The Divine Hunter
chapter-558

The castle shuddered as the silhouettes made their appearance. A great figure appeared within the wrecked chamber. Listless Leviathan stood before the witcher, defending him. Only a crater was left in the spot Vilgefortz was standing moments ago.

A shrill shriek tore through the air as a griffin the size of a buffalo hovered in the air, flapping its wings. The gale it stirred up flailed the furniture around, and the fire in the hearth threatened to go out.

Griffin looked around the battlefield. Roy stood between his mounts, quickly casting his magical barriers again. Then a mirror image of Roy and a frost atronach made their appearance, standing by Roy.

These were all the minions he could summon for now. The witcher downed a dose of Thunderbolt and Ekhidna decoction. Once again, black veins crawled over his face.

Then, a blinding flash of lightning tore through the night skies beyond the window, and thunder blasted overhead.

"An ice giant, a griffin, a mirror image, and a… an elemental? Could this be a spell you created yourself? Color me impressed, Roy. You are perhaps a genius of Alzur's level." Vilgefortz's voice echoed in the castle. "You are far beyond any witcher, but it's a pity your minions are too weak."

Countless mirror images flashed around the chamber. They swung their staves around, and magic flared within their hands. Roy could feel the mark. It was right over his head and somewhere over the ceiling.

"Allow me to demonstrate what a true summoning spell is like."

Crimson light flared from within the flames, and an invisible force pulled back the curtains of this realm, revealing a burning space behind. Waves of scorching heat poured into the chamber, raising its temperature by at least 80 degrees. Despite being under his minions' protection, Roy still felt the heat eating away at his flesh and soul.

The world behind those unveiled curtains was made of flames. Tall, looming ravines extended infinitely, and a river of steaming hot lava sped down the mountains. Atop the river was a humanoid creature more than twelve feet tall. As if responding to someone's summon, it crawled out of the fireplace.

The creature had skin red as flames, back broad as mountains, arms slender as snakes, and an ethereal lower body made of gas. A pair of curled horns jutted from the creature's forehead, and a crown of smoke and lava adorned its head. It had big eyes and a bigger nose, a pair of fangs jutting from its maw. Tendrils of flames slithered from its eyes, nose, and cracks between its teeth. A fiery mane covered its neck and chest.

'Ifrit

One of the four elementals

?'

"Let the battle of the minions begin."

The flame elemental opened its maw and fired off a stream of flames at the witcher and his minions.

Leviathan roared and picked up a broken pillar from the ground. He hurled the pillar at the ifrit and extinguished its flames before shoving it out of the window.

Gryphon screeched and charged ahead like the wind, while the frost atronach held its fists before itself and hurtled toward the ifrit. Roy's mirror image pulled the crossbow's trigger, while the real Roy leapt into the air and swung his blade high up into the ceiling. A crimson energy beam tore a hole through the ceiling, and the witcher went into it.

***

The pillar slammed into the window and tore a large hole in the wall. Sharp, biting winds sprinted into the chamber, arcs of lightning tearing through the skies outside.

And then a whip of flames darted through the hole like a tentacle attacking its prey. The whip lashed out at the flying griffin, and she let out a howl as she fell down the cliff like a broken kite, her feathers fluttering everywhere.

The whip did not stop its momentum. It kept charging ahead, turning into a hurricane of fire. Roy's mirror image was vaporized under the heat, and then the whip wrapped itself around Leviathan and the frost atronach's legs.

It yanked them backward, melting the atronach's ice and sizzling Leviathan's leg. The giant's flesh was quickly cooked, and smoke billowed from the wound.

The minions roared, but they couldn't stop the whip from pulling them out the hole in the wall.

***

They were pulled down the castle, and the creatures battled on top of the dried out lake. The ifrit hovered over the cracked, parched land. It held the giant's neck and armpit, its ethereal legs wrapped around the giant's lower body like a boa constrictor. It almost looked like a titanoboa was constricting a giant gorilla.

The ifrit's flames swirled and shimmered, and tendrils of flames slithered out of Leviathan's pores, igniting him. As if they were alive, the flames snaked into the creature's every single orifice, burning it from within.

Leviathan's eyes were red, drool lathering his dry, cracked lips. He roared in rage and agony as he tried to slam and pull the ifrit's body away. Leviathan jumped and rolled around the ground, cracking it further, but it couldn't break free of the ifrit's bondage.

Gryphon screeched to the high heavens and swooped in, trying to swipe away at the ifrit's back and save Leviathan.

The elemental, however, was not made of flesh. It had control over all particles of the element of fire, and it could blink in and out of reality at will. Gryphon could never land any attack on fire itself. As it plunged its claws into the ifrit's body, the ifrit's flames slithered up its limbs, burning its beautiful feathers.

