novelA Battle For The Ages
| ← Ch.0892 | Ch.0894 → |
In the age before the Empire, Godbeasts were often the most terrifying beings that any settlement would fear, and hope to never cross the path of.
Although these beings had high intelligence, they liked to treat humans as either prey or playthings. Even though it was true that humans were some of the worst possible food they could find- full of bones and with a pitiful amount of flesh that wouldn't even count as a snack, they were still targeted by a few terrifying races of Godbeasts for multiple reasons.
Some said that it was because they did not like seeing them grow powerful, and wished to squash them before they reached enough of a level of power to challenge them.
Others stated that they liked to see the expressions of fear, as humans had some of the most expressive faces.
And still others... simply said that it was to have fun.
Either way, when the war came, it was welcomed and supported by almost all of humanity.
During this war... there were a small list of races who were targeted the most, both because of their absolute power, and their insistence to not let any human who crossed their sight live.
Even though they were few in number, each of them held extraordinary power, and it wasn't a rare occurrence for a few thousand humans to fall to bring down just one of these beasts.
As Daneel felt his body blur again before taking on the form he had practiced with extensively in Elysium, he remembered this history which he had been told by the system.
And this... was because after more than 25, 000 years, those Godbeasts would be gracing the land of this great continent again.
Together.
From his feet, as his body began to be revealed to the world, he felt the two sovereigns behind him, who were still fighting, suddenly suck in sharp breaths as they witnessed the thing that had actually inspired the name'Fighter Domination Protocol'.
Scaled, muscular, black colored legs that were bent, looking like they were bursting with power.
Gigantic, grey colored, bladed wings on a back and an upper body that was also scaled, but which shone brilliantly, as if swallowing all of the light in existence.
Hands that were giant-sized, with strange orifices near the spot where the forearm met the hand.
And finally... the neck and head of a crimson dragon with a single, majestic horn pointing straight forward.
As soon as the being came into existence, everyone present felt a faint trepidation in their hearts, as if their instincts were telling them that it would be in their best interests to flee the spot.
Even though they had seen it multiple times, even Elanev and Faxul felt this, but they braced themselves as the transformation was not done.
Indeed... after stretching its neck forward, opening its wings wide and spreading its hands, this breathtaking being that the King had transformed into roared, and due to this, everyone could see that its tongue... was actually made of lightning.
The roar of a dragon resounded on the battlefield, returned to its glory as the Monarch of Godbeasts, and as a dark glow began at the bottom of its long neck, it turned its gaze to the pearl, which now looked puny when compared to it.
That was because with its neck elongated, it stood 36 feet(11 m) tall, and its wings were even taller than it, stretching out to 60 feet(18. 2 m), while looking as if they could blanket the whole world if they wished.
The varying colors of each part of its body actually added to its splendor instead of taking away from it, letting one know from which Godbeast each part had been taken.
The legs of a Nightwolf, known for its ability to leap across large distances.
The back, wings and upper body of a Griffin, the Godbeast that was known for its speed and maneuverability in the air, along with its unbreachable defense.
The hands of a Neolith, a Godbeast that was the most humanoid in appearance, but which hated humans the most for reasons that were never found out.
And finally... the head of a Dragon, the most destructive Godbeast in all of existence, with the tongue of the King of Lightning, the purpose behind which was exposed as Daneel opened his maw and prepared to attack.
The glow that had begun at the bottom of his neck reached his mouth, and this was where it met the lightning.
The end result... was an apocalyptic beam of hellfire interspersed with lightning bolts, that looked like it was the very personification of what it meant to'destroy'.
Daneel was going all out from the beginning, with no intention of testing out his opponent and then revealing his power, as many characters were wont to do in many of the stories he had read back on Earth.
This was his most powerful attack, and its strength... had been rated at the Peak Amateur Hero level by the system.
And of course... this was only when he was using just his Fighter Path.
BOOOOMMMM!!!!
