CHAPTER 879: 876: AFTER DAWNBREAKER

The winds were gone.

And so were the clouds.

The sky above the Dying City had become still. So still to the point that it looked like a painting. There was no movement, no shift, no breath.

Almost like the world had stopped breathing.

A strange kind of silence had descended. It was not heavy or stifling.

No.

It was... calm.

No scream of ghosts echoed. No corrupted monsters shrieked in the distance. Even the strange gurgling moans one would hear randomly from buildings and alleys had ceased.

The entire city which had always been consumed by a cacophony of tormented wails and murmurs of madness, had fallen into something that was almost... peaceful.

’Well, this peaceful state will not last long. A minute at most.’

’The main source of corruption is still there, and my new spell is definitely not enough to purge the entire city of the corruption.’

’Maybe this kilometer wide radius might take more time for it to be corrupted back, but it definitely will.’

’I wonder... Will a Tier 7 with the power of light be able to purge the entire city of the corruption without going for the main source?’

Corey floated above it all, and his eyes slowly moved over the landscape beneath him.

Fires of golden-white still flickered quietly in pockets across the shattered and scorched ruins, like lanterns left behind by a passing sun god.

Some streets were scorched. Others had been cleansed so completely that the walls, floors, and even the air itself carried the scent of something that was akin to divinity.

Statues that had once moved now lay still, unmoving and truly dead. Shadow stains that had clung to surfaces like mold had been erased without a trace.

And amidst it all, a light mist curled through the streets.

The mist was not white. It was not grey. It was not black. Instead, it was white and gold.

It was like a gentle fog that drifted from the aftermath of Dawnbreaker, and it moved softly like it didn’t belong in a place like this.

Corey remained motionless in the sky, and his breathing was slow and utterly calm.

His left hand was in his pocket, and his gaze swept over the destruction he had wrought without a single trace of regret.

He looked at his right hand, and he could see sweat on his palms. His skin was marred with burns that were healing and burning and healing again.

The radiance in his Eyes of Omniscience dimmed as he regulated the circulation of his mana.

His lips parted, and for the first time in the last few minutes... he exhaled.

Haaaa...

It was a deep breath. One that came from his soul due to the amount of work he had put his mind through in just less than an hour.

Then he smiled lightly.

Not because he was proud.

Not because had won.

But because he had survived the Third Night without it taking anything from him.

Dream Healing was still working, and his mana was still stabilizing.

But the cost...

He blinked.

His mana pool had dropped by nearly sixty percent.

That wasn’t something he could ignore.

Even with his ridiculous mana capacity and regeneration, sixty percent loss in one spell meant that Dawnbreaker was a weapon he could only use once. Twice at best.

’I have three Infinity Crystals and the spell still approximately sixty percent of my mana pool?’

’That’s very ineffective.’

He frowned, and in the depths of his pupils, his thoughts went back to the spell.

His mind went back to the spell he had crafted. The sheer scale of it. The transformation from a magic formation to wings of fire, to thousands of rays of light, to chains, to the movement of the wings... and the end.

One would have thought that he was appreciating how powerful the spell had been since it was his creation. But that was very wrong.

Instead, he began to disassemble it in his mind space.

He replayed every moment, every rune, every interaction the spell had with the world. Every transformation.

’The purification effect worked well... and the void runes definitely helped in suppressing the core structure of the shadow’s energy.’

’But... the chain phase was too short.’

He narrowed his eyes.

’They weren’t strong enough. I noticed that the moment the wings began to move, the chains had already started breaking apart. That means the integration between the Fire-Light sequence and the Bind Phase isn’t tight enough. I’ll need to add more Binding Formations into the structure... or maybe increase the recursion feedback with a Stabilization Formation.’

He tapped his finger on his leg with a calculating light in his eyes.

’And the wings...’

He paused, and then he exhaled slowly.

’That wasn’t even the final form I envisioned. The wings were meant to be more solid and less ethereal. They also burned unevenly near the tips.’

’The runes weren’t fully symmetrical. That could’ve led to an instability mid-flight. I got lucky because the colossal shadow was just a mindless entity... If I had been facing a powerful and talented Runemaster like Pamela , she would have noticed this weakness and taken advantage of it.’

’I need to make it more perfect.’

He closed his eyes and reviewed the formation once again from his memory. He observed the light. The movement. The weight. Every single thing.

’The spell also lack autonomy. Despite activating it, I still had to give verbal or mental commands. That’s a flaw.’

He furrowed his brows.

’What if I’m ever unconscious or restrained? What if the enemy disrupts my mind or blinds me? I’ll need to encode a will- no... not just a will... I’ll need to encode a directive core within the spell matrix.’

’That way, Dawnbreaker can function independently once cast. Like a machine with its own parameters.’

’But that would mean combining mental runes with spiritual intent... I should read more of the books I took from the Archive and recorded from the Underworld.’

He removed his hand from his pocket and looked at it. They were no longer sweaty, and he could feel his body returning to its peak.

’Also, I need to reduce the mental and spiritual energy consumption. Along with the mana consumption.’

’Thirty-five percent mental usage and sixty percent mana requirement is still too high. That’s not sustainable for prolonged conflict. I’ll probably need to create a variant version of Dawnbreaker that requires less requirements for less dangerous entities.’

’A smaller-scale spell with partial purification effects and better mana efficiency.’

A tiny smile touched the corner of his lips as he finished his thoughts.

It wasn’t a smile of pride.

But of relief that he was able to improve and refine his creation in his mind.

He exhaled softly, and then he sent the spell structures from his main consciousness to his Stars of Consciousness.

The complex lines of runes, formulas, and sequences faded from his thoughts like dissipating mist.

Some moments later...

A soft chime echoed in his mind.

Not one.

But several.

Dozens.

Ding...

Ding...

Ding...

One after another, system notifications began to pour into his consciousness like a waterfall of golden light.

’Well, I was expecting this.’