Land roiled and sky rumbled as two supreme magic practitioners eyed each other.

It was the elder who made the first move.

Promtus lifted the fist large enough to smash skyscraper, but Hikma won’t give him a chance.

[Paradiso]

Black ink rose from the ground, unleashing countless strips of lightless cloth that quickly wrapped around the mountain size giant to immobilize him. Promtus growled, exerting more power to tear the binding, but Hikma won’t let go. More strip of magical shackled lashed from the pool of conceptual ink beneath Promtus’ body to paralyze him.

Hikma grunted. Promtus’ size upped his endurance and strength, but it came with sluggish speed and bigger target as a price tag. Prices which Hikma exploited mercilessly. But alas, even with his Origin, using [Paradiso] to bind something a size of a mountain wasn’t healthy for his Stamina. He couldn’t keep it up long.

In chess term, this was a misplay. Yes, immobilization might be a decent tactic for something so large, but the price of taxing Hikma’s concentration wasn’t worth it. The best move was to exploit his higher mobility instead of locking himself in a tug of war. Thankfully, Promtus wasn’t Satholia. Against his teacher, this miscalculation would end in an instant defeat, but with Promtus, Hikma got a chance for a comeback.

Hikma answered with a compound Arcane courtesy of combining pseudo-spirit with [Nicholas] technique. He used [Mistral: Aero Lorde] as a base, mixed in a [Conceptual Seal] to catalyze [Geo Lorde] modded with [Echo] technique. 

“[Mistral] open fire!” Hikma cast the ultrasound barrage.

Pale green light flashed above, and countless air bullets peppered on Promtus massive body like a seasoning on a pizza. Spoiler time; it did little damage. Hikma knew this. This Arcane wasn’t made to defeat Promtus. It was made to analyze him. Each air bullet behaved like ultrasound dispenser; the burst of imperceptible collision echoed around the giant, telling Hikma about the makeup of the gigantoid battling him.

Hikma frowned. The giant was made from a rock of decent density, while Promtus’ real body was in the chest area.

“You think this is enough to slow me down, boy!” Promtus felt insult at Hikma’s response, and upped the ante.

He tightened his grip on that gigantic sword.

A kilometer long obsidian sword pulsated the air in a wave of heat and force that instantly dispelled the restraint Hikma placed on the giant. Mana undulated from the sword, forcing Hikma to fly back a dozen of meters from the side-effect of having his [Paradiso] ripped apart in such a way.

“Behold the Sword of Ash,” the giant roared, impaling the blade to the earth.

The sword cracked the earth. The enormous scar on the land widened with a surge of mystical power. Lave erupted from the crack as the land sank beneath the surging pool of molten rock. Sulphur and a hot plume of ash rose around the giant in the rapidly spearing hell-scape created by unleashing the sword.

Hikma growled. This was bad. He must stop Promtus before the entire area turned into an inhospitable volcanic land. If over 5-kilometers radius transformed into magma hazard, it would cause almost irreparable damage to the regional transportation system.

Promtus lifted the sword and swung it at Hikma, but the Chronicler was ready. A magic intensive duel was the battle of information. Satholia drilled that lesson into him. In this front, Hikma was a league ahead of Promtus. He knew the nature of Promtus’ Muspel Transformation, and his counter-spell expertises rendered other tools in the elderly Praetor’s arsenal pointless. Meanwhile, Promtus still did not know the upper limit of Hikma’s ability or his versatility.

Promtus’ sword swing was majestic. Its magical might sliced the peaks of a surrounding mountain-range and caused tower of lava, hundred meters high to erupt from the ground. The kilometer long building-buster slammed down on Hikma with the power to scorch a countryside.

[Trinity]x3

Hikma’s shield buckled beneath the earth-shuddering blow that could fragment a mountain. Sky rumbled as scarlet flame blossomed in an all-consuming haze. Hikma grunted. Wow, he actually felt that. A massive physical attack with a violent magic burning effect? If it was his original [Trinity], he would be a goner. Luckily, he already nailed [Tempo] down.

The triple-stack three-layer defense effectively tackled the attack. [Paradiso] tanked the physical might of the slash. Meanwhile, [Entropy] broke down the Sword of Ash's burning effect and enchantment, weakening its magical power. Finally, [Tempo] constantly reversed the state of the two layers back to its pristine condition and formed a temporal barrier to slow or stop the attack.

Promtus’ eye widened at witnessing the positively tiny human stopping a giant a sword a kilometer long. He silently admitted that the boy got a black-belt in defense.

If Hikma’s defense surprised Promtus, what came next would flabbergast him

“Analysis of the structure complete?” Hikma confirmed and cast his prepped composite Arcane. “Great! [Nicholas: Geo Gift + Severance + Paradiso].”

The auburn light transformed into a thin pen of enchantment and struck down upon the Sword of Ash. It was the beginning of the fight-ending combo.

