Chapter 236
His resolve never wavered, never hesitated, like a machine calibrated to complete a single work cycle.
The certainty of his tireless movements extinguished all of Ilux's hope, turning frustration into something overwhelming and absolute.
Ilux faced a maddening paradox.
Theo's hand-dance grew increasingly ferocious, as if seized by an unseen, catastrophic rage.
Yet, within that apparent madness, there existed absolute order.
Every rotation, every sweep, every shift of the feet remained locked within a precise and inescapable pattern.
Madness and order fused, creating a fighting style that was unreadable and unstoppable.
Ilux endured using nothing but instinct and panic, parrying attacks that came like an unending tidal surge.
One.
Two.
Ten.
Fifty.
One hundred and forty-one times.
That was the number of slashes and thrusts Ilux managed to block with his elemental staves, which had begun to crack and fade.
Each collision shaved away a fragment of elemental flame from the staves, leaving painful vibrations that crept into the bones of his remaining arm.
Until finally, at the one hundred and forty-first impact, the staves could endure no more.
They shattered into fragments under the dim light, like glass abandoned by the five elements as they scattered apart.
The sound of their breaking was barely audible, drowned beneath Ilux's desperate, ragged breathing.
Theo gave no time to mourn that destruction.
He had no intention of lingering.
The moment the final barrier collapsed, both of his arms and hands—living blades—shot forward again, this time with a clear and final target.
His movement was fast, direct, and unadorned.
Ilux's right arm, still raised in a final defensive posture, separated from his body with the same clean, certain cut that had taken his left.
In an instant, Ilux had lost everything.
He now stood—or rather, staggered—in a state beyond salvation.
His arms were completely gone, both sides of his body hollowed out, leaving a helpless form and a fate sealed within the cold silence of the cave.
"You call this a fight? This is nothing but a display of power from someone who has never known what it means to be beneath others.
I'm sick of it, utterly disgusted by the way you trample everything and call it order—"
Tsraaak!
Tsraaak!!
"Fighting a woman with everything you have until she collapses is not something befitting of you, Ilux.
That is not victory. That is imbalance, forced to masquerade as legitimacy."
Fhooooh!
"If you want a real fight, then look at yourself in the mirror."
Ilux slid backward, stumbling five steps across dust that had now turned into filthy red mud.
Irritation and revulsion boiled within his constricted chest, spilling out as bitter, scathing mockery.
From his trembling lips came accusations of impropriety.
He branded Theo—a noble-born child, in his eyes raised in luxury and status—as an oppressor, while casting himself as an orphan who had struggled up from deprivation.
Every word was an attempt to invert the narrative, to carve himself as the victim upon a stage of cruelty that he himself had opened.
His voice cracked, sounding like both a lament and a curse within the cold cave.
Theo did not respond.
Those words passed him like wind, never touching his skin.
Moral condemnation from a mouth that had just intended the most intimate violation carried no weight at all.
There remained only an unfinished objective.
Instead, his indifference manifested through movements that grew ever wilder and faster.
His body surged forward, leaving faint afterimages as he accelerated back and forth with an increasingly unreadable rhythm.
The dance was no longer a performance, but a concentrated storm, each rotation of his arms a bolt of lightning seeking ground.
He closed in on Ilux, now armless, like a typhoon approaching a tree already hollowed out.
Before the final blow struck Ilux's abdomen and face, before Theo's brutal kick landed and sent the helpless body crashing into the cave wall with a heavy thud, a moment of stillness was inserted.
Within that lethal speed, Theo delivered a statement, a final lesson spoken in a flat yet piercing tone.
He highlighted the unethical nature of fighting a woman with full force until she lay limp—precisely the state Aldraya was in, in the same corner of the cave.
Rather than facing an unbalanced opponent, why not seek an equal counterpart?
It was a bitter reflection.
Seek an opponent of equal standing, a fellow denizen of the same darkness.
In that sentence, deliberately and coldly, Theo referred to himself with the same label Ilux had earlier hurled at him in confusion.
It was both an admission and a lethal logical trap: that a truly balanced battle exists only between two villains who acknowledge each other's existence.
"Agh—kh… damn it—my head—"
Buuuk—buuuk!
"The life and death of Aldraya are not within your authority, Ilux.
You never possessed her, so you have no right to decide it.
But your life and death—"
Ssssshh!
"That is different. It rests entirely in my hands."
A crushing wave of dizziness engulfed Ilux like a rising black sea, washing away what little consciousness remained.
His head throbbed violently, filled with the echoing roar of repeated impacts against the merciless stone wall.
The world around him spun, blurred, and lost its shape.
Within that vortex of disorientation, Theo's voice pierced the haze, clear and measured like water dripping in a silent cavern.
Theo did not move closer.
He stood upright, the axis of the chaos he had created.
Both arms rose slowly, the right extending to the right, the left to the left, forming a perfect straight line at shoulder height.
The posture resembled a judge weighing two sides of fate, or a hermit presenting a final ritual.
Within that pose of authority and menace, his words flowed, cutting through the heavy air with their burden of meaning.
He delivered a truth that was also an absolute verdict.
The life and death of Aldraya, Theo stated in an indisputable tone, were not rights Ilux could toy with—let alone decide.
It was a line of sovereignty crossed with vile intent, a boundary that had been defiled.
The declaration lingered for a moment, affirming the freedom that had nearly been stolen from Aldraya.
Then came the second part of his statement, a chilling contrast.
The life and death of Ilux, Theo said, were entirely his to determine.
The sentence was spoken without anger, without hatred—only as a cold, final statement of fact, like a jurist reading an incontestable statute from an immutable code of law.
Within it lay a perfect and horrifying reversal of power.
The would-be violator who believed himself sovereign over another's body now stood under the absolute dominion of an executioner who held full authority over his life.
"I am giving you two choices, and I will not repeat them.
First option, you stay here.
You keep fighting.
And I will not restrain myself from treating you exactly as the depraved intent you nearly inflicted upon your own teacher.
Do not hide behind gender—humiliation remains humiliation."
Hhhh!
"Second option, you leave. Now. If you think you can.
But should you choose to flee, then face the consequences.
I will not deliberately create momentum with the Luminous Fan Technique.
If you can avoid it, your life continues.
If not—"
Tsiiiing!!
"Your decision ends there."
To be continued…