Chapter 936: Trial by Immortality [Bonus 4]
In the same moment that Arthur flicked his finger upward to knock the spear tip off course, an axe swung toward his neck from the right, while several arrows flew in from the left.
"Quite impressive coordination," Arthur muttered as his gravity shield deflected both attacks.
He then raised his hand and clenched his fist, generating an immense gravitational force that acted on the knights’ bodies from all angles, compressing them until nothing remained but compacted masses of metal.
After that, he turned toward Rishia and saw her twirling a ring of purple fire around her fingers.
On the ground near her were the melted sludges that had once been the knights who’d attacked her.
"How hot are your flames?" Arthur asked. "I could tell how hard their armour was from the force I had to generate to crush them, and you completely melted them in seconds."
"Hot enough to serve as a life-giver for an entire star system of planets," Rishia replied, raising a finger to her chin in thought before adding, "I think thirteen planets was my record."
Hearing this, Arthur blinked in surprise.
"Wait, wait, wait. Did you just, I don’t know, suddenly decide one day to create a star to give life to planets?"
"Yes," Rishia answered calmly. "I was trying to comprehend the law of life and thought it might provide some insight."
Arthur stared at her in silence for a moment before finally saying,
"...You know, I actually never thought about that method."
Shrugging, he added, "Oh well. Flames aren’t my forte, and even though I can use virtually all attributes of magic, I’m not really a magic person. I’m more of a technique-focused fighter."
As he spoke, he conjured a small orange flame on his palm, then clenched his fist, extinguishing it.
"But anyway, let’s head over—"
Arthur’s words were cut short as the crushed metal balls on the ground in front of him that had once been knights began to creak.
In a disturbing display, they expanded outward. Arms forced themselves free, legs extended, and within seconds, they had returned to being the fully armoured knights they once were.
The same thing happened to the pools of molten metal at Rishia’s feet. Those pools clumped back together, and the knights she had just melted with flames hotter than stars came back to life.
The knights resumed their attack immediately, but were subdued just as instantly.
Arthur snapped his fingers, creating a small-scale maelstrom which dragged all of them towards a gravitational well in the air and crushed them all into just one metal ball.
He looked toward Rishia, who immediately torched them with her flames, burning them until she was pretty sure there was nothing left.
But to their great surprise, the atomic particles that Rishia’s flames hadn’t completely disintegrated recombined.
From that, the full group of exactly seventeen knights that had shown up earlier reappeared, weapons drawn, charging at the duo again.
"Great," Arthur said. "So we have immortal enemies now."
As he said this, he applied his Gravitational Authority to generate a downforce that slammed the knights into the ground, completely immobilising them.
Then he turned towards Rishia and asked for her thoughts.
"Any ideas?"
She shook her head before responding, "Nothing. Maybe this floor is the trial that Lord Barda spoke about."
Rishia was suggesting that this might be Gervod’s Axe Trial, and the immortal enemies were a result of his life manipulation.
But Arthur refuted that nearly instantly, shaking his head as he replied.
"No. Even if they want to change the format, it’d be pointless if I don’t use an Axe throughout the trial. I haven’t unlocked my Axe Authority yet, and that’s the only thing I’m supposed to be able to use throughout the trial."
Just as he said that, he sensed movement in another direction and turned to see another group of knights climbing out of a pile of ruins, their armour dented, their weapons gleaming with powerful law energies as they leapt toward the duo.
Without saying a word, Rishia held out her left hand, summoned her bow, Noctveil, knocked an arrow, pulled the string, and fired, sending multiple arrows into the heads of the knights, blowing them apart.
As they crumpled to the ground, she turned toward Arthur and continued speaking.
"If all the enemies on this floor are immortal like these knights, it’s going to be tricky. Avoiding combat until we understand as much of the floor mechanics as we can would be the smartest approach."
Just as she spoke, she realised that Arthur wasn’t looking at her, and was instead looking past her.
Narrowing her eyes, she asked in a pointed tone, "Arthur? Are you listening to me?"
"They’re not getting back up," Arthur said.
Rishia raised an eyebrow, then turned in the direction Arthur was looking and saw that the knights she had shot with her bow were indeed not getting back up.
They were still lying on the ground, dead.
"What did you do differently?" Arthur asked, closing the distance.
"I used my bow", Rishia answered, "and I shot them in the head."
Arthur crouched and knocked on the armour of the headless knight closest to him as he muttered a single word.
"Headshots..."
Just then, the light from the flames reflecting off the swords of the fallen knights made the blades gleam, and that brightness caught his eyes.
