremost expert on harmonies. He could analyze just about any of them at a glance. It was why he knew what it was doing and why all life was doomed.

There was nothing that could stop it once it got rolling. It was literally a harmony of doom.

His eyes told him all he could perceive but then he frowned. Why was he alive? Why was he unable to be taken apart? His other selves had died over and over, but he was weaker than they had ever been.

So why was he alive? It was not anything on the part of the Bastard. He would happily kill him and seemed to misinterpret what was going on. The First had fled because even they feared this thing.

So why was he immune to it? What made him so–?!

{You must be undone. You cannot be allowed to continue or everything will have been done in vain. The being you allowed to exist also breaks the rules yet heals them at the same time. A contradiction that should not exist ever, you have made possible.}

The words of the First came back to him. The Bastard had opened a doorway not just for normal people to become cultivators but for something exactly like him! His other selves had seen that possibility and intentionally cranked up the Fusion path to breakthrough to it!

Understanding flooded his mind as many missing pieces fell into place! Fusion may not have had all the answers but he grasped enough to see the shape of the problem. A normal cultivator was just prey to the Bastard.

They always would be. The Fiend only needed to grasp enough about his target to rip them apart into food.

Lind was no longer a part of that system. He grasped the cultivation realm, but he broke the rules! He was outside the chains of fate!

His emerald eyes looked up with confidence as the Bastard faltered.

"What–what is going on? Why are you smiling? Why are you not panicking as the last of your power leaves you?" Lind's shoulders began to shake as his own laughter bubbled to the surface.

Of all reactions, that seemed to make the Bastard more afraid.

"I have been so short sighted! All that pain and suffering for me to forget the most basic thing. The First even gave me a hint within its rules! You are wrong! My power is all gone but you cannot take me unless I allow it!" Shock flashed on the Bastard's face but Lind did not care.

The last fetters of worry dropped away as his Harmonic Core flared like the sun. Emerald flames danced in his hands as if they were always his to call. An Eternal Weapon was the representation of his cultivation path but it was not what made him different.

The emerald flames, the version he currently held, were never supposed to exist! The being that made them possible stood slack jawed before him.

"You just have that left! There is nothing you can do! I am forever! I am beyond your power as I grow stronger!" Lind sneered at him but said nothing.

His body flared and he was covered in emerald light as he vanished! The Bastard put up defenses and prepared any number of attacks but nothing happened.

He did not understand until an emerald star appeared at the heart of the vortex.

[LET'S SEE WHAT GIVES FIRST! DEFIANCE OF ALL OR CONSUMPTION OF ALL!]