Every solid material was governed by its microstructure — be it a legendary spear or a chop-stick. This also applied to the gigantic sword. It took Hikma time, but he learned how to directly manipulated the grain boundary, which was a major feature of solid structure and rearrange them to create a perfect slip plane to deform any solid. This combined with [Paradiso] boundary separation, and further implementation of [Geo Gift] to employ the substance’s internal stress, transformed as a single touch into a supreme anti-solid hammer.

With a light touch from Hikma, the gigantic blade snapped in half. The force of the fracture sent 500-meters length of the blade spinning in the air like wind-wheel.

Promtus watched in dumb shock. His soul seemed to slip out of him, but the knight of Dawn wasn’t done.

[Aero Gift]

Hikma touched the spinning length of rock-blade and gave it an extra vector, speeding up a blade into guillotine which lopped off the giant’s sword arm and struck the ground as a new landmark.

This blow should be obvious to anticipate, but Promtus’ body gigantic form came back to haunt him. The blade slice off his arm before he could move out in time. To add insult to injury, the blade’s distracting, burdensome size provided Hikma with ample blind spot to close the distance and continued the combo.

Remembered the microstructure manipulation?

Promtus suddenly felt something was wrong with his chest. He glanced down and saw the Chronicler, protected by heat-repelling self-enchantment, floating too close to the flaming giant and messing its rock structure to his heart content. That new explosive magic charging in hand did not give the old-man comfort.

The elderly’s heart sank.

Crap.

[Nicholas: Aero Lorde + Pyro Gift + Aegis]

Another combo spelled, using [Aegis] to amp the super-heated hi-velocity air cannon aimed at the exact location Promtus’ true body resided within the giant. Before anyone could do anything, Hikma fired the mountian buster at pointblank.

The effect was spectacular.

Muspel Transformation’s weakened chest caved from the impact. The accelerated air bustling with sanctifying energy fractured the stressed rock and blew into Promtus’ body. Such trauma directly severed the linked between the Praetor and his giant body, deactivating the spell. But the force didn’t stop; Hikma’s attack carried Promtus past layers of flaming rock, out another side of the flaming goliath and crushing him into a landscape below with the force to create the crater and a mushroom cloud.

Promtus looked upward to see his massive gigantic avatar falling on him, but alas, the jarring effect of having the connection between his mind and the flaming giant forcefully ripped to smithereens did a number on his reflex curve.

The elderly man could only watch as his mountain size fame maker fell on him.

As an S-rank, he could survive, but his ego wouldn’t.

…

Hikma waited for the S-ranker to burst from the wreckage.

The old man looked terrible. It was conclusively proven that having a mountain falling on him did a number on the Promtus. The bald head was bloody with cuts and bruises. The once commanding robes were torn and ripped with holes. Hikma winced at that mangled arm as the old man staggered into a standing position. Hatred blazed in the Praetor’s eyes like campfires from hell. 

“You!” Promtus growled the all-time classic pointless accusation that somehow sounded lamer the more it got repeatedly used in any media.

“You are injured,” Hikma warned. “I know I might be wasting my effort, but you can still walk away from this.”

Promtus lifted his remaining good arm and summoned forth his ace. S-rank weren’t your run-of-the-mill opponent. Each individual who attained this classification got trump-card for their trump card. Yes, Promtus’ Muspel Transformation made him famous, but that wasn’t his only gimmick.

A ring of metal and fire appeared. It was a circular amulet with a glowing jewel right at its center.

“You are strong,” Promtus admitted. “Few ever witness this. Savour the opportunity, boy.”

The gem burned with the black hull and spat forth a towering black light, crackling with yellow tints of lightning. Hikma immediately raised [Trinity] to block the attack. The beam rebounded from the shield, splitting into a dozen more strand of yellow beams that circled around Hikma before showering extra attack on him. The Chronicler responded by making an interlocking dome of [Trinity] to intercept the attack. He barely had time to react to the reddening ground below that erupted into a towering plume of flames he barely dodged.

Hikma counted himself lucky that his newest uniform protected him from being grazed by a moderately lethal volcanic eruption. The Chronicler then saw the yellow beam of destruction traced a path at him, forcing him to erect another [Trinity] to stop it. Hikma breathed a sigh of relief before the traced line tainted with custard-color energy detonated. Then the freaking ground erupted in another fire tower before he regathered his bearing.

Hikma leapt out of flames and activated [Nimbus]. He watched the cumulonimbus of pyroclastic cloud towered above the sky like a prelude to a storm. Promtus remained on the ground, not moving an inch. He was on his last leg, but refused to go down without a last laugh. From the blackened sky dotted with ember and flames, fire and yellow light rained down on Hikma as plumes of flames surged from below.

Hikma raised an omnidirectional barricade of [Trinity] to shield himself from raining brimstone, flaming eruption and yellow death-ray.

“Okay, Ehto” Hikma winced as a tower of burning ash from the sky slammed him into the earth and the yellow energy arrived shortly afterward to bathe him in another explosion. “What the hell is that?”

The golden octopus certified network connected through his speaker and Melody’s voice called out.

[Okay, according to the image taken from your helmet’s camera, that is the Brimstone of Burning War. It is one of the five sacred treasures of the Burning War Church, stolen fifty years ago. Its absence is the part of the reason the entire religion fell apart into remnant that was later hacked apart by Enma Clan one-by-one.]

