Chapter 6 - Face Off Against a God King
My blood froze as I stared at the imposing figure that stood in the doorway.
At once I felt a heavy pressure weighing down over the entire area as this Level 999 God King activated his divine aura. For people who hadn’t yet achieved their first S-prestige - no, even for a person with a single S-prestige, this aura was strong enough to make them fall to their knees and bow.
Even as I did my best to resist the aura, I was immediately forced to drop to one knee with my head bowed. My body felt like it was being dragged down by countless weights. My entire body shook as I resisted the incredible force.
At this point I heard the voice of God King Yuto as he laughed out loud.
“Oh? You really did show up here.” He said to me. “You’ve saved me a lot of trouble hunting you down by being so... predictable.”
Around the church, all of the townspeople and guards would be uncontrollably kneeling right now in the Fake Yuto’s divine presence, their foreheads pressed into the floor.
However, despite the weakness of my body, I didn’t fall further than my single knee. No, actually, I was slowly able to stand up! I rose my head and looked the Fake Yuto in the eyes. His eyes narrowed as he frowned.
At first even I was surprised. However it suddenly made sense to me as I remembered that though my body was weak, the body wasn’t the main factor in resisting the aura. Rather, it had to do with the strength of one’s soul.
And in terms of that, I was unrivalled in the world!
“I see, even in such a weak body, you can still resist.” He said, quickly coming to the same conclusion as me.
Duke’s eyes grew dark as he turned to face me, standing between me and the fake Yuto. Since the divine aura was an area of effect ability, it was definitely putting pressure on him as well. However, since he was already an S-Prestige and an A-Prestige class, he was able to resist without much difficulty. I couldn’t tell what Duke was thinking, caught between the two of us.
“You should return my body back before you hurt yourself!” I said, standing up straight as I completely shook off the effects of the divine aura.
There was a glint in Fake Yuto’s eyes as he suddenly raised his hand and struck out at me in a surprise ranged attack. A beam of light coalesced in his hand and shot towards me. I dodged out of the way easily, having already expected such a response. The wall behind me exploded outwards into the next room as the attack punched a large hole straight through the stone.
I tumbled on the ground, prepared to dodge his next strike when there was a sudden explosion of force. Thick layers of armour materialized in the air around Duke. He stepped forward and struck the Fake Yuto in the shoulder, knocking Fake Yuto’s hand away to prevent further strikes against me. A giant tower shield with the face of a boar materialized in his left hand as he activated the full defensive might of a Level 300 Fortress Knight.
With a growl Duke yelled to me, “I’ll stop him! Run!”
This traitor had come to my aid, thinking that I was the assassin being attacked by the real Yuto! I didn’t waste this opportunity to escape out of the small office through the hole that had been blasted through the wall. The entire building shook as my two enemies clashed with each other.
Although I wanted to take my body back, rushing in to a battle being unprepared was only going to lead to my death. Even if I were to team up with Duke, I wouldn’t even be able to dent the cloak of the Fake Yuto. Without having a way to deal soul damage to Fake Yuto, there was no point in me staying in front of him. Therefore, retreat was the only logical option!
I did not have much hope for Duke being able to resist Fake Yuto’s power. Even if the assassin’s soul was not too strong, the body itself was at maximum level. However a Fortress Knight’s specialty was defense, and he was at the maximum level, so I expected Duke to be able to hold on for at least three to five minutes. Moreover, since they had collaborated together, the Fake Yuto might not be willing to go all out against Duke, or even spend time explaining the situation, thus increasing my escape time significantly.
Suddenly, a huge cannonball shot out from the remaining portion of the wall of the office, blasting past me as it penetrated through the rest of the church in an earthshaking explosion. The light of day shone in through the giant hole left by the cannonball, which left a huge skid mark against the ground over to its final resting location. Smoke and dust billowed through the air as the building around me trembled.
Wait, that wasn’t a cannonball, that was Duke! The giant man whose armour could resist a cannon barrage was defeated in less than three seconds! There was a giant hole in the center of his chest plate that pierced through his body. He was dead!
The imposing visage of God King Yuto stepped forward out of the smoke. The vibrating vorpal blade was in his hand, the air around it shimmering with power. As we looked at each other, a huge cocky grin grew on his face.
“Ah, it feels good to be strong again.” He said, flexing his free hand, “Although still a bit lacking from where I used to be.”
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“Oh? If you’re not satisfied with my body, feel free to return it!” I said as I glared into his eyes, “If you hand it back right now, I’ll show my forgiveness by making your death swift!”
“No, I can’t have you continuing on and messing things up.” The Fake Yuto said, “First off, I need to finish your sloppy work with the Shadowlands. You only banished the shadowkind to the North Tundra and then declared victory? Give me a break! They need to be exterminated!”
“What?” I narrowed my eyes at the assassin. Originally I had thought that he was perhaps a shadowkind sympathizer, wanting to take revenge for the war. However, his words just now didn’t line up with that assumption at all.
“Your plan to expand your colonies to the southern islands and build up Avaria’s wealth and technology?” The Fake Yuto said scornfully. “How naive! There is only one thing to do with this power that you’ve built. World domination!”
“Speaking of that, I have things to attend to.” A hateful scowl darkened his face, “Goodbye, God King Yuto. Say hello to Hell for me.”
