The Genius Mage Was Reincarnated Into A Swordsman Family-Chapter 346: (Vol2/Chap1)The Ashes of Northwatch

Klaus and Dudu soared high above the world, a single, swift shadow cutting across the blinding white expanse of the Northern Territories.

They had been flying for a full day and night, the dragon’s stamina proving to be as monstrous as its physical stats suggested. The bitter cold of the upper atmosphere, usually lethal to humans without heavy magical shielding, was negated by Klaus’s artifacts and the heat radiating from Dudu’s black scales.

Below them, the landscape was a monotonous, beautiful canvas of snow-capped peaks, frozen rivers, and endless pine forests buried under winter’s weight. It was a world of white and grey.

Until it wasn’t.

Klaus leaned forward, his eyes narrowing against the wind. The horizon had changed. The pristine white snow suddenly terminated in a vast, jagged line, as if a god had taken a brush of darkness and painted over the world.

They were flying over what was left of Northwatch.

"Lower," Klaus commanded, his voice tight.

Dudu banked sharply, descending in a steep, controlled dive. As they broke through the cloud cover, the full scale of the devastation hit Klaus like a physical blow.

It wasn’t just a battlefield; it was a scar on the face of the planet.

For kilometers in every direction, there was nothing but black ash. No snow. No trees. No ruins of the fortress that had once stood guard here. The mountains themselves seemed to have been hollowed out, their peaks sheared off and reduced to dark, gritty dust. The earth was scorched so thoroughly that it looked like the surface of a dead moon.

Dudu landed with a heavy thud in the center of the devastation. The black dragon, usually eager and curious, hissed softly, its claws digging nervously into the blackened soil. Even the beast sensed the lingering echo of something unnatural.

Klaus slid off Dudu’s back. His boots crunched on the ground. He knelt, scooping up a handful of the ash.

It wasn’t cold.

Despite being in the heart of the frozen north, surrounded by glaciers, the ash was warm. It pulsed with a faint, sickly heat, a remnant of the voracious, consuming power that had erased this place a year ago.

"So this is Gluttony’s power?" Klaus whispered, letting the dark dust slip through his fingers.

He stood up, walking toward a depression in the ground that marked the epicenter. "The eternal rift was here. The fortress walls were here. My men died here."

He looked around, trying to find a single familiar landmark, a piece of stone, a weapon—anything that proved human life had once existed here. There was nothing. Just the endless, warm black ash.

Terrifying.

The word repeated in his mind, cold and clinical. He had known Gluttony was powerful—he carried the Apostle title, after all—but seeing the physical evidence of what the entity had done while possessing his body was a different kind of horror.

This wasn’t just destruction; it was consumption. Gluttony hadn’t just blown up Northwatch; he had eaten it. He had devoured the stone, the ice, the magic, and the people, leaving only this waste behind.

Not only Arkadius, but Gluttony is a threat, Klaus realized, a chill running down his spine that had nothing to do with the wind. They are both capable of wearing my body like a second skin. If Gluttony could do this in a few minutes of possession... what could Arkadius do with a lifetime?

He asked himself the question that had been gnawing at him since the Throne Room. ’In my current state, can I face an Apostle who has surrendered full body control to their Arkdieu?’

The answer, immediate and undeniable, was no.

No matter the Transcendent stats, no matter the Ten Eyes Mantra or the Singularity Principle, he was still learning to pilot his own power. An Arkdieu fully manifested in a host was a force of nature. Gluttony had turned a mountain range into a warm desert of ash. It was a level of reality-warping power that made his own Swordmaster, magical, and Soul power skills feel like children’s toys.

As he stood there, paralyzed by the scale of the destruction, a sound echoed in the vast, silent chamber of his mind.

{HAHA HAHA!}

Greed’s laughter was loud, grating, and utterly devoid of empathy. It bounced around Klaus’s skull, a mockery of his fear.

’What’s so funny?’ Klaus snapped mentally, his eyes still fixed on the devastation.

{I can sense the fear dripping off you, runt! HAHA! Are you finally realizing just how powerful we Arkdieus are?} Greed’s voice was smug, thick with satisfaction. {Don’t get confused by the pathetic little light shows that Sabrina Petrova or your cousin Alex displayed at that ball. Those are just Apostles playing with leaky faucets. They are holding back. What you see here? This is the real deal. This is what happens when the tap is broken.}

Klaus looked at the ash again. The real deal.

{My advice for you,} Greed continued, his tone shifting from mockery to a cold, flat pragmatism that was somehow even more disturbing. {You are going to face other Apostles. It is inevitable. When you do, don’t hesitate. Kill them. And then, absorb their Arkdieu Fragment.}

Klaus froze. He stood up straight, the wind whipping his white hair across his face.

"Wait, what?" he asked aloud, his voice lost in the empty wasteland. ’What do you mean by absorbing their Arkdieu Fragment?’

{OOH? The Great Me never told you about this?} Greed asked, his mental voice feigning surprise with theatrical exaggeration. {I suppose I must have forgotten. It’s such a minor detail.}

’Minor detail?’ Klaus thought furiously. ’You’re talking about eating other gods!’

{Well, I guess the other Apostles are probably not aware of this either,} Greed mused, ignoring Klaus’s outrage. {The Causality Law—that annoying little cosmic rulebook—probably prevents their Arkdieus from revealing such dangerous information to them. It would make the game too messy, too quickly.}

Klaus looked down at the simple, black ring on his finger. It looked so innocuous, just a piece of jewelry, yet it housed a consciousness that viewed cannibalizing its own kind as a strategic tip.

’What about you?’ Klaus projected, his thought sharp. ’Aren’t you also an Arkdieu? Doesn’t the Causality Law bind you?’

{HAHAHA! Don’t worry!} Greed laughed, the sound practically vibrating with loop-hole joy. {The Great Me does not have an Apostle in the traditional sense. You are a singularity, remember? A glitch. And I am a fragmented consciousness operating outside the standard contract. The Causality Law doesn’t mind me sharing a little... family secret.}

The ring pulsed on his finger, a cold heartbeat against his skin.

{Listen closely, runt. This is the only way you survive what’s coming.}

{When an Apostle kills another Apostle, the bond is shattered. The Arkdieu system attached to that victim doesn’t just vanish; it becomes vulnerable. If you are strong enough, and if you have the will, you can reach into their fading essence and Absorb the Arkdieu System bound to them. And in consequence, you consume the Fragment of the Arkdieu bound to it.}

Greed paused, letting the implication sink in.

{You don’t just defeat them, Klaus. You eat them. You take their Fragment, their power, and you add it to your own. You want to beat Arkadius? You want to stop Gluttony? Then you need to become the predator that eats the other monsters.}

Klaus looked out over the black, warm ash of Northwatch. He realized with a sick, cold certainty that the war for the continent wasn’t just about armies and territories. It was a harvest. And he had just been told how to hold the scythe.