Chapter 595: Reason to Fight
|¬Antistrofí. ¬|
For a split second, Duskhand faltered. He had no idea what language Arthur had spoken, and neither did he know what command it carried.
Suddenly using another language confused him just enough to delay his reaction but while the word was foreign to Duskhand, its power was unmistakable. The frozen spear projectiles reversed their course, shooting back toward their creator.
By the time he realized what had happened, it was too late. Duskhand was forced to block his own attacks, slashing through the air with his spear to deflect the projectiles.
Arthur followed the returning projectiles, and just as Duskhand swatted away the last of the projectiles, Arthur was upon him, sword raised high. Their blades clashed once more, the force of their collision sending shockwaves rippling across the battlefield.
Mid-clash, Arthur suddenly leapt back, creating a sudden distance from Duskhand, and the Divine General’s subordinate Transcendents, who had been unable to interfere earlier, seized the opportunity.
They knew Arthur was now a Sovereign, and though his speed of progress alarmed them, they didn’t forget that they were Transcendents. Even if their powers were in the Inferior and Intermediate stages, they believed their collective strength would overwhelm him.
They charged forward, flanking Arthur with a coordinated attack, however, Duskhand’s eyes widened in alarm as his Pseudo-Authority alerted him of the activation of Arthur’s.
"No! Back away!"
Duskhand roared, but his warning came too late.
|¬Pseudo-Authority of Destruction: Annihilation Sphere¬|
A surge of crimson-silver energy burst from his body, expanding rapidly in all directions like a crimson tide. The air warped as the sphere grew, its destructive power annihilating everything in its path. The energy was infused with Arthur’s Null, and even the Transcendent Generals, once so confident in their abilities, were caught off guard when they saw it ignore their defences.
Two of them, too slow to react, were enveloped by the Annihilation Sphere. The omnidirectional blast tore through their Transcendent durability as though it were tissue paper.
Their bodies convulsed in agony as Arthur’s destructive power bypassed their defences and attacked their Souls, the core of their existence.
They crumpled to the ground, gravely wounded, their once-imposing auras flickering like dying flames.
The remaining Transcendents hastily retreated, their eyes wide with disbelief as they stared at their fallen comrades.
When they looked back to Arthur, they saw the boy holding a grenade launcher Duskhand found eerily familiar.
"Shit!"
Duskhand cursed and Arthur laughed as he pulled the trigger and spammed the bullets at the man’s aides.
Intending to stop him, Duskhand kicked off the ground and dashed towards Arthur, swirling his spear around, but Arthur simply turned towards him and fired two shots, before he heard a click after pulling the trigger.
|¬That’s right. It needs reloading...¬|
He spoke like he forgot such a simple process before sending the weapon back to his subspace and space-warping out of the area, leaving Duskhand with a mouthful of spatial damage.
Arthur reappeared a few hundred metres from Duskhand, his sword raised high as he prepared for the attack that had cemented Duskhand’s conviction to kill him in January.
|¬Hey, Duskhand. Remember this? ¬|
"?!"
Duskhand’s eyes widened in sudden alarm. Before Arthur, no more than five meters away, a projection of himself flickered into existence—a duplicate from just thirty seconds ago.
Unleashing the full power of his Pseudo-Authority, he elementalized his body, transforming into pure lightning.
Ignoring the backlash from prolonged elementalization, he surged forward in a jagged arc, lightning-quick, aiming straight for Arthur. He knew well enough to avoid the projection, understanding that any attack on it would reflect back onto his real self.
He aimed to strike Arthur directly, descending from above in a precise arc to avoid the projection entirely.
But Arthur had been prepared for this. As Duskhand descended, Arthur’s spatial energy billowed outwards and he activated his Bounded Field.
|¬Hall of Fractured Time! ¬|
The air around them shimmered as the ground beneath their feet transformed into a sandy expanse, swirling with gold and silver particles. The fabric of time warped, and Duskhand’s charge came to a crawl.
He roared, unleashing his divinity to shatter the Bounded Field, but those precious seconds of slowed movement were enough for Arthur to act.
|¬Extreme Nothingness! ¬|
As Duskhand’s spear descended, a mere half-meter from skewering Arthur’s forehead, the boy brought down his blade in a smooth, diagonal arc.
The sword struck true, slicing through the projection with a clean, decisive stroke.
Instantly, Duskhand’s eyes widened in shock and pain. The moment Arthur’s blade made contact with the projection, blood erupted from Duskhand’s chest in the present.
His durability had been completely bypassed, Arthur’s power targeting his very soul and ignoring the defensive skills that should have protected him.
