Chapter 235
“Ahaha! Die!” shouted the wyvern Chitore as he barraged the ground with his Dragon Breath filled with Draconic Mana, believing the worm-like humans would be annihilated like always.
However, a giant steel shield suddenly appeared in midair and blocked his breath. Silver-grey chain whips then extended from the shield and wrapped Chitore tightly.
“Huh? Gaaah! What the hell is this?!”
Unable to flap his wings, Chitore fell to the ground. The fleeing humans realized the tables had turned and quickly ran toward the dragon.
“Huff! Huff! What happened?”
“The wyvern fell!”
“There must be a Ranker-level holder somewhere!”
“What are you waiting for?! Hurry up and kill the motherfucker!”
“Y-you bastards!” Chitore shouted, shocked by the power of the chain whip that did not break, no matter how hard he struggled.
He could only stare at the swarm of humans charging at him. He screamed as his wings and joints, where his scales were the weakest, were ripped apart, and he died. The humans then saw a plump, silver-grey entity soaring through the sky.
“Above us!”
“Is that a wyvern?”
“No, that’s... an elephant?”
Pwoo! I hate fighting, but I’ll protect them as Daddy wants! Bulgasal shouted.
***
There was pandemonium in Ismailia. Fleeing people and those who stood their ground to fight were running in opposite directions, and the dragons trampled on them using their giant bodies and immense mana supply. Among them, the battles between dragons and human Rankers leveled the surroundings.
“Freedom comes with responsibility, you fucking dragon!” shouted a giant bronze golem, racing through the streets as its steps destroyed the asphalt as if it were cookies.
The golem was Antaeus, the S-rank item that Nino Manfredi, the Titan, had earned as a dungeon closing reward.
“Hehe! You’re quite durable!” said Shuten, Biphatogenes’s seventh child, as he stared at the bronze golem and smiled. “Try and block this, too!”
[Activating Skill: Glacier Whip.]
Once Shuten swung his blue tail, a giant mass of ice formed on its end, becoming a mace.
“Fai schifo!” Nino cursed as he activated a skill built into Antaeus.
[Activating Item Skill: Saxitas.]
A shield design appeared on Antaeus, boosting its defense severalfold. Nino blocked the giant tail attack and grabbed the tail.
“Who the fuck says I only got lucky with my item pull?! Step the fuck forward!” Nino shouted, his teeth clattering from the freezing air that got through Antaeus’s magical resistance, as he pulled Shuten’s tail harder.
“Arghhh!” Shuten shouted as he was smashed into the ground. “How dare you?!”
“Ahaha! Who are you calling a mama boy?! Have you ever seen a mama boy as tough as this?! Huh? If you have, bring him the fuck here!” Nino screamed, venting his accumulated frustrations.
***
Another man was facing a different dragon in Nino’s vicinity. He had black hair, blue eyes, wore gold-rimmed glasses, and wielded a large zweihander with both hands. His eyes quickly darted around to analyze his opponent.
“Fufu, you must be well-versed in the sword. So am I,” said a charming woman with blue hair and eyes, wielding a rapier.
She was Senyura, Biphatogenes’s second child. She had been thrusting her rapier through humans in her human form as usual, then encountered a human who seemed rather fun to play with.
“What is your name, human?” Senyura asked.
“Gustav von Seyffer, a German swordsman continuing the legacy of Johannes Liechtenauer,” Gustav replied as he charged at Senyura as if no more words were needed.
I must seize the vor! he thought.
Vor, the most important component in Liechtenauer’s fencing system, which Gustav had studied on Earth, was about being in control of the fight and dictating the opponent’s actions.
Once Gustav assumed the Vom Tag, a high guard, Senyura smiled and assumed a thrust stance. Senyura’s rapier flew toward Gustav with a sonic boom, aiming for the space between his eyes.
Ochs! Gustav shouted inwardly, realizing Senyura’s stance was similar to the ox guard, albeit slightly different.
He immediately took a large step forward diagonally with his right foot and crossed his arms, swinging his sword from left to right. Senyura saw that Gustav’s stance was specialized for parrying a straight thrust. Moving to the left and slashing from the upper right was difficult to defend against from a straight thrust position.
Senyura dislocated her arm to force her rapier into Gustav’s sword trajectory, intending to lock their blades together. However, Gustav easily deflected the rapier and nimbly brought his zweihander downward, then pointed it toward Senyura’s neck to thrust.
Senyura gasped, then blue dragon scales appeared on her neck. The zweihander scratched the dragon scales, then Gustav quickly jumped backward and assumed the Eisenport, preparing for subsequent attacks. However, Senyura simply stood in place, touching her neck and staring at the blood from the scratch.