Gryphon roared and jumped into the pond to douse the flames.

Only the atronach could stand against the elemental. The frost elemental surrounded itself with the power of ice, circling the ifrit. Like a boxer in training, the atronach punched away at the ifrit. Every time it did, sparks flew, and the frost atronach's ice doused them.

Still, the atronach was in dire straits. Slowly, its ice was melting. This was but the first bout of battle, and the witcher's minions were at an overwhelming disadvantage. Defeat was a matter of time.

***

Roy was in a maze like corridor.

"I won't hold back this time, Roy," warned Vilgefortz.

Roy leapt away from the sorcerer's web of electricity and hid behind a pillar. He could feel his mark on the sorcerer standing vaguely beside the pillar on the other side. The sorcerer was drawing mana from the convergence points all around him. Despite the barrage of spells he had unleashed, Vilgefortz showed no sign of exhaustion. On the contrary, he was speeding up.

Roy tried to hurl a bolt of electricity at the sorcerer, but Vilgefortz's chromatic barrier deflected it easily.

The sorcerer hurled a blinding beam of light at the witcher. The flash of light blasted through the pillar Roy was hiding behind, and it grazed Roy's magical barrier.

The barrier of Heliotrop was shattered, and the wall around Roy melted away, revealing a big hole.

Roy hastily rolled away and fired off a bolt. He disappeared and reappeared before Vilgefortz, the witcher's eyes bloody red. Tentacles burst forth from the crimson seas and enveloped Vilgefortz, but Roy couldn't do much more than that.

A gust of dark gale moaned in the air, and countless hands of the dead appeared out of thin air. They dragged him into their midst and stopped him cold. Roy felt a wave of chill flow into his blood.

The sorcerer and the witcher, both rendered immobile. Their eyes met. Roy's were filled with flames of fury, while Vilgefortz's were filled with mockery and ice-cold calm.

A few moments later, the bindings were unraveled, and Roy charged at the sorcerer, spinning his blade around.

Vilgefortz spun his staff, readily accepting the challenge.

Despite the power of the decoction and Guardian buffing him and Yrden slowing his enemy down, it took all Roy had just to keep up with the sorcerer's speed.

A gust of wind blew down the corridor, the sconces flickering. The air was filled with the moans of mana, the bursts of exploding air, and the clash of metal. A pair of silhouettes leapt and jumped across the battlefield.

Roy's blade swung against the whirling staff, their metal glinting coldly. The ground and paintings and ceiling cracked every time the witcher and sorcerer clashed. Debris fell liberally like grey snow in a deadly winter.

Another heavy hit from the staff. Roy could barely fend it off. He tried to strike back like a snake fighting off an eagle. Gwyhyr met the metal staff, and it was deflected. The staff hit the wall beside Roy, crushing the marble.

A lightning arc streaked across the heavens, the momentary light shining upon the nervous witcher. Rivulets of sweat were pouring down his chin.

A small bolt of lightning jumped forth from Vilgefortz's hand, the air crackling in its presence. Right before the lightning arc could hit Roy, the witcher leapt and hung from the ceiling like a lizard.

The sorcerer jumped and lashed his staff out at Roy, but Roy managed to evade it milliseconds before he was hit. The staff punctured a hole through the ceiling, revealing the ominous skies above.

"You're fast, kid," Vilgefortz praised.

Roy fired off a bolt, and it passed through the hole in the ceiling. The witcher blinked and reappeared on the top of the castle. He fired off another bolt high into the skies. The air was densely humid at this altitude, and the skies were dark as ink, with streaks of lightning pulsing and strobing within the clouds.

From where the bolt stood, the castle of Stygga looked rickety and rundown. Roy was as insignificant as a speck of dust.

Vilgefortz appeared at the other side of the castle, his shirt covered in chromatic lights. His force field held up the sorcerer in the air. Vilgefortz tucked his staff away and spread his arms as he moved up high into the skies, the rush of air current billowing his shirt.

He pointed in a direction, and thunder boomed. An arc of lightning slithered across the skies, then it slammed down at the witcher's position, but moments before the forked lightning hit, the witcher had blinked away with yet another bolt of his.

"That was a good show, kid. It has been too long since I had a battle of this caliber, but this is as far as you get. You will fall from the skies, dead as a doornail."

Thunder boomed in the clouds over the sorcerer's head, and a sea of lightning rained from the skies.

The witcher pulled his crossbow's trigger a few times and blinked a few hundred yards away before the lightning could hit him.

