Chapter 917: DESTRUCTION??
’I’ll give you an extra minute. Use it wisely.’
That was all Aleksas said before withdrawing his gaze.
Space tore open, and Yamigetsu was pulled from her grasp, vanishing into the rupture as it sealed itself shut.
Rishia, breathing heavily, looked up to see that their foe was still very much alive, even though the massive gear behind its back had shattered, deep fractures ran across its upper arms, one lower arm was broken from the elbow, and chunks of its torso plating were missing.
Despite this visibly immense damage, the pressure it radiated was still heavy, a clear sign that it still possessed a significant reserve of power.
As for Arthur, who intended to use Breaking the Sky, how could he unleash it while his body was still hurting from the strain of the attack he had just executed?
He heaved heavy breaths, clutching his aching chest and lifting his right hand to wipe the blood from beneath his nose.
As he did, something at the edge of his vision caught his attention.
"Huh?"
He looked down immediately, cautious, only to see the shattered remains of Valkalonex’s left lower forelimb, the wrist broken from the rest of the arm, which itself had been severed at the elbow.
"Oh."
A small sigh of relief escaped him when he realised it wasn’t an attack, but the instant he did, Lostvayne’s voice rang out inside his head.
[Master, watch out!]
"!"
Before Arthur could turn, the detached palm shot forward at sub-relativistic speed, its massive fingers snapping shut around his body.
Simultaneously, the severed forelimb reconnected to the wrist, and by the time Rishia reacted to the sudden movement and turned toward him, the entire arm had already shot back to Valkalonex’s main body, reattaching itself at the elbow.
Rishia immediately summoned her bow and fired several powerful arrows toward the wrist, but the other cracked lower limb extended outward, generating multiple pentagon-shaped barriers that intercepted her attacks.
At the same time, the two upper arms curved inward, cupping the space around the lower limb that held Arthur between its index finger and thumb.
Valkalonex’s body was planet-sized, and the scale difference made the scene almost absurd, Arthur’s body not even reaching two meters while being held between fingers large enough to dwarf mountains.
Just it holding Arthur within its fingers felt like an attack trying to crush him with just sheer size, but that was not the attack.
The real attack was yet to come.
|[Confirmed Presence of Aspectual Cosmic Power. Attribute: Destruction.]|
|[Switching Countermeasures Against Elimination Target.]|
|[Activating Engine of Destruction.]|
|[Machine god Authority: Divine Overload.]|
Valkalonex’s mechanical True Voice echoed through the surrounding space as destruction energy began flooding directly into Arthur’s body.
At first glance, the act seemed meaningless.
Arthur lived and breathed destruction, and forcing more of it into him should have accomplished nothing.
But there was a reason Arthur had avoided revealing his Aspect of Destruction earlier.
He hadn’t wanted Valkalonex to detect it and adapt.
Now that he had revealed it and it had been identified, there was no way that Valkalonex’s attempt to infuse Arthur with destruction energy could benefit him, even though it was the universal law he had the strongest affinity for.
That truth became apparent almost immediately.
The destructive energy being forced into Arthur exceeded the total capacity his body could handle, continuing to flood him even after his reserves were saturated.
His energy circuits were fried by the overwhelming influx, the true objective being to overload the Destruction Origin Core within his soul, the source of his Authority over the law, pushing it toward catastrophic failure, intended to rupture it from within and inflict devastating soul damage, possibly even annihilating his Soul Core entirely.
Arthur fought back, struggling to expel the foreign destruction energy flooding into him, but his condition worked against him. He had just unleashed an immense attack and hadn’t been given a moment to recover or use any of Creusery’s healing crystals.
At full strength, he could have resisted, even if Valkalonex was more powerful, but in his current state, it didn’t take long before his resistance began to fail.
From the outside, Rishia’s attacks were completely blocked by the shields Valkalonex erected. Worse, it activated Destructive Refraction again, duplicating its forelimbs and thrusting them toward her with overwhelming force.
Their movements warped the surrounding space, creating violent gravitational disruptions that interfered with her flight as she tried to evade and distorted the trajectories of her arrows as she desperately aimed for the wrist holding Arthur, trying to force it to release him.
Arthur gasped, his chest heaving as he struggled against the unbearable influx of destruction energy, all while the massive fingers of Valkalonex attempted to crush him completely. He drew on every last ounce of cosmic energy within his body, forcing it through his burned circuits, trying to prevent the excessive destructive energy from reaching his soul at all costs.
