Chapter 114: Gold Rank!

Two days later, the villa was mostly quiet.

Diona and Gwen’s laughter drifted faintly from the garden, and the world outside the villa all around Pantheon moved at its own pace, but inside the villa, in the training room, time seemed to be standing still.

In the middle of the training room, Albedo was sitting cross-legged upon the polished obsidian floor, the lotus position steady, his platinum hair falling loosely across his shoulders and shimmering faintly.

His hands rested lightly on his knees, palms facing upward. His breathing was slow and steady, yet every exhale seemed to ripple with faint traces of fire and light.

He hadn’t moved for hours at this point.

The air all around him was thick with mana, so dense it warped faintly in the light of the glowing runes etched into the walls. Crystalline formations embedded in the stone pulsed with a steady azure glow, designed to absorb excess force should Albedo’s power grow volatile.

His breathing was slow & deliberate. Each inhale pulled mana from the air like strands of mist, and each exhale released it back in waves that rippled faintly across the floor.

Within him, his Flame Dragon Heart thundered with each beat, sending surges of mana through his veins like molten fire coursing through him. His body trembled faintly as that same energy coiled tighter, wound sharper, a coil of lightning waiting to snap.

He could feel it now, closer than ever. His body trembled, not from weakness, but from the unbearable anticipation of what lay beyond.

The invisible wall, the barrier of Gold Rank!

It loomed over him like an unyielding storm, an immense wall of resistance pressing down on his soul, daring him to ascend.

Albedo’s breath deepened, his chest expanding with effort as mana surged violently. His aura flared, filling the chamber in violent waves.

The runes along the walls brightened, absorbing the spillover, yet still the floor beneath him groaned faintly as hairline cracks spread from where he sat.

Albedo shut his eyes, narrowing his focus, and sank deeper into the river of mana that surged through his veins. He visualized it, endless ocean waves rising higher and higher, smashing against the dam that was the Silver bottleneck.

His Flame Dragon Heart beat harder, pumping mana through him in torrents, amplifying every cycle of energy until his entire being was roaring.

“Now…” he murmured, voice barely audible yet it boomed like thunder across the training room.

He pressed against the barrier, and the sensation was immediate and violent. Like a tidal wave slamming into unyielding stone. His body jolted, his arms trembling despite the disciplined posture.

Mana rioted, lashing through his veins like lightning trying to tear free of its cage. His breathing quickened, teeth gritting as his Source Code shimmered behind his closed lids, his eyes glowing faintly violet beneath them.

The barrier pressed harder. Every attempt to push mana into it only caused it to rebound, rippling through his body like tidal waves. His Flame Dragon Heart pounded wildly, straining as though it might burst apart.

The Source Code in his eyes flickered, analyzing and adapting to all of the events, adjusting the flow of mana with immense precision to make the breakthrough easier.

The storm inside him grew worse.

Mana surged through his veins with such force it felt like liquid fire was carving him open from within. His back arched slightly, his breath ragged as arcs of light burst across his skin, sparking like lightning in the dim chamber.

Waves crashed.

Every cycle of mana fed into the next, faster, hotter, more violent, until it felt as though his body was a furnace about to rupture. The Flame Dragon Heart pounded like a war drum, sending blasts of molten energy through him that threatened to sear his flesh apart from the inside.

The Gold Barrier loomed before him like an absolute power. It resisted with the weight of mountains, the indifference of centuries.

And still he pushed.

Mana poured into the barrier, an endless tide battering at its edge, and his body screamed in both agony and exhilaration. Veins bulged beneath his skin, glowing faintly as if liquid fire coursed through them. Sparks danced across his fingertips, violet and crimson arcs of mana lashing into the air.

The room itself began to shake, faint cracks spiderwebbing across the warded floor.

Albedo’s teeth clenched tighter, his will sharpening like a blade.

Not yet.

Not almost.

Now.

The ocean inside him surged, cresting higher and higher, a storm without end, until he felt it—that final, blinding pressure, the last wall before the world opened.

His body jolted, vision searing white behind his eyes as the apex of the breakthrough surged through him, an unstoppable tide that threatened to sweep away everything.

The Gold Barrier trembled.

His entire being roared in unison, heart, mana, soul—driving forward into that radiant wall with the force of a storm.

And then—

The world froze.

He hung suspended at the edge of eternity, every thread of his existence pressed to the brink of breaking through. The power of Gold was right there, a breath away, a heartbeat from shattering free.

