Chapter 947: Chains of the Past [Bonus 12]
"...hur! Arthur! Arthur Vaughn!"
Hearing his name, Arthur jolted awake, blinking in confusion.
"What the hell are you doing spacing out now of all times?!"
Layla’s loud voice snapped him back to awareness, and he hurriedly looked around, realising he was standing on a field encircled by several buildings.
When he looked up, he saw a teenager with dirty blonde hair matted with blood, his eyes unfocused and his face contorted with fury, his entire body wrapped in an overwhelming amount of magic power as he screamed.
"YOU BASTARD... BASTARD BASTARD BASTARD BASTARD BASTARD BASTARD BASTARD BASTARD BAAAAASTAAAAAAAARDDDddd!!!!"
Arthur’s eyes widened in recognition, and he muttered, "Zach Pearce?"
"Yes, it’s Zach Pearce, and he’s trying to kill us for some reason!" Layla shouted, her voice dragging Arthur’s attention back to her.
For some reason, she looked much younger than he remembered, which made no sense since she was still 13. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that she should look older.
A strange dissonance gnawed at his mind, making it hard for him to properly arrange his thoughts.
Even so, he forced that feeling aside and concentrated on the immediate threat Zach Pearce presented before them.
He pulled a sword from the spatial storage artifact on his left wrist and rushed toward Zach as he shouted.
"Layla! Take everyone away from here! This is going to get really bad!!"
"Tch! I understand!"
With the sword in hand, he propelled himself toward Zach, but halfway through, he was blasted back by the violent burst of magic power Zach released.
"Arthur!!"
He heard Layla shout, but he didn’t have time to focus on her.
While still airborne, he regained control of his posture and landed on the ground before turning his attention back to Zach...
"...Are you serious..."
Zach stood there, releasing ominous magic power, his eyes having turned a deep shade of red.
"Superior stage...Grandmaster!"
The instant Arthur muttered those words, he blinked in confusion because even though Zach was an entire Realm above him, he couldn’t sense any genuine fear within himself.
However, when Zach began summoning something, Arthur shook his head to clear away those unnecessary thoughts.
"I’ll deal with him, you guys handle the other monsters," he told his friends, and they nodded as they drew their own weapons.
Since they’d gone out for fun on this unfortunate Saturday, none of them had come prepared for combat and had only brought basic weapons.
Still, the guards near the dormitory entrances and several other students who had been inside their rooms rushed out to help eliminate the monsters Zach summoned, so those creatures were bound to be cleaned up fairly quickly.
That thought passed through Arthur’s mind as he faced Zach, who roared and rushed toward him.
"Hold on for a bit, would you?"
Arthur clenched his fist and drew his arm back before throwing a punch, the pressure from it forcing Zach to slide backwards several meters.
"What the?!"
Several spectators were left stunned because there was no magic or energy involved, only raw physical strength, and he had forced back a superior stage grandmaster.
To them, it was an absurd sight, but Arthur ignored their reactions and spoke to Zach, "I hope you’ll entertain me."
After making sure the others gave him room and focused on handling the summoned monsters, Arthur rushed at Zach with his sword, colliding with the berserk devil amid a violent clash of power.
In the middle of the fight, Arthur realised Zach had transformed into a Rune Eater that devoured magic power and runes, and although he couldn’t currently use his magic power, he was still a prime target for Zach.
Zach, behaving like a feral beast ruled by hunger, lunged at Arthur with heightened speed and strength, while Arthur avoided the opening sequence of punches and kicks with ease and responded with controlled blows that sent Zach crashing through fences and into buildings, only for him to rise again with unnatural endurance.
The runes covering Zach’s body began activating in succession, enhancing his abilities as he released ether-based projectiles and engaged Arthur with a blade constructed from magic.
Even though Zach displayed more skill than anticipated, Arthur kept the advantage in close combat, deflecting and countering while observing the various rune effects.
Zach accelerated using speed runes and delivered a heavy kick that sent Arthur crashing into a building, but Arthur recovered almost immediately and adjusted to the rising tempo of the fight.
The clash escalated as Zach rotated through multiple attributes, unleashing elemental attacks of flame, ice, lightning, wind, stone, and even water constructs powerful enough to bring down buildings.
Arthur weaved through the barrage while retaliating with swords and magic guns, forcing Zach to endure his own redirected attacks.
At one point, Zach absorbed a massive volley of the projectiles he had unleashed by activating another rune, then discharged the accumulated energy as a destructive beam that tore through the private estate sections of the Academy Dormitory.
As the estate crumbled into debris, the fight moved onto the rooftops, where Zach activated a rune that rendered him invisible and began attacking from unseen angles while layering projectile pressure from every direction.
Arthur adapted by sensing disruptions in the surroundings and eventually engaged him blade to blade despite the invisibility.
