Chapter 298: Surrounded in the Forest
Unnamed Forest
Unnamed Planet
Varona Realm
October 19th
Year 717 of the 50th General Calendar.
’Weird. I could have sworn I felt a gaze on me just now.’
Arthur thought to himself as he looked up at the clouds in the sky, his eyes infused with law energies but he still failed to see anything there.
This was natural, however, as the boy was not capable of ’seeing’ higher dimensional entities with his eyes so he naturally could not see the Eternal of Space who was looking at him a few seconds ago.
"Oh well."
He put that strange feeling at the back of his mind and focused on the more pressing situation befalling him.
"I had just been wondering, how is it that I can become a Superior Stage Epic as fast as possible so I can become a Legendary soon?
And you all chose to offer yourselves to me."
Following those words, he took a glance at the forest around him and then made a light bow before saying.
"For that, I offer you my thanks."
Immediately after, he channelled his energy into his legs and stomped his foot on the ground, sending his silver aura rippling through the ground like a seismic wave.
**BOOM!!
His aura spread out with a massive shockwave, tearing through the dense sea of trees surrounding him, and shattering the tranquillity of the forest.
The forest bowed before his might as the thicket of towering trees was uprooted and sent sprawling in all directions, their trunks splintering under the sheer force of the energy shockwaves.
In an instant, the forest around him had been flattened, turned into a large clearing that revealed the appearance of more than two dozen beings of both genders, each one having a startled expression that showed their astonishment at both the fact that they were discovered, and the fact that the boy was able to blast apart the forest with a single movement.
"Oh my. 30 Epic Realm existences? Just for me? I’m flattered.
If I have all your sparks then it’d be enough for me to go get to the next stage. Heck, I might even become a Legendary with due time."
Arthur spoke as he glanced around once more, spotting the 30 ’Epic’ realms who were still confused at how Arthur had spotted them.
"Wait a sec...five of you are inferior Legendries!"
The boy was genuinely shocked at this discovery, and he turned serious. Even if he was a nonstandard type who could beat Superior stages with ease, fighting against 5 Inferior Stage Legendries was still gonna be a pain.
"Facing 25 Epic Realms and 5 Legendries is a bit much even for me."
’And they have artifacts that use the powers of universal laws. The one that uses the law of time is the most potent.
There’s also some other universal law I don’t recognize.’
Arthur thought to himself as he analysed their auras closely and noted down all the things to be wary of.
As for who these thirty beings were and the reason why Arthur could still sense them despite the artifacts that used the law of concealment and trickery they possessed: they were all demigods.
Not Demigod realm existences, but half-gods.
Some of them had Elven and Beastman features, showing the races of their non-divine parents.
As the Progenitor Godslayer, it was nigh-impossible for anyone with a divine factor to ’hide’ from him, so even if he could not sense their presence normally due to the artifacts, his Progenitor blood told him that he was surrounded by beings with Divine Factors.
On a side note, the Legendries had indeed been concealing their auras to make Arthur let down his guard, but once again, it was impossible for beings with divine factors to hide things from the Progenitor Godslayer.
’Should I take this chance to see if I can trigger my own power of time by getting hit by their artifact? I should also see how well I fare against Divine beings without my Progenitor Authority too.’
In the past two years, Arthur had achieved a new level of control over his progenitor powers, and he could temporarily restrain the weakening effect his mere presence had on beings with the Divine Factor.
It didn’t change the fact that he was more resistant to their attacks and his attacks towards them would be more powerful than normal though.
But at least, their existence Realms weren’t getting reduced just by being near him like Jarox’s half-god Valkyrie daughter in Phirex.
’Let’s do this.’
"Now then, when faced with multiple opponents far more powerful than I am. There’s only one obvious choice of action."
Arthur revved himself up and stretched his legs and his arms, twisted his body and cracked his neck.
He then suddenly turned around and spoke.
"Run."
**BOOM!!
He abruptly kicked off the ground, using an instant acceleration spell to achieve sonic speed in a mere second, and breaking past it in the next.
"That bastard!"
"After him!"
The demigods reacted a beat later, summoning their energies and dashing after the fleeing progenitor boy.
The Epic realms all took to the skies, blitzing through the air at supersonic speeds as they strived to catch up to Arthur, but as if to mock them, the boy turned around with a smug grin on his face before spreading out his wings.
Immediately after, Arthur’s speed increased to a whole new level, shocking the Legendries who were after him.
Within just a second, the boy had already crossed nearly a mile in distance and they almost lost sight of him.
"Shit! He’s heading towards a forest! He’s trying to hide!"
One of the Legendries spoke up as he increased his speed, easily accelerating to Arthur’s speed and gaining on him within a few seconds.
This wasn’t too surprising as they were Legendries, after all, their movement speeds were naturally on a whole new level.
The Superior Stage Epics also used magic to increase their speed to catch up to him.
"There’s a mountain up front. I’d go around it in case he tries to circle it.
You three descend to keep him from flying into the forest.
The rest, follow him."
After giving orders, the leader of the group blitzed around the massive mountain, attempting to cut off Arthur who seemed to be trying to go around it.
At the same time, Arthur’s altitude was also decreasing like he wanted to enter the forest at the foot of the mountain so they were a bit confused about his real intentions.
They all believed Arthur was indeed trying to run away from them and never thought for a moment that the boy had been leading them around the nose.
And that was their first mistake.
Arthur suddenly accelerated and moved around the mountain, with the fastest Superior Epic following closely behind, weapon in hand.
He wanted Arthur to get caught in a pincer attack with the Legendary who was going over to the other side.
Even if the other party was a Legendary, he wasn’t moving with his top speed so it was naturally going to take him a while to go around a mountain that was around fifteen thousand hectares in area.
The Superior Epic had readied his tier 3 magic and loaded his sword with divinity, under the assumption that Arthur’s relation to devils meant he had some sort of weakness to the energy type.
He was about to unleash the spell, when suddenly-
"Extreme Nothingness."
Arthur abruptly turned around, folding his wings and summoning Celestia simultaneously. The energies of the laws of time and destruction coalesced around his sword into a purple light that gave one chills just by looking at it.
The Epic Realm demigod’s soul screamed out in instinctive danger but it was already too late.
A single hyper beam of condensed energy was released as Arthur thrust his sword forward. The air shook and the atmosphere trembled.
**BOOM!!
The poor half-god was hit directly with no time to dodge.
Everything from his chest downwards was completely erased, with no ashes remaining. His soul was shredded by the power of the destruction and his existence ended right there and then.
"Ah!"
Arthur let out a light exclamation as the beam of light launched from his sword, ’deleted’ the half-god’s body, and then went on to hit the mountain behind him.
Without hesitation, the boy instantly distanced himself from the mountain as he knew best how much energy he put into that attack just now.
If it had enough power to instakill a Superior stage Epic realm, then a single mountain was nothing before it.
***KAAABOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!
The beam collided with the towering mountain, resulting in a devastating explosion that shattered the mountain’s very essence and reduced it to a storm of rubble.
Although Arthur’s Annihilation: Null, ’destroyed’ the mountain, turning it to dust and not even leaving ashes behind, the initial explosion upon contact with the mountain was so great that a few of the inferior Epics who had just caught up found themselves tragically entangled in the explosive aftermath.
Their lives were extinguished in an instant, leaving nothing behind, not even their Divine sparks, causing a light frown to appear on Arthur’s face.
"Shit, that’s seven less Divine Sparks!"
