Chapter 347: River of Blood, Mountain of Screams (10)

Authority was a power rivaling that of the gods. It allowed a single person to display the might of a million-strong army. Currently, three Authorities were used at once, all aimed at a single person, Keter.

Dust’s Authority, United Wind Demon, turned a gentle breeze into a storm. By Zerphi Luban’s Authority, Free Dispersion, his body drifted together with the wind. While the Luban family’s Authorities were used for assistance, the Garcia family’s Authorities were offensive.

Magon, the knight commander of the Garcia family, let go of the sword in his hand. The sword split into over a thousand swords and surrounded Keter. That was Magon’s Authority, Absolute Supreme. The Sword Dragon Rajis did not use his Authority. He feared that the three Authorities already in play would cancel out his own.

It’s immense pressure already.

Rajis took a step back and looked at the battlefield. He would have run away without hesitation if he had faced these three Authorities himself.

However, Keter did not run. Instead, he leisurely waited as if he found it amusing, telling them to hurry up and attack. That composure alone made everyone afraid, but inspired awe at the same time. Animals ran when they were afraid of an opponent, but humans did not. They attacked to avert their fear.

The storm from Dust’s United Wind Demon swallowed Keter and restricted his movement. At the same time, 328 of Magon’s over one thousand swords shot toward Keter. They weren’t fired thoughtlessly. Each one of them executed Garcia swordsmanship, Flawless Immortal Raiment. It was as if hundreds of Master-rank knights were unleashed and using sword techniques at Keter at the same time.

The storm was also only effective against Keter and didn’t affect Magon’s swords at all. Rather, it pushed them from behind and accelerated them.

It was a perfect joint attack. There was no space for Keter to even dodge. He had to defend himself or avoid the swords. Still, even if he did, an endless chain of strikes would follow. As they nervously watched, they wondered how Keter would block such a combination.

Just then, Keter’s clear voice came through the storm, wings appearing on Keter’s back.

“Only a few hundred swords?”

It was Arrow Wings, the first form of Limitless Archery Keter had shown. However, something about it was different this time.

Limitless Archery, First Form: Arrow Wing, Angel. Until now, the Arrow Wings he had shown only had a single pair of wings, but this time, eight pairs of wings appeared. It made him look like an angel. Each wing was made of 1,000 arrows. That meant 16,000 arrows had formed.

Of course, they didn’t merely take the shape of arrows. Every single one of them was made of Ein. If they had been arrows made only of aura or mana, they would have been caught up in the storm and wouldn’t have been able to maintain their form. However, Ein was different. It possessed the toughness of aura and the flexibility of mana. Even within the storm, it held its shape.

With angelic wings and the smile of a demon, Keter left everyone terrified, unable to speak. Yet there was no time to simply stand there. After all, Keter wouldn’t have shown them the new level of Angel Wings to show off,

“Fire.”

As if daring them to try and stop it, 16,000 arrows all shot forward at once at Keter’s simple command. The 328 swords Magon had fired were nothing but dust compared to Keter’s 16,000 arrows. As expected, all of the swords he had created were struck by Keter’s arrows and vanished.

The technique surpassed the level of an Authority. Its overwhelming power didn’t even allow time for despair.

“

Kugh!

”

Magon grabbed his chest and vomited blood. Then, he was swept up in the backlash after his swords of Authority were destroyed.

“

Hraaah

!”

Dust now wrapped the sword in his storm and thrust it toward Keter. The wind that was packed into the sword was now so strong that it could tear steel apart. Dust firmly believed that the attack couldn’t be blocked easily, yet his conviction was shattered by Keter’s single word.

“Slow.”

Limitless Archery, Eighth Form: Tachyon. Speed beyond speed. Its destructive power was the weakest among Keter’s techniques, but its speed far exceeded human perception. An arrow shot like light pierced through the storm and embedded itself in the back of Dust’s hand.

The path of the storm sword went off. Even off course, its range was so wide that it still affected Keter, but that alone couldn’t do anything to him.

Before Dust could even get back into his stance, Keter kicked Dust and sent him flying. The fact that he had been kicked by an archer tore at Dust