Chapter 524: Throwing Hands [Monthly Bonus 3]
|¬Yo! You were actually still looking at my afterimage, huh? ¬|
The sound of Arthur’s words was just reaching Rael’s ears when the boy’s hand already gripped the Dragonslayer’s neck and flung him into the air once more
Mid-air, Rael flipped around and kicked off the back of an airborne dragon, using the momentum to dash back at Arthur with his sword.
The two engaged in a fierce sword-to-fist fight, Rael’s blade clashing against Arthur’s magic-imbued fists.
However, each of Rael’s swings met only empty air as Arthur sidestepped, ducked, and weaved around the attacks. In between dodges, Arthur threw punches that landed with devastating force, each impact knocking the air out of Rael’s lungs and sending shockwaves through his body.
Despite this, Rael forced his body to move and attacked with his techniques, but Arthur parried the blade with his fists and this made Rael’s frustration grow rapidly.
|¬You’re losing focus. ¬|
Arthur said this as he spun around and delivered a crushing kick to Rael’s head that sent him flying, his vision blurring from the impact.
He crashed into the ground and sneezed out a bit of blood before holding his hand forward and conjuring three flying swords which he sent at Arthur.
His attack was easily blocked by Arthur trapped the swords in Chronospheres. Just when he wanted to reverse them, Rael sent another one piercing towards his face and Arthur caught the blade’s tip with his teeth.
Ignoring Rael’s shock, Arthur dashed forward and punched him in the stomach, sending his body skidding across the ground.
Rael’s energy surged and he conjured countless flying swords, raining them down on Arthur who trapped everything within Chronospheres.
’Is there no limit?!’
Asking himself this, Rael pointed his sword forward and unleashed a bright red beam of pure power that surged towards Arthur with the sharpness of a blade.
But as if to make his attack look like nothing, Arthur infused gravity law energy into his fists and threw a punch forward, meeting the beam head-on. The collision was cataclysmic.
Arthur’s punch blasted into the beam, and for a moment, it seemed as though the two forces were evenly matched. But then, the gravity law energy surged, overwhelming the beam’s power and shattering it into fragments of dissipating light.
The residual energy from the clash exploded outward, creating shockwaves that wrecked the surroundings.
A shadow enveloped Arthur and he looked up to see a giant sword descending from above with meteoric force.
Arthur’s eyes narrowed, and a confident grin that gave Rael chills spread across his face.
’I’m supposed to be testing my ’Strength’ now, aren’t I?’
He thought this as he raised both hands, palms open, to meet the descending blade.
The moment the massive sword collided with his hands, a tremendous force surged through Arthur’s body. His feet dug into the ground, creating deep furrows as he absorbed the impact.
The earth beneath him cracked and shattered, sending up a cloud of dust and debris.
However—
"He fucking caught it?!"
Indeed, Arthur fucking caught it.
|¬Course, I did. ¬|
Arthur responded to the dumbfounded Rael as silvery energy surged up his hands and into his palms, transforming his nails into circuits that extended and latched onto the blade with an almost sentient precision.
The immense weight of the sword pressed down on him, but Arthur’s stance remained firm.
Rael quickly tried to detonate the energy that constituted it, but to his shock, he discovered that his connection with the construct had been severed.
Arthur’s energy that seeped into the blade began to deconstruct the blade at an atomic level, disintegrating it into wisps of dissipating energy that swirled around his hands like a cloud of silver dust.
So not only did Arthur catch it with his bare hands, he also reduced it to nothingness in mere seconds.
Looking at Rael, Arthur grinned and asked.
|¬What’s next? ¬|
Rael’s vision blurred, still a bit dizzy from the kick to the skull Arthur gave him earlier. He blinked and Arthur who was a good 100 metres away from him was suddenly right in front of him.
’Wha?!’
Arthur’s trackless step allowed him to step into his opponent’s subconscious, so although they could perceive him moving, their brain considered it to be unnecessary information until the last moment when they sensed the Danger he posed.
For Rael, he only sensed this Danger when Arthur’s fist was half a metre away from his face.
"Guh!"
Rael hurriedly created a broadsword construct to serve as a shield, and it succeeded in rebounding Arthur’s fist, though it turned to dust after.
|¬Ah! I forgot to switch off Null. Wouldn’t want to accidentally erase you from existence now, would I? ¬|
Arthur casually made such a dangerous statement as his right hand came down on Rael’s shoulder, forcing him down on one knee. His left followed up, uppercutting the man and lifting his body off the ground.
He then spun around and back-kicked Rael in the stomach, sending him flying with the force.
Rael conjured flying swords with different elemental blades, but Arthur stopped them all in Chronospheres. This time, Rael detonated the blades and the simple Chronospheres couldn’t handle the blasts and were broken, leaving Arthur a bit confused.
