Chapter : 851
Gias did not give the Demon a mont to recover. The instant the pressure on his shield eased, he dropped it, the golden light dissolving back into his body. He then exploded into motion. He was not just a powerful defender; he was a warrior of incredible, surprising speed. He charged across the molten sand, his greatsword held high, closing the fifty-yard distance between them in a matter of seconds.
“Sun Hawk’s Dive!” he bellowed.
He leaped into the air, his body once again wreathed in that golden, solar light. He seed to hang in the air for a mont, a man transford into a living teor, his greatsword the burning, fiery point of his descent. He ca down on the Demon not with a simple chop, but with a spinning, acrobatic attack, his blade a whirlwind of golden light.
The Jahl, for the first ti in the day’s bloody proceedings, was forced onto the defensive. It raised one of its massive, molten-rock arms to block the attack. Gias’s greatsword slamd into the Demon’s limb with a deafening, tallic clang. The impact sent a shower of sparks and molten rock across the arena.
The Demon was thrown back a step, a deep, smoking gouge carved into its arm. It let out a roar of genuine pain and fury. The challenger had not just defended; he had drawn first blood.
The crowd, which had been holding its breath in a state of terrified awe, erupted. The sound was a single, unified, deafening roar of pure, unadulterated hope. They were on their feet, screaming his na, their fists pumping in the air. They were witnessing the impossible. They were watching a man, a mortal man, go toe-to-toe with a god, and win.
The battle that followed was a masterpiece of martial art, a dance of breathtaking skill and courage. Gias was a true prodigy, a warrior who seed to have been born for this very mont. He did not try to match the Demon’s raw, overwhelming power. He was smarter than that. He fought with a fluid, intelligent grace, a perfect fusion of offense and defense.
He would use his Sun Shield to block the Demon’s fiery breath, and then use the mont of respite to launch a lightning-fast counter-attack, his golden-light-infused sword striking at the Demon’s joints, its eyes, any perceived point of weakness. He was a gadfly, a hornet, a constant, irritating, and surprisingly painful presence that the massive, ponderous Demon could not seem to land a solid blow on.
He flowed around the Demon’s clumsy, powerful swipes. He used the arena itself as a weapon, kicking up clouds of sand to montarily blind the beast, using the curved walls to launch himself into unexpected, acrobatic attacks.
For ten glorious, thrilling minutes, the dance continued. Gias was a shining, golden sun, and the great, crimson Demon was a creature of shadow and rage, and the two were locked in a beautiful, epic, and seemingly evenly matched struggle.
Hope, a feeling that had been so brutally extinguished in the earlier bouts, was now a roaring bonfire in the hearts of the seventy thousand spectators. They were witnessing a legend being born. They were watching a man do what no man had done in three hundred years.
The challenger, Gias, was not just fighting. He was performing. And he was giving the entire kingdom a reason to believe in heroes again. The hope was a palpable, intoxicating thing, a wave of pure, collective joy that washed over the entire arena. And it was about to be brutally, and beautifully, crushed.
---
The battle had reached a crescendo of heroic, almost mythic, proportions. Gias was a living legend, a golden-haired, sun-blessed champion who was fighting not just for the prize, but for the very soul of the kingdom. He was proving that a mortal man, through sheer skill, courage, and an indomitable will, could stand against the forces of primordial chaos and not just survive, but triumph. Every successful parry, every lightning-fast counter-attack, every drop of molten, black blood that his greatsword drew from the Demon’s hide, was a testant to the power of the human spirit.
The crowd was no longer just a collection of spectators; they were a single, unified entity, a great, roaring beast of collective hope. Their voices were a constant, thunderous wave of sound, a prayer and a war-cry, that washed over the arena, seeming to lend strength to their chosen champion. They were all Gias now, their hearts beating in ti with his, their spirits soaring with his every acrobatic leap.
Chapter : 852
Gias himself seed to be feeding on their energy. His smile, which had never faltered, was now wider, more brilliant. His movents, which had been so swift and precise, were now imbued with a new, almost divine, grace. He was no longer just a warrior; he was an artist, and the blood-soaked sand of the arena was his canvas.
He pressed his advantage, his attacks growing bolder, more confident. He ducked under a sweeping claw of molten rock and, in a breathtaking display of strength and agility, he drove the poml of his greatsword into the Demon’s knee joint. The sound was a dull, sickening crunch. The Jahl let out a bellow of pure, unadulterated agony and staggered, its massive form faltering for the first ti.
The crowd’s roar reached a new, feverish, almost hysterical pitch. He had wounded it! He had crippled it! The god of fire was on its knees! Victory was no longer just a hope; it was an imminent, tangible reality. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ n͟o͟v͟e͟l͟f͟i͟r͟e͟
And it was in that single, perfect, and utterly triumphant mont that the true, terrible face of the Demon was finally revealed.
The Jahl, which had been a creature of mindless, predictable rage, a clumsy, roaring beast, suddenly went still. The roaring inferno of its form did not diminish; it seed to coalesce, to compress, to beco denser, hotter, and infinitely more malevolent. The chaotic, crimson flas that wreathed its body darkened to a deep, angry, almost blackish-red, the color of cooling blood and dying embers.
The oppressive, ambient heat in the arena, which had been a dry, baking thing, was suddenly replaced by a new kind of energy. It was a cold fire, a spiritual pressure so imnse, so ancient, and so utterly, profoundly evil, that it seed to suck the very air from the lungs of the seventy thousand spectators.
The roar of the crowd died in an instant, a great wave of sound that crashed into a wall of absolute, terrified silence. The hope, the joy, the collective, triumphant elation—all of it was extinguished as if a switch had been thrown. All that was left was a cold, primal, and deeply instinctual dread.
Gias, who had been preparing to deliver the final, glorious blow, stopped in his tracks. The confident, brilliant smile on his face froze, and then slowly, horribly, lted away, replaced by a look of pure, uncomprehending shock. The golden, solar aura that had been blazing around him flickered, sputtered, and was almost completely smothered by the Jahl’s new, suffocating presence.
He was no longer facing a powerful, but ultimately simple, magical beast. He was facing sothing else. Sothing older. Sothing smarter.
The formless, fiery maw on the Demon’s head, which had been a simple vortex of fla, now seed to twist into a grotesque, mocking caricature of a smile. And a voice, a voice that was not a roar, but a dry, rasping, and chillingly intelligent whisper, echoed not in the arena, but directly inside the mind of every single person present.
the voice hissed, a sound of ancient stone grinding against ancient stone.
And then, the Demon’s power, which had been operating at a high, but still comprehensible, Transcended level, simply… exploded.
The energy spike was a physical, palpable thing. The very air in the arena seed to crystallize, to beco thick and heavy as glass. The obsidian chains that bound the Demon, which had been glowing with a steady, purple light, now blazed with a brilliant, violent violet, straining and groaning as if they were about to snap under the sheer, impossible pressure of the power they were trying to contain.
The Demon’s form swelled, growing from twenty feet to a colossal thirty feet in a matter of seconds. Its molten rock body hardened, becoming a shell of jagged, gleaming obsidian armor. And the fire, the terrible, dark-crimson fire, now burned with a new, horrifying intensity.
This was not just a Transcended-level entity. The Royal Champion, Sir Kaelen, had faced a Transcended-level entity and had survived, however barely. This was sothing more. This was a being that had, for the first, glorious ten minutes of the fight, been operating at a re fraction of its true capacity. It had been toying with him. It had been playing.
This was a Commander-Class Transcended, a being on the very cusp of godhood, a force of nature that was not ant to be fought, but to be fled from.
Reviews
All reviews (0)