During an intense exchange of sword clashes, Arthur cornered him and cut off Zach’s right arm, disabling the invisibility rune and forcing him back into sight, and Zach thrashed and screamed before losing his footing and falling from the roof back to the ground.
Arthur descended after him, replacing the ice sword he had been using with flame swords and planting the blades into the earth around the fallen Zach, igniting a ring of fire that confined and disoriented him.
As Zach writhed within the rising heat, Arthur summoned his strongest magic gun, steadied his aim through the curtain of flames, and fired toward where he calculated Zach’s heart would be.
A whistling sound cut through the air, and after a brief pause, it was followed by the sound of something bursting apart.
The flames from the swords weakened and began to fade, but they suddenly sprang back to life, as though they’d been fanned by some unseen motion.
A powerful sense of impending doom flooded Arthur’s body from his side.
He turned his neck slightly, only to see a partially healed Zach standing there with a sword in hand, his arm restored but now bearing a visible hole that pierced straight through his side and exited out the other end.
’When did he get there?!’
"GRRROAR!"
He was critically wounded, blood pouring from his mouth, but he roared all the same, his sword moving directly toward Arthur’s head at the same time.
Time seemed to slow almost to a halt, and the blade felt as though it advanced frame by frame, while Arthur watched it inch closer to his eyes.
’Even if I slowed his time, it was already too late.’
The conclusion Arthur reached seemed to set off an instinctive reaction within him.
The arm holding his gun moved on its own and positioned itself right between his face and the incoming blade.
But just before the weapon pierced through his arm, it ignited with a brilliant white light, and Arthur’s eyes widened as he recognised the power erupting from the sword.
’Law of Creation!? Shit, I don’t have my Destruction Au—!’
That was the final thought that passed through Arthur’s mind as the blade pierced cleanly through his arm as though through butter and continued straight into his skull, skewering his brain and cutting off his consciousness.
◇ ◇ ◇
"Wave of darkness! Torrent of flames!"
The loud shout snapped Arthur’s mind back into place, and he quickly swung the sword in his hand, releasing an aura slash to meet the waves of darkness and flame that churned before hurtling toward him.
His blade, wrapped in dim silver light, sliced through both the jet black and crimson waves in a single motion, but the one who accomplished this wore a deep frown.
’The heck? Wasn’t I just fighting Zach? Why am I suddenly fighting Owen?’
Arthur cast a glance at the spectators filling the arena stands around him, the roar of the cheering crowd reaching his ears, while the pressurised wind from his attack tearing Owen’s aura waves apart brushed against his skin.
He looked toward one of the stands and caught sight of his father watching him with his head resting on his lap while eating grapes.
Arthur then faced Owen again, who rushed forward and swung his blade, taking advantage of Arthur’s momentary distraction.
Even so, Arthur managed to parry Owen’s sword, the blade sliding off his magic weapon before slamming into the ground.
He followed immediately with several slashes, forcing Owen to retreat.
Instinctively, his hand moved to grab an artifact from his storage artifact, but he suddenly halted, recalling that what he intended to take was something that stored aura within it.
’However, I don’t need it since I have my own aura.’
That thought passed through Arthur’s mind, but when he attempted to draw on his aura, he frowned as his head throbbed and a memory surfaced.
’Ah, I’m still hiding the fact that I can use my energies, aren’t I?’
His thoughts moved far faster than they should have for someone at his current level of power, but Arthur sensed nothing unusual since his mind normally operated at this speed.
He grabbed the artifact and channelled the stored aura into his sword, igniting the blade with golden light before swinging it.
"Sword of Victory."
Owen thrust his sword toward Arthur and released a spiralling mass of darkness with his own aura.
"Everlasting Darkness!"
The golden and black auras intertwined like two serpents coiling around one another.
Despite the clash of power, there was no true impact as both auras broke apart into golden particles that drifted upward before falling back to the arena floor.
Owen and Arthur engaged again within that beautiful scene, their aura slashes carving through the reinforced arena ground.
The murmurs of the spectators reached Arthur’s ears as he swung his blade to meet Owen’s, many voicing doubts about his Existence Realm while others discussed his strength and questioned how he was matching Owen, who was a Grandmaster.
Suddenly, Arthur sensed something was wrong, as his body felt heavier and his attacks grew slightly slower, as though his strength and speed were being reduced in alternating intervals.
Realising that Owen was using his bloodline ability, Arthur leapt back to escape its range, and the instant he did, Owen’s body lit up with the brilliance of another rune, this one appearing on his cheek.
He opened his mouth, and a white cluster of creation law energy manifested about ten centimetres from it, compressing until it became a pillar of light that shot into the sky.
Seeing this, Arthur, who had been about to cross his arms to activate the defensive arm guard artifacts he wore, immediately threw himself to the ground to avoid the piercing beam.
