Chapter 1964: No Chance From the Start
Mayla’s heart stopped.
She watched with a helpless stare as Rex’s claws sank deep into Guarani’s throat, past flesh and artery, until they wrapped around the spine. Then, as if wanting her to see clearly what he was about to do, Rex paused to smirk before snapping the spine.
A sharp, wet crack echoed loudly, but it was like a thunderclap for Mayla.
Guarani’s body went limp instantly, and he crumpled on the stone spear.
For a long, suspended second, the world unraveled around her. The sound of rapid wind from the vortex faded. Everything in between—also faded. All of it drowned beneath the roar of silence filling her skull as her round eyes stared at Guarani’s corpse in utter shock.
Her eyes could see him, the person she shared decades with in battle, but her mind refused the image.
Mayla refused to grasp that Guarani was already gone.
It took watching Rex carve out Guarani’s heart and devour it for the death to register in her mind.
She sucked in a breath so deep it cut her lungs, and then screamed.
Her pained scream tore across the pocket dimension, past the swirling vortex, and past the battles that were happening outside. It was a raw scream that gradually turned hoarse from how much strain it put on her vocal cords.
A sound carved from the deepest chamber of her loss.
Inside the vortex, Farhan hacked his sword and watched with sadistic pleasure as Rex’s throat was cut.
He reeled in the satisfying sight of Rex staggering back while holding his cut throat.
Then, he suddenly heard the scream that stabbed into his eardrums and shook his mind and soul.
Being distracted in a fight is a fatal mistake, he knew that dearly, but the moment the scream rang, Rex, who was right in front of him, disappeared. Not merging with the wind again—or melted into something else, but simply disappeared.
Only then did Farhan realize what had happened.
’I have been fighting an illusion all this time?!’ He thought inside.
During the fierce exchange inside the swirling vortex, Rex had gradually put more and more pressure on Farhan’s mind using the Almighty Bearing. He slowly exhausts Farhan’s mind, and when he saw the opportunity, he used the Weaver of Madness skill.
It worked wonderfully.
Farhan was seized by madness and hallucinated fighting Rex and winning.
In reality, Rex already went away.
Realizing that he had been played, Farhan ground his teeth in anger and snapped his gaze to the side.
But a paralyzing shock stunned his body the next second.
He saw Guarani was already dead, impaled by a stone spear from behind with his heart carved out. The signature of the death that Rex inflicted. Not too far away across, Mayla was screaming at the sight of Guarani’s corpse.
So much so that blood leaked out of her lips.
"I’ll kill you!!"
From the swirling vortex, a streak of white burst forth.
Farhan moved like a meteor with a roar in his throat; his body wreathed in the last remnants of the wind he had dissolved into. He had lost Rex inside the storm, had chased phantoms—while the real monster slipped through his fingers, and now he saw the price of that failure.
Another comrade. Another friend. Dead.
Anger and anguish fused into a single, blinding force.
Even if it would take everything. Even if he has to sacrifice his own life. He has to kill Rex.
For killing two of them already, he has to do it.
Farhan roared; the sound tore out of his throat with enough fury to shake the petals from their stems—and he swung. His sword crystallized into an ice-blade completely mid-air; the air an inch from its sharp edge distorted with the activation of an ability that could cut through space.
As it cuts through the air, the tip slices space and leaves behind a hollow trail.
It took a lot out of him to use this ability as blood drizzled down from every orifice.
But as the blade headed toward Rex’s back, a golden disk erupted from the ground.
It interposed itself between the sword and its target—the ice-blade struck the golden disk. Considering the ability that he was using, he pushed further, knowing that he could slice through. He had to. Using the ability took a big chunk of immortal energy and strained his entire body.
And yet, the blade stopped dead mid-swing.
No tremor. No crack. The spatial-slashing power fizzled against its surface and vanished.
Farhan breathed and saw Rex looking over his shoulder; there was already a black half-mask that was now covering one side of his face, and elongated red claws on top of the golden disk. He could sense the power of Law from each one of them.
It was only then that he realized Rex had three Laws.
Naturally, the Law of Misdirection and the Law of Inevitability were the ones responsible for this.
Each Law glided over the golden disk and resisted the ice blade.
Rex didn’t even need to turn around fully to block Farhan’s attack, and this frustrated him to no end.
"Do you think you’re the only one who has a Law?!"
Out of sheer anger, Farhan activated the Law of Eternal Ice and charged it into his ice blade.
The Law of Eternal Ice, paired with the spatial-slashing ability, made a powerful combination. Both of the powers were enough to push the blade through the golden disk. Going deeper and deeper with each passing second until it carved clean through.
Swish—!
As soon as the ice blade cut through, Farhan pushed even harder.
It was his golden opportunity.
Surely this time, his attack could finally decimate Rex and avenge his fallen comrades.
But that was only hopeful thinking.
Once again, the ice blade struck something, and it’s not Rex’s back.
Clang—!
Farhan gritted his teeth in utter anger as his bulging eyes glared at the golden skeleton that had suddenly come to be, covering Rex’s entire body like an exoskeleton. It was the Perfect Beast Spirit Genesis. One more obstacle blocked the ice blade from landing the fatal blow.
