Chapter 641: Courting Death?!
’Have they gone blind, or are they just that stupid?’
Crim thought this as she looked at the robes that these guys wore and saw that besides one inner disciple, the rest were all outer disciples.
"You must be really desperate to try and throw your weight around here. It’s pathetic."
Hibiki spoke up at that moment, shaking her head with a sigh and the Denerth leader’s pride was clearly wounded by their words. His expression darkened as he gritted his teeth and he flared his aura.
Radiating the pressure of an Inferior Sovereign, he attempted to intimidate them and scare them into submission.
But the group was unbothered.
Artemisia and Beatrix fighting together can take down an Inferior Sovereign on this guy’s level by themselves. Crim and Hibiki fighting together could indeed go toe to toe with an Inferior Sovereign, though most of the heavy lifting would be done by Hibiki who was much stronger than Crim and was much closer to the Sovereign Realm.
Evan on his own was strong enough to beat an inferior Sovereign and as for the Semi-Transcendent Arthur, there was nothing "Sovereign" in the universe that could defeat him.
Hibiki yawned, clearly unimpressed as the pressure seemingly washed over her without effect.
"Is this supposed to be scary? Sovereigns are supposed to be impressive, but this...is just sad."
Arthur and Evan, unbothered by the display of power, watched with mild amusement as the Denerth disciples’ faces grew redder with fury. They had expected fear, maybe even submission. Instead, they were being mocked, their aura shrugged off as if it were nothing.
At one point in time, Arthur had pulled out a bucket of popcorn from his subspace and Evan had brought out drinks for the both of them to watch the show.
"Why don’t you just give up and go home?"
Crim added, her voice eerily calm as she touched the hilt of her Katana. Seeing this, one of the Denerth disciples, still trying to assert dominance, spoke with a sneer.
"You must be feeling weak by now. You’ve all had to spend a lot of energy clearing out the monsters on the way here.
You haven’t had time to recover, have you? Even if you’re strong, you’re not at full power. So, you don’t dare fight us now."
Crim blinked at the outer disciple who said this, her expression morphing from irritated to outright incredulous.
"Even if I was starved for blood for a month, I wouldn’t lose to idiots like you."
The sheer audacity of her words visibly infuriated the Denerth disciples, their faces twisting with rage.
Without warning, they drew their weapons, their auras flaring up in an attempt to cow the group through sheer numbers and intimidation.
One of them, seething with anger, screamed the words that a certain duo had been waiting for.
"Courting death!"
And in that very instant, the tense atmosphere shattered—not from the impending battle, but from the sudden, booming laughter that erupted from Evan and Arthur.
Their uncontrollable, full-bodied laughter caught everyone off guard, stunning both their group and the Denerth disciples alike.
"Bahahahaha!"
Arthur doubled over, clutching his stomach as tears of laughter filled his eyes. He fell to his knees, unable to contain himself, while Evan ran his hands through his hair, his laughter just as loud and uncontrollable.
"HAHAHA! He said it! He actually said the thing!"
Evan could barely stand, wheezing between fits of laughter, his voice shaking with amusement.
"HAHAHA! Oh man, I thought the Author would skip that one! But nope, he said it!"
Evan collapsed to his knees, tears forming at the corners of his eyes as he continued.
"Hahahaha! Courting death! I can’t—HAHAHA!"
Arthur, already on the ground, laughed harder.
"Of course, he did! There’s no way we can have a cultivation arc without that line!"
The absurdity of their words left everyone frozen, as neither the Denerth disciples nor the rest of the group could quite comprehend what the two were talking about.
The disciples stood there, weapons raised, their faces blank with shock as the two continued to laugh like they’d heard the best joke in the universe.
"What... are they doing?"
One of the Denerth disciples muttered, lowering his sword slightly, completely bewildered.
Crim, who had been preparing to fight, now stood dumbfounded, shifting her gaze to Hibiki, who shook her head in mild amusement.
Meanwhile, Arthur and Evan were still struggling to catch their breath, the moment too hilarious for them to resist.
Beatrix looked at the two boys, still howling with laughter, and casually took a step back, her expression playful as she raised her hands in mock surrender.
"I don’t know these guys. Feel free to attack them. They’re the ones laughing at you."
She spoke with a shrug, completely selling Arthur and Evan out. But the two were still in the throes of uncontrollable laughter, completely oblivious to her words.
The Denerth Sect disciples, already enraged by being mocked, flared their auras even more, their fury palpable.
The magic power concentration in the air rapidly spiked and without hesitation, all twelve disciples attacked at once, their synchronized battle cries echoing through the air.
"Courting death!"
"Accept my strike!"
"You dare defy us?!"
Universal Law Energy surged from the disciples as their techniques lit up the sky, blasts of power hurtling toward Evan and Arthur. Fire, wind, and blades of light sliced through the air, aimed to overwhelm their laughing targets.
