Chapter 704: Nuclear Reckoning
[...
Apparently, they were in the hands of one of its Main Entities—what were they called? The Twelve Knights of the Round Table?]
Lostvayne paused, raising a hand to its chin as if trying to recall the exact name. Then it shrugged, dismissing the thought.
[Regardless, I understand you have no memories from before you awakened in Master’s hands.
That’s why what I’m saying feels so strange to you. But I promise you, you are who I think you are.]
Lostvayne’s voice suddenly grew a pitch deeper.
[I wouldn’t listen to you otherwise. Don’t forget the words of that Hybrid Demon King—I’m a rather arrogant sword, you know.]
The sudden shift in tone, paired with its blunt admission of arrogance, caught Celestia off guard. She flinched, her golden outline rippling faintly.
The interactions between Arthur’s two Ego weapons had always been perplexing to him.
Despite being the far stronger weapon, Lostvayne was strangely deferent to Celestia. It tolerated her sharp words and was unusually reverent to her.
Whatever reason why Lostvayne was fine with this, it was tied to why it had addressed Celestia with the title of ’Lady’.
[Worry not.]
Lostvayne continued, its tone softening slightly.
[Space and time may have been shattered and reborn, but I remember what you don’t. I’ll guide you.
All you need to do is follow my lead.]
Lostvayne extended a hand toward Celestia.
For a moment, Celestia hesitated, staring at the offered hand in silence. Finally, after several long seconds, she reached out and clasped it.
◇ ◇ ◇
The outcome of the conversation between the two Ego Weapons was the metallic skin armour Celestia had forged from half her total mass.
Seeing the effect of her handiwork blocking the weapons hitting Arthur’s body, Celestia voiced her disbelief.
[How the hell do I have this kind of ability?]
Her response came from Lostvayne.
[It’s only natural you possess this kind of ability, Lady Celestia. After all, you aren’t just a sword.]
Celestia barely had a moment to process that cryptic remark before Lostvayne continued.
[Now, focus on maintaining Master’s defences. I’ll handle regulating my energy output to ensure Master can maintain the ’Release’ state as long as possible without burning his soul.]
◇ ◇ ◇
The fight raged on.
Arthur flew backwards as a massive blast struck him, hurling him straight through the side of a towering skyscraper.
Glass shattered and steel beams groaned as his body tore through multiple floors, sending debris cascading like a waterfall.
Completely unharmed by both the debris and the blast that had knocked him into the building in the first place, Arthur raised his hand and the air around him warped.
Gravity bent to his will and the skyscraper trembled violently. Then, he ripped the entire structure free from its foundations, hurling the 300-floor building towards his opponent like a colossal projectile.
The man snorted, his aura flaring as he unleashed the energy of destruction.
"Zerstörerische Vernichtung."
By his command, the skyscraper exploded mid-air, shattering into millions of fragments that rained down like a deadly storm.
But Arthur never intended that to be a proper attack in the first place, just a distraction to allow him to prepare for the real attack.
Amid the falling debris, he raised Lostvayne, and silver energy swirling around the blade.
|¬Extreme Nothingness: Chaos. ¬|
"!?!
Echobarriere!!"
The silver slash ripped through space, and though the man tried to block, his barrier was ripped apart faster than scissors cutting through paper.
The slash reached him unimpeded, throwing him violently into the ground with such force that blood sprayed from his mouth.
A gash was torn from his shoulder down to his chest, spurting blood constantly as the man lay battered in a crater on the ground.
But even then, his cosmic energy continued to surge wildly.
It was almost as though he had an infinite supply.
His eyes glowed as he channelled destruction, death, and slaughter into one terrifying combination, twisting them together in a catastrophic symphony.
"Letzte abyssale Konvergenz!"
But even this powerful attack, capable of consuming everything in its path and quaking the earth, meant nothing if it never reached its target.
Just before the man could launch it towards Arthur, a third party joined the fray against him.
"Spell Number 12: Karmic Fire of Carnage."
Evan’s voice heralded a massive blaze that engulfed the man from behind. Black flames erupted from Evan’s grimoire, burning through the man’s flesh and searing into the wounds left by Arthur’s blade, worsening the damage.
Although the man’s mastery of the law of Karma blunted the attack’s full ’Karmic’ potency, the blazing flames crept up his arm and reached the swirling energy above him, triggering a violent detonation that ripped through his body.
The blood that sprayed was instantly vaporised by the heat of his "Letzte abyssale Konvergenz’s" detonation. Chunks of charred flesh tore away, leaving him battered and scorched.
Seizing the opportunity, Arthur stomped the ground, channelling gravity law energy to send the man hurtling into the air.
Arthur teleported above him, spinning to build momentum before swinging Lostvayne with all his might.
"Cataclysmic Divide!"
The man twisted at the last moment, barely avoiding a fatal blow, but the blade slashed across his chest, leaving a deep, jagged wound.
Arthur followed up with a powerful kick that connected with the man’s side. The sheer impact launched the man higher into the air, but despite being the one to attack, Arthur could feel his leg bones cracking under the strain.
’Did his durability suddenly spike?!’
Arthur questioned internally as Lostvayne’s energy healed the damage he took from the kick, watching as the man’s body spun uncontrollably through the air.
Barely a second passed as the distinct sound of fluttering pages reached his ears.
Evan’s grimoire hovered before him, and Arthur turned to meet the sight of five Nuclear Magic circles floating in the air above him.
