Chapter 1192: The One Left Standing (6)
Chapter 1192: The One Left Standing (6)
In a small village to the east of Pelian, near the border to Maqi.
"Silence," Skullius commanded, and the whimpering, sobbing and pleading around him ceased at once.
A series of corpses adorned in silver armour were lying around the group of innocents who were huddled together, chopped into several, leaking pieces.
The five hundred people standing behind Skullius in the damaged square right now, had been the recipients of constant protection by a few Stray Knights - dishonoured Knights - who had taken up arms to protect their homes. That privilege of theirs had ended quite unexpectedly when the Hybrid Luman appeared, however.
While this village could hardly be called 'heavily populated' by normal standards, given the status quo stemming from the Great Trembling, it certainly qualified. Most of the people here weren't locals, but poor souls who managed to find safety among the survivors in this village who had previously only numbered around a hundred.
With the current predicament, however, where this new arrival in dark robes had slaughtered their protectors without a word and snapped his fingers, which caused all of them to be teleported behind him in the village square, they began to wonder if they should have ever been optimistic about the future at all.
Skullius paid no mind to these people.
He took a breath and got down on one knee.
He grabbed the golden hilt of Demion's Dance and slotted it back into its sheath before grabbing the Bashful Abomination and holding it in a quick-draw stance.
Replicus was approximately nine hundred kilometers away in a town to the south-west of Pelian. Skullius could see it now by sharing the Stolen Angel's vision.
Replicus hadn't expected that, with the stipulation of the KUTHMUK, they could be in two different locations as long as said locations fell under the heavily-populated category. And of course, distance couldn't stop the two from fighting each other.
Skullius wore a casual smile.
'Ah, that's the face I want to see,' he thought.
A terrible presence built up around him. It was sharp, and faintly, one could hear the sound of the edges of sharp weapons scraping against each other from it.
Skullius drew a deep breath.
He was using another one of his Pinnacle Sword Styles - the Beyond-Scale Critical Divine Sword Art!
With this sword style, distance was meaningless to the user. In fact, the further away their target was, the stronger their attacks became. Well, it wasn't just the strength that was improved, but the capacity for creativity as well.
Skullius had grown to learn that the Beyond-Scale Critical Divine Sword Art worked very well with another one of his Pinnacle sword styles, Absolute Severance Divine Sword Art - the one that had brough the Ode of Maqi to his knees in Opungale.
Thus, as his sharp presence increased in breadth, cutting apart a third of the hostages behind him to something smaller than atoms...
***
Replicus had indeed been caught off guard. For him to be attacked so suddenly with the same attack he had grown to be wary of by an enemy that was likely not even within close range, was unfounded. To make matters all the more frightening, his armour had been slashed in two as well this time, rather than just his body!
This carried horrifying implications.
It wasn't just the fact that Skullius had some strange means to boost his attack power which was concerning now. It was also the fact that he was improving!
At first, he had only been able to leave a scratch on Replicus' armour, then he had been able to cut Replicus, but not his armour. Now, both had been slashed easily!
'Bastard!' Replicus thought and he immediately set to clash his Ju`wtta together.
However...
To his surprise, the monstrous Stolen Angel's hand grabbed his left wrist and applied enough strength to turn it in the opposite direction!
..!
'It's starting to catch on?'
Replicus clicked his tongue and sent another hand to smack the Stolen Angel into oblivion.
Yet, instead of being obliterated at once, the Stolen Angel was suddenly engulfed in a vicious blaze of light!
This wasn't its ability to turn intangible in order to avoid damage, and neither was it the activation of the [Heart of Revelation].
Instead, with the same freakish output from before, the ability to repel attacks by sending out a vibrant stream of light was empowered and applied!
Replicus' hand was forced backward!
...!
Yet this wasn't all.
In the next instant, he was alarmed to sense a quick switch in the nature of the light. The [Heart of Revelation] was empowered this time, and once again, Replicus' defences were vanquished, leaving his sensitives exposed!
...!!!!!!!!!
Right then, the feeling of terror from before struck him again!
The buildings which had merely been sliced up once before, were cut into perfect, polygons by an overwhelming, chaotic slicing influence that went on to ignore the Stolen Angel, easily cut apart Replicus' silver armour, shred his innards, and mince six of Replicus' mana cores into fine magical grains... right before Replicus quickly used Ju`wtte Blizzard Motion to streak up into the sky!
At once, Replicus knocked his Ju`wtta together and recovered - even his mana cores were restored - but his armour...
'I'm not going to be needing it if there's no difference between it and a piece of paper anyway,' the Warmoth's Progeny thought to himself. His full ceramic ebony skin, spindly arms and torso were revealed, along with the kite-shaped hole in his chest.
He looked below.
The atrocity of a slashing attack which had just come from who-knew-where, had ended. The Stolen Angel glared at him.
'So, Skullius is not here? If we appeared in separate places, how did he know I was here? Does he use the KUTHMUK to his advantage? Can he decide where to send us or...' Replicus had
begun to speculate when one of his phantoms gave him the answer.
'Of course!'
Immediately, Replicus' body shone with the light of Maximum Catalyst's Reversion!
Deep within his body, where he had been tagged by the Stolen Angel's first successful punch,
was a half a skull mark that he had forgotten about!
Using Reversion, he got rid of it immediately, but he was sure...
'That's how he found me, huh? And he sent the Stolen Angel to my location at once. I doubt it's affected by the KUTHMUK unless he wants to bring it along,' Replicus reasoned, but midway through his thoughts, he saw the face of the mobile Attegoth appear right in front of him. It threw a mighty punch livid with 123 million tonnes of weight, but Replicus dodged. The air behind him detonated from the power, and a nasty shockwave deleted the rest of the
town below.
For a moment, as they were suspended in midair, Replicus' curved yellow eyes and the Stolen Angel's orange air stared deep into each other.
Replicus couldn't help but feel unnerved.
Was it just him, or was there a human-like complexity in those eyes that hadn't existed
before?
Something about this thing was changing and the Warmoth's Progeny had a feeling this
change wasn't going to be in his favour.