Chapter 836: Bold Demand
|Well, it’s not like I can understand what goes on in their heads. I don’t really care anyway.|
Looking back at Arthur, the Dragonkin narrowed his eyes, intensifying the pressure of his aura until the ground cracked and splintered under the force, which Arthur calmly matched in kind.
|What I do care about,| he said, |is your answer to my offer.|
|I’d like to say ’No’ already, but I guess I should humour you first,| Arthur replied, raising a hand in front of his face as he yawned, a sight that elicited a chuckle from the man.
His laughter only lasted a few seconds before abruptly stopping as his eyes glowed and he demanded.
|Give up your Aspect. Since you’re skilled enough to actualise your Aspectual Authority, I’ll let you live if you hand it over and serve under me.|
Hearing him, Arthur blinked, his disbelief clear on his face.
|You on drugs or something? Who the hell would willingly give away a power like that?|
At Arthur’s question, the Dragonkin scoffed.
|That’s what they all say. But once they’ve been beaten within an inch of their lives, they hand it over just to stay alive.|
|Poor saps,| Arthur said, not a trace of concern in his tone.
|Let me guess, you kill them anyway?|
|It depends. Even rabble can be useful if you pick the right ones, you know?|
He spoke as if he were lecturing Arthur, but Arthur didn’t care about his tone. He took a moment to check the time through his Authority passive, then looked back at the Demonic Dragonkin and spoke.
|About that so-called offer of yours, I’m gonna have to decline.|
Hearing him, the Dragonkin sighed, shaking his head as though disappointed.
|And here I thought you wouldn’t make the same foolish choice as the others. A pity.|
As soon as he said that, his left fist clenched, a sonic boom tearing through the air as he launched a punch at Arthur’s face, the impact so immense it shook the land beneath them.
Dust and smoke rose high into the sky, but when it cleared seconds later, Arthur’s still-standing figure was revealed, a few scratches on his face as he glanced at the Dragonkin from the corner of his eyes.
Sighing, he muttered.
|Your head’s a bit too high.|
|?|
Before the Dragonkin could understand what he was getting at, Arthur clenched his left fist and pulled it down.
|Come down for a bit.|
|!|
The Dragonkin’s confusion turned into shock as Arthur used gravity to drag his upper body down, pulling his head to Arthur’s eye level and setting it up for Arthur’s right fist to crash into the side of his face, knocking his upper body backwards.
The shockwaves from the impact shaved off the planet’s crust for miles, tearing through its layers, and because of the slightly elevated angle Arthur had thrown his fist in, it even blasted away its thick atmosphere.
’Oh, he’s pretty durable.’
Had Arthur’s punch struck the ground, this entire 20,000km wide planet would’ve popped faster than corn in a popcorn maker.
’Still, there was collateral damage, huh? I guess perfect power control is still a distant dream.’
Arthur was busy analysing his own control to make sure as much power as possible from his attacks as possible was focused directly on depleting the durability and vitality of his target when the Dragonkin’s body snapped back up with force, both his hands clasping together as he brought them down on Arthur’s head.
The godslayer quickly raised his left hand to block, but the surface beneath him instantly cratered and collapsed, sending his body crashing deep into the planet’s inner layers.
Arthur clenched his right fist and threw another punch back, striking the Dragonkin in the side, and though the impact made him bend forward, the man still clenched his own right fist and dropped another punch down at Arthur’s face.
This time, Arthur met the punch with his own fist, the collision’s force crumbling the planet around them and sending layers of its crust tumbling into the sea of magma below.
Their fists clashed again and again with deafening booms, the shockwaves expanding the caldera carved out by the impact of their exchanged blows.
Chunks of rock plunged into the magma sea below, hissing and vanishing in bursts of steam as they exchanged a flurry of punches, their fists blurring as they collided over and over.
Arthur ducked under a heavy right swing, driving an uppercut toward the Dragonkin’s ribs, but it was caught on a forearm and deflected to the side, followed by a retaliatory hook that Arthur blocked with his elbow. The Dragonkin swung a backfist toward Arthur’s head, only for Arthur to slip past it like he’d already known it was coming and send a punch toward his abdomen, forcing him to block with a knee.
Unbothered, Arthur drew back his fist and infused it with gravitational law energy, launching it forward a moment later. His Weighted Impact punch slammed into the Dragonkin’s torso faster than he could block, the force blasting him through the air and tearing through several crumbling mountains in a straight path.
He spun through the air from the impact, his overcoat snapping loose and flying away as he tumbled, before his feet finally hit the ground.
His legs skidded across the shattered earth for hundreds of meters before he came to a halt, one hand pressing against his stomach where Arthur had hit him, a frown forming on his face as he lifted his gaze toward the godslayer.
’I was pushed back? Who the hell is this guy? I know all the Destruction Candidates in this Universe, but his face is unfamiliar.’