Realisation instantly dawned as his gaze moved towards the blades on the ground.
"Weapons."
He turned back to the knights they had obliterated earlier, the ones who had regenerated from subatomic particles, and saw that each of them bore arms infused with weapon law energy.
Looking back at Rishia, he stated his conclusion, "Weapons. You killed them with your bow."
Rishia immediately drew her bow and fired at the knights pinned to the ground.
Arthur released the gravitational downforce on them right after, and the two of them waited in silence to see if anything would change.
Even after a full minute, the knights did not rise.
Seeing that the knights were now truly dead, Arthur muttered, "I think I know exactly who’s responsible for this Floor."
Hearing this, Rishia replied, "Funny, Lady Berlal’s name came to mind as well."
They both realised that the condition for permanently killing these knights was likely to do so with the use of weapons, and among all the Levites, the one most particular about weapon usage was the eldest of the six dragons, Berlal.
Arthur raised his hand, using gravity to clear aside several buildings, revealing another group of knights that were under the wreckage.
He generated floating swords with divinity and sent them flying into the knights’ chests, sending them crashing to the ground.
Contrary to expectations, however, the knights got back up a few seconds later, pulled the swords free, and continued advancing.
Arthur immediately frowned, and Rishia mirrored his expression.
"It’s not enough to kill them with weapons?" Rishia muttered.
Arthur rubbed his chin silently for a moment before raising his hand and conjuring another sword infused with divinity.
He didn’t throw it this time, but just before stepping forward, he changed his mind and reshaped it into a spear, then empowered it with his Polearm Authority.
He then dashed forward, swinging it and lopping off one knight’s head, and piercing the chests of several others with lightning-fast thrusts.
For the remaining three who were slightly farther, he threw the spear at them, controlling it mid-flight so that it pierced through their chests.
After this, he stood and watched. A few seconds later, the ones he’d attacked directly didn’t get back up, but those he’d killed by throwing the spear rose and charged at him.
Arthur nodded silently at this, and as Rishia removed the heads of those three knights with her arrows, she spoke,
"It’s not just killing them with a weapon. You have to actively wield it. Using it as a projectile doesn’t work."
She glanced down at her bow silently for a few seconds before continuing, "I’m guessing the only reason my bow works is that a bow’s primary attacks are projectiles."
"Glad you’re quick on the uptake. There might be other conditions we’re unconsciously meeting, so let’s experiment before we start clearing this floor properly," Arthur said, slipping his hands into his pockets.
Rishia silently nodded in agreement, and Arthur then continued speaking
"If my guess is right, then the goal of this floor is to force us to use our weapons so much that we improve with them.
These knights are weak now, but like the previous floor, they’ll probably scale up.
Unlike the first floor, which started with Half-Deity Realm enemies, these ones start at the Inferior Stage of the Low-Tier Deity Realm. We can still one-shot them, but that means what we’ll face later will likely be much stronger than the last floor.
If all of them wield weapons and we can only kill them by wielding our own, then yeah, this floor’s theme is weapon mastery."
"Then the reward might be related to weapon usage," Rishia said, firing another arrow to take down a knight crawling out from a broken building’s window as she continued, "The first floor was filled with those altered monsters, and we had to face cosmic horrors who dealt passive mental and spiritual damage.
In the end, we received soul power that increased our resistance to those effects as a reward."
"I find that plausible," Arthur responded. "But who knows, that may not be how things actually turn out. We’ll find out what the real reward of this floor is when we reach the end."
"True. No point thinking about it now, when we’re nowhere near there," Rishia agreed, turning toward the knights that had surrounded them while they were talking.
There were hundreds now, all wielding weapons of all kinds, many of which she had never seen before.
She raised her bow and pulled the string, a purple, flour-fletched arrow charged with magic power appearing.
At the same time, Arthur recalled his spear construct into his hand and spun it, reinforcing it with more law energy.
"Shall we make a bet?" he asked.
Rishia looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "You want to lose again?"
Arthur just chuckled at her question, shaking his head as he replied, "Cooking isn’t my forte, but I’m pretty damn sure I can kill more of these guys than you."
"Did you forget I’m using a weapon better suited for large AOE attacks than yours?" Rishia asked, a hint of incredulity in her voice, but Arthur remained confident.
"I know. I’m handicapped. Makes it more satisfying when I win."
Rishia rolled her eyes at his response while Arthur laughed lightly at her reaction.
Just then, the knights wielding melee weapons came into striking range and launched their attacks.
Arthur and Rishia retaliated simultaneously, and their conquest of the second floor began.