The sea of lightning thundered down upon the arid land, basking it in a sea of blinding light. When the light slowly dimmed and faded into obscurity, all that was left were tendrils of smoke billowing from the land. The air was broken down into its different elements, and the stench of ozone filled the surroundings.

Roy reappeared on the mountains, spared from the sea of lightning, and then he fired off another bolt at the sorcerer. He reappeared near the enemy and thrust his steel weapon at Vilgefortz.

The sorcerer shoved the air, and an invisible force field undulated around him. Roy thought a wyvern just slammed into him. Everything around him spun, and his sword fell out of his hands.

The witcher flew backward, and then an arc of lightning slammed into the witcher. His body tensed up, his hair straight from the electricity. A gust of gale blew, and smoke billowed from his body.

The witcher was numb, and he was falling to the arid land thousands of feet underneath, but then his eyes snapped open. With the power of Guardian, he used the Ring of Time once more. The lightning's damage was negated, and he pulled the trigger once more.

Roy slammed into Vilgefortz's force field once more with his sword in hand, and he jumped back almost immediately.

The sorcerer stood high atop the skies like a god, controlling the lightning that ran through the clouds.

The witcher hurtled across the high-altitude battlefield like a meteor, streaking in from all directions. He was moving at speeds high enough to leave afterimages even after the attack had landed.

Every time they clashed, stardust would rain down to the land.

And then, a drop of rain fell, covering the arid land beneath with water.

Then a torrential downpour followed, the curtains of water obscuring the sorcerer's sight. The witcher was inches before him. He held his blade high up and swung it down at Vilgefortz with every ounce of his strength.

A crimson crescent moon splintered off the edge of the blade and split the impenetrable force field around Vilgefortz in two.

The crimson sea raged once more, and the tentacles swallowed Vilgefortz whole. Before the sorcerer was bound, however, he summoned the sea of dead hands again, binding the witcher as well.

Roy had finally given up on killing Vilgefortz by himself. I'm taking a page out of the enemy's book. He'll be exiled. You wish for a trip to another world? You got it.

Roy summoned the power of space, and a black diamond-shaped portal appeared before the cocoon. The tentacle tossed Vilgefortz into the portal like he was a boulder on a catapult.

The witcher's heart sank, and everything around him went black. The hands that captured him tossed him into the Worldgate as well.

***

The void behind the door was dark, dead, and silent. Motes of light strobed and blinked around the path. The sorcerer and the witcher clashed once more, glaring at each other with fury. They spun around, their eyes still locked on to each other.

A fraction of a second later, both of them fell to a path leading to an unknown destination.

***

The all-encompassing darkness was replaced by a sea of gorgeous aurora lights. Roy and Vilgefortz fell, but they were held up in the air as if the place around them had no gravity at all. They were like two fish pushed ahead by a violent undercurrent under the sea, pushing them into an abyss.

They couldn't breath, the air was freezing, and frost formed on their brows and lips. Chromatic lights burst around them, particles of all shades of color and elements swirling and swimming in the sea of chaos around them.

Underneath the witcher and the sorcerer was a blue planet slowly spinning around. They saw the seas, the undulating mountains, and the lush greenery covering the lands of the planet. It was a gorgeous sight, but they were not in the mood to sightsee.

The mana within them would not obey their command. Under the disruption of the Sea of Chaos, neither fighter could use any magic.

Roy couldn't teleport away, and the ubiquitous chaos energy was eating away at the both of them like acid devouring its victim. Their armor yellowed and rotted, while their skin swelled and turned red. The sea was breaking them down, ready to nourish itself with their flesh and blood.

"So this is the Elder Blood's power of space travel. What is this place, Roy?" Vilgefortz floated before the witcher, and he was flailing his arms and legs in an attempt to get closer to Roy, though he resembled someone trying to swim poorly.

No matter how much he tried, he could not close the distance. The Sea of Chaos was a place of death. None could live or move in this strip of existence.

Vilgefortz's face fell. "I have to go back, kid. Let's talk. We can make a trade—"

The sea swallowed his voice. Roy couldn't hear a word, and the experience was remarkable for him. It was then he realized what this place was. This was the same place Freya showed him during their meeting. The strip of chaos energy surrounding the witcher world. A remnant of the Conjunction.

The Sea of Chaos. That random teleportation just pushed us to a world of death.

The lack of response from Roy infuriated Vilgefortz. He tensed up, his face pale, and a ball of fear grasped his heart. More than fifty years had passed since he left the slums of Lan Exeter, and not once did he feel as scared as he was at that moment.

"Let me go!" He clumsily fought against the stream of chaos energy. The sorcerer made some gestures and tried to cast a portal, but he coughed up blood before he could even finish chanting his incantation. His mana was a pool of uncontrolled mess.

