Chapter 528: Disaster Genesis
The Hero conjured another aether blade and used it to meet Arthur’s strike, their blades meeting with an impact that created a shockwave which split the clouds above.
Arthur spun in mid-air, using the momentum to deliver a series of rapid strikes that pushed the Hero back. Arthur pressed the attack, swinging Celestia in a wide arc and using Mountain Split in close range.
Though the Hero blocked, the explosion of destructive energy blasted him backwards. He flipped around mid-air and was about to charge forward when he saw Arthur release another more powerful slash of destructive energy.
’Island Split’.
The Hero swung his sword to block the slash of destructive energy, but when the slash was mere centimetres away from colliding with his sword, it paused and the Hero’s sword cut through empty air.
"huh?"
**BOOOOMM!!!!
"Pfft..."
When Arthur saw the surprised expression that appeared on the Hero’s face when he stopped his slash in time for a second, he burst into laughter.
Still laughing, he held up his free hand and swung it downwards, creating a gravitational force that acted on the Hero’s body and sent him crashing towards the ground.
Before the Hero could impact the earth, three golden serpentine dragons appeared out of thin air and bit into his body with their sharp jaws.
Although they found piercing his skin difficult, the flames swirling in their mouths burned through part of his defences and damaged him.
He roared in rage and ripped the serpentine dragons off him, but a wall of crimson lightning blocks appeared behind him and folded in a ’clapping’ motion immediately after, dealing wide area lighting damage to everything in front of it.
In this case, the Hero was the ’thing’ in front of it.
The blinding explosion of lightning released a massive burst of power that shattered the ground and left a smouldering crater in its wake.
Evan pierced through the explosion, crimson ice swirling around his blade as he activated his Pierce Guard, Adamantine Might, Elemental Gale, Vortex and Harbinger of Ice skills all at once, stabbing the Hero in the torso.
His strike connected unimpeded and the force drove the Hero’s body deep into the weakened ground.
The Hero released a burst of cosmic energy to blow Evan away, got to his feet and dashed forward to attack Evan. But before he could reach Evan, Arthur appeared in front of him and delivered an uppercut that lurched him into the air.
Raising his hands, Arthur created a Gravitational Maelstrom, causing all the buildings and Divines within a kilometre radius to be pulled towards the Hero with tremendous force, crushing them all together in a devastating collision.
He clenched his fist and the compression force from the gravity law energy intensified, turning all the Legendary Divine Humans who had been captured into masses of squeezed flesh in an instant.
Evan looked at this with a sad expression, about to use his World Sunder skill to slash through the Maelstrom and damage the one in the centre when Arthur suddenly dashed in front of him and grabbed his sword.
Arthur was undamaged by the destruction energy radiating off the energy blade, instead, he was focusing on the frost power emanating from the sword.
"Evan..."
"...yeah?"
Evan raised a brow in question towards Arthur’s strange actions, and the godslayer replied with a line that shocked him still.
"The frost power in your sword...it’s not just your Harbinger of Ice Skill, is it? It’s powered by your energy, but this is Sigesi’s sword’s power..."
"..."
Evan did not respond. He just alternated his gaze between Arthur and the blade before sighing and asking.
"Dude, what the fuck?"
He had certainly not expected Arthur to suddenly make such a connection, but if he knew how many times Arthur and Sigesi had sparred with each other, then he’d realise why Arthur easily did so.
Arthur looked up at Evan and noticed that despite his reaction, Evan did not deny his statement, confirming it to be true.
Evan’s sword, indeed had Frostshade’s ability.
"Do you know Sigesi in the future?"
The Rogue Hero actually didn’t, but Arthur didn’t give him a chance to say this.
"First, Artemisia, and now Sigesi. I’m starting to think you ending up on Aramis wasn’t a coincidence..."
In response to Arthur’s words, Evan only shrugged and activated his World Sunder Skill.
"That’s not my problem. All I’m concerned about is when I’m gonna get back home. I miss my fiancée."
Evan revealed his honest desire and Arthur chuckled in response, relating to him as he also missed his friends back home.
"I can go back whenever I want, but I gave myself a 1-year time limit here.
Originally, my goal was Inferior Sovereign, but now I’m aiming for at least Inferior Transcendent. Why don’t you give yourself a goal too? It’d help get your mind off things."
"A goal, huh?"
Evan echoed Arthur’s words, twisting his lips behind his mask. He had decided to use Aramis’ war with Gozon to rack up many kills and gain EXP, but he hadn’t set any Levelling goals he wanted to achieve before going home.