Hikma was sent flying from what had to be the fifth flames towered from below. He must admit the heat resistant Arcane was getting a workout.

“That will be a great addition to our library,” Hikma yelled. “Now, can you tell me what does it do.”

The Chronicler heard his friend rummaging through stuff. He tried to counterattack with [Holy Lorde], but a yellow barrier shielded Promtus from the attack. A sound of flipping was heard.

[Let me see,] Melody's voice answered. [Increase control and power over fire-based energy. Geothermal base energy supply with a hell of a cap. Brimstone particle that acted like a cross between fire and lightning; a magic C4 if you will. Rapid casting speed improvement, plus automatic defense system. Yeah, that thing is a real doozy.]

“Weakness?”

[Practically none aside for a long ass recharge time. The Burning War Church used to put this on their volcano as an artillery beam with bottomless magazine. Luckily, Promtus doesn’t have a bottomless geothermal fountain, but he still have his S-rank reserved on top of the pre-charge battery.]

“Okay, why can’t we have anything like that.”

[Hikma, it is an artifact from the era of the ancient, perfectly preserves for over ten thousand years.]

For a moment, Hikma stopped thinking.

“You are telling me...” Hikma said in a slow disbelief. “That old-man bring a priceless ten-thousand years-old historical artifact into a war-zone!”

[Yes,] Melody didn’t like where this was going. [S-ranker often does that.]

“I never did!” Hikma was outraged at such archeological blaspheme. “This is it. I am going to take that artifact back. Prep the display case, Mel. I am ending this!” 

Hikma gritted his teeth and summoned the white pseudo-Spirit. Geothermal supply? Well, that was a start. Time for a combination casting. Hikma didn’t spend a few solid minutes being batted around like pinball for nothing. A red, purple, and yellow light followed. It was a complex [Nicholas] featured at least four spirits; [Surtr], [Aegis], [Yaga] and [Yotun].

[Nicholas: Sutr + Aegis + Yaga + Yotun = Thermodynamic Polarity]

It was a complicated Arcane combination the like description would not do justice. An act of law implementation that was only possible by understanding the principal aspect of the associated Primal Arcane categories of [Pyro], [Cryo], [Umbral] and [Holy]. The cast was so complicated it would take Hikma a solid 5 minutes to prepare this mechanism if not for the pseudo spirit shortening it for him.

First part was [Umbral] part handled by [Yaga]. [Umbral] was associated with darkness, governing concept of sub-space and absorption. Here, Hikma used it to build a perfect shielding screen. [Cryo] — the heat sink — was layered below it to funnel this energy to an artificial sun created by [Pyro] thermodynamic output maintained by [Surtr]. Finally, [Aegis] handled [Holy] enhancement. While it was correct to assume that [Holy] mostly got to do with holy-base magic, its true nature was the governing of all forms of radiation.

The result was a supreme paracausal field of darkness that absorbed heat energy to fuel the artificial sun that fired radiation beam.

It was a checkmate. Hikma simply strolled toward the Promtus while fire, smog and brimstone color light got swallowed by the surge of darkness. Energy snuffed out and reemerged from the golden sun, shining a light upon the dark land. Flames splattered against shadow and faded as Hikma marched toward the trembling Promtus. The S-ranker threw everything at Hikma; be it tower of fire, a meteor of pyroclastic whirlwind and humongous beam Brimstone particle and inferno. The shadow ate it all and the sun blasted it back out as holy-beam at Promtus, pushing his back even further up the wall and burning his reserve. Finally, a tiny arm of darkness crept up Promtus’s barrier, pulling it apart piece by piece.

Promtus’ heart sank with each step of Hikma’s unstoppable approach until he saw the wyvern cloaked in a crimson wind.

“Kakia, help!” The truly desperate man yelled to the sky, abandoning his pride before the unyielding knight, who took every attack he gave, and kept marching. The blackened ground he stood on and the golden sun behind him made the man into a recreation of old testament angel, and that terrified him.

“Help? This is great! Say that—”

A golden lightning crashed into the wyvern and carried the unrepentant sadist away into the mountain range beyond. If the Chronicler’s grand working ground hit Promtus' morale, the disappearance of his newfound hope incinerated it.

Promtus turned to meet the young man who proven to be beyond him. The masked man who tanked every punishment Promtus poured down, dismantled all his might and emerged triumphant. The knight who succeeded in everything he promised even when it seemed impossible.

Surrounded by shadow, with the light from Brimstone of Bruning War flickering from rapid energy drain, Promtus slowly realized the reason the Chronicler repeatedly parleyed for a peaceful resolution. The man already knew this conflict was below him. He got nothing to prove to anyone, and a privy to wisdom that made this battle pointless.

As the yellow light crumbled, Hikma reached out and took the ancient artifact out of the S-ranker's hand. He looked into the eye of the trembling defeated Praetor.

“This belongs to the museum,” the young archeologist lectured the old man before throwing a final punch that knocked out Promtus' feebly standing health pool.