Chapter 664: Surrounded by Vanguards
A red dragon swopped in, its maw opening to unleash a torrent of fire was the next unfortunate target. Arthur bent the flames with gravity, creating a swirling vortex that sucked the fire into a blazing loop.
Then, he lunged below the Vortex and targeted the dragon’s exposed underbelly. Slashing downward, Celestia ripped through its few scales, each cut lined with destruction law energy.
Blood sprayed in thick arcs, painting the sky red as Arthur’s blade tore open its torso. The dragon’s entrails spilt, dangling grotesquely as it thrashed, barely able to stay airborne.
Arthur’s hand shot forward, gripping its tail with a crushing grasp enhanced by gravity. His arm bulged up and he pulled with all his strength, ripping the tail free.
In one fluid motion, Arthur swung the severed tail, now a weapon in itself, toward a third dragon—another Ash dragon that had been strafing the spirits.
The jagged spikes of the tail tore into its side, puncturing its scales and embedding deep into its flesh.
Arthur twisted his grip on the severed tail to deepen the wound and the Ash dragon thrashed, its eyes rolling as it struggled against the impaled weapon.
With a final heave, Arthur yanked the tail free, leaving the dragon’s side gaping and slick with blood.
The Spirits seized the chance, launching a combined strike of elemental energy that obliterated the wounded dragon in a single, blinding burst.
After ending that one, Arthur glanced down and saw Evan in the centre of a dozen dragons who’d been turned into Vanguards of Triffid.
’Did I mention the part where these dragons are screeching in pain as prismatic flames burn them?’
Chuckling, Arthur teleported beside Evan whose gaze was on the battle raging above the clouds.
"Wow, that’s... flaaashy."
"Veeeery flaaashy..."
Both boys spoke as they stared at the kaleidoscope of colours flaring from beyond the clouds as the Superior Transcendents clashed with lethal intent.
"Hey, Evan."
"Yeah?"
"If you were to use your Orange Flames on the Elder Spirits... how much can you buff them?"
To Arthur’s question, Evan pondered for a moment, before placing a hand on Arthur’s shoulder.
"Mesarthim; Orange: Burned Ally."
Instantly, Arthur turned into a human torch, but the Progenitor didn’t mind the flames and just flexed his fingers.
"I see. It scales off the user’s original stats and consumes their own energy. That’s good."
Arthur remarked, observing the flames thoughtfully before looking back at the flashing sky and speaking.
"Jegunul is stronger than he’s showing. The Spirits won’t bring him down easily; they’re risking casualties at this rate."
Unlike Evan, Arthur’s kinetic vision allowed him to track the hypersonic movements in the sky. It was clear from a minute’s analysis that the Archdevil had more up his sleeve.
Arthur remembered his brutal fight against Yujia, who had refused to fall, even containing his Destruction energy while battling with a missing arm and her law energies sealed.
As a Commander like her, Arthur expected that kind of bullshit tenacity from Jegunul as well.
"If I’m going to step in, I’ll need the right moment."
With a burst of magic, he crushed a swarm of Vanguards attempting to surround them, then infused Celestia with his divinity.
Lostvayne was best suited for his Destruction energy and Null, but in matters of Divinity and Anti-Divinity, Celestia reigned supreme.
Holding the blade against his palm, he murmured.
"Everything began from nothing, and to nothing, they eventually return.
My destruction only accelerates this natural process."
The chant was different from the usual, a few word changes had been made. Also changing, were the effects.
Arthur sliced his palm with Celestia, his silver blood—potent with divinity—coating Celestia’s edge.
"Evan, when you see the Signal, use your Orange flames."
"Got it."
The Rogue Hero responded, and Arthur locked his eyes on the battle in the sky, watching them closely.
Jegunul tore through the Spirit’s attacks, cutting through fire, water, earth, and wind with ease. The elements clashed around him, but he pressed forward, blade raised for a powerful strike.
Just as his sword was about to fall, Arthur teleported and time froze.
’?!’
The Archdevil’s eyes widened, fully conscious but frozen in time, unable to move a muscle.
Sensing danger from behind him, Jegunul tried to summon his energy to shatter the time stop. But it was too late.
A blade drove through his back, piercing through his lung and bursting out his chest.
"Huh? Your heart’s on the other side?"
Arthur’s surprised voice echoed beside his ear as Jegunul’s frozen energy surged in a furious wave, shattering the time stop in a single pulse.
Unbothered, Arthur withdrew his sword and kicked off Jegunul’s back, taking distance.
At the same moment, the Elder Spirits were engulfed in orange flames, and though initially shocked, they quickly realised the flames were boosting their power.
Without hesitation, they charged toward Jegunul. But the Archdevil, eyes blazing with wrath, turned away from them, focusing all his fury on Arthur.
Arthur summoned Lostvayne at the last moment, crossing it along with Celestia in front of his chest just in time to block Jegunul’s punch.
The impact hurled him skyward, rocketing through the air before he crashed down into Triffid’s forest. The ground split, forming a crater nearly a kilometre wide, trees splintering in all directions.
"Damn, that guy hits hard."
Arthur muttered, feeling the deep tremor in his arms. If he wasn’t mistaken... his bones had actually cracked. And that was from a strike he blocked.
What’s more, Jegunul could still turn around just in time to deflect one of the Spirit’s attacks, though the others struck him with full force.
"In the end, you’re a Devil, Jegunul. And last I checked, devils don’t handle divinity too well."