And throughout all of this, Rex was only watched.
"Didn’t I make it clear to you already?"
"...?!"
"I know your capabilities. I know Mayla’s capabilities. I know... everything."
Perhaps Farhan considered his Law of Eternal Ice to be his trump card—but it could not be hidden from Rex. The moment he was sure that none of the Awakened Demigods sent to him were as strong as High Millinar Alexander, he immediately scanned them with the System.
Knowing the enemy’s strength is paramount in a fight.
Thus, Farhan and his comrades didn’t have a chance of winning from the start.
"You should fall obediently!" Farhan roared; his voice cracked—as burning tears traced down his face. "For killing my family. My comrades. My friends! I will dedicate every single second of my entire life to killing you! It doesn’t matter if I can’t kill you right now. One day... One day, I will take your life!"
"Really?" Rex sneered, staring at the tears that streaked down Farahan’s cheeks. "Tears...? You came here to kill me, and yet you’re not prepared to die, too? You, out of all people, should know that death is a guarantee in this line of work."
Farhan only glared at Rex.
He kept desperately attempting to push his ice-blade, hoping that it would slice through the exoskeleton.
But it wouldn’t budge.
"Only the strong came out alive in a battle to the death," Rex said without flinching away from the glare of death. "And for one to desire to kill another being, then one should also be prepared to die. It’s how the universe works. You should come with the conviction to die alongside me, not cry like this."
Rex turned away and looked down at the ground.
"I’m sure you were sent here to find out more about me, to test me—so let me tell you something about myself," He raised his bloodied hand and stared at it. "I’m someone who qualified to reach the very top of the food chain. Qualified to become invincible. Someone who was destined to be something great—or terrifying, depending on how you look at it.
"And unfortunately for all of you," Rex raised his gaze—and stared at Mayla. She was still paralyzed from the shock. "None of you are on that list of greatness. So, this battle was already decided from the start."
Farhan unleashed a thunderous scream and dissolved; his body seeped into the ground.
Like blood into sand, he sank into the earth.
Beneath Rex, the flowery plain flashed white. Ice swallowed the ground in a spreading bloom; the work of the Law of Eternal Ice, no doubt. He could instantly feel the temperature drop rapidly and the icy grasp biting deep into his bones.
From its frozen surface, figures erupted.
Frozen figures covered in full plated armor with a sword in hand, Ice Knights. Dozens of them.
Each one was entirely sculpted from living ice. And though their bodies should be rigid from the material they were made of, that wasn’t the case at all. These Ice Knights moved with the fluidity of a person— and with deadly expertise.
Rex scanned them all and found their physical strength matched Farhan’s own.
In fact, the Ice Knights have the same physical prowess.
All of them rushed toward Rex like a tide of translucent, icy blades.
Across the field, Mayla snapped out of her shock and raised her arm.
Her skin split and bled as she channeled immortal energy to her absolute limit, invoking her powerful Minor Oustification of Living Stone once more. Statue clones of herself began to walk out of her body. One after another.
Each one was forged from her own flesh and will.
More blood leaked from her open wounds with every clone that emerged.
It was clear that using this ability put a heavy stress on her body, but she gritted her teeth and endured.
All statue clones with claws for fingers charged, a legion of stone-born fury.
Rex smiled in excitement and dropped into his battle stance.
Now, he’s getting to the fun part.
The first wave hit like a crushing wave. Most powerful and eager.
Five at once—three Ice Knights from the left, two stone clones from the right. Rex moved through them like a scythe. His claws tore through an Ice Knight’s torso and came out the other side. A backhanded swing bisected a stone clone at the waist.
Another ice knight lunged, sword thrusting for his throat.
Rex swayed past the blade.
He seized it by the face and swung it bodily into its comrade.
The second Ice Knight shattered on impact.
Finding the first Ice Knight’s frozen body pleasingly solid, Rex used it as a club. A brutal, two-handed arc that cleared a circle of enemies in a single rotation. Ice and stone debris crossed his vision and rained all around him.
More came; eight this time.
And then ten.
Rex ducked, weaved, and struck.
A claw through a chest. An elbow into a skull. A black lightning discharge—that stabbed into five. His reaction speed blurred the line between defense and slaughter. Even when a perfect came swinging fast from his blind spot, his senses picked it up and moved his body out of the way.
It was an impossible sight.
He shoved a stone clone back, created a breath of space, and drew back his fist.
Kingly energy coiled into his knuckles; the Brutal Impulse ignited before he threw the punch.
Boom—!
Reality shuddered as markings crawled out from the void, etching themselves into the air.
A beam of red annihilation erupted from his fist and seared through a dozen Ice Knights and Stone Clones in a single devastating line. And it kept going, punching through the vortex. A lance of crimson that tore a hole in the pocket dimension’s innate law.
On the very back, Mayla also got struck by it.
Her eyes widened as her body was suddenly forced to shift.
And when she looked down, her right arm was gone.
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