’He could interact with them while their time was stopped? Come to think of it, the first thing he did was cut through a gravitational vortex. Damn, this guy is good.’
But of course, admitting that Rael’s proficiency in the Law of Swords was astounding was a separate matter from the beating he was going to give him.
Rael took advantage of the distance Arthur created by hitting him and turned around to run, but Arthur appeared behind him with a smile as he asked.
|¬I don’t think I told you I could teleport, right? ¬|
Arthur kicked Rael back to the ground with so much force that the man’s body bounced back up and before Rael could comprehend what was happening, Arthur had already teleported above him, delivering a downward punch that smashed him back into the earth.
Rael’s body cratered the ground upon impact and Arthur didn’t give him a moment to recover. Gravity lifted Rael back into the air where he received a classic one-two combination—a left jab that snapped his head back, followed by a right cross that sent blood spraying from Rael’s mouth.
With fluid motion, Arthur transitioned into a roundhouse kick, his shin connecting with Rael’s ribs with a sickening crack, sending him tumbling sideways.
Before Rael could hit the ground, Arthur was already there, his knee driving upward into Rael’s stomach, lifting him off the ground. The air was driven out of Rael’s lungs in a gasp, blood spewing from his mouth.
Arthur spun around, his elbow smashing into Rael’s jaw, sending teeth flying and Rael staggering backwards. Following this was a rapid flurry of punches aimed at Rael’s face and torso which had his bones cracking under the onslaught.
A spinning back kick from Arthur caught Rael in the chest, the impact powerful enough to send him skidding across the ground. Rael tried to stand, but Arthur teleported beside him, sweeping his legs out from under him with a low kick, causing him to crash back down.
He followed the sweep with a hammer fist to Rael’s spine, a sharp crack signalling the breaking of more bones. Rael spat out blood, his vision blurring, but Arthur was far from done.
He lifted Rael by the collar, looking into his eyes with a grin.
|¬So, you were wondering how much of my strength was an Exaggeration, weren’t you? ¬|
"A-GRUH!?"
Rael tried to respond, but Arthur’s knee drove into his midsection again, folding him over. Arthur followed with a powerful uppercut, sending Rael airborne once more.
As Rael fell, Arthur delivered a final spinning heel kick to his head, the force of the blow sending Rael crashing into the ground, creating a crater upon impact.
Seeing the Dragonslayer lying bloodied and barely conscious, Arthur pulled out a napkin from his subspace and used water magic to wash the blood off his hands before wiping it with the napkin.
Just then, Arthur saw something streak down from the sky and crash onto the ground beside Rael, forming a neighbouring crater beside the dragonslayer.
He turned his gaze to his right and saw Evan, his body covered in green flames, walking over to him whilst dragging something on the ground.
"Evan...his leg has been disconnected from the rest of his body."
"Huh?"
Evan stopped in his tracks and turned around, seeing that all he was holding was a severed leg and the dragonslayer it belonged to was lying a few feet from him with blood spilling from the stump left.
"Oh, no wonder it got lighter."
The Rogue Hero made that comment as he tossed the limb in his hands away, then walked back to grab the poor dragonslayer by his other leg.
It turned out that Evan was attacked by a second Dragonslayer, but clearly, he made short work of them.
"So, you’re gonna tell me what that is?"
Arthur pointed at the ’other Evan’ who was piercing a sword through the stomach of the female dragonslayer who attacked him first.
The ’something’ that crashed down from above was this ’other Evan’ who looked exactly like and exuded the same aura as the real Evan, stomping the dragonslayer into the ground.
Arthur would have mistaken that for Evan if it wasn’t for the fact that he could see in his Time Vision that this ’other Evan’ had only experienced less than 30 minutes’ worth of time.
But the one who was dragging a dragonslayer by the leg had experienced more than 16 years, which last he checked, was Evan’s age.
"It’s a ’World Magic’ Spell I was testing out.
World Magic: Spell Number 9: Einherjar.
It’s basically a second ’me’. A Golem Construct that although lacks my ability to use Spells and Unique Skills, has all my normal skills and has its Physical and Elemental Damage buffed for every Skill it cannot use.
It also possesses none of my weaknesses."
Evan explained as he held up his right hand in the direction of the Golem and snapped his fingers, causing it to dissolve into golden mist which was quickly absorbed into his body.
"None of your weaknesses? Meaning dragonslayer powers are useless against it?"
"Exactly. Sadly, since most of my skills are a result of one of my Unique Skills which it cannot use, it only has 21 skills."
Arthur raised a brow at Evan saying ’Only 21 skills’ as if it was a small number. It should be noted that most people usually had around 10-15 skills, and even nonstandards had less than 20.
Yet, that wasn’t even up to half the skills Evan had.
"The Duration is also a bit shor-!"
Evan suddenly paused as a realisation hit him like a train.
"Wait a sec...how were you able to tell my Einherjar apart from me?"
