"If you wish for battle, then you’ll get it!" the man roared brutishly.
In the next instant:
ROOOAAAAARRRRRR!
Powerful, shockwave-inducing roars erupted from their throats as a crimson light burst violently from their bodies, piercing into the skies.
VROOOOOOOOOOOM!
The air behind them rippled violently as they charged forward with weapons drawn, hurtling toward Ryuk, whose face remained still and placid.
’Battle?’
"Activate Sove..." He began to call out when suddenly,
RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP!
A blur of motion sliced through the air, from the edge of his vision,
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
A devastating kick smashed into the face of one of the charging Apocrypha-stage Barbarians, altering his trajectory and sending him crashing into the chest of the standing mountain beasts.
The remaining five halted mid-charge, eyes wide with shock.
It wasn’t Ryuk who had acted; it was the one who claimed to be one of them: Antares.
Now, standing firmly in their path, a deep red ripple of energy began undulating from him, resulting in a transformation.
Antares, normally standing at an impressive 5 meters, continued to grow taller, expanding to a full 10 meters.
His frame lengthened, not into a hulking form, but a lean, towering titan, and the scars that normally covered the entirety of his body disappeared completely, leaving his skin flawless.
Stretching out both hands, red light coalesced in his palms, and a pair of battle axes materialized.
He said no words, instead taking a single step forward, axes drawn behind him and then—
____
Of all the people Ryuk had known, Antares had always been a mystery.
Not because Ryuk didn’t understand his background or power.
No—he had heard enough from Antares to know his history, and had fought him hard enough to understand his power, including his unique ability of growing stronger with every scar.
What made Antares an enigma... was his shift in personality.
When Ryuk first met him, Antares had been an uncaring battle god.
He subdued Ryuk with a single punch, without even rising from his throne.
And when he did rise to fight, he tore through Ryuk’s Previous Nanobody, damaging it so severely that it exhausted all regenerative capabilities of even an Annuanki Model.
His aura? As confident as a battle kind who had never tasted defeat.
Skill. Experience. Speed. Power.
In every aspect of combat, Antares was king.
Even now, when Ryuk looked at him, a part of his chest unconsciously sank from an unknown pressure.
Only one other person had ever given him that same soul-deep sense of dread: MadWhite.
Yes, Ryuk might be stronger now; he could overwhelm both of them if needed, easily so, but he knew one thing clearly:
If he were at the same cultivation stage as either Antares or MadWhite...
He’d be dead, sooner or later.
But something had changed in Antares, and it happened after he spared his life and brought him back to Endearth.
Antares no longer fought with that feral hunger anymore, nor exude it in action.
Instead, he became calm and quiet, almost like a tortoise retreating into its shell, doing just the bare minimum to win his fights.
He no longer sought battle, only smiled softly, serenely.
If Ryuk had to guess the reason for such a massive change, he’d say Antares had lost hope.
After decades of imprisonment from a defeat, he must have secretly prayed for one who would end his misery of a life, but then, he had been spared.
A twist he could never have predicted.
To wait for death for years, only to be given life?
It would shake even the fiercest of spirits.
But now...
Now, for the first time in what felt like forever,
Antares’s aura was reverting...but why now?
Was it anger from being rejected by his own people? Or their threat of violence?
Ryuk couldn’t say, but one thing was certain:
The battle didn’t last a minute.
When it ended, Ryuk took a deep breath.
"Fast. He’s terrifyingly fast," He thought, gazing down.
Below, a full kilometer radius of the forest had been razed clean, leaving the bare grounds with blade lacerations all over.
Only a single figure was standing, both of his axes in hand, and slowly radiating that dominating aura Ryuk had once feared.
The six Aetheris Barbarians?
Defeated.
They had been subdued, their bones visible from the hundreds of axe slashes that covered their bodies, and each of them was drowning in their pool of blood.
"H...how..."
BLEEEERGGGGH!
Blood gushed from the lips of the brawlest as he tried to raise a finger, but failed.
His body screamed in pain, veins pulsing with agony, and his entire body remained paralyzed, so much so that only his eyes could move.
Four Peak Eternity Stage experts, along with two Mid-Apocrypha Stage Aetheris Barbarians, all crushed by a single Apocrypha-stage Aetheris Barbarian.
What shook them most was that he had used no art, overwhelming them all with pure speed and brute strength, and exceptional combat ability.
"Im...po...ssible," Domun forced out, but his words were silenced in his throat when a large hand grabbed him by the hair and raised him into the air, his feet dangling emptily.
One of his eyes had been slashed away, leaving in its place the axe blade image, and the remaining one had blood slowly sliding into it.
But he didn’t close it. Something in his heart told him, if he did, he might never open it again.
Through the blinding pain, a single realization was starting to dawn on Domun.
’His Aura... His Form... His name...’
’Is... is he...?’
’You... You...’
Finally, he watched as Anteris opened his lips, hot air gushing out, as his transformation faded, reducing him back to his previous height.
He spoke a word that resonated within Domun’s soul.
"To think the ones I almost died for, about 4 decades ago, would have forgotten my existence so fast," He muttered silently, like one speaking to himself instead, and he chuckled a bit,
"I guess time truly erases it all,"
His hands gripped his axe harder as he prepared to cleave forward towards Domun, killing him with one swift stroke, but in the end, he stayed his hands, dropping Domun onto his knees.
Silently, he turned to leave, but he never took the third step when the words rang out:
"Time itself cannot erase your brave deeds, Warlord Antares,"
Antares turned back from the words, watching as the space was sliced open, and from it emerged a red-coloured staff covered in ancient runes.
A figure soon stepped out from it.