Arthur, still grinning, barely raised an eyebrow as he watched the attacks coming his way.
"Oh man, this just keeps getting better."
The flow of time slowed, giving the two boys the allowance to get to their feet.
"Alright, now’s the fighting part."
Evan spoke as he summoned his sword and with a single swing, deflected several energy blasts at once. Arthur, hands still in his pockets, bent gravity around him, causing the incoming attacks to warp and veer off course before disintegrating.
One of the two Inferior Sovereigns in the Denerth group, incensed at being brushed aside so effortlessly, unleashed a powerful sword technique, flames spiralling around his blade as he lunged at Evan with a roar.
"Perish before me, worm! Flame Dragon Cleaves the Sky!"
But Evan, still laughing lightly, activated his unique skill and charged forward, blocking the strike effortlessly. The powerful flames that could melt mountains dealt zero damage to Evan and the boy’s sword handling overwhelmed the disciple.
The Sovereign’s eyes widened in disbelief as his sword techniques failed to connect properly, his flames unravelling against the unpredictable flow of Evan’s sword.
"What is this...? How is a Legendary like you this strong?!"
Evan grinned behind his mask, and, joining in on the fun, he taunted.
"You have eyes but failed to see Mount Tai!"
With that, he thrust his sword forward and pierced the Sovereign’s shoulder, before letting go of the blade and punching the guy in the face with a fistful of Frostfire.
The Sovereign, humiliated, staggered back, his pride in tatters.
"This is impossible! You’re... defying the heavens!"
Evan nearly stumbled over when he heard this line, just barely managing to hold his footing as he burst into another fit of laughter.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, Arthur was facing down the second Inferior Sovereign. The Inner disciple slashed wildly, his movements fast but predictable and Arthur sidestepped with ease, not even bothering to summon his sword.
His opponent’s frustration grew with each miss and he shouted, enraged.
"You’re... you’re just toying with me!"
"Of course, I am. You are nothing but an ant in my eyes, after all."
Arthur chuckled as he responded, before using his bare hand to smack the guy from one end of the mountain summit to the other, sending him smashing into a rocky outcrop.
The disciple coughed, struggling to his feet, his disbelief plain.
"How can you be so strong... how can you wield such powerful law energy?"
Arthur’s response was cold and dismissive as he slightly increased the concentration of law energy around his palm.
"You have a shallow understanding of the Dao."
Arthur then proceeded to beat and batter the guy with just one hand, before kicking him away.
Bloodied and bruised, the wounded Sovereign stumbled forward, cutting his finger with his teeth. Blood dripped onto a ring on his hand as he shouted desperately.
"Old Grandpa! Help me!"
The ring glowed with a brilliant white light, and from within it, an old man’s spirit materialized, his presence pressing down on the mountain as he glared at Arthur.
But before the old man could do anything, Arthur and Evan burst out laughing again, completely ruining the dramatic tension.
Arthur dropped to his knees again, howling with laughter, while Evan clutched his sides.
"He has an old grandpa in a ring!"
Evan managed to choke out between gasps for air and Arthur, practically rolling on the ground at this point, wheezed.
"I knew it! I knew this was going to happen! Classic!"
The old man’s face twisted with confusion as the two boys continued their ridiculous laughter, his imposing presence deflated by their complete lack of seriousness.
But the more they laughed, the more enraged the old spirit grew.
[Juniors! You dare laugh at me?!]
His expression twisted in fury as his spiritual energy swelled, shaking the very ground beneath them.
Condensing his law energy on his ethereal palm, he shouted out and unleashed a devastating strike aimed at Arthur.
[Die!]
And in an instant, the laughter stopped.
Arthur’s demeanour changed abruptly and the colours of the world around them inverted for a split second.
"?!!"
[?!!!!]
The moment Lostvayne appeared in his hands, the air on the mountaintop shifted, with all attention drawn to the blade.
Artemisia, Beatrix, Crim, and Hibiki instinctively froze, feeling their hearts leap to their throats, along with the existential fear the sword gave any existence with a ’Soul’.
As for the Old Grandpa, he felt the threat even more clearly since he was nothing but a Soul with an Astral Body.
He hurriedly tried to cancel his attack but Arthur moved faster than he did.
His sword moved faster than any of them could follow—faster than the eye could track, and only after he’d already completed his swing did the sound of the words he spoke reach their ears.
"Extinction Slash."
A thin, silver line of energy sliced through the old grandpa, bisecting him cleanly down the middle.
For a second, everything seemed to stand still.
Then, the one who had called upon him fell into two halves, split as cleanly as his old grandpa’s spirit.
But Arthur’s slash did not stop there. It continued, effortlessly cutting through the next three mountains behind them, splitting them in half with a thunderous crack that echoed across the landscape.
The grandpa’s soul, in its last flicker of existence, was sucked into Lostvayne, devoured entirely.