’Let’s try that and see. How about Level 799? That’d put me on the top amongst Living Legends back home.’
Just as he had that thought, Evan sensed a surge of energy from the sky above and he looked up to see that the Gravitational Maelstrom Arthur had trapped the Aramisian Hero inside had exploded.
Looking at Arthur, he saw a bit of silver blood on the godslayer’s palm, but it quickly disappeared as Arthur rewound his palm’s time.
"He broke out of it with cosmic energy."
Arthur summarized what happened and the two boys looked up to see their Aramisian opponent condense a ridiculous amount of aether and cosmic energy.
"Aetherstorm!!!!"
From the sky, a tempest of aetheric energy descended, with powerful red bolts striking down with pinpoint accuracy, aiming to obliterate everything in their path.
Facing this, Arthur and Evan looked at each other and shrugged before kicking off the ground and dashing towards the incoming storm.
Celestia appeared in Arthur’s hands and he silently infused his power of Null into it, coating the blade in silvery energy as he raised it overhead and swung it down.
|¬Cataclysmic Divide! ¬|
With a single, powerful swing, a massive, silver arc shot forth from Arthur’s sword, moving at relativistic speed. The arc cleaved through the storm, distorting space around it and splitting the aetheric tempest in two.
The extinction law energy from the divide penetrated deeply, erasing the aetheric bolts from existence and creating a Dimensional Rupture that sucked in the storm’s chaotic energy, amplifying its power.
Evan, not to be outdone, activated two of his skills.
"Adamantine Might. World Sunder!"
His body surged with strength, and with a swing of his sword, he unleashed a slash of his Prismatic Flames.
The surge of powerful flames mixed with his destruction law energy cut through the storm and Arthur used his Pseudo-Authority to amplify the ’destruction’ allowing the synergy of their strikes to tear through the Aetherstorm.
The clash of energies was so bright and intense that it could be seen for miles, and the shockwaves from the collision ripped through the earth below, tearing it apart and sending debris flying.
High in the sky, the Hero’s eyes widened in shock as he saw his powerful Aetherstorm being dismantled. What’s more, Arthur and Evan were flying towards him so in the short second he had, he acted, using another one of his Unique Skills.
"Disaster Genesis!"
The Hero bellowed, his body glowing with cosmic energy as he harnessed the raw, untamed forces of natural disasters and channelled their destructive potential into attacks aimed at Evan and Arthur.
The earth below split open, seismic tremors causing the earth to fracture and these fractured fragments of earth lurched into the air towards Arthur. Simultaneously, volcanic eruption burst forth, spewing streams of molten lava that surged towards Arthur from behind, while fiery meteors rained down from the sky, all targeting Arthur with pinpoint accuracy.
For Evan, the Hero first targeted the boy’s obvious elemental weakness—Water.
A massive tidal wave surged up and torrents of pressurized water shot at Evan with near-hypersonic speed. Violent storms gathered overhead, heralding the hurricanes and lightning storms that struck down on him and in the midst of this, an icy blizzard roared in, threatening to freeze him in place.
Arthur’s eyes narrowed and rather than himself, his first concern was Evan. He activated his Pseudo-Authority and temporarily granted Evan ’Memories of the Future’, whilst also using it to accelerate Evan’s movements so he could move fast enough to react to the fast attacks.
Then he turned to himself and willed the ambient cosmic energy, sending it crashing towards the ground below.
The cracks in the earth sealed back up and the earthen chunks lurching towards him, flew back to the ground like a movie being rewound.
He expanded his time sphere and the meteor coming from above slowed their descent. This gave him the time to focus on the volcanic eruptions, to which he used gravity to bend space and redirect the lava streams harmlessly into the air.
Finally, he increased the time power acting on the meteor’s mid-air, and before ’Aramis’ could do anything, he activated his Destruction Pseudo-Authority and used focused blasts of destruction energy to shatter them into harmless dust.
Meanwhile, Evan, buffed by Arthur’s power, muttered a small thanks before swinging his blade and using one of his techniques.
"Mesarthim; Red: Hell Unleashed!"
Every inch of ice making up the blizzard targeting him was melted by the heat of his searing flames, before evaporating in an instant. Harbinger of Ice activated and the flames on his sword were replaced with ice in an instant, his Frozen Inferno skill allowing for a quick seamless switch of elements.
