Chapter 847: Challenge Accepted
"Hold on a second, Berlal," Arthur said, and Berlal immediately turned to face him.
"Is there a problem?"
"Yes, there is a problem," Arthur replied. "The problem is that I have zero desire, interest, or need to prove her claim wrong. She can think whatever the hell she wants, I don’t care."
Arthur genuinely didn’t care what this dragon thought of him.
His focus was entirely on Elaine, especially after he sensed Celestia’s emotions growing turbulent for a moment, which made him think leaving Celestia with Elaine might’ve been a bad idea, even with Lostvayne present.
He wanted to return as quickly as possible, intending to do so by teleporting directly into the bedroom where they were, when Altrishia spoke.
"What a fancy display of cowardice."
Hearing this, Arthur turned his gaze toward her.
"Cowardice?" he scoffed. "Oh, please. I’m simply avoiding an unnecessary fight that brings me no benefit. I’ve got more important things to do with my energy, limited as it is, and wasting it on fighting you isn’t one of them.
If you think I don’t deserve to be taught by them, that’s fine; to each their own. If you don’t want them teaching me anymore because of that?"
He turned toward Aleksas and gestured at him. "Aleksas here seems to like you so much. How about you have him get them off me? I’d even help you ask him."
Pointing at the other Levites, he added, "You clearly don’t know, but these guys are so strict they make Spartans look cute."
Arthur paused, realising she wouldn’t understand what he meant, then shrugged and said, "Not like you know what Spartans are anyway. Bottom line is, you’d be doing me a favour if you somehow manage to get them off me. So feel free to try."
With that, he gathered spatial power around himself in preparation to teleport, but Barda appeared behind him, slung an arm over his shoulder, cancelling the teleportation as he said, "Is that really how you feel about us, Arthur? I’m disheartened."
Arthur silently rolled his eyes, then looked up at Barda and shot back, "Dude, I told you that to your face on day one."
His casual address of the Levites seemed to irk Altrishia, but Arthur didn’t give a single thought to what she felt as he turned to Berlal and said, "Anyway, that’s it. If you wanna test her and see if she’s worth her salt, use someone else."
But just as he said that, a thought crossed his mind, and he narrowed his eyes.
"Unless..."
He turned towards Altrishia and scanned the law energies she exuded, and then back to Berlal and pointed at his house.
"I’d fight little Miss Pedigree over here if you take in that one in there as well."
Altrishia frowned at his words and opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out, and her eyes widened, immediately snapping to Barda, who momentarily glanced at her, his finger pressed to his lips.
As for Berlal, she looked at the building Arthur had pointed at, instantly seeing through it and detecting Elaine inside.
"I see. You found one of your kin. And she has a strong compatibility with death."
Berlal’s thoughts raced for miles in a second, and she turned toward Arthur the next, nodding.
"Sure."
"Then we have a deal," Arthur replied.
The moment he said that, Barda snapped his fingers, and they were all teleported to a vast rocky plain, Arthur and Altrishia standing about a hundred metres apart.
Six floating stands hovered in the air above them, with the other dragons seated on each of them, while Barda said something to Aleksas, probably convincing him to go through with this, then turned to Arthur and said,
"Both of you show us what you’re capable of."
When he heard this, Arthur looked up at Barda, who was grinning mischievously, his expression immediately making Arthur understand what he was aiming for.
’This damn dragon is just using me to show off.’
Arthur was completely certain of it. Barda probably didn’t care about seeing Altrishia in action.
Considering this was someone so attuned to the fabric of space-time that he was called the ’Continuum Dragon,’ Arthur was sure Barda could just glance at Altrishia and see her entire life play out before him, instantly knowing everything she was capable of.
’He doesn’t need this fight to know. He just wants me to show off.’
Sighing, Arthur decided to play along, not only because of his deal with Berlal, but also because he wanted to run a test.
He returned his gaze to Altrishia just as she looked away from Aleksas, who had likely just warned her not to underestimate Arthur.
That made sense, as Aleksas fully understood Arthur’s power and knew Altrishia would be in trouble if she didn’t take him seriously.
Meeting her purple eyes, Arthur put his left hand in his pocket and raised his right, gesturing at her with it.
"Alright, Little Miss Pedigree. Come at me."
"..."
Altrishia didn’t answer. She just narrowed her gaze, infusing cosmic energy into her eyes as she repeatedly tried to scan him and figure out what it was about him that Aleksas had warned her about.
Seeing her remain silent, Arthur tilted his head and spoke.
"Hmm? No dice? Weren’t you saying I was weak? Now’s your chance to prove it. Come on."
Altrishia still didn’t respond, and at this, Arthur covered his mouth with his hand, feigning surprise as he asked in a mock whining voice.
"Oh...is someone scar—"
His words were cut off as he instantly leapt backwards, landing about 20 metres away, his head tilted to the left.
His right hand reached up to his neck, brushing across it, and he brought it in front of his face, seeing the silver blood staining it.
"I see..."
He tilted his head back to normal and looked right at Altrishia, who was now standing in the spot he’d occupied a few seconds earlier, her left forearm covered in purple scales and her fingers turned into claws dripping with silver blood.
"So you’re fast."
