Chapter 560: “In fights, people are most vulnerable when...”
Jakimor’s blade hit Arthur and sent him hurtling through the air, but although he managed to regain his balance and rewind the damage, more chains shot out to ensnare his legs and sword, forcing his attention to them to avoid being bound again.
In the meantime, Jakimor recreated his humanoid construct, and it charged and attacked with white fire-engulfed fists.
Arthur dodged with a hair’s breadth, but each dodge left him exposed to Jakimor’s attacks.
He wanted to teleport away but before he could use the law of space’s power to wrap his body, one of Jakimor’s chains wrapped around his sword, holding it down in space.
Arthur’s teleportation succeeded, but he was now unarmed.
He threw his fist forward, pulverizing the upper body of the humanoid construct in one gravity-enhanced strike, but Jakimor’s sword came in from behind at that same moment.
"Judgement Slash!"
"?!"
The shout rang out as Jakimor’s great sword came down from behind. Arthur barely had time to register the attack before the blade connected, sending him hurtling through the air.
The force of the blow tore through his defences, and he grunted in pain as he crashed to the ground, silver blood spilling from the wound.
Arthur reached out and Celestia flew back towards him, but Jakimor’s chains caught the sword midway, preventing it from reaching him, while chains burst out from under the ground and held Arthur’s limbs with unbreakable force.
Jakimor’s eyes blazed with light as his divinity surged to its peak, a palpable aura of raw power radiating from his body.
The air around him shimmered with intense heat, crackling with the energy of the law of binding as luminous chains writhed and coiled around his great sword.
Arthur, still held down by the unyielding chains, could only watch as Jakimor raised his sword high above his head, the blade glowing with a blinding light infused with divinity
"BIND OF DEATH!"
Jakimor’s voice was a resonant echo across the battlefield, and without hesitation, he brought the great sword down in a powerful overhead slash.
With a resigned sigh, Arthur watched as Jakimor’s blade came down, the world slowing to a crawl in his perception.
[Master, what are you doing!?]
’Don’t you know, Celestia? In fights, people are most vulnerable when they’re dealing their finishing blows.’
Arthur’s lips curled up into a grin and the ambient cosmic energy stirred, rushing towards him faster than Jakimor’s slash could reach.
His left blue eye flashed with light and three words escaped his lips.
|¬World, Be Still. ¬|
Arthur commanded, and the World obeyed.
Everything within a five-kilometre radius of his position turned monochrome. Everyone retained their consciousness, but their bodies were completely immobile.
’By not stopping their consciousnesses, I can divert more power into stopping their bodies. Especially the transcendents.’
The chains binding Arthur’s body were shattered as he activated his Destruction Pseudo-Authority with cosmic energy.
Spatial power wrapped around him and he disappeared, reappearing beside the frozen Jakimor and reaching out in Celestia’s direction.
Time and destruction law energies were already surging from his arm, so the instant the sword entered his grip, the energies coalesced around the blade, crackling with cosmic energy.
He focused the gathered energy into a single point, the blade glowing a deep, ominous purple before thrusting the sword towards Jakimor.
|¬Extreme Nothingness. ¬|
The words barely left his lips before the hyper beam shot out from Celestia, a concentrated torrent of purple energy that distorted the space around it. The beam collided with Jakimor’s side with an impact that sent shockwaves rippling through the still-frozen world, a blast of raw power that tore through everything in its path.
For a split second, Jakimor’s body resisted, his divinity flaring up in a desperate attempt to shield him from the onslaught. But the hyper beam ripped through his defences and sent him reeling through the air in the next moment.
The world resumed its flow and the monochrome filter lifted, colours returning to the battlefield as the demons and gods regained their mobility.
Many blinked in confusion, trying to make sense of the sudden shift. Then, their eyes widened in shock as they saw Jakimor’s form hurtling through the sky, bashing into a massive airship hovering above the battlefield.
The ship’s hull crumpled under the impact, metal groaning as Jakimor’s body crashed through it, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.
The force of the collision sent Jakimor plummeting back to the ground, his body striking the earth with an impact so intense that it bounced back up.
As Jakimor’s battered body rebounded off the ground, Arthur warped through space and appeared directly above Jakimor.
He stomped his foot down onto Jakimor’s chest and activated a Unique Skill.
|¬Gravitemporal Harmony. ¬|
The weighted impact stomp drove Jakimor back into the earth and the fragile ground beneath them shattered under the immense pressure.
Cracks spiderwebbed outward, the earth groaning as it split apart, jagged fissures spreading rapidly across the battlefield.
But Arthur wasn’t finished. His eyes gleamed and he used his Gravity Pseudo-Authority to intensify the force by 25 times, pressing down on Jakimor with a crushing weight that made the ground sink even deeper.
Then, with a calm that belied the sheer brutality of his actions, Arthur invoked his ultimate weapon against the divine.
|¬Authority of the Progenitor godslayer. ¬|
A pulse of invisible cosmic energy erupted from Arthur, radiating outward in all directions. The wave passed through every divine being present on the battlefield, wrapping around their energy cores like a vice.
In an instant, their Existence Realms and Stages plummeted, their divine power forcibly diminished by Arthur’s Authority.
Jakimor, still pinned beneath Arthur’s foot, felt the effects immediately. His strength waned, his durability sputtering like a dying flame.
Arthur’s second leg moved faster than he could even try anything, anti-divinity swirling around it as he stomped down on Jakimor’s face.
Jakimor’s nose crunched under the force, blood spurting from the shattered cartilage. His skull cracked audibly, and the anti-divinity burned his flesh like acid, searing his skin with an agonizing heat.
It was as if boiling water had been poured over his face, his features distorting in pain and horror.
