R-a - Volume 4 - Chapter 69

R-a - Volume 4 - Chapter 69

Thump.

Micheal’s heart pounded like a cannon in his ears.

Thump. Thump.

His entire world seemed to slow down, time itself almost coming to a standstill as he stared at the creature before him.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

A Titled Deity.

‘Why is a Toren here?’

Micheal’s thoughts raced as he stared at the Toren, his eyes taking in every detail he could spot.

The Deity was injured.

There was a small hole on the lower part of his chest, several burns on his arms and a few on his chest, and several bleeding injuries on his shoulder and forearm. Whatever clothes he had worn had been burnt black, half melted to his skin.

‘I’ve never heard of that Title before.’

The Herald of Ruin.

It was shocking to hear about a Title he had never heard of before, especially here, on the Second Layer.

Micheal’s intuition had told him he needed to hurry… but it hadn’t told him why. Now, he saw the answer to that question right before him.

If he had lagged behind, the remains he had needed to obtain the Titles System would have likely been destroyed.

However… instead of taking the time to mull over how this had happened, or examine the Titles System he had just obtained, Micheal cut off those lines of thought completely.

All that mattered was here and now.

A Titled Deity was standing in front of him.

Micheal’s thoughts cleared as he narrowed down his focus to a singular goal, his eyes flickering to Serena.

‘Survive.’

When facing a Titled Deity, the best defense is always a strong offense.

Micheal’s instincts took over as his mind entered a state of complete calm.

He held his treasured sword Lightshorn in his hand at the ready, coated in a layer of Master Tier Sword Energy.

There had never been a Titled Deity, in Micheal’s experience, that did not slaughter or enslave Humans, and all other Races, at will.

There were no exceptions.

Just a split second prior, Micheal had felt the Toren’s gaze turn toward him briefly before turning to focus on a small, blue screen floating in front of him.

In those eyes, Micheal sensed a mix of scorn, dismissal, and anger… and an overwhelming wave of killing intent, a palpable level of pressure that struck his mind like a blacksmith’s hammer striking metal.

Micheal shrugged off the pressure without issue, but Serena was not so lucky.

The raw Aura of a Martial Artist on the level of this Toren was incredibly impactful to those who had seen little bloodshed. It was something that could only be accumulated after slaughtering thousands of foes, and not something the young Disciple Apparent was prepared for.

The Farian sat down on the ground, her hands trembling as she stumbled backwards.

That slight movement caught the Toren’s eye, and that was exactly when Micheal struck.

Without time to prepare for anything complex, Micheal’s attack returned to simplicity.

He concentrated all the energy in his body into his legs and veritably launched himself forward, cratering the ground where he had been standing, sending bits of rock and stone rubble flying into the air.

As he moved, he activated his Temporal Bubble Ability, greatly enhancing his speed. This transformed his body into a blur, crossing the distance between himself and the Toren in a fraction of a second.

With a quiet, sharp hiss, Micheal’s sword cut towards the Toren’s face, forcibly drawing attention back towards himself.

And… just when his attack was about to split the Toren’s face in twain…

“Ruin.”

Something strange took place.

The Toren spoke a single word, and as soon as he said that word…

The world around Micheal rapidly began to lose its color.

From the bright blue of Micheal’s eyes, to the tanned golden skin of the Toren in front of him, everything within a roughly 37 meters radius was stained gray, holding on to only the smallest bit of color.

As the world rapidly turned gray, a small, layer of dark gray fog appeared between Lightshorn and the Toren’s face.

Micheal’s sword slammed into that gray fog and…

Stopped in place.

The momentum from Micheal’s attack carried him forward regardless, which he used to his advantage. With a slight twist of his hips, Micheal launched a savage kick towards the Toren’s right kidney, coating his foot with a layer of Master Tier Sword Energy.

Once again, a small layer of gray fog appeared, intercepting his attack.

The instant it appeared, Micheal noticed the Toren’s body slightly shifting, as if in anticipation of his attack.

‘He expected to get hit. Then, does the gray fog appear automatically? Can he control it?’

Dozens of thoughts raced through Micheal’s head as he flipped backwards, kicking off the gray fog that had appeared to surround small parts of the Toren’s body.

When his foot made contact with the fog, it felt solid, as if he was kicking off a stone wall.

As Micheal flipped backwards through the air, a large, pitch-black scythe appeared in his left hand.

‘Chain!’

Micheal immediately activated his Scythe of Chains, utilizing the Artifact he had just obtained from Tallanoran’s Inheritance for the first time.

The Toren’s body froze as several black, semi-transparent chains warped their way into existence, wrapping around the Toren and sealing him in space.

A fraction of a second later, Micheal landed back on the ground, holding the Scythe out in front of him defensively.

‘Can I activate the Crown of the Angel King now? No, not yet.’ He instantly concluded.

That Artifact was incredibly powerful, but it required a few telegraphed seconds to activate. The Scythe of Chains wouldn’t be able to hold this Toren still for long enough.

He didn’t dare to take his attention off the Titled Deity in front of him, but slowly began to inch his way closer to Serena and the portal that led out of the Sanctum.

“Who are you?!” Micheal spoke aloud, trying to buy time for Serena to recover behind him.

The 0.5 seconds window that the Scythe of Chains could freeze a being for passed as the chains dissipated, vanishing to reveal the Toren with a rather bemused expression.

“Truly? You don’t know?” The Toren muttered, staring intensely at Micheal.

