THE VILLAIN'S POV

Chapter 918: An Eccentric Author (1)

The Battle of the Crimson Field was merely one of countless battles that erupted throughout the Aether World between the Writers of History and the Lords of Mist.

War was inevitable.

It was the final destination of every conflict, whether in the Aether World, the Material World, or any other realm.

Whenever three people held opposing interests and irreconcilable beliefs, conflict was bound to follow.

That was why war had always been the highest form of violence—a place where reason was imposed through strength, and through strength alone.

Yet the wars between the Writers and the Lords of Mist were unlike ordinary wars.

They were something entirely different.

It was said that whenever a Lord of Mist clashed with a Writer, the very concepts of reality became distorted, and everything descended into the unknown.

The Writers were the sovereigns of aether.

They wielded overwhelming power, enough to create entire worlds with nothing but their pens.

Their purpose was to preserve order.

The Lords of Mist, on the other hand, were monsters who held supreme authority over aura.

It granted them terrifying powers capable of rivaling aether itself.

They stood as the complete opposite of the Writers—rebellious beings who defied order—and they had been enemies since the dawn of existence.

Their conflict had already given birth to two all-encompassing wars, neither of which produced a true victor.

Yet even two wars were not enough.

Before long, a third one erupted, even more violent than those before it, after the appearance of the accursed Prince of Mist.

The Battle of the Crimson Field was one of the opening engagements of that long war.

It was also the battle where one of the youngest Writers first rose to prominence.

The eldest son of the First Writer.

Audrey had been present during that battle.

She had witnessed everything with her own eyes.

That was why she alone could tell its story.

Frey had saved her.

He had stood before her at the very moment she was about to die in the middle of the battlefield, causing her eyes to remain fixed upon him.

For a brief moment, she forgot everything that had happened to her.

She forgot the dark tunnel.

She forgot the endless journey she had endured.

"The Battle of the Crimson Field was practically a war unto itself," Audrey recalled, recovering another fragment of her shattered consciousness. "Its scale was beyond imagination. Countless attendants of the Writers fought against the Creatures of Mist, and the roar of colliding powers was so overwhelming it drowned out every other sound."

"And yet... despite all that chaos..."

"When he stood before me, every sound disappeared."

Her eyes never left him.

Nor did the eyes of countless others who had fought there that day.

The moment Frey pierced through the mist, it was as though the battlefield itself had fallen silent.

As though the entire war had been muted.

Every other clash faded into the background, while every eye turned toward him alone.

Frey carved a path through the mist.

Each swing of his blades brought down another monster.

He wielded a sword of aether in one hand and a sword of aura in the other.

Both obeyed him with flawless precision.

Not a single ordinary Creature of Mist was capable of standing in his way.

The Creatures of Mist wielded terrifying powers through aura.

Those powers were, in essence, what were known as World breaking abilities.

Yet ordinary Creatures of Mist could never contend with a true Writer.

Only the Lords of Mist themselves possessed the strength to fight them on equal footing.

Frey, in particular, had been astonishingly gifted.

A genius from birth.

His talent had drawn the attention of everyone around him—most of all, his mother, the First Writer.

Although the Battle of the Crimson Field had been his first true battle, Frey broke through the mist, defeated every enemy in his path, and reached the Lord of Mist commanding the opposing forces.

The instant he arrived, a fierce battle erupted between the two.

The battlefield itself turned upside down.

The Lord of Mist standing before Frey was a genuine monster.

Not merely in appearance...

But in strength.

The Creatures of Mist bore forms remarkably similar to those of the Writers.

The only differences were their unnaturally pale gray skin and their corpse-like features, which gave them the appearance of walking dead.

"The Lord of Mist Frey fought was far from weak," Audrey continued. "Quite the opposite. He was infamous for both his brutality and his overwhelming strength."

"His name was Queem..."

"The Lord of Dimension."

Queem was an ancient monster.

He had survived the Second War, and that fact alone spoke volumes about his strength.

He had lived long enough to command forces in the Third War as well.

Queem possessed one of the highest-grade World breaking abilities.

It granted him complete dominion over the dimension surrounding him.

His body was cloaked in a dark, star-like aura.

Any attack aimed at him simply failed to reach its target, striking some random location elsewhere in the world instead.

At the same time, he could manipulate the very fabric of reality around him and erase anything within his domain.

Frey assaulted him with both aether and aura blades.

Yet regardless of how much power he poured into his attacks, none of them ever touched Queem’s body.

Throughout the battle...

Frey was the only one taking damage.

Using his dimensional authority, Queem repeatedly erased portions of Frey’s body from existence.

That forced Frey to expend vast amounts of aether merely to regenerate himself.

Ordinary regeneration was useless against the attacks of a Lord of Mist.

Their absolute control over aura made certain of that.

For a while...

It seemed inevitable that Frey would lose.

Even Queem himself believed victory was already within his grasp.

Yet in the end...

He was the one who fell.

The tide of battle overturned in an instant.

Everything changed the moment a strange symbol appeared upon Frey’s left arm.

It resembled an eye.

An eye that contained nothing but emptiness.

Audrey barely caught a glimpse of it.

Frey revealed it for only a few fleeting seconds before launching a single counterattack that completely ended Queem.

The instant that eye opened, a deadly gray-black energy enveloped Frey’s sword.

Confident in the invincibility of his Dimensional Mantle, Queem never attempted to evade the strike.

And that mistake cost him everything.

The moment Frey unleashed that power, his blade pierced straight through Queem’s defenses.

It cleaved apart both the Lord of Mist and the impregnable defense he had always taken pride in.

Queem was erased from existence by a single strike.

"That..."

"Was the supreme power of the Writers."

"The power of the Rune."

The Lords of Mist could create the highest-grade World breaking abilities through aura.

The Writers, however, possessed something comparable.

When their mastery over aether reached its absolute limit...

They awakened a Rune.

"Frey possessed the same Rune as his mother."

"The Rune of Erasure."

It was an overwhelming power.

The power to erase.

A dark gray force capable of erasing every defense and every form of power standing in its path.

It was one of the greatest reasons Clea had ascended to the position of the First Writer.

The moment Queem fell, the outcome of the battle was decided.

The forces of Mist were driven into inevitable defeat.

The Writers of History claimed victory after slaying one of the Lords of Mist and annihilating countless warriors from the enemy army.