If there were a single word to describe Frederick’s current mood, it would be "regret." If one were to be a bit more specific, it would be "wishing he had never done it in the first place."
He should never have let this damn dog make a sound!
*Every time I try to show you a shred of respect, you open your mouth...*
What kind of utter nonsense was all of this?!
Even though he knew full well his opponent was trying to throw him off balance, Frederick still couldn't stop himself from flying into a rage!
Especially at the thought of returning home after being eliminated, when everyone would crowd around asking how someone so awesome and powerful could possibly lose, and what on earth was the name of the work that defeated him...
How was he supposed to answer that?
Beneath the rolling flames, Frederick was actually breaking into a cold sweat.
No, even if he didn't say anything, the Association might release the footage!
It was over. Everything was ruined!
At the thought of how ugly Grand Artisan Yellowbeard’s expression would be upon hearing that his student was slain by an "Ex-Wife" and a "Stepmother," Frederick’s eyes welled with tears.
If he got hacked to death by an Ex-Wife and a Stepmother, his entire life would be finished, wouldn't it?!
Boom!
Surtr’s flames erupted once more.
Frederick bellowed and roared, his momentum surging abruptly into an unprecedented frenzy!
The greatsword in his grip cleaved and swept in wide arcs, unleashing a tempest of ruin. A dazzling vortex materialized along the blade, turning into a natural disaster within the workshop, vaporizing blood-qi and scorching armor.
He was going to burn the enemy before him entirely to cinders.
He couldn't lose! He couldn't lose! He couldn't lose! He! Absolutely! Could! Not! Lose!
At this moment, Frederick was countless times stronger than he had ever been before. Spurred on by an unprecedented dread, he scaled to a brand-new height that even he hadn't anticipated!
Suppress, breach, destroy!
Amid a thunderous roar, one of the armor's arms dissolved into ashes in an instant.
Yet immediately afterward, liquid quicksilver surged from the breach, instantly reconstructing the limb!
The scarlet blade swelled anew, cleaving down!
It was Ex-Wife!
Frederick’s pupils shrank, followed by mounting fury: *Screw your Ex-Wife! I don't have an ex-wife! Hell, I'm almost thirty and I've never even held a girl's hand!*
Why did he have to endure such humiliation?!
By now, he had completely seen through it.
The blessings harbored within those twin blades—the Swarm’s Battle-Tempered Edge and the White Stag’s Day-Seizing Raid!
The former augmented power through blood sacrifice, while the latter plundered spiritus and life through destruction.
Both were common blessings. Precious, certainly, but hardly rare. He had even crafted plenty of weapons with them himself. But he had never imagined anyone could coordinate the two to produce such a bizarrely sinister effect!
It was strong enough to make his heart tremble...
Ex-Wife boasted tremendous destructive power. Once it cut through a target, it drained massive amounts of blood-qi and life. Yet it posed no threat to an entropic, purely energy-based spiritus body like Surtr.
The truly terrifying one was Stepmother, which Ji Jue had kept furtively concealed in his palm, biding its time.
Vicious, treacherous, and utterly devoid of warning, it was like a hornet's stinger. A single prick, even a tiny scratch, brought bone-deep agony. Furthermore, its curse-poison would erode the soul, plunder one’s spiritus, and inflict irreparable ruin!
He had to remain on guard—
Bang!
In that split second, Surtr shuddered violently. Its chest split open under the thrust of the short sword, revealing a gaping, unhealable hole from which torrential lava poured like blood.
The moment it pierced through, the curse-poison spread, and crimson spiritus expanded and corroded, tearing a massive fissure across the giant's body of energy.
"What—"
Frederick’s eyes bulged in shock. He hadn't seen where the strike had come from at all.
He stumbled back in bewilderment, but this time, his opponent didn't stand by waiting for him to recover. Instead, like a tempest, the foe charged in, pressing the attack.
Mid-swing, Ex-Wife abruptly shifted and contracted, turning into a razor-thin blade of scarlet shadow. It severed Surtr's wrist, sending the greatsword flying. Before it could even hit the ground, Assault Niuma had closed the distance.
Surtr roared in fury, raising its severed wrist toward the opponent right before it.
A deluge of bloodlike lava and spiritus erupted, forcibly driving the enemy back.
The flames dimmed rapidly, as though having lost an immense amount of fuel.
Seizing the chance at last, Frederick caught the greatsword with his left hand, gasping in horror as he took up a defensive stance. Only then did he hear a voice of utterly degraded audio quality crackle from the battered loudspeaker.
"Ah, I forgot to mention..."
The voice added in an exceedingly earnest tone, "The roles of Ex-Wife and Stepmother can actually be swapped."
Right in the armor's hands, the long blade and short sword swiftly transformed, traded places, contracted, and extended with seamless fluidity—one blade and one sword, born of a single source!
Who said an ex-wife couldn't become a stepmother?
With enough effort, the reverse worked just as well!
Besides, from the very beginning... they had been the exact same weapon!
Beneath the glowing-hot armor, a latch clicked open. Slender chains connected to the ends of the weapons dangled down, dancing through the air as bloodlight welled forth.
