Ascension of the last Celestial

The ceiling of the cave crashed down on them. The sheer force generated by their clash destabilized the cavern that lay deep below the ground. The cave had stood as a safe place for the cave goblins for thousands of years, but now it all came crashing down. As rocks fell from the ceiling, destroying the houses around them and killing the innocent bystanders, Valerian and the chief just looked at each other.

After the clash that destroyed the ceiling, they both built distance from the other. Not even sparing a glance at the falling rocks, they came to an agreement. Without even trying to exchange words, they decided to take their fight outside.

The darkness around the chief surged and swallowed him whole, while Valerian used his space affinity to fold the space around himself.

They both reappeared at the surface, standing inside a meadow with the still-falling pieces of rock beside them. By now, it was nighttime. The meadow stretched on for a long distance, ensuring nothing could come in between their fight.

At the same time, they disappeared from their spots and reappeared clashing again with their swords. The physical strength of the chief was greater, but Valerian’s enhancement was fueled by Aether—the nickname Seraphine had come up with for his pure mana. Thanks to his enhancement, he was able to keep up with the chief even though they were an entire rank apart.

But Valerian’s plan wasn’t to fight him normally.

While they were exchanging slashes and thrusts with each other, the chief summoned a maw that looked like a dragon to emerge from the ground. Valerian didn’t even attempt to dodge or teleport away, letting himself get bitten by the jaws of the darkness dragon.

The fangs buried themselves deep into his abdomen. It hurt like hell, and Valerian only managed to keep his cool because he knew that the benefits of his plan would be worth every bit of pain.

The chief didn’t waste the opportunity brought to him by the darkness attack and went in with an overhead slash. Valerian, still in the jaws of the beast, barely managed to lean to the side and let the slash fly past his head. But the slash still managed to sever his left arm completely. The pain from losing his arm flooded his brain, but not a single scream escaped his mouth.

Finally willing to free himself, he called upon his own darkness. The blade of his katana got covered by the same clean darkness that he had used before in the fight with the chief. This time, it swallowed the whole dragon head and finally freed him.

The holes made by the jaws of the dragon and his severed arm bled heavily, but soon a purple glow appeared in the holes and closed them instantly. His stump also began to glow, and though it took longer for it to regrow, at least the bleeding stopped.

This time wasn’t wasted by the goblin chief as he once again closed the distance. Valerian readied himself with his one remaining arm. Instead of trying to match the chief again with strength, he teleported at the last second before the attack could kill him and appeared behind the goblin with a diagonal slash.

The chief wasn’t able to react in time to the sudden teleport and got hit on his back. But like before, he didn’t even waste a fraction of a second on his injury and turned around with his massive greatsword in a horizontal slash. However, his attack met nothing, as Valerian was already gone.

He teleported behind the chief again, but this time, instead of attacking, he watched closely how the wound oozed darkness mana and closed instantly—not a single drop of blood escaping the chief’s body.

’Ah, so it works like that.’

Watching the way the mana interacted with the wound, Valerian immediately copied the movement and applied it to the stump of his left arm.

A bright light appeared and the arm was back instantly in its prime form, like he had never lost it to begin with. No, this new arm looked even stronger. Not in the bulky sense that he now had a massive arm, but in a compact form.

Flexing his new and stronger arm, Valerian had a wicked grin on his face. By now, the chief had turned around again and looked at the arm that he had just cut off. He began to speak in a language that, surprisingly, Valerian understood as clearly as his mother tongue.

"Your healing won’t save you. It will just drag your death out longer."

The surprise that Valerian felt soon disappeared as he realized why he could understand the monster’s language even though he had never heard it before.

’By bloodline and race.’

It was no surprise that the bloodline of the strongest races gave a universal language understanding.

’But how does that work? Will he understand me if I just talk normally?’

"Hey, you. Can you understand me?"

The goblin looked at Valerian with pure shock, because this horned human just spoke his language in a perfect way. It sounded like he could speak it even better than the chief himself.

"You... how do you speak my language? Only we goblins speak it."

Valerian’s eyes lit up in delight and a grin spread across his face.

"So you can understand me! That’s amazing. And I thought I would have to learn how to pronounce your words, haha."

At Valerian’s laugh and happy expression, the chief’s expression didn’t even change a bit. It still stayed the same hard way it had the whole fight.

’If he is so strong and can speak our language, he is dangerous.’

"It doesn’t matter if you can understand me. You will die today."

Deciding that the chat was over, he once again engaged Valerian. But Valerian’s grin didn’t disappear, as he hadn’t used the brief pause brought by the conversation for nothing.

He threw his katana into his left hand and leaned to the side, purposely bringing his right arm into the slash. And unsurprisingly, the chief cleanly cut off Valerian’s right arm.

Even though he had planned for this and purposefully let him cut off his arm, it still hurt like hell. Grinding his teeth, he suppressed a scream and slipped into a fold of space, reappearing high in the air.

The stump of his right arm began to glow in the purple light, but unlike his left arm, his right one regrew in seconds. Now, his right hand also felt stronger and more compressed.

’Haa... this is gonna hurt. Like, a lot.’

Giving himself in to this fate, he took Twilight back into his right hand and reappeared again in the meadow behind the chief, who looked at the new arm with a frown.

This time, Valerian closed the gap, but not with a slash from his katana—he went with a kick from his right leg.

The goblin chief effortlessly caught the leg and brought his sword down, cutting it off. Before the blood could even begin to fall, Valerian slipped back through space and reappeared high in the sky, with the purple light once again regrowing his leg.

After that, the cycle repeated itself dozens of times. Valerian would attack the chief, and the chief would counter by either cutting off a part of his body, stabbing him, or breaking his organs with his insane strength. And every time, Valerian would teleport into the air and let the purple light heal whatever wound was inflicted on him.

The chief obviously noticed the pattern of him attacking, losing a limb or getting injured, disappearing, and coming back a second later fully healed. He tried to kill him, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t get in more than one hit at a time.

When he stabbed his heart, the chief thought that this time Valerian would stay dead. But just like before, he would disappear and reappear fully healed.

By now, the ground beneath them looked less like a green meadow and more like a battlefield where hundreds had died. Blood dyed the grass crimson, and severed limbs and pieces of flesh littered the ground.

"This is the last one, you know."

As Valerian’s voice appeared, the chief turned around, fully ready to kill him this time for good.

After so many injuries, Valerian’s clothes, which were made from Twilight, were completely destroyed. He stood in front of the chief completely naked, not that the chief even Cleanly bat an eye at him.

Valerian’s body had changed a lot during the continuous injuries and healing. While he had always been ripped, it had kept itself more reserved before. But now, his body looked like beneath his skin were tightly coiled muscles that had more power in them than reality would allow. His body looked like it was chiseled by the gods themselves, with not a single bit misaligned or out of place. Even his "member" looked like it was modeled after absolute perfection, meeting the perfect balance between length and girth. Anyway...

Valerian had a wide grin on his face and looked into the cold eyes of the chief.

"You have been a wonderful training partner."

The chief didn’t answer.

At the same time, Valerian and the chief dashed towards each other. This time, Valerian didn’t even enhance his body with mana but was still able to meet the chief’s speed.

When Valerian got into the range of the greatsword, space mana left his core. He prepared a teleportation spell because he knew he wouldn’t be able to activate it in time.

Simultaneously, the sharp edge of the greatsword and Valerian’s neck met. The space folded around him, but not without the blade slicing completely through and severing his head.