Chapter 358: The Breed Difference
"What makes you say so?"
"The fact that you can use destruction energy, yet choose not to attack with it."
Sigesi spoke as she expelled the ice law energy she had infused into her body, allowing it to return to normal temperatures.
"My Pseudo Authority of Ice is a result of my unique skill.
What about you? Where’d you get yours from, and what universal law? Destruction?"
Arthur’s brows raised lightly when he heard her words, and seeing as she was being so upfront about it, he decided to reciprocate.
"Mine isn’t from any unique skill. I could say it’s due to my Racial Breed."
The reason he was able to comprehend universal laws was due to the fact that he was a progenitor, so it wasn’t exactly wrong to say It was due to his Race Breed.
"You’re aware that you’re a different breed as well; an Elder Breed, aren’t you?"
"Ah...that. I see it on the race tab of my Status every day, it’d be stranger if I wasn’t aware. Except I don’t ’fully’ understand what it entails to be one.
I was told it was something that’d apparently make even Demon King’s jealous but that just sounds absurd."
Sigesi could not fathom why in the universe, that a being as prestigious as a Demon King would even need to be jealous of anything that she; a mid-rank demon, had.
"I’m guessing most of them are probably Greater or Archdemons. It’d make sense they’d be jealous as Elder Breeds are higher levelled than Archdemons."
"But does it really matter when they’re far stronger than I am? I know I am stronger than normal, but that only applies to fellow lower existences; it’s nothing to a higher one."
Indeed, being a higher breed than a Demon King didn’t matter as in the end, they could just one-shot her to oblivion, so she didn’t make as much of a fuss about it as others did.
"I’ve been in this universe for a few days so I’ve been able to understand a few things about the Devour Class system.
I should be able to explain it in a way you can understand it easier."
Sigesi’s brow raised when she heard Arthur’s phrasing; as if he was not from the universe they were in; Valmone.
"If my understanding of this universe’s system is correct, then the Values on your status board; your Strength, Agility and the like, are actually multipliers."
"Multipliers?"
Arthur had spent the past few days using cosmic energy and the law of knowledge’s power to study as much of the system as he could. He did have to use the power of time to reverse his brain’s state back to normal every time it overheated due to the influx of information but that’s not important right now.
"Each being should have base stat figures, being multiplied by their Level to get these Stat Values.
Let’s say, you have an Archdemon, who at a certain level, has a Base Stat figure of 10. At that same Level, you, an Elder Breed would have a Base Stat figure of maybe 18 or so."
"Almost two times?"
The boy shook his head when Sigesi questioned, before continuing his explanation.
"It’s only almost twice at that ’certain level’. When your level increases, so does the gap.
It can become up to 3, 4 or even 8 times depending on how high it is.
It’s the reason why I’m guessing that you probably have stats that are on the level of a Sovereign despite being a Superior Legendary."
The woman went silent as Arthur’s words hit the mark. She indeed possessed stats that made one mistake her for a Sovereign Relam existence.
It was also this strength of hers that made her one of the few Legendries to possess a General Rank, even if it was the lowest Brigadier General rank.
"You also have things like higher energy quality and demonic energy reserves on default. Whatever Racial Traits Demons possess, yours are higher than theirs.
You’re like a ’Primed’ version of Demon.
If these Demon Kings, as powerful as they are, were Elder Breeds as well; then they’d be like ’Prime Demon Kings’, strong enough to wipe the floor with the others."
While Arthur was speaking, he was inwardly questioning why no one had explained this to Sigesi before, because she genuinely looked like she was hearing most of what he said for the first time.
’Or is she just faking it?’
The woman held her hand to her chin as she nodded to herself, before looking back at him and asking.
"You said you were a different breed as well, what are you then? Elder Breed Devil?"
"I’m a bit of a special case; not a devil like you may assume but a different race you’ve never heard of.
According to the System, I’m apparently a ’Primordial Breed’."
"Never heard of it. The most I know of are Ancients."
Sigesi replied with a shrug of her shoulders, after which her aura suddenly started increasing in intensity.
"We’re continuing the fight?"
"Did I ever say we were gonna stop?"
"...you didn’t."
Her power surged out of her body uncontrollably, dyeing the skies with her colour as she replied.
"Indeed, I didn’t.
And I plan to take things up a notch...I don’t want a boring battle."
Arthur could see the ambient energy in the atmosphere all being quickly influenced by her ice attribute. In a few seconds, there was no ’pure magic power’ around him anymore but ’ice magic power’.
It was then, that she decided to activate the same thing she was trying to draw out of Arthur.
[Pseudo-Authority of Ice: Crystalline Blade Formation]
A giant octagonal of blue light manifested around both her and Arthur, and within it, intricate, razor-edged blades of ice were formed and launched at him with precision, creating a deadly barrage.
Faced with this, Arthur decided to respond in kind.
|¬Pseudo Authority of Time: Temporal Stop¬|
His declaration brought an expression of surprise to Sigesi’s face, as of all the things she had guessed Arthur’s power to be, Time certainly wasn’t one of them.
’Time? That’s his power? I thought it’d be fire or destruction.’
All the blades ice zipping towards him froze in their tracks, losing their blue glow and shifting to a monochrome shade.
Arthur then held out his right hand and summoned Celestia, prompting Sigesi to draw her own weapon in response.
’Frostshade.’
Ice-cold demonic energy coalesced into her palm, moulding into a sword of dark ice that gleamed with an otherworldly chill.
"Don’t blink, Sigesi."
Unfortunately, Arthur’s words had the opposite effect of making Sigesi blink instead.
And in that short moment that she did, Arthur vanished from her field of view.
His already fast speed was boosted even further with Time Acceleration, enabling him to close the distance between them in barely a second.
Sigesi twisted her upper body out of the way on pure instinct, a decision that enabled her to avoid the thin slash of sliver light that split apart the air where she was a second ago.
Immediately, she turned her body around and swung her blade at breakneck speed, sending dozens of icy energy slashes in the direction she sensed Arthur’s presence.
The gleaming blue blades of light filled Arthur’s vision, covering all his paths of retreat and leaving him with no choice but to destroy them.
"Sword of Victory."
A beam of silver light surged from his sword, and without waiting for the technique to fully form, he swung the blade in a wide arc, clearing all the icy slashes in his path.
But in that same moment, a ring of rapidly spinning ice spears surrounded him, launching forward with supersonic speed.
His left eye shone with a blue light that could barely be concealed by his black contacts, and with a wave of his left hand, all the projectiles turned monochrome and stopped mid-flight.
’Let me test something out.’
Arthur used time acceleration to boost his speed and charge towards Sigesi, clashing blades with her and marking the beginning of a high-speed sword fight.
Blue and silver lines streaked through the air as they hacked and slashed at each other with ferocity, their hands moving so fast they seemed like a blur.
Frostshade and Celestia met with a loud clanging sound, with the wielder of the former stretching out her hand to grab the latter’s arm.
A layer of ice encased the boy’s wrist, and faster than he could react fully, she pulled him over her shoulder and flung him upwards.
Snapping her fingers, a ring of icy spears surrounded him once more and hurtled towards him twice as fast as the last time.
She wanted to attack him faster than he could react to stop them, but it still wasn’t fast enough as the boy was able to use his time law energy on the attack.
However, he did not stop them but instead slowed their speeds to 1/100 of the original.