The Dragonkin kicked off the ground and shot back toward Arthur, closing the distance in an instant with his destruction-clad fist striking out to meet Arthur’s.
|You... you’re not from this Universe, are you?|
Meeting his gaze, Arthur pushed back against his fist, his crimson silver destruction pressing against the man’s black destruction that tried to mark him.
|Does it matter?|
He unleashed a gravitational force that blasted the Dragonkin’s body back, but the man simply flipped through the air and created a foothold with energy, landing on it and springing off it to charge back at Arthur.
|It does,| he replied, throwing a punch at Arthur’s face, which the godslayer ducked under and countered with an uppercut.
|I had assumed you knew who I was and found your confidence before me amusing.|
Still talking, he caught Arthur’s fist and punched down, but Arthur teleported behind him, spinning a full 360 degrees in an instant to build momentum for a high kick aimed at the side of the Dragonkin’s head.
However, the Dragonkin was quick enough to raise his right hand to the side of his face and block, then reached out with his left, coated in black destruction, to grab Arthur’s leg and hurl the godslayer’s body up into the sky with arm strength that matched his build.
|But it seems you’re simply unaware of who I am.|
He kept talking as he shot into the air after Arthur, who spun around and slammed his palms together, creating a crushing gravitational force that bore down on the Dragonkin’s body from all sides.
The Dragonkin’s body curled under the strain, but more black destruction leaked out of him like liquid, pushing back Arthur’s gravity and weakening it.
Arthur tried to intensify the force, but the Dragonkin unleashed a burst of demonic and cosmic energies, throwing his arms and legs wide as he shattered the gravitational force and spoke.
|I am Baruuk, the Demonic Dragon of Conquest!|
The patterns on his horns lit up with a dull glow as he met Arthur’s eyes and extended his right hand.
|I’ll give you another chance on account of your ignorance. Join me, foreign Candidate.|
By the time the sound of his words reached where Arthur was, Arthur had already teleported behind him, fist driving toward the back of his head.
|You talk too much.|
Spinning, Baruuk met Arthur’s punch with his fist, the impact of their clashing destruction energies cracking the fabric of space as he responded.
|I know!|
The self-aware, talkative Demonic Dragonkin threw another punch, and Arthur met it with his own, reigniting their exchange as they tried to break through each other’s guards.
Their fists blurred as they collided again and again, each impact thundering through the air as they pressed against one another, neither giving an inch.
Baruuk launched a right hook aimed at Arthur’s temple, but Arthur caught his wrist and shoved it aside, slipping in a jab that Baruuk blocked with his forearm before retaliating with a heavy straight toward Arthur’s chest. Arthur parried it with the back of his hand and closed the distance, slipping through the Dragonkin’s guard.
Arthur’s fist slammed into Baruuk’s chest, gravitational law energy rippling from his knuckles as the impact cracked Baruuk’s ribs and blasted blood from his mouth, the dark streak staining the front of his white shirt.
Baruuk gritted through the pain and swung back at him, but his strike was caught on Arthur’s forearm and stopped cold. Arthur drew his fist back to follow up, but before he could throw it, Baruuk’s eyes lit up, and a burst of black cosmic energy erupted from his body, shoving Arthur back slightly through the air.
|My first attack hit you, didn’t it?|
|?|
Arthur raised an eyebrow at the sudden words, only for his eyes to widen in shock as his cosmic energy reserves abruptly depleted, bursts of black destruction energy tearing out from beneath his flesh in several places.
His face, his side, and even his left leg all erupted with black, malignant destruction energy that tried to spread across his body.
’All places that he hit...!’
Arthur quickly pieced together that the cause of the sudden damage had to be Baruuk striking or grabbing him at those spots, and in the few seconds between the initial eruption and his making that connection, his cosmic energy was drained again as destruction energy exploded from his wounds once more, the intensity increasing this time.
The skin above his left ankle blew apart, ripping open his muscles, and a hole burst open at his side just under his ribs, but as the black destruction energy tried to detonate on his face, Arthur’s irises turned crimson.
’Aspect Manifestation: Destruction.’
He broke his cosmic energy free from the control of Baruuk’s Aspect, expelling the black destruction from his body as he raised his left hand to block the punch that came for the side of his face.
His right fist clenched, crimson silver energy igniting around it like a flame as he swung for Baruuk’s head, but the man’s hand, coated in black energy, caught the punch and locked the two in a tense stalemate as they tried to drive their punches past each other’s guards.
Before Baruuk’s eyes, the black energy crawling across Arthur’s side was expelled, and seeing this, his brows rose.
|Oh? You forced out my destruction without self-damage? I’m really curious what your Aspectual Authority is.|
|I’ve got a curiosity of my own, too,| Arthur replied, his tone edged with irritation.
|How many hits would it take for you to shut the fuck up?|
From his mouth, an orb of silver divinity formed, and before Baruuk could pull back, it became a beam that shot through the air, slamming into his face and blasting him across the sky with immense force.
Arthur exhaled, pouring cosmic energy into his divine breath attack, and the force of it hurled Baruuk off into the horizon in an instant.
The moment Baruuk vanished from sight, Arthur placed a hand on his stomach and muttered.
|Aspect Manifestation: Time|
His left eye turned blue as he quietly rotated his wrist counterclockwise, commanding time to undo the wounds on his torso and leg.
As soon as the damage faded, Arthur deactivated his Temporal Aspect, unfurled his wings, and beat them as he shot off after Baruuk.