“What was that technique just now?” she asked.
“The Krumphau. It is a counter to the Ochs,” Gustav replied, releasing the Eisenport and switching to the Alber, or the fool’s guard. It seemed full of openings, especially the head, because the sword was pointed toward the ground. “Do not pretend to be a swordswoman and return to your true form, dragon. You cannot defeat me in the way of the sword.”
Senyura, feeling Gustav’s pride in his swordsmanship, knew that he was taunting her with a stance full of openings, begging her to attack.
“ARROGANT HUMAN!” Senyura screamed as she leaped and swung her rapier down on Gustav’s head, judging it was the most effective attack against his guard.
However, Gustav raised his sword from the Alber, switching to the Pflug, eliminating all openings.
He chuckled mockingly and said, “I had a feeling you would, but are you seriously trying to cut with a rapier? What a fool.”
***
Battles were breaking out everywhere, but the most intense ones were near the Suez Canal. Gao Weiguang was engaging a dragon downstream of the Suez Canal, toward the east.
“Haaaaah!” screamed Gao Weiguang, the Ten Heavenly Swords, as he activated his unique skill.
[Activating Unique Skill: Sword Control.]
The four swords on his waist and six on his back simultaneously left their scabbards and floated around Weiguang, protecting him. They were wrapped in blue mana and did as Weiguang willed them to.
“You’re quite the annoying one. Like a fly,” said Zellsberg, a fat dragon. He was Biphatogenes’s fifth child, who specialized in breath attacks.
An old gentleman in a black suit commanded roughly a thousand subordinates on the other end of the Suez Canal—upstream toward the west.
Don Carlos Giuseppe, the Godfather, smoked a Cuban nostalgia cigar as he watched a giant blue dragon destroying the city and mumbled, “Being on the front lines goes against my code of conduct, for God’s sake.”
“Shouldn’t we conserve our forces, Don Carlos? The little El Chapo is using this opportunity to sell drugs,” a subordinate said.
Don Carlos shook his head and replied, “If we let those lizards keep running wild, they’ll kill our partners. If that happens, who am I supposed to collect my Coins from?”
He removed his fedora and black jacket and handed them to his subordinate. He then undid the buttons of his white dress shirt one by one, revealing his muscular torso covered in scars from cuts, stabs, gunshots, and various tattoos.
“Snot-nosed brats have been calling themselves the Mafia lately,” Don Carlos said with a smirk. “The word used to belong to the Sicilian criminal society. We are a union. We’re in a different league compared to those brats who sell drugs and porn. We are companions of local communities and their people.”
He took a deep puff of the cigar, then his eyes widened, filled with blood-red bloodlust.
“HOW DARE YOU PULL THIS KIND OF SHIT WHEN YOU WON’T BE PAYING ME BACK THE COINS FOR THE PEOPLE YOU KILL, YOU MOTHERFUCKING LIZARDS?!”
[Activating Unique Skill: Storia Scolpita Sul Corpo.]
The scars and tattoos on Don Carlos’s body simultaneously rose. This was his unique skill, which meant history carved on the body.
“You will pay with your lives!” Don Carlos shouted.
The cut scars sliced through buildings that they passed through, and the gunshot scars made holes in the buildings. The black pistol tattoo fired bullets, and the knife tattoo spun as it made unsettling noises.
Many more battles were taking place besides those of Gao Weiguang and Don Carlos. Onie Yuki commanded her Mannequin Army as she freely controlled enormous amounts of gold. Douglas Montgomery engaged in guerrilla warfare alongside the elite members of the spec force. Even the various teams of Cecil Hotel’s Executionary Corps—Team 1 Annihilation, Team 2 Bludgeon, Team 3 Assassination, and more—fought along the sides of the Suez Canal.
A white-haired old man in a military uniform stood on a giant sheet of ice in the middle of the Suez Canal, wielding a red rifle.
“Huff! Huff! Submerge!” shouted Lee Bong-Seong, wearing his Red Name Tape.
The 299 Ghost Killers pointed their rifles downward at Bong-Seong’s command and fired, beginning to crack the sheet of ice.
“I won’t let you!” shouted Seringer, staring downward from midair, and took a deep breath. He knew from experience how annoying those red soldiers were when they were in the water.
[Activating Race Skill: Dragon Breath.]
Seringer had used a full-power Dragon Breath three times already, but his Dragon Heart was still pumping powerful Draconic Mana. He was a dragon Ranker with a Draconic Mana stat of S(99). His Sense, Strength, and Health stats were relatively low, but his insanely high Draconic Mana stat was more than enough to turn the Suez Canal into a glacier. Giant walls of ice surged, isolating Bong-Seong from the others.