He pushed up against the crushing weight of the two colossal fingers, his arms stretching to their utmost limits.
But then, Valkalonex intensified the flow of destruction energy, the abrupt spike overwhelming Arthur’s resistance, and his vision immediately went black.
◇ ◇ ◇
In the world of darkness where Arthur found himself, faint noises echoed around him from every direction.
At first, the sounds were distant and unintelligible, but over time, they grew increasingly coherent.
NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONOONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONOONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO
Arthur realised the echoes were all the same word, repeated hundreds, thousands of times at an absurd speed.
One word, repeated endlessly.
NO!
Arthur’s eyelids fluttered open, and a bright crimson light flooded his vision, forcing him to squint as he tried to adjust to its intensity.
When he finally managed to see, he was met with a sight that left him speechless.
Above him was a massive crimson star, cosmic energy radiating from its surface in violent waves, the power of pure destruction licking across it like flames.
Just as he set his gaze on the star, Celestia’s faint voice echoed in his mind.
[This...! The shell?! How did...? No, Master, we have tog̶̘͐ë̸̢́t̵̠̋o̴͔͆ŭ̷̖t̷̞́ö̵̢́—!]
Her voice abruptly cut off after a burst of static, and Arthur immediately called out instinctively.
"Celestia—?!"
The moment he did, his blood ran cold.
He slowly lifted his gaze back to the crimson star, watching as a massive crack split across its surface.
The fissure widened to reveal a dark, gaping void, only to be instantly covered by something else, a colossal pupil darting around rapidly before locking onto him.
Arthur felt a shiver run through his soul as the pupil suddenly enlarged, almost as if it pulled his body closer, and the distant sounds he had been hearing abruptly stopped.
Silence fell as the pupil stared at Arthur, and then, almost immediately, he began to hear sounds again.
ASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECTASPECT
The word "Aspect" repeated itself hundreds, thousands of times, before abruptly stopping shortly after it began.
The pupil dilated, and then another word started echoing from all directions.
YOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOU
The sound echoed erratically in Arthur’s ears, as if every frequency possible was being forced into his mind and soul simultaneously.
The single word was screamed over and over, and Arthur grunted in pain, clutching his head as the intensity and speed of the echoes increased.
◇ ◇ ◇
While Arthur screamed under the onslaught of sound invading his soul, his physical body in reality erupted with an immense burst of destruction energy.
All of the energy Valkalonex had tried to force into him was expelled simultaneously, the shockwave obliterating three of Valkalonex’s wrists: the one that had held him and the two others that had been infusing energy into him.
They turned to dust instantly, and the resulting blast propelled the now wristless limbs backwards. The immense force even reached Valkalonex’s main body, forcing the planet-sized colossus violently away.
Strange noises echoed from Valkalonex as its systems attempted to compute what had just occurred.
Rishia was equally shocked by the sudden event, as were Arthur’s Ego Weapons, though for entirely different reasons.
Celestia transformed into her humanoid form and grabbed Lostvayne, immediately explaining the situation.
[Master’s consciousness has been pulled into Conceptual Space! His mind isn’t in his body! We have to pull him back!]
[Conceptual Space?! How?]
Lostvayne’s usual calm vanished under the waves of shock and confusion flooding the Ego Weapon’s mind.
Celestia was just as confused, but both of them knew that Arthur’s mind had to be pulled back, or his body would be moving on autopilot, and considering the violent force of the destruction energy it had just released, that autopilot might act like a berserk mode.
[Get me close enough to actually touch him,] Celestia said, transforming back into her sword form and shooting forward.
Lostvayne, still in weapon form, flipped vertically to build momentum and swung down, unleashing a slash that cut through the waves of destruction energy radiating from Arthur’s body.
Celestia moved through the cleared path and immediately transformed back into her humanoid form, grabbing Arthur and pressing her forehead against his before calling out his True Name.
[Arthurius!]
It was just his first name, but it was enough to pull his mind back as his eyes snapped open, pupils glowing crimson while he breathed heavily.
[Master?! Are you okay?!]
"Huh? What the hell happened?" Arthur muttered, blinking repeatedly as he tried to regain his bearings, and Celestia quickly explained what had just occurred.
[That thing dragged your mind into a Conceptual Space. How the hell does it even have the Authority to do something like that?]
She turned her gaze toward Valkalonex, a different kind of wariness in her silver eyes.