“I am Orion Thunderfist… ah, is it because of my new body?” The First Lord chuckled quietly to himself.

“How strange.” Orion’s gaze flickered away from Micheal briefly, staring off to his left, towards the massive hole he had created.

A split second later, a bright yellow laser beam shot through that hole, aimed directly towards Orion’s head.

As soon as that laser beam crossed the 37 meters threshold, its color rapidly began to fade, changing from bright yellow to a dull, pale yellowish gray.

Nevertheless, despite losing most of its color, the beam of light cut through the air towards Orion’s head and… slammed into a blob of gray fog that had spawned into existence, intercepting the attack.

Micheal recognized that attack instantly.

‘Judgement Rays?! He’s fighting the Nirvana Saint?!’

The only human Micheal knew of that used that style of attack on the Second Layer was none other than the Nirvana Saint himself.

‘If the Nirvana Saint is here, he won’t be fighting alone.’ Micheal rapidly processed what he was witnessing, his heart pounding as he tried to establish a game plan.

A Titled Deity existing on the Second Layer was a disaster for humanity.

‘Why is the First Lord now a Titled Deity?!’

Micheal had personally participated in the Great War Between Races. He had witnessed the horror that was the First Lord, including the powerful Martial Artist’s incredible Elemental Lightning-based attacks.

That version of the First Lord, he remembered, had quite clearly been a Byren. An elderly, aged Byren who suffered from arthritis.

‘A Dark Wraith in the body of a Byren.’ He mentally corrected himself.

It was only a split second later that a series of rapid realizations hit him.

‘Sanctum- Toren bodies- Beasts of Provid- destroy- left.’ Micheal’s eyes widened.

In the original timeline, the Beasts of Providence clashed with the First Lord and ended up destroying the Sanctum. There was no record left behind of why the Beasts of Providence clashed with the First Lord, but it was known that this is what caused the destruction of the Sanctum.

In the current timeline, however…

The Beasts of Providence had left the Second Layer, pulled out by Constantine to focus on the higher Layers.

Inadvertently, Micheal’s actions had set into play a constantly shifting chain reaction of events that had ramifications his future knowledge was helpless to predict.

‘He switched bodies here to a Toren.’ Micheal’s eye spasmed as he resisted the urge to scan the inner Sanctum, keeping his full focus on the First Lord in front of him.

‘And by doing so, he obtained a Title. Or something along those lines.’ Micheal intuitively knew that while his guess wasn’t perfectly accurate, it was close enough to the truth for it to not matter.

Behind Micheal, he heard Serena take several gasping breaths before getting back to her feet.

And, it was here that a sickening sensation formed in the pit of Micheal’s stomach. A feeling he had not felt in a long time.

Before Micheal could react, Orion’s gaze turned back towards him with a frown.

“Oryx’s Scythe…” The Dark Wraith recognized the Artifact.

The world seemed to slow down once more as he saw, rather than heard, Orion mutter a phrase as he raised his hands together.

“Clear the Skies.”

The instant Micheal saw the hand motion, he began to throw himself backwards, spawning a Temporal Bubble to accelerate his movements. It was a technique he recognized, one the First Lord had made great use of during the Great War Between Races.

The First Lord clapped his hands together.

And…

Once more, something strange happened.

A great, blasting shockwave was formed, drawing on the First Lord’s control of Elemental Lightning, the same technique Micheal recognized.

This time, however…

That expanding shockwave wasn’t simply imbued with Elemental Lightning.

Instead, constantly merging with it was a vast wave of light gray fog.

The moment Micheal saw that light gray fog, his heart froze over and his instincts screamed at him.

Death.

If that fog touched him, he would die.

He didn’t know why it was different from the darker fog that had blocked his previous attacks. All he knew, now, was that he absolutely could not let that fog swarm him.

As Micheal flew backwards, he cut forward with Lightshorn, slicing towards the shockwave with every fiber of his being. He felt a heavy strain on his Soul as he drew as powerfully as he could upon it, creating a deadly slice of Master Tier Sword Energy.

Micheal’s strike slammed into the shockwave, perforating it and causing it to deform. At the same time, however, the parts that weren’t obstructed blasted forward, moving at a speed he couldn’t react to.

Micheal’s slash was enough to create a cone of safety around himself, the impossibly sharp energy cutting apart this type of gray fog far easier than it had the other type.

The shockwave swept past him…

And Micheal’s heart dropped.

Micheal twisted his body over as he flew backwards, the momentum from his leap carrying him almost all the way to the portal connecting the Sanctum to the Soul King’s Inheritance.

After the shockwave swept past, the world had turned eerily silent.

The first thing Micheal saw, of the world after the gray fog swept through it, was a scene of devastation.

Everything the gray fog touched had cracked, broken, and begun to fall apart…

Ruined.

The walls of the Sanctum, the sarcophaguses near Micheal, the ground he stood on…

And…

A young, Farian girl, standing near the entrance, on the other side of the portal.

“Micheal…” Serena’s voice was quiet and muted, echoing softly in the still air.

“Sorry…” The Farian’s body had turned gray, covered in a crisscrossing layer of cracks.

“No.” Micheal stuttered, feeling the blood begin to pound in his ears.

“Please.” He whispered.

Serena didn’t respond as she donned a small, sad smile…

And then collapsed, her body dissipating as it turned to ash.

Micheal lurched forward, a split second later, landing on the ground next to her… but it was too late.

As his hands sifted through ash, reality hit him.

She was dead.

.