There were convergence points everywhere, but the mana was wild and destructive. It could not be tamed. And then, all of a sudden, part of Vilgefortz's fringe was cut off as if done by an invisible pair of scissors. It floated in the air and melted away as a ball of red light engulfed it.

Roy was floating before the sorcerer, buffeted by the sea of chaos energy. Even though Vilgefortz was panicking in the face of imminent death, Roy did not glean any satisfaction from it. He just thought it was sad. No matter how powerful someone was, they were all the same in the face of death. Equally weak.

He told himself, Once we both die, there's nothing to worry about anymore.

Still, he was frustrated. He hadn't said goodbye to his friends, family, and lover. And he hadn't met his Unexpected Child. Is this where I give up? He bared his teeth, his face twitching. The chaos energy was pricking away at him like a sea of needles prickling a human.

And then Roy remembered something. Those golden eyes. Wait. I have an idea. Freya's kingdom is right outside the sea. It's around the planet just over yonder. I wonder if she can save me.

Lady Freya! Roy screamed out to the goddess in his heart, but he gained no response. The suffocation was setting in, and the burning sensation was growing stronger.

Roy was then reminded of Freya's suggestion during their last meeting. And her warning about the era of the end. The story about the ouroboros, and the coming White Frost. And how those who bear the Elder Blood could save them all.

Roy sighed. Save me, and I shall carry out that duty.

And a certain goddess responded to that call. For a moment, the raging stream of colorful energy around Roy and Vilgefortz stopped. A mountainous golden hand appeared from the void of space. It was gigantic enough to blot out the sun, and it tore through the shell of the Sea of Chaos. The hand made its way to the witcher, going against the stream.

"Help!" Vilgefortz screamed at the hand, expecting it to save him.

The hand ignored him. Instead, it gently held the witcher in its palm, then it slowly moved toward the edge of the strip, as if it were a drakkar slowly taking its passenger to safety.

The moving wave was slowly taking Vilgefortz to the outer layer of the strip. Vilgefortz turned his hopeful gaze to the witcher, who was meditating in the center of the golden palm. Moments ago, they were locked in a deadly battle, but now, Vilgefortz bowed and gave Roy a pleading look.

Please, take me with you.

I'm sorry. Roy shook his head. Roy was impressed by Vilgefortz’s ambition, battle prowess, and cunning, but he had no reason to save him, not when this sorcerer would harm him and his loved ones at the first chance he had. And Freya doesn't have enough strength to—

The golden hand shook and slammed into the energy sea's reef. It stopped moving, and then the raging sea ate into it. Cracks formed on its surface before it eventually broke apart and disappeared into the air.

The hand could not leave the strip of energy. Despair welled within the witcher's heart. Not even a god could save me? If I die here, there's no chance of coming back.

Destiny was only fooling around with the witcher, however. Without warning, another golden hand barged into the sea. One that was bigger and more tangible than the first. The caster must be a being of more prominence than even Freya herself.

The second hand held the first, and both pulled the witcher out of the energy strip at the same time. Roy was met with a sea of stars and the great darkness around it. A layer of golden light covered Roy, keeping him out of the cosmic rays and unbearable cold.

Roy turned his sights to the chromatic glass dome. Within it was a great energy strip surrounding the witcher world, spinning perpetually.

Vilgefortz stood at the edge of the sea, despair filling his eyes. He was slamming away at the dome, but without his mana, his strength alone could not break the dome. The hypothermia and lack of air was turning his face purple. He was a man about to drown, and the raging chaos energy was quickly eating away at his flesh like a group of voracious bugs.

The skin on his face wilted and broke down, revealing the bloody muscles underneath. No longer was Vilgefortz the dashing sorcerer he once was. This man was nothing but a grotesque monster. His arrogance was replaced by agony and despair.

The sorcerer stared at the one who had escaped the strip, and he extended his arm as far as possible. He wished to grab onto something, but only the void was caught.

***

Farewell, Vilgefortz. Roy summoned his hand crossbow and fired off a bolt at Vilgefortz's forehead. The black bolt hurtled through the void and pierced the sorcerer's forehead cleanly.

Vilgefortz shivered for one last time. His eyes went wide, his muscles slackened, and his pupils dilated. The light within them dimmed, and his fists loosened up.

The sorcerer fell into the sea of chaos, his ambition fading away, much like his life. The top brass of the northern brotherhood, the legendary sorcerer, the man who assisted Emhyr during his ascension, had died. His body disintegrated, turning into particles floating in the Sea of Chaos.

Vilgefortz was no more.

'Vilgefortz killed. EXP +8000. Level 13 Witcher (12000/14500).'

***

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