“You cannot run, human Spare Ranker!” Seringer shouted. He judged that his enemy possessed stats more than worthy to be Spare Ranker-level.
However, his caliber is lower than mine, and it appears he has two S(50) stats. Balance-wise, it’s good, but his attacks can’t penetrate my dragon scales! he thought, certain of his victory.
Bong-Seong panted heavily in exhaustion. He looked around. The entire Suez Canal was frozen, and he couldn’t see the city due to the giant walls of ice. He was trapped with no escape. However, he was smiling.
“I can’t see outside,” Bong-Seong remarked.
“Correct. You have nowhere to run or hide,” Seringer replied.
“Which means... they can’t see what happens in here, right?”
Bong-Seong looked up at Seringer, who felt uneasy from seeing Bong-Seong’s smile.
***
Seong-Hwi coughed up blood after getting smashed through several buildings and tumbling across the ground. “Argh... Goddammit...”
“We have only just gotten started, insolent heretic,” said the angel with nine pairs of wings and closed eyes, appearing out of nowhere and stretching his hand toward Seong-Hwi’s abdomen.
[Activating Race Skill: Ictus.]
A shockwave of white Holy Force smashed into Seong-Hwi’s abdomen, squashing his intestines and sending him flying upward.
“BLEEEEEGHHH!” he vomited blood and pieces of his intestines. He held onto his flickering consciousness with all his might and gritted his teeth. “More... More power!”
[Unleashing 16% of the Fruit of the World Tree.]
[Unleashing 17% of the Fruit of the World Tree.]
...
He unleashed even more of the power of the Fruit of the World Tree, which had already been unleashed to 15 percent. His entire body felt like it was burning, making him experience pains he had never felt before.
[Converting Destiny Force to Beast Force.]
[Converting Destiny Force to Seismic Force.]
[Converting Destiny Force to Nature Force.]
...
“AHHHHH!” Seong-Hwi screamed, having lost his mind due to the manifestation of Beast Force.
Only his instincts remained, but he thought it might be better that way since he was not even in his right mind to feel pain. He suddenly vanished and appeared behind Raziel, swinging his fist enveloped in a yellowish aura.
“I see it all, foolish one,” Raziel said as he activated a skill without even looking back.
[Activating Race Skill: Tutatio.]
A shield made of white Holy Force appeared behind him, but he had not expected what happened next. A vine suddenly sprouted from the ground, wrapped Seong-Hwi, and flung him toward Raziel’s face.
“Outlandish!” Raziel shouted as he brought his palm forward and gathered Holy Force on it, having no time to activate the skill again.
He did not know how the human’s stats rose so sharply and instantaneously, but he was a first-grade angel and the commander of Orbis’s fifth legion. The human’s fists were a hundred years too early to reach an upper Spare Ranker.
However, something went outside Raziel’s expectations yet again. The yellowish aura wrapping Seong-Hwi’s fist vibrated and infiltrated his body, disrupting his mana flow and inducing internal injuries.
“Argh! It’s... no use!” Raziel shouted.
The average opponent would have suffered more internal injuries, but Raziel was an angel with Holy Force, which had the power to reject everything. He used Holy Force to extract the yellowish aura that had infiltrated his body and used Raziel’s Book like a blunt weapon to smack Seong-Hwi’s face.
“Bastard!” he cursed as he wiped the blood flowing from his mouth and stretched his hand toward Seong-Hwi.
[Activating Race Skill: Orbis Repulsio.]
[Activating Race Skill: Spiculum Inclusio.]
The white ring, Orbis Repulsio, wrapped Seong-Hwi like a lasso, and 111 white spears surrounded Seong-Hwi from all sides like a prison cell.
Raziel spat out the blood in his mouth and mumbled, “Seismic Force? And the way he used it... closely resembles the Quake Force of Tellus, the Subterranean King.”
Seong-Hwi would have required an extremely long time training with Seismic Force to use Quake Force as Tellus did, but he had instinctively accomplished it with the help of Beast Force.
“As I had thought, I must present this heretic to the God of Heaven. He has some sort of secret,” Raziel remarked.
Not even he, the Angel of Secrets, could see through the secret Seong-Hwi was holding. It was unheard of for a mere human to use the secondary forces of other races freely. On top of that, he was still alive despite instantaneously boosting his powers to rival a Spare Ranker, albeit momentarily. Most of all, the human had been of low superior caliber when Raziel met him in Ferrum, but he had already caught up to his caliber in that short time.
Raziel stared at the unconscious Seong-Hwi, his expression filled with confusion and interest. “No matter. The capture is complete. I must regroup with Master Gabriel.”