Battle-Tempered Edge and Day-Seizing Raid—the two blessings circulated freely along the tethering chains, even overlapping and intertwining to form a structure beyond imagination.
In that instant, transcending outrage and absurdity, an unspeakable terror seized him!
*A composite work of dual blessings—and what's more, both blessings have been fused into one!*
To combine two utterly distinct blessings from the Swarm and the White Stag, transmuting and integrating them under one's own will until they melted into a unified whole, even while interlaced with the disruptive interference of massive blood sacrifices...
"Converging Streams Form?"
Jiang Tongguang observed with understanding. "There’s a bit of something else mixed in, too. It looks like... Convergence of Myriad Sources? Wait, when did that stingy old Zhou Chong get so generous?"
"It’s not generosity; he just wasn't on guard, was he?"
Gustav lowered his gaze, seeing right through the structure. "The application is still a bit raw and completely distinct from his. Built primarily on the framework of Converging Streams Form, he has carved out a path entirely different from Zhou Chong’s."
Not only that...
To reverse-engineer the theoretical essence of Convergence of Myriad Sources from mere fragments of application technique, and then successfully graft it into Fluid Alchemy?
What was more, it actually worked, functioned smoothly, and proved effective in practice!
"If this paper were published, he could probably take home an Annual Gold Ribbon outright, couldn't he?"
Provided, of course, that he was willing to make the theories of Fluid Alchemy and Convergence of Myriad Sources public.
The two exchanged a look. For a moment, neither spoke.
"He still has two other blessings," Jiang Tongguang said, shaking his head.
To stand among the upper echelon amidst the Association's struggles, receive the Crown of Glory, and serve as one of the eight directors who effectively held sway over the Ring of Taiyi, neither of them lacked for ability, vision, or experience. Even if they were still far from the rank of Grandmaster, they were not comparable to ordinary Masters.
Looking down now through the observations of the Tower of Myriad Transformations, the moment the shift occurred, they grasped it completely.
Clear as day.
"It's over," Gustav murmured.
In that split second, the heavily wounded Surtr rallied once more. Limitless fire converged upon the wounds across its body, repairing every last flaw.
No, it would be more accurate to call it a reforge!
The current workshop was equivalent to Frederick's Crucible. Boundless flames were the manifestations of creation and ruin. With a single thought, he could plunge his foe into a molten purgatory; likewise, with a single thought, he could restore himself!
Surtr’s terror lay in the near-lossless conversion between energy and spirit.
In other words, as long as fire still existed on the battlefield, it could regenerate endlessly. Even if only a single spark remained, it could relocate at will.
Unless one could shatter this sea of fire in a single strike, it was utterly impossible to vanquish Surtr!
"I'm sorry, I didn't want to win this ugly either," Frederick muttered softly.
The flames flared up as the lava giant roared, its fiery greatsword expanding once more to a monstrous scale like a pillar of heaven.
A three-hundred-and-sixty-degree sweep with no blind spots.
The fire rose like a tsunami, churning in waves dozens, even hundreds of meters high, sweeping across and driving the intruder into a corner. In that instant, the scorching greatsword lunged forward, smashing through the crossed-blade guard and piercing the cockpit!
Behind the armor, a tidal wave of fire erupted outward!
In that split second, the bloodlight in the armor's eyes dispersed in silence. The armor fractured and dissolved, reducing to thick smoke and molten iron, leaving no trace behind.
Aside from that, there was nothing else inside!
Frederick’s pupils shrank instantly. *Where’s the artisan? Where did the artisan go?!*
A crisp sound of fracturing rang out from Surtr’s chest.
Shrouded in quicksilver, a severely scorched figure pushed itself up from within the flames. Then, the edgeless weapon in his grasp pierced through the giant's torso from behind.
As if tearing right through its heart.
Once the loudspeaker had been destroyed, no more words could be heard.
Yet within this fleeting dead silence, what Frederick felt was an unprecedented cold, terror, bewilderment, and despair.
Crack!
The sound of glass shattering abruptly rose from within the giant's chest.
Immediately after, a wretched scream could no longer be restrained.
Visible cracks spread and widened as the boundless flames swiftly dissipated. The fire vanished like shed blood. Even the workshop that had turned into a purgatory rapidly lost its former heat.
The core had collapsed.
Brought down by that seemingly unremarkable pitch-black weapon.
Though shaped like a sword, its edges and corners were sharply defined, like an octagonal iron rod, segmented and distinct along its length... Rather than a sword, it was closer to an iron mace!
*This* was the true second weapon!
Beneath this single strike, the giant shattered, collapsing in an irreversible ruin, dragging the artisan who had embodied it into critical, near-fatal injury as he fell into the ash and soil.
He no longer had the strength to resist.
Yet he still couldn't resist looking back, eyes wide, staring at the expressionless mirror image and the weapon in his grasp...
What on earth was *that*?!
"Dissociation Art..."
Beyond the drifting light, the two proctors' suspicions were ultimately confirmed.
Jiang Tongguang sighed in awe, at a loss for words.
To think that even he had been fooled by this kid!
Chapter 282