He raised his left hand at me, the very air around it warping as his power coalesced into it. I recognized it immediately as Light Bringer’s Level 230 skill - Heavenly Lance.
A giant beam of light erupted from his hand, instantly boiling the air around my body and blasting straight through to the outside of the church. When it dissipated a second later, my body was no longer there.
This was because I had immediately used Shadow Meld to meld to the shadows on the floor, making my body razor thin and evading the attack! If it was anyone else, they wouldn’t be able to meld that quickly. They would have been caught as a half-formed blob and their corpse would be falling onto the ground as ashes right now. No, they wouldn’t have even been able to react to the attack in the first place. From my countless times fighting high-level enemies, I knew that Heavenly Lance was practically undodgeable.
It was only through my god-like skill and expertise that such a feat was possible!
My body popped out of the shadow on the ground as I glanced out of the hole, which was now on fire. That is, the very stones of the building had ignited from the blast!
I wagged my finger at Yuto, “You’re going to have to do better than that.”
“What?!” Yuto growled.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw my experience gauge filling up in HUD. Even though I had dodged only two attacks, I was receiving an extremely large amount of experience. This was because my total combined level was 40, but I was facing off against a level 999 opponent. I had never seen such a huge rise in experience before throughout all of my levels.
Fake Yuto’s eyes glowed blue as a dozen glowing swords suddenly materialized in the air in an arc above his body. Weapon’s Master Level 189 - Storm of Blades, augmented with an Artificer’s masterwork runic blades!
The blades launched towards me at blinding speeds. I dodged back, melding into the shadows cast by the rubble as I escaped through the church towards the outside. They whirled around me in a dizzying cyclone, but since I was already completely familiar with the attack I easily tracked the motion of each blade to dodge it perfectly each time. My body popped in and out of the shadows as the blades soared past me uselessly.
“Hoh?” Fake Yuto said, “You picked up this body faster than I expected you to.”
I instantly evaded every attack by melding into shadow after shadow. Even though he had started stabbing the floor and the surfaces of objects, he still had not touched me once.
When I heard his statement, I popped up in front of the final opening in the wall leading to the outside.
“Of course! This is the power of a God King!” I exclaimed, “Give me back my body! You’re not worthy of it!”
Suddenly I sensed that the twelve blades had formed a complete circle directly above me and were stabbing down. Since I was standing in the doorway that was brightly lit by daylight, there was no shadow large enough for my body to meld into.
It looked like I had placed myself in a losing position, with nowhere to run!
With an explosion of runic lightning the shadows stabbed into my position, sparking blue electricity across the entire room. Fake Yuto stepped forward, clearing all the smoke with a wave of his hand. My body was nowhere to be seen.
I emerged from the thin, uneven shadows directly beneath the rubble of the opening, launching myself into the air as I flipped backwards out of the building. I landed twenty feet outside of the church in the grassy field.
“That was Shadow Shift! You’re only level 32! How-?” The Fake Yuto’s entire face convulsed as he couldn’t comprehend how I could have survived.
In most people’s understanding, leveling up in this world typically took years. As one increased in level, the amount of time also increased. At level 32, the typical rate of growth had already slowed to a maximum of three levels per year, and this was assuming that the person was extremely dedicated to their training. Since the Fake Yuto really had been the owner of my current body at one point, he knew that only an hour ago I had been level 32. But now I had clearly used Level 54 Shadow Shift in front of him.
His face boiled red in anger and incomprehension!
The explanation for this was simple. By dodging the high level attacks using the Shadowed’s abilities, I had rapidly gained an extreme amount of experience. For a normal person, they would have to take time to think about their experiences and reflect in order to level up. In the process they would naturally lose a lot of the potential experience that they could gain simply because they forgot the important points.
However I had the Status HUD! I could take the experience points and mash the level up button! Using the brief spaces in time between each strike, I had already leveled up to Shadowed level 68!
“On second thought, keep the body!” I said, yawning as I turned my back to Fake Yuto. The bright afternoon sun glared down on me as I began walking away. “It’s clear that the body you gave me is stronger than my old one!”
Of course, this was completely false. My goal was to make him irrationally angry and affect his judgement, thus making his attacks easier to dodge as I retreated. If he fired another few Heavenly Lances at me escaping would be simple. As soon as I reached the buildings on the other side of the field I could cleanly retreat.
A tingling filled the air that set the warning bells in my mind off. I glanced back at Fake Yuto, my eyes widening when I saw that his eyes began to glow white. The shadows inside the church where he was standing all disintegrated as the light from the ability’s charge up illuminated his surroundings like daylight.
“Oh shit...!” I glanced around me, looking for a place to hide.
This was Light Bringer’s Level 230 - Zone of Brilliance, an area of effect attack with the range of a city block! He really dared to use such an attack in the middle of a city block?
Inside its range, there was no escape from the radiant light that it emitted. Every living thing would be burned to ash. Even the shadows underneath a giant boulder would be scorched away by this ultimate attack.
“There’s nowhere to run!” Fake Yuto’s entire body floated into the air as it glowed with a heavenly aura. His voice projected all around me as he took on the appearance of a diety.
The ground rumbled and trembled in fear of the attack as it coalesced in the sky directly above my head.
“Now die!”