Blood sprayed from the gaping wound, forcing his elementalized form to collapse as his body rematerialized. Staggering backwards, he clutched his chest, eyes wide with disbelief.
His body trembled under the weight of the injury, his chest torn open by a wound that should have been impossible for anyone less than a Transcendent to inflict.
Pain coursed through him, but it was more than physical—it was seething anger at being wounded by an opponent below Transcendence, twice!
And with the same attack, no less!
Though his spear had not made contact, the shockwave of its descent blasted Arthur backwards and the release of energy had destroyed the boy’s Bounded Field, the recoil sending a jolt of backlash through his body.
Both sides were wounded.
Duskhand gritted his teeth, his hand instinctively clutching the deep wound as crimson blood soaked his clothes.
His breathing was ragged, his pride burning hotter than the pain, and disbelief mixing with fury. He hadn’t anticipated this level of strength from Arthur—not after their previous encounter, not even after hearing rumours of Arthur’s growth.
But here it was, undeniable.
Seeing Duskhand’s contorted expression, Arthur let out a mocking laugh even though he had also been wounded.
|¬It’s stronger than before, isn’t it? ¬|
Didn’t I tell you? I got stronger simply to beat you. You should feel honoured. ¬|
His voice was filled with derisive glee, but even as he spoke, Arthur knew it was a lie.
Sure, defeating Duskhand had been a large part of his motivation, but it wasn’t the whole truth.
If someone were to ask Arthur why he was so intent on fighting Duskhand again, he’d give a more strategic reason: integration into the interstellar stage of the Valmone Universe.
His past defeat needed to be erased for him to make a clean mark. His loss to Duskhand back in January had to be redeemed—he couldn’t afford to let that stain linger on his record.
But, deep down, Arthur knew the real reason for this rematch wasn’t so calculated. The truth was simple: Arthur hated losing.
Since coming to the Valmone universe, he had fought many battles, and had retreated in the face of overwhelmingly superior opponents, but only once had he truly lost.
His first battle with Duskhand was a crushing defeat, leaving him beaten, battered, and pretty much barely surviving thanks to the Stellar Guard.
That defeat had burned deep into his pride, a wound that time and power couldn’t heal. Even though he’d only entered the battle because he knew the Stellar Guard would protect him, the fact remained: Duskhand had crushed him.
And Arthur, being the sore loser that he was, couldn’t live with that. He didn’t just want to beat Duskhand; he needed to humiliate him the same way he had been humiliated six months ago.
It was that simple.
But Arthur knew better than to underestimate Duskhand.
To fight against the god Jakimor, who was significantly weaker than Duskhand, Arthur had to use his Progenitor Authority and his various Pseudo-Authorities.
Though he had grown significantly stronger since then, he was acutely aware that facing Duskhand in his base state would never be enough.
|¬Authority of the Progenitor godslayer. ¬|
Arthur unleashed his Authority’s full power, ignoring every other Divine and concentrating its effects on weakening Duskhand.
He was going to go all out from n—!
|¬...¬|
The air around them suddenly grew heavy, and Arthur fell silent.
Duskhand’s expression twisted further, not from the pain of his wound but from the sudden realization that Arthur’s power was focusing directly on him.
His body stiffened, feeling Arthur’s invisible power pressing in on him.
Arthur’s Progenitor Authority could reduce the power of any divine being he targeted, scaling the reduction based on their overall strength.
If his target was stronger, then the closer in power Arthur was to them, the larger the percentage of their power that could be stripped away.
During the Triton’s Ark, for example, he explicitly mentioned how different existence levels would experience different reductions. Those at Level 700 lost 100 levels, while those at Level 800 lost 50, and Level 900s lost around 10 to 15 levels depending on their stage.
So, it was clear that the amount of power lost depended on the original amount of power that the existence possessed. Duskhand knew this all too well—he had been on the receiving end of this power before so it wasn’t hard to figure out.
But for Arthur to reduce a target’s power, he had to first understand the target’s full strength.
Arthur, in targeting Duskhand with his Progenitor Authority just now, had suddenly understood just how much power Duskhand truly possessed.
Finally, Arthur’s voice broke the silence, his tone sharp.
|¬You... you’ve completely recovered. ¬|
"..."
Duskhand’s eyes narrowed, his blood-soaked shoulder almost forgotten in the face of this revelation. Indeed, the Duskhand before Arthur wasn’t the same one he had fought months ago.
The one before him had healed and regained all his lost strength.
This was the true Level 995 Duskhand.