On impact, after a brief second of silence, the place where the pearl lay was smote with the unstoppable wrath of a Dragon that was incensed.
And when mixed with the element of lightning which had the capability of upping the explosiveness of any attack... it was a sight to behold.
A crater more than 80 feet wide appeared on the ground, and it was even half as deep as its width.
However... Daneel raised his hand just in time, as the entity that he had come for had managed to escape and appear on his side.
As this was a place that he had been able to access beforehand, he had also placed down an anti-teleportation formation that couldn't be broken easily. Only... it looked like his opponent seemed to have speed that rivaled teleportation.
Well, no one ever said that this was going to be easy.
It had been a blow by a blade that was like a large version of a butcher's knife, but Daneel had blocked it without even thinking with his bare hand.
As for the one wielding it... it was the same entity whose face had scared so many before, but it was enlarged by multiple times, which now allowed it to stand 25 feet tall, with armor covering its smooth body from neck to toe.
This armor was strange- it looked like a black sludge that was constantly swirling around the entity's body, but when Daneel made a surprise attack, it became clear what it was.
The Neolith had had a famous method of sending out bursts of Energy meant to threaten the enemies that it couldn't engage at a close range with the unmatched brute strength in its body. And this... was through the orifice at the base of its hand, which could point in any direction and let forth the fury of its race.
If it knew that its power was being used to defend those that it had hated with vehemence, it would definitely be pretty damn pissed off.
BANG!
With a sound like a gunshot, a projectile that looked like it was made of pure light began its journey to hopefully strike the large eyeball of the entity, in which the two pupils looked like they were dancing around each other.
Alas, at that moment... that black sludge sprung up as if it had a life of its own, and it managed to stop the attack easily.
[Power assessment completed. Power level of opponent: Eminent Hero. If no new power is introduced, the probability of host's victory is 67%. ]
Daneel actually felt relief as he heard this.
So far, although he had made many plans, things hadn't exactly gone the way he wished.
When dealing with an enemy of such means, though, he should have expected it, but it definitely hadn't been very pleasant to go through.
Using his powerful legs for a burst of strength and lunging forward with his powerful neck to hopefully bite the opponent's head off, as per the system's suggestions, Daneel hoped that there would be no more surprises.
True, he really had hoped to turn the continent against this being, which was why he had made that plan of creating a situation where the entity had to give back its executive powers, and become the Overseer again.
Anyone who had been slumbering for so long would definitely not want to go back to the dark hole they had been hiding in all this while. It was said that a prisoner's worst fear would be to go back to prison after they were given a taste of freedom, and Daneel had been depending on this to throw the entity's plan into disarray.
He had had the assumption, or at least the hope that it must not have found a way to do anything all these years due to the strict rules, and that its plan might be to use the time it had now to bring the rest of the continent under its control.
Alas, he had been mistaken, and even now, he didn't know how the entity had accomplished it.
After seeing all of his would-be allies fall unconscious, Daneel had fallen back on his second plan.
As he saw the entity launch another attack with its fist while forming a dazzling array of lights above them, which was definitely the precursor to a magic attack that might kill him if he wasn't careful, Daneel swung his wings forward, which had blades at the spots where they folded.
These blades sang as they whistled through the air, exposing the aspect of'slicing' that they had inherited, and sensing this, the entity sprung back.
Seeing him do so, Daneel cursed that moment when victory had seemed within his grasp- when he had made the entity kneel, and had been about to cut him to bits.
Again, it had found a way to bring back the oaths into effect, even though the way it was supposed to be was that monstrosities should be free of the bindings placed on them when they had been humans. This was the reason why Daneel had subjected them to that transformation, but even that had failed.
Still, he had been able to salvage the situation, and reach this juncture.
"ROOOAAARRRR!!!!"
As the entity fell back, Daneel let out another resounding roar and used his most powerful attack again.
As the beam of thunder fire raced in its direction, the entity actually... didn't move to dodge.
Puzzled and dreading another surprise, Daneel watched as the sludge somehow... swallowed up his attack.
