Chapter 577: Senseless fights, Senseless defeats.
Albert clenched his fist, his eyes glowing a deep gold. “Then I’ll do it my way.”
The next instant, Byako soared above him. A column of white light soared into the sky, so intense it tore through the remaining clouds, revealing distant stars. The spirit’s roar echoed in the air, deep and primal.
Scathach screamed back, and her spear responded, unleashing a crimson wave that stained half the sky. The two launched at the same time—two beams of pure force, one white, the other red.
The encounter was absolute. Silence fell for a single instant, as if the world itself had held its breath. Then the explosion came—a colossal sphere of light and energy that swept across the sky, spreading like a second sun.
The impact separated the two. Scathach was thrown backward, her body slicing through columns of wind and fragments of cloud, but still struggling to regain her balance. Albert, even as he resisted, felt his muscles vibrate with the force of the impact.
He didn’t stop.
He advanced in the wake of the impact, closing the distance in seconds. The final step was accompanied by a downward slash so fast it left a trail of light in its wake. Byako struck the hilt of the Gae Bolg with a sharp sound, the force completely deflecting her attack.
Before she could counterattack, Albert swung his sword and slammed the blunt side straight into her stomach.
The blow didn’t cut, but the wave of energy that came with it was devastating. Scathach was launched like a projectile, streaking across miles of sky before being swallowed by dense clouds.
Silence returned.
The only sound was the cold wind biting into her skin and Albert’s heavy breathing.
Byako spoke again, her voice calmer now: “This should hold her off. For now.”
Albert looked down at where Scathach had fallen, Byako’s white glow still shimmering in Albert’s fingers as he began to slowly descend, cutting through the cold night air. The wind carried with it fragments of the energy that still lingered after the last impact. Down below, among the clouds he himself had torn apart, Scathach’s silhouette moved slowly, her shoulders hunched, her body covered in scratches and marks from the fight.
Albert hovered for a moment, watching her carefully. Her chest rose and fell in rapid breaths, but it wasn’t the calculated rhythm of a warrior ready for the next move—it was pure disharmony, the reflection of someone who fought only with rage, not technique.
He let out a heavy sigh, almost a lament. “You’re completely out of your mind…”
Her image in that moment was almost unrecognizable. The Scathach he knew was warm, strong, bordering on immortal, like the blade of his own spear. But there, in that state, she didn’t use the runes, didn’t shape the battlefield, didn’t dictate the pace. She simply advanced like a beast, devouring her own strength with each attack.
Albert narrowed his eyes and muttered to himself: “If she truly fought… with the runes… not even Byako would give me a chance.”
Byako, silent for the first time in minutes, didn’t argue. Perhaps even the sword itself felt the weight of that truth.
Albert forced himself to turn away, pushing away the thoughts that insisted on lingering. It was then that, beyond the mist scattered by the battle, he saw another flashpoint—distant, but visible enough for his eyes to capture its movements.
On the horizon, Strax and Samira moved in unison and chaos, surrounding a foe with a heavy presence: Dutch. The bursts of energy and the metallic flashes of each blow cut through the darkness like blades.
Albert frowned. “Dutch…?”
The name sounded more like a bitter realization than a surprise. He couldn’t find a logical reason for the man’s presence there. Even less so for seeing him engaged in a fight against Strax and Samira, two who would hardly engage in combat against him without a compelling reason.
The breeze blowing at altitude carried a metallic taste, a remnant of the blood and energy that colored the battlefield. Albert turned Byako lightly in his hand, staring at the crossed blades in the distance. There was no visible strategy, no ground to be gained, no clear objective.
It was just… destruction.
The distant sound of weapons clashing reached him like muffled thunder. Samira advanced quickly, her movements like slashes of wind, while Strax supported her with attacks that seemed to come from multiple directions. Dutch, for his part, blocked each attack with the calmness of someone who fought not to kill, but to endure—or to tire his opponents.
Albert sighed again, longer this time. “What the hell happened to make it come to this…?”
He tried to find an answer, but all he found was the bitter realization that he was watching a battle without a winner. None of them would emerge with anything worth the effort. None of them were defending anything, conquering anything, protecting anyone.
It was just another fight that the battlefield was swallowing up, one of those born of provocations, of impulses, of old wounds that no one really remembers how they began.
The sound of another impact reached him, louder, as if the earth itself had trembled. Sparks danced around the distant figures. He could intervene. He could fly there now, stop it by force. But the question that immediately came to mind was: why?
Why interfere, when it seemed everyone there had chosen to sink into this combat?
He closed his eyes for a moment, allowing the wind to cut across his face. In that brief moment, he let the weight of the last few hours settle. He had just held Scathach—and not just physically, but holding her back from destroying herself. And now, he saw another conflict about to consume three more warriors who, once upon a time, would have stood shoulder to shoulder against a real enemy.
Albert reopened his eyes, staring at the two battlefronts—Scathach’s slow fall somewhere on the ground, and the hurricane of blows between Strax, Samira, and Dutch.
This was what war did. It blinded even the strongest, not from lack of vision, but because they looked only at the enemy in front of them, oblivious to everything around them.
He tightened his grip on Byako’s hilt. “I’m starting to get annoyed with this tide of misfortunes happening on Vorah.”