The Heroine is My Stepsister, and I'm her Final Boss
Chapter 192 - 193: Wonder or loss?

Chapter 192: Chapter 193: Wonder or loss?

White fire licked the torn sky.

"Naahhhhh..." Loki’s voice boomed, hollow yet triumphant.

His body—once human—was now a pillar of white flame. It burned not outward but inward, a consuming inferno that radiated power. The heat rolled across the battlefield like a wave, boiling sweat on armor, blistering flesh unseen beneath crests. Soldiers gulped air thick with ash and fear.

Beside him, Veil fell from the sky in a puddle of pure dark mana. No wings, no shape—just void. But then the darkness bled upward, forming limbs, a torso, and a head. Where Loki was light, Veil was absence. Together, they painted the sky in stark contrast: light and void in furious motion.

It was the fall of gods.

One god of light, one god of darkness, standing among mortals, bending the world to their shape.

The battlefield stilled.

Flags drooped. Horses whimpered. Even the many mages— under Merlin’s binding magic—trembled, their skin quivering like a frightened child.

One side of the sky burned; the other collapsed into black.

"LOKI?!" Merlin roared, voice echoing in everyone’s ears like thunder inside a shell.

Merlin hovered at the edge of view, sunfire still dancing atop his palm. He had never looked so mortal—and so godlike.

Loki’s fist, engulfed in solar flame, drew back.

Veil’s arm, now formed and muscular, throbbed with gravity magic. He struck his own chest—his form rippled inward as if ripping space itself—before shaping his fist to Atlas’s own size, the gravity field around it collapsing the battlefield under its weight.

It was bloodline magic: sun from father, gravity from mother. It sang of legacies entwined with cosmic violence.

They struck upward.

Their fists collided with Merlin’s sun.

B O O O O M M M M M!!!

The impact shattered air. The crater of power rang out across the field. Ground split. Magic uprooted roots. Soldiers clutched at their ears as the shockwave tore through armor.

Time slowed.

Denish’s breath froze in his lungs.

Moments stretched into eternities.

Dust rained down—glittering motes caught in the explosion’s afterglow. Sparks of mana hovered like will-o’-the-wisps. The boundary between earth and sky blurred. It was a storm unshackled.

Mortals watched as gods wrestled.

Some pricked with worship. Some flinched with terror. Some found their hearts singing: This is power.

Loki and Veil dropped from the explosion, feet touching scorched earth. Loki’s smile was cold and wide; light refracted in his flaming aura. Veil’s shadow-form drained into flesh, limbs reappearing, muscles twitching back into shadowed life, one eye opening wide with that smirk of oblivion.

Merlin hovered above them, sunfire dimming but still heavy. A trickle of blood rolled from his mouth—white blood, streaked across his lips like frost on marble.

"...Loki...you escaped..." Merlin breathed, voice raw.

Loki chuckled, stepping forward, flame guttering like a live star. "Of course," he said, speaking slowly, deliberately. "You and the High Elders’ cage can’t hold me... The depths of the Dark Continent could not kill me. I am here once more, old man... What’re you gonna do?!"

A pause.

Then Merlin’s eyes flared, brighter than before. Hatred bled into them.

He wove mana in spirals, weaving sunfire like a dancer. The air quivered. Fabric of the world trembled under creation and destruction.

"Because of you... my most prized pupil left me," Merlin said, voice brittle as glass. The sky above him burned white. Temperature spiked—enough to make armor hiss and buckle. Rocks sizzled. Sweat vaporized off Denish’s scalp. A metaphor in action: the sky’s fracture mirrored Merlin’s broken heart.

Loki’s voice followed, low but audible over the raging heat: " Fucking crazy, old man... I will handle that old shit... you can go find Atlas." He flicked his head at Veil, half-sneer. "You."

Veil snarled, face flickering between shadow and shape. "I fucking know. Don’t fucking order me around." His body dissolved into darkness and vanished—back into shadow magic.

Loki stayed. Flames curled around him like serpents tasting air. He grinned, stepping toward Merlin, flames folding over him protectively. "You guys..." he said to the gathered soldiers, voice mocking. "You lot need to escape... otherwise—" His words triggered a pause, like a pause in breathing. "All of you."

They listened.

Their fight wasn’t with gods now. It was over.

Even Imperial soldiers—torn, fearful—turned away. Shields lowered. Spears dropped. They fled like ants sensing the foot.

Denish watched. He felt the heat of sun-fire on his face. Blasted ash in his hair. The battlefield was silent save for distant thunder—magic heaven’s echo of this divine clash.

Merlin pointed his palm again. White flames swirled, star‑bright. Loki’s flame danced in response, moving with him as he pivoted—always angled toward his too‑old teacher.

"Still blaming me for Aurora?" Loki’s voice was low now, sardonic. "Are we? Hahahaha! Come on then... you fucking old man!" He opened his arms wide—inviting the storm.

Merlin’s voice matched the fire. "Arrogant as always... I could not kill you before but now....your death I will enjoy."

He unleashed—white flame in a beam, straight as judgement, bright as dawn. The air between them rippled.

Denish inhaled, skin prickling. Doubts surged.

’Is this how it ends? Merlin vs Loki? Mortals acting like gods.. fighting?’

He shook his head.

Denish had thought he’d seen power.

He had fought titans on the borders of the Deadlands. Slain giants twice his height in the screaming snows of the North. He had split hills in two with his blade, crushed enemy battalions with nothing but war chants and cold steel. The weight of eleven warrior-class skills coursed through him now—his limbs hardened, his stance perfect, his breath ironed with discipline.

He had trained his body until it became an engine. A monument of muscle, grit, and pain.

And yet—

He stood still now, sword lowered, watching.

The sky above was no longer sky. It was a theater.

Loki danced across it like a flame refusing to be contained, reality bending wherever he moved. Each gesture of his hand rewrote the battlefield, like the laws of nature were just... options.

Merlin, in contrast, stood still—but the stillness of stars, not men. Every movement from him was measured, deliberate. He summoned spells not with words, but with intent. Pillars of light and time cracked open the firmament. Chains of memory itself wrapped around Loki, only to be laughed away.

They weren’t fighting.

They were composing.

God against god. Madness against memory. Fire against wisdom. It was terrifying, and somehow... beautiful.

Denish didn’t blink. Couldn’t.

And yet, inside—he was sinking.

So this was the ceiling.

This was the world above his world.

Where warriors like him... meant nothing.

He felt it in his bones—the quiet despair of recognition. That no matter how sharp his blade became, no matter how many scars he collected, he would never touch the edge of what he was witnessing.

"Eleven..." he murmured under his breath. Eleven warrior skills, fused through a decade of training, blood rituals, and near-death thresholds. Each skill shaved from the body like sculpture. He had endured poisons, fought blindfolded for months, trained under collapsing temples.

And still, it wasn’t enough.

He remembered how heavy it had felt to unlock "Intense Body Core." How it twisted his organs, made his lungs burn like they were inhaling magma. And "Swift Legs"—he had nearly torn his tendons. And yet he’d mastered them, all of them, brought them to heel like loyal wolves.

That had been his mountain. That had been power.

But now...

He saw Merlin turn time sideways.

He saw Loki fracture light into laughter.

And all that training—those years clawing at mastery—it suddenly felt like lifting stones in a world of storms.

His fingers tightened around his blade.

A warrior’s grip. Familiar. Safe.

He knew how to break ribs. Knew how to shatter knees. But how do you stab a spell? How do you parry a joke spoken by a god?

He clenched his jaw.

Not out of rage. But... loss.

The loss of wonder. Of relevance.