What the f*ck?
The entity was spotless, while Daneel had depleted a sizeable part of the reserves of his Energy.
[Attack has been displaced. WARNING: Attack approaching from the east!]
Hearing the message, Daneel had just enough time to use his legs to jump back, and allow his own beam of thunder fire to race past him.
He actually began to sweat as he saw it impact the ground and cause another massive crater, knowing that it would have injured him quite severely if he hadn't been fast enough.
The low rumble of the Overseer echoed in the air, making him look up.
"A trick from the Mainland. Your power is commendable. Normally, I would have loved to dissect you to find out all of your secrets. But now... I just want to destroy you, your legacy, your family, and all those who revere you. By the time I am done, no one will remember the name'King Daneel'. You can only fight as a Fighter, and that is not enough. Come. Let's end this."
Narrowing his eyes, Daneel let out another roar of defiance.
The battle between the Heroes was still raging on above them, and as he leaped forward, the thought in his mind was that the entity was right.
They had to end this quickly.
However... not even a moment later, he had to quickly retreat, as the magic spell that the entity had begun to cast was finished.
It had resulted in the creation of a dark, pulsing orb, and as soon as Daneel had entered within its area of effect... he had felt the Energy being sucked out of him.
He looked at it with shock, as this was something that he hadn't seen, or even heard of in all these years that he had spent on this continent.
Folding its hands behind its back, the entity began to speak.
"Let me introduce myself. I... am'Greed'. My desire is to live forever and consume everything that I can find, and right now... I desire the Energy within you."
Widening his eyes, Daneel realized that he was in a predicament.
Long-range attacks would be displaced back towards him, and short-range attacks would need him to go nearer.
What the f*ck was he supposed to do?
Already, Daneel could feel himself losing grip on the battle, and that wasn't a good sign.
The being in front of him had already displayed that it was capable of things that he couldn't even imagine, and if there were no other factors at play, if he could utilize everything he had gained in Elysium, Daneel was confident that he could win.
But handicapped in this way... was it even possible?
Removing the amplification on the Hero-level monstrosities above him for even a fraction of a second would result in a change in the flow that would definitely end with him facing up against two hundred Heroes, along with this thing that had inexplicable abilities.
That was definitely something that he was sure he could not get past, so he had to kill the entity with what he had.
But how?
At the moment, the entity was still gloating due to the perfect trap it had made, knowing that each second that passed would only act in its favor. It knew that it had the means to absorb unlimited amounts of Energy, whereas Daneel's reserves were limited, and quickly being diminished.
Using it, he took a deep breath and thought back to everything that had happened until now.
All of his plans, all of his preparations, all of the pain... had led to this moment.
He had carefully manipulated everything to ensure that he would have this chance, and although it might not be as ideal as he wished, he had obtained it at the cost of much blood and tears.
Only he knew the excruciating pain he had had to go through to achieve subsequent breakthroughs as a Fighter and a Mage. Only he knew how close he had been to that thin veil, and how much the other side had called to him, tempting him to end it, to give up, to accept that he had lost.
"NO!", he had screamed, and pulled himself back each and every time.
For an entire month, he had kept the image of his sovereigns and all of the people who had trusted him in the front of his mind, while he felt his skin and flesh stripped away, right to the bone, again and again, to be formed anew, to become stronger and rid the continent of this being who had almost succeeded in destroying their precious home.
All of it... had been for this moment.
As all of these thoughts flooded into Daneel's mind, they acted as a stimulus, allowing him to achieve clarity unlike any that he had felt in a long time.
His mind worked at an incredible speed, going through each and every moment of interaction he had both with this being and the form of the Overseer that it had donned for so long, before proceeding to all of the information he had obtained about it from its commander who had been more than willing to give it all up.
He also evaluated all of the trump cards that he was yet to use, but including the Domination Corps, they were all ineffective at the moment, both because of their power level which was still not enough, and because of the anti-teleportation formation.