The battlefield responded in kind.
The divines, now weakened, faltered under the sudden loss of power, granting the demons an opportunity that they capitalized on with ruthless efficiency.
Without hesitation, thousands of demons surged forward, striking the now-vulnerable divines with terrifying speed, turning the tides of battle in a matter of moments.
The draw was broken as the fighters of Olrerth were slaughtered in droves.
One of the Four-Star Generals who just ended his opponent using this opportunity, was amazed by how much of a Transcendent’s power Arthur could reduce.
The closer Arthur was to the target’s realm, the more power he could reduce. The same applied if his level was much higher than theirs.
Using the Valmone Universe Devour Class System, Inferior Transcendence was from Level 901-933, the Intermediate Stage spanned Levels 934-966 while the Superior Stage spanned Levels 967-1000.
If Arthur’s target was around Level 990, the most he could do was bring their power down to Level 967.
If his target was around Level 966, then Arthur could bring them down to anywhere between Level 915 and 930 depending on whether they were nonstandard or not.
If they were below Level 933, then the current Arthur could reduce them to Semi-Transcendence.
For the Level 950 Jakimor, Arthur had dropped him down to Level 910.
Then, the power boost from Arthur’s Pseudo-Authorities and Progenitor Authority gave Arthur enough to attack potency to turn his fair skin into scalded flesh in seconds.
’My Progenitor Authority boosts my stats on activation—even if I’m not fighting divines. If I’m fighting divines, it doubles the boosts, though at the cost of more cosmic energy.
Pseudo-Authorities give a minimum of 50% Damage and Manipulation boosts for their respective Laws.
Then Celestia as a weapon gives Damage Boosts, and my Chrono-Destructor Class too...’
Arthur calculated the sources of his extra damage that allowed him to wound Jakimor even before his Progenitor Authority was activated.
’Ah, I can’t forget my energy quality. Compared to the average, I have 5-6 times higher quality, so I consume that less energy to deal the same amount of damage as average.’
He did feel like his energy quality had increased recently, but he wasn’t sure exactly how much it had gone up yet.
[Master, it’s nice that you’re calculating these things, but don’t forget your opponent isn’t dead.]
’I know, Celestia.
Though I can beat him right now, Transcendents have too much vitality. Unless I’m catching him off guard like that guy I used the 75x Gravity on, killing him would be a hassle.’
After a moment’s deliberation, Arthur let go of Celestia and the sword floated in the air, then he grasped space itself and began chanting in his faux true voice.
|¬Souls lost in hell. ¬|
The fabric of spacetime behind Arthur began to shimmer and fracture, and the Race Kings watching the battle had their eyes widen as illusions of a dark and desolate landscape began appearing behind Arthur.
|¬Doomed to roam the fields of Asphodel in vain for all eternity. ¬|
Small cracks opened up in the space and tiny wisps of light began to seep through. Transcendents who comprehended the law of death felt chills down their spines as they instinctively recognized the scenery behind Arthur.
"The underworld!? He’s taking souls from the Underworld!?"
|¬Heed to my call, and bend to my will. ¬|
The lost souls that could not find their way to the path of reincarnation in the Valmone Universe’s underworld dimension surged towards Arthur, passing in through the spacetime cracks.
They were broken down into streams of energy that swirled around Arthur’s outstretched palm and the boy finished his chant with a command.
|¬Come forth. Rule Breaker: Lostvayne. ¬|
Finally, space shattered completely and Lostvayne emerged from the tear, its blade glowing with silver lines and thrumming with joy at the meal of souls Arthur prepared for it.
Devouring the lost souls, Lostvayne’s damage was temporarily increased. No, it was more like Arthur was temporarily able to access more of Lostvayne’s power that had always been there.
He gripped the hilt of the jet-black blade and turned his gaze forward, meeting a bleeding Jakimor who stepped back instinctively out of fear.
"...you...th-that sword...!"
Jakimor remembered two rumours that had been going around in the past few months. The rumour of a Progenitor godslayer and Lucifer’s Descendant.
He’d thought they were two separate people, but seeing Lostvayne in Arthur’s hands, he realised he’d thought wrong.
"...you’re Lucifer’s descendant...!"
|¬You know my great-grandpa? Not surprised. Everyone knows him. ¬|
Arthur took a step forward and Jakimor took a step back instinctively, a sight that made Arthur laugh.
|¬Hahahaha, you’re right to be scared of this sword. Even I am scared of it sometimes. ¬|
Lostvayne vibrated in his hands as if protesting his statement, but Arthur paid it no mind and simply infused the blade with cosmic energy, his focus on Jakimor before him.
With a burst of speed, Arthur charged toward the wounded Jakimor and the god’s eyes widened in panic as he hurriedly conjured a blade from the broken earth around him, infusing it with earth law energy.
The ground trembled as the weapon took shape, its surface gleaming with the solidity of rock and stone.
But it was all for nought.
Lostvayne, infused with cosmic energy sliced through Jakimor’s earth-forged blade as if it were nothing more than a fragile piece of glass. The sword shattered on impact, crumbling into dust before Jakimor’s desperate eyes.
|¬Did you know? That everything began from null.¬|
Jakimor, scrambling to defend himself, conjured luminous chains and barriers of law energy, desperate to hold off the onslaught. But every attempt was futile as Arthur’s blade cut through the chains with ease, and tore through the energy shields as if they were mere illusions.
|¬And everything would eventually return to null.¬|
Arthur continued speaking, his tone almost philosophical.
Jakimor staggered back, conjuring more chains, more barriers, more anything to keep the inevitable at bay.
But Lostvayne was unstoppable, carving through every defence with terrifying ease.
|¬My power simply speeds up this natural process. ¬|