He raised his hands, a spark of power radiating from his fingers as his Progenitor Authority took hold.
"And wouldn’t you know, I happen to have a knack for controlling the divinity in my blood."
With a snap, the destruction energy and divinity in the silver blood he’d left within Jegunul’s body when he stabbed him ignited. Jegunul’s chest erupted, flesh and bone splintering as a brutal explosion tore through him.
The Archdevil staggered, choking and spitting blood as the Elder Spirits seized the moment, unleashing a flurry of attacks that bombarded him in rapid succession.
Arthur watched this from the ground with a smile, happy his interference yielded good results.
Suddenly, he felt a chill down his spine.
"?!"
Arthur didn’t need to see the future to know how to respond. He reached out with his left hand and grabbed Lostvayne, spinning around instantly and swinging it down to split the giant tendril of wood that nearly pierced his back.
**BAAM!!!
His destruction power was instantly neutralized, and so was the creation power within that tendril.
Triffid had directly attacked him.
"Looks like someone doesn’t want me around."
Arthur muttered as cracks split the ground and Triffid’s Vanguards swarmed up.
From the tree itself, a massive flower bloomed, petals peeling back to reveal a fiery core. It hummed, then unleashed a blazing beam straight at him.
"Cataclysmic Divide!"
Arthur swung Lostvayne, releasing the combination attack that split the beam in two, each half scorching the earth beside him as he stood, eyes locked on the bloom above.
"Maybe I should have used Dad’s ’Beam Parry’ technique..."
As he thought this, he heard Evan’s loud voice.
"Hey, I just got hit by a sunflower beam!"
Turning, Arthur saw Evan flying over, sword and shield in hand. Upon seeing the scorched earth around Arthur, Evan froze.
"So you got hit by a sunflower beam too."
"Yep."
Just as Arthur responded, space distorted and Artemisia, Beatrix, Crim and Hibiki teleported in.
As if responding to the newly arriving presences, more Vanguards of Triffid began to emerge from the forest around them. Alongside them, several devils stepped forward, each adorned with small flowers blooming between their horns.
"Oh, those are Vonun’s cronies."
Evan spoke and seeing them, Arthur nodded.
"As I thought. That guy’s inside Triffid. No, he’s probably the one controlling the tree now."
Why had Vonun been missing in the past nine weeks? Probably trying to fuse with Triffid and Jegunul was protecting him since he might have been vulnerable during it.
That was the conclusion Arthur, Evan and Charisse had come to.
But now, Jegunul’s protection was not needed anymore, hence why the Archdevil had stepped up to fight.
"I doubt he has finished the fusion."
Arthur could sense strong power from Triffid, but not to the level of a Superior Transcendent. Vonun was still fusing with the tree.
’Besides, there’s still Vonun’s Black Dragon. Maybe the Dragon is protecting him now?
Oh well, the Spirits said they have a plan to handle that one. Maybe they’d use one of their soul seals on it?’
The boy put these inquiries at the back of his mind and focused on the foes attacking him now.
◇ ◇ ◇
Arthur, Evan, Artemisia, Beatrix, Crim, and Hibiki fought back-to-back, their movements weaving together as they charged through the hordes of enemies.
Arthur launched blasts of gravity energy, crushing any Infernal Devils or Triffid’s Vanguards that dared approach him, while Evan’s flames roared like a wildfire, charring everything in his path.
Artemisia’s lightning crackled in bright arcs, reducing entire groups of foes to ash, and Beatrix carved out sections of space with each swing of her spear.
Crim summoned torrents of blood from fallen Devils, the crimson liquid hardening into deadly spikes that she launched at them, while Hibiki cast illusions so vivid that they confused and trapped the enemy, making them either attack each other or leave them wide open to her allies’ attacks.
Yet as they fought, Beatrix suddenly paused, her eyes sweeping the battlefield, realizing something alarming.
"Guys, we’re drifting too far from the main forces."
The others looked around, their faces mirroring her concern. In the frenzy of combat, they’d pressed far into the forest.
For hundreds of metres around them, the ground was scarred and smoking from their attacks, but just beyond, the dense woods remained, shifting unnaturally.
They had ventured dangerously deep—too deep to be isolated without support.
"Alright, everyone, we’re getting out of here."
Arthur announced as he wrapped around each person with his gravity law energy, lifting them into the air.
As they ascended, Arthur hurled a powerful time bomb down below, which exploded with a shockwave, clearing the ground and granting them a window to escape.
Focusing, he found Charisse’s coordinates in the direction of the main battlefield and activated his teleportation magic, a glowing circle forming beneath them.
But just as the magic circle took shape, a voice echoed through the forest, chilling them to the bone.
[You’re not going anywhere.]
The sky split open as a colossal wooden spear hurtled down at hypersonic speed, impaling Arthur’s teleportation circle with a deafening crack and shattering it in a burst of light.
The backlash from the failed spell hit Arthur hard, and the impact from the spear sent all six of them tumbling in different directions, scattering them as the forest erupted in chaos once more.
Vanguards of Triffid poured in immediately, swarming them, but the six quickly sprang to their feet and unleashed their powers in a deadly wave.
Beatrix flicked her fingers, and portals of space magic tore through the Vanguards, erasing them in moments. Artemisia raised her hand, lightning cascading in waves, frying their attackers.
Crim manipulated the blood around her, forming spikes and tendrils that lashed out while Hibiki switched tactics, using Infernal magic to torch as many as she could.
With the immediate threat cleared, they looked up, dread pooling in their stomachs.
