"You are going down!" Arthur roared, his energy surging to its peak as his eight swords pulsed wildly with a blinding white glow. The pulsations grew faster, more violent, like a heartbeat racing toward its limit.
The air around him crackled and distorted under the sheer force of his Mist Essence, his attack ready to unleash devastation.
Max, on the other hand, was lost in his own world of focus. The momentum in his blade reached its peak, glowing with an otherworldly red and blue hue—an extension of his Fusion State, but far beyond anything he had achieved before.
The energy swirling around his blade radiated a pressure so intense it seemed to bend reality itself. Just one final step remained before he could fully execute the Drag Sword.
But Arthur wouldn’t give him that chance.
"DIE!" Arthur screamed, swinging all eight of his swords down at once. A blinding column of eight white beams erupted from his weapons, tearing through the air with a deafening roar.
The sheer intensity of the beams scorched the very atmosphere, leaving trails of vaporized air and white residue in their wake.
The beams hurtled toward Max, the ground trembling beneath their force. In mere moments, they were upon him, only inches away from consuming him.
The crowd, both inside and outside the temple, held its breath, every eye locked on Max. Yet he stood there like a statue, calm and composed, his eyes closed, his sword still raised at a 45-degree angle. He seemed unaffected by the overwhelming force bearing down on him, as if he were completely disconnected from the chaos.
The eight beams of light collided with him—but in that exact instant, Max’s eyes snapped open.
With a calm, almost effortless motion, he lowered his sword. It wasn’t a slash or an attack—it was a slow, deliberate motion, as if he were simply waving the blade downward.
And yet, the moment his sword descended, Arthur’s devastating beams shattered into countless fragments, disintegrating into harmless particles of light. The air grew still, the deafening roar replaced by an eerie silence.
Arthur stood frozen, his expression one of disbelief. His eight swords fell limp at his sides, their glow fading as if they had been drained of all energy. Then, in a blur too fast for most to comprehend, a thin red line appeared down the center of his body.
Arthur’s eyes widened in shock, but before he could react, his body split cleanly in two, the halves falling to the ground with a dull thud.
Max stood amidst the stillness, his sword now pointing downward. He exhaled softly, as if releasing the last remnants of the monumental effort he had just expended.
The geniuses watching from afar were utterly dumbfounded. To them, it had all happened in an instant. Max had merely lowered his sword, and Arthur’s attack—the culmination of his immense power—had shattered into nothingness. And then, as if by an invisible force, Arthur had been cleaved in two.
The silence in the arena was deafening, the sheer impossibility of what they had witnessed leaving the spectators frozen in shock. For Max, though, there was only calm. The Drag Sword had spoken, and the battle was over.
’Phew, that was close.’ Max took a deep breath. As his mind focused on the Drag Sword, his Three Dimensional Body skill kept a close watch on the attack. Had his timing been even slightly off, he would have been the one to suffer under Arthur’s attack.
Max glanced at the two halves of Arthur and mused, ’Drag Sword is too strong, but it takes too much time to operate.’ He shook his head with a sigh, waiting for Arthur’s corpse to disappear.
As Max waited, everyone finally reacted to their battle.
"He won easily," Veylin muttered, his expression darkening. Max’s strength had grown too much in just a month that even he felt a little threatened by him.
Crown Prince Aelric’s gaze lingered on Max, his expression solemn and contemplative. From the moment Max had stepped onto the 4th floor, Aelric’s sharp eyes had been fixed on him, scrutinizing every movement, every technique, and every subtle shift in his demeanor.
Unlike the others, who were caught up in the spectacle of raw power and flashy techniques, Aelric’s attention delved deeper. His sharp intellect dissected every battle Max had fought, picking apart the nuances that escaped even the most seasoned geniuses.
The timing of Max’s movements, the precision in his attacks, the almost unnatural calm in moments of chaos—all of it painted a picture of someone far beyond the ordinary.
From all that he noticed, one thing stood out in Max’s attacks: Every skill or technique he had shown so far seemed to be mastered at a very high level—a level where all his attacks could damage those at the peak of Adept Rank.
’Is this his secret?’ Crown Prince Aelric wondered with a subtle but calm smile on his face.
However, just then, his attention was drawn to the corpse of Arthur as he sensed something there. "Oh, the battle isn’t over yet," he muttered, attracting everyone’s attention.
Veylin and the others also turned to Max’s stage upon hearing Aelric.
Meanwhile, Max, who had been wondering when Arthur’s corpse would disappear, sensed an extremely deadly aura rising from the remains of Arthur, one so intense that it made even him tremble.
’Am I sensing wrong?’ Max turned to look at the corpse again, only to see the two halves of Arthur glowing with intense black light. A moment later, the halves pressed together as the injuries healed, and his body became whole again.
Boom!
Just then, an aura so intense that even the stage itself began to tremble emanated from Arthur’s body.
BEEM!
Only a moment later, a black beam of light radiated from him as the center, tearing through the ceiling of the temple—or so it seemed.
As this happened, no matter if it was Amelia, Revenna, Veylin, or Crown Prince Aelric, they all felt a suffocating, intense intent coming from the beam of light. Even their weapons within their space rings trembled, sensing the devilish aura.
"That—That’s a Level 1 Concept of Mist!" Crown Prince Aelric muttered, his voice cracked with pure astonishment. Enjoy more content from freewebnovel