"Quintet Nuclear Magic Activation: Nuclear Cannon. Gravitational Implosion. Nuclear Flame. Radiant Cataclysm. Atomic Annihilation!"
The five spells activated in quick succession, converging on the man in the air simultaneously, each unleashing its own destructive force.
The Nuclear Cannon launched a beam of intense energy, searing through the air with a blinding flash. Gravitational Implosion caused the surrounding space to warp, creating an invisible pressure that crushed everything in its path. Nuclear Flame spread outward in an inferno, engulfing him in scorching heat and irradiating everything nearby. Radiant Cataclysm unleashed a burst of searing light that seared through the man’s form, while Atomic Annihilation detonated with the fury of a small star, erasing even the air molecules caught within its radius.
The man was blasted through the air, his body caught in the heart of the storm of spells.
Not even looking to witness the chaos he’d unleashed, Evan swiftly popped another potion, gulping down its contents as a torrent of magic stones cascaded out of his inventory.
These stones came from the hundreds of thousands of monsters he had slain on his home planet in the future—resources he had meticulously collected to prepare for the planet’s Invaders or to secure his wealth.
The magic stones from those monsters, along with the corpses of monsters whose stones he hadn’t yet extracted, the magic stones of monsters he had defeated in the Infernal Dimension, and even the corpses of several Devil Dragons from Taemia, all poured out in a seemingly endless cascade.
The gathered energy was consumed by the magic absorption and amplification circle Artemisia had drawn beneath his feet, fuelling the rapid succession of spells he was about to unleash.
His Grimoire pages fluttered furiously as he followed up the Quintet Nuclear Magic with a World Magic Spell.
"Spell Number 4: Absolute Defence. Multiple!"
As the air cracked with the fury of the nuclear spells, five massive shields of energy materialized between Evan and the blast.
Suddenly, a beam of destruction energy pierced out from the blast in the air, piercing through the first four in mere seconds. The man’s retaliatory beam of cosmic destruction was stopped at the fifth shield, after being weakened by the first four.
A thousand radiant magic stones lost their lustre, shattering to dust, but Evan didn’t blink as he seamlessly moved into his next array of World Magic.
"Spell Number 20: Sword of Damocles. Spell Number 8: Graviton Convergence."
The man’s charred body erupted from the inferno of the nuclear spells, but his escape was short-lived. Above him, a massive, ethereal sword materialized, suspended precariously by a thin thread of magic.
The thread snapped, and the sword plummeted at near-relativistic speeds, slamming into his back with a thunderous impact, and exploding just as Graviton Convergence activated.
A singularity formed at the heart of the explosion, its gravitational pull tearing apart all surrounding matter and energy.
Residual nuclear energy from the previous spells, debris from obliterated skyscrapers, shattered buildings, and molten earth were all drawn inward with force.
The air compressed, thickening into a crushing gravitational field as space itself began to fold and collapse.
The fusion of nuclear energy and gravitational distortion amplified the devastation, turning the man’s surroundings into a vortex of destruction. No fragment of matter, no trace of resistance, could escape the singularity’s grasp as it compressed everything into a single, devastating point of energy.
Evan’s magic stones disappeared as fast as they spilt from his inventory, and Artemisia gritted her teeth, straining to maintain the magic absorption circle.
Suddenly, a Cosmic Gate formed beside Artemisia, Beatrix, and Evan, catching them off guard.
In that same moment, Arthur descended from above in a streak of crimson-silver energy, swinging his blade downward onto the collapsing space.
|¬Soul Devouring Oblivion: Oblivion Rend! ¬|
A slash of concentrated energy shot from Lostvayne, but before it could reach its mark, Arthur raised his left hand. Using his Gravity Pseudo-Authority, he hurled Artemisia, Beatrix, and Evan into the Cosmic Gate, then teleported in front of it and jumped in right after.
As the Cosmic Gate closed behind him, Arthur’s attack collided with the man’s body amidst the Graviton Convergence.
The resulting explosion was so intense that it instantly vaporized an entire continent. Over two hundred million square kilometres of land disappeared in seconds.
From space, the devastation was breathtaking in its scale. A blinding flash illuminated the planet’s surface, radiating out in concentric circles.
Gigantic waves of cosmic energy surged from the epicentre, rising like walls of water, crashing and rapidly consuming the surrounding land. Shockwaves rippled outward, their force pulverizing nearby landmasses, shattering islands into unrecognizable fragments, and scattering them across the ocean.
◇ ◇ ◇
On the other end of the Gate Arthur created using the Cosmic Teleporter, Arthur landed on the floor in front of the others, breathing raggedly as he spoke.
"That should have killed that body."
Alas, Arthur spoke too soon.
Before anyone could respond, the space behind Arthur suddenly ruptured.
Arthur spun on instinct, just in time to intercept a bloody fist that tore through the rift and collided with Lostvayne.
The ground beneath them shattered, sending shockwaves rippling through the air, knocking the others backwards as Arthur’s feet dug deep into the earth.
Looking at the man, he was unrecognizable.
Bloodied and torn, his clothes reduced to rags hanging from his shattered body. One of his eyes and legs was missing, and the gory remains of his flesh revealed his bones.
But despite the brutal damage, the cosmic energy radiating from him hadn’t diminished. If anything, it seemed to have grown stronger.
"...you’ve got to be fucking kidding me."
The man—this body—was still alive.
Even with a gaping hole in his right side, missing an arm, leg and eye, and having just taken a continent-level strike from both Arthur and Evan, he was still fucking alive.