Something should be there that he could use. Something to turn the tide. Something to make all the sacrifices so far worth it, to allow him to use this golden opportunity he had created, where he had stripped all of the defenses that this entity had created for itself over all these years to make it stand in front of him, alone, waiting to be defeated for one, final time.
A second passed, and another, but Daneel's will to find a way to win instead of just going forth and giving his all with a hope for victory did not wane.
After another second, in a moment that he would remember forever as the culmination of his will to never give up... he finally got it.
Hastily, Daneel used the system to hide the excitement that had surged in his eyes at that moment.
If his enemy even had an inkling about what he was going to do, this would not work.
Following that, he put on an extremely vexed expression on his face, as if he had found no method but to walk forth, before using his powerful legs and the might of his wings to fly forward in a blur.
The moment he reached his opponent, he went all out.
He attacked first with the cannons in his hands to test out a hypothesis. Just as he had expected, as the two balls of light impacted the entity whose head had once again split in two as it seemed to be laughing, the black sludge rose to stop the attack, but it didn't displace it to attack him again.
Right! Short-range combat was viable, even though the pulsing orb above them had already begun to suck in the Energy stored in every cell of Daneel's body.
At this point, it became obvious that the entity was using all of its mage prowess on that orb, and this was actually justified. Its absorption meant that Daneel's endurance, which would originally have allowed him to fight for 10 minutes at maximum capacity, had been halved, meaning that he had to finish whatever he had come to do in the next 5 minutes, or he was doomed.
As if finding this out and being extremely frustrated by it, he reared his neck and used it like a whip, intending to use the singular horn that was angled forward on his head to impale his enemy.
This finally elicited a reaction. The head of the entity rejoined, and it used both of its hands to catch the horn on Daneel's head, in a move that surprisingly worked.
It seemed to have some way to ablate force, but Daneel still opened his mouth and shot out another beam of thunderfire.
In this way, he finally managed to damage his opponent for the first time: the sludge rose to block, but it was blasted away, and the smooth shoulders of the entity were exposed. A blemish finally came on them in the form of a spot that began to smoke, and the smell of charred flesh began to waft in the area.
"YOU!"
As if having its dignity, and not its body injured, the entity raised both its hands above its head, causing the butcher's knife to enlarge even further and strike down.
The Griffin's wings showed their power now, allowing Daneel to make an impossible maneuver that allowed him to dodge the attack even though he was so large, before letting him launch another beam of thunder fire at the waist of his opponent.
Alas, he had learned his lesson, so he dodged out of the way just in time, resulting in another crater forming on the ground.
The fight continued in this way, going back and forth, with Daneel landing most of his attacks as his focus on speed allowed him to outstrip his opponent's attacks.
Only... that black orb began to grow more powerful, and his endurance began to decrease even further. Also, the Energy it was absorbing also seemed to be benefiting his enemy, as the entity did not look like it would tire any time soon.
It had gotten used to being damaged, now, both because the damage was not life-threatening at all, and because it could see the near future, where Daneel would collapse to the ground with no more Energy left, following which he would be mobbed and torn to pieces by the monstrosities above
True, he might attempt to escape, too, but if he did so, the entity would simply destroy Lanthanor with a single attack and laugh while the kid outed himself anyway to prevent even more lives from being lost.
Anyway it looked at it, there was only victory in its path, and Daneel could detect this, too, in that nightmare-inducing eyeball whose pupils were now frolicking in a carefree manner.
With each minute, his desperation seemed to grow, and he really was outputting as much power as possible, with the hope that something really would change.
He landed many attacks, and even though that butcher's knife of the entity struck him once or twice, he was able to remain mostly unscathed by using his back, which also had the legendary defensive ability of the Griffin.
Starting from the three-minute mark, though, it became even more obvious how the battle would end.
The speed that Daneel had been able to use until then began to diminish, resulting in him getting caught in more and more attacks. He also started to take severe injuries, with the first being his horn being chopped off, as a result of a failed attack.