Arthur flicked the blood off his fingers as the wound healed, and at this, Altrishia’s lips curled into a slight frown.
’He avoided that?’
She’d clearly intended to take his head off with that one strike, but Arthur had somehow dodged it with minimal damage, moving at a speed more than twice what she had estimated.
Just then, Arthur, taking a punching stance, pulled his right fist back and said,
"You’re not the only one who’s fast, you know?"
"!"
Altrishia immediately tensed, bracing for an attack, but Arthur didn’t move, even after several seconds.
Just as she was considering attacking herself, she caught a crimson flash in the corner of her eyes, her eyes widening as destruction law energy condensed rapidly into an orb and exploded right beside her head.
**BOOOMM!!!
The blast carved a crater several hundred metres wide and deep into the ground, but Altrishia, having zapped out of the radius in an instant, avoided it without a scratch, her feet landing as she tried to figure out how she had failed to notice the gathering energy.
It was much simpler than she expected, as Arthur had merely extracted the destruction energy from his blood on her claws and used time acceleration to fast-forward the gathering and condensation process until it reached critical density.
The moment her feet touched the ground after dodging the blast, Arthur appeared behind her, his left hand reaching for her shoulder.
"Hey, there."
His hand met empty air, however, as Altrishia immediately zapped into the air behind him, her foot descending for a full-powered drop kick, which Arthur teleported to avoid, reappearing several hundred metres away and watching the ravine she had carved in the earth from her kick with mock surprise.
"Wow. I wouldn’t want that touching me."
Altrishia silently turned toward him, her eyes catching the lingering traces of cosmic energy from his teleportation.
’Spatial Manipulation. But that first strike...he didn’t teleport to avoid it. That was pure movement speed.’
Her expression didn’t reveal it, but she was silently wondering how she’d failed to sense his teleportation the first time, especially since the Spatial Authority she could detect from him was low-level.
"You’re faster than I thought, Miss Pedigree," Arthur suddenly said, lightly hopping in the air.
"But most people who’re fast tend not to hit as hard."
Clenching both his fists, Arthur smiled and asked. "Which one are you?"
By the time the sound of the word ’you’ reached Altrishia’s ears, Arthur’s fist was already in front of her face.
Her left palm shot upward, deflecting his punch to the side while her right fist countered with a straight to his forehead, but Arthur ducked under it and threw an uppercut with his left, which she blocked with her own left hand, catching his fist in her palm.
**BAMM!!
"!"
The sound of Arthur’s fist colliding with her palm and the force of the impact made Altrishia’s brows twitch, and instantly, her shadow wriggled as something flashed out to whip at Arthur’s side.
Arthur teleported to avoid the unknown thing, and by the time he reappeared, it was already back inside her shadow, and she had already closed the distance, having predicted his reappearance point by watching the concentration of cosmic energy.
The force of her leaping off the ground made the earth explode, fragments of rock freezing in the air.
Technically, they weren’t actually frozen in the air, as from a third-party perspective, it would have looked like Altrishia had vanished, the ground had exploded, and the rubble had fallen within a second.
It looked different to Arthur, though, as the ’time’ he experienced was so compressed from the normal flow that the rubble appeared frozen mid-air.
’She really is fast as fuck.’
Such were Arthur’s thoughts as he caught her by the wrist, stopping her claw swipe before kicking her away with his right leg.
Even though he had been the one to attack, he was the only one to take damage as a burst of crackling purple lightning erupted when it hit her side, and the dragon dashed right back at him, purple lightning crackling around her claws as she swiped.
Arthur jumped back to avoid the swipe, but she closed the distance faster than his legs could touch the ground, her fingers shooting straight toward his eyes.
His left hand reached out to catch her right, and she immediately swiped at his neck with her other hand.
Arthur caught that hand as well, but he immediately noticed her leg rising, unhesitatingly letting go of both her hands and teleporting away just as her leg, wreathed in crackling lightning, sliced through the space he’d occupied a split second earlier.
She instantly turned her vertical kick into an axe kick, and though several metres separated them physically, Arthur wasn’t foolish enough to think her attack would miss.
He stepped to the side just as a purple slash of lightning tore through the spot he had just been, and as he admired the precision in her attack, he couldn’t help but remark.
"Hey, Miss Pedigree.
Wouldn’t you be better off switching to trousers or something? You throw your legs up like that, and I might end up seeing things I’m not supposed to."
The rubble kicked up by her earlier dash fell to the ground as Arthur turned back, raising his left hand and coating it in dense gravitational law energy, swiping it in front of his face to deflect the cosmic energy laser she fired at him and send it veering in a random direction.
He kicked off the ground and closed the distance before throwing a knife-hand strike at her, all while still speaking.
"I have a bad memory of being chased by an angry Dragon Lord over a similar situation before, you see."
Altrishia silently blocked his knife-hand strike and countered with a claw swipe to his face, but he dodged a half-step to the side, the claw grazing his cheek as he countered with a right knee kick.
She threw out her own knee to intercept his, while simultaneously aiming a punch at his cheek, but Arthur weaved his head to avoid it, then spun on his left foot, using the centrifugal force to throw out a gravity-enhanced backhand, which Altrishia ducked under and sent a low sweeping kick at his legs.