Albedo sat in the storm’s heart, his veins ablaze, his soul at the cusp of ascension.

The threshold of Gold.

The apex.

And then,

Everything went silent.

***

When Albedo opened his eyes, he wasn’t in the training room. Instead, he was back at the blank space he experienced when he first inspected his technique on the first day at the Academy.

He saw the Crimson Moon hanging in the sky that burned like a sun, its tyrannical aura still suffocating Albedo, reminding him once again how terrifyingly powerful his physique was.

He saw the throne sitting at the center of the dimension, representing the immense authority.

Then, the flames appeared, all of them burning ferociously in a circle of fire.

Crimson. Blue. Violet. Silver. Black & more.

Slowly, the flames crawled towards Albedo and wrapped around them. Immediately, he felt his body pulse with energy, his thoughts clearer, his body full of energy and more.

The Silver flames cleansed his Soul, improving his Soul Power and bringing all the positive effects of that to the surface.

The Violet flames ran through his Mana Veins, constantly perfecting them more and more. The flames allowed him to absorb and hold more Mana, to purify his mana more and make his mana run smoothly.

The Crimson flames perfected his cells and overall physique. His entire body became even stronger. He could now move faster, his skin was harder to pierce, his stamina increased. It was a comprehensive enhancement.

The Black flames improved his attack power. All of his Crimson Apocalypse Flames and spells would now deal more damage than before, including the attacks from Havoc & Ruin.

The Blue flames improved his regeneration. His healing factor improved more and more, and this also included his mana regeneration as well.

The Pink flames enhanced his Mana Affinity, making it easier for him to manipulate mana.

Finally, the Green Flames improve his Law Understanding. Various Laws such as Flames, Space, Destruction, Rebirth, Death & More were ingrained into his very being, improving his potential more.

All of these flames wrapped tighter, spiraling in radiant arcs around Albedo’s body. Each color burned with its own rhythm, its own essence, yet together they formed a symphony of power.

Silver purified his soul, violet reforged his veins, crimson tempered his body, black sharpened his wrath, blue mended his flesh, pink danced with his mana, green whispered secrets of Laws.

They circled faster, becoming a storm of living fire, each flame bending toward him as though drawn by inevitability.

THUMP.

His Flame Dragon Heart beat once, harder than ever before. The entire blank dimension shook.

THUMP.

Again, the flames crackled, their colors intensifying until they seared across the void like suns colliding.

THUMP!

On the third beat, the flames collapsed inward.

A torrent of fire and light detonated into Albedo’s chest, branding his soul, veins, flesh, and mind in a single overwhelming blaze.

He cried out, not in pain, but in the ecstasy of transcendence, as power exploded through him, every thread of his existence burning away its limits.

BOOOOOOM!

The void erupted in a cataclysm of color. Crimson, violet, silver, blue, black, green, pink, all of them fusing, all of them blazing together into a singular aurora that consumed everything.

The Crimson Moon pulsed violently in the sky, as if acknowledging his ascension, its suffocating weight bowing ever so slightly in recognition of his climb.

And then,

The Throne.

It pulsed.

A deep, resonant boom reverberated through the dimension as the obsidian seat at the void’s center exhaled a tide of killing intent and majesty. Its presence filled him like the weight of galaxies, pressing down with an authority that was not yet his to claim.

The message was wordless, yet undeniable.

Higher. Stronger. Climb further, and only then may you sit.

Albedo’s breath shuddered as the pull gnawed at him, a promise and a demand in one. His fists clenched, and his platinum hair whipped in the storm of his own newfound aura.

Not yet.

But soon.

The throne’s pulse receded, its promise lingering in his bones as the void crumbled around him in shards of firelight.

Albedo’s eyes snapped open.

He was back in the training room.

The warded chamber was no longer silent. A storm of raw aura erupted from his body, pillars of light and flame rising like infernos that clawed at the ceiling. The cracks in the obsidian floor widened, glowing faintly as if molten light bled through them.

His body thrummed with power, every breath spilling mana so pure it shimmered like mist. His eyes glowed a fierce violet-blue, alive with the fire of his Source Code and the storm of the breakthrough.

Gold Rank.

He had ascended.

Albedo rose slowly to his feet, his platinum hair falling in radiant strands across his shoulders, the aura of Gold Rank radiating from him in waves that shook the training room.

A faint smile tugged at his lips as he flexed his hand, arcs of violet and crimson flame crackling between his fingers.

This was only the beginning.

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