The entity had laughed gleefully and separated his face again, then, before striking again and again, causing Daneel to retreat.
He still returned, though, as there was nothing else he could do. He was greeted by a slash across his side which began to heal, but he fought on, landing more attacks, but having even more of his Energy absorbed, as it seemed that the black orb was more effective when the one it was acting on was weaker.
By the time they were halfway to the four-minute mark, Daneel's body was covered in injuries, and it started to become clear that he would soon collapse.
His attacks were simply shrugged off, and he had even stopped using thunder fire as it expended too much Energy. His wounds had stopped healing, and he dripped blood of various colors on the ground.
Finally, when another of his attacks failed, his wing was chopped off, causing him to fall on the ground, out of breath, and looking like the reaper was already bending over his shoulder, tapping it to give him the message that it had finally come to take him away.
Over their battle, they had reached the spot on the shore where the Sea was only a few feet away.
On the sandy beach, Daneel lay, panting, helpless, and defeated.
The entity walked forward, exultation clearly visible in its gait, and as it reached Daneel, it raised up the butcher's knife.
"A commendable battle. But you were always doomed to fail. Finally, after seventeen, thousand years... I shall have my victory."
The entity was filled with joy, looking forward to all of the moments it would spend erasing each and every figment that represented this brat, before taking command of this continent which should have rightfully belonged to it all those years ago.
Seeing the blade fall, it even bent forward, with the intent of relishing the sight of the end of Angaria from an even closer distance.
However... it was then that it happened.
Time seemed to freeze, because in front of its eyes... an object had come into being.
It was vaguely in the shape of a skull, but if seen from above, one would know that this was the shape of Angaria.
It was in the hands of the brat who had mustered enough strength to strike away its weapon for one last time, but even as that gigantic knife thudded to the ground beside them, the entity paid no attention to it.
And this... was because it knew what that skull represented. ƒ𝑟𝚎e𝔀𝗲𝒃𝑛o𝘷𝗲𝒍 - 🅽🅽novel
In a rasping voice, the King said, "If I can't win... then I shall follow in the footsteps of the one who saved us before."
With a scream, the entity clutched its side.
It remembered the blow that had struck it there, and this memory... was more painful than anything it had had to go through in all of its life.
But... how? It should be impossible!
"YOU'RE BLUFFING!", it screamed, but in the next moment, it saw the impossible come to life in front of it.
To control the Grand Inheritance meant that the Will of the World would be in one's grasp, and in front of its eyes, it saw the Will prostrate to the man whom it had been about to slay.
It did not notice that the battle above had turned in its favor as the amplification of the hundred opposing Heroes had stopped, or that the intensity of what it was seeing here was in no way comparable to what it had witnessed then.
No... all it saw was that it was the same concept, and this... made it return to that moment.
Even then, victory had been in its grasp, but everything had changed in a single moment.
Was it going to happen again?
The memory of how close it had been to dying engulfed its mind, and everything that it had been thinking was replaced by a single thought.
"NO! I MUST FLEE! I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TIME!"
It turned around and began to run, letting go of everything else, as it was convinced that if it didn't, the same blow would strike it again, and this time, it might not survive.
But at the same moment, the King transformed back into himself... and smiled.
It had even stopped commanding the Heroes above, so raising his hand, he gave the command.
In the same way that they had rehearsed, the strength of all one hundred Heroes focused on a single point, and after taking command of it, Daneel struck down.
SWWIIISHHHH!!!
With a horrified scream, it was ground into the tiniest of pieces before even those pieces were scattered across the sea, and finally... Angaria, itself, let out a sigh of relief.
Feeling this, Daneel stood tall and declared, "Greed... you were defeated on that day, itself, at the hands of Emperor Fenoras. It is done. The War is over."
However, just as he was about to relax, a voice echoed from the west, and accompanying it, an explosion which made the very earth shudder struck Angaria.
"Oh... but, I beg to differ."
| ← Ch. 0892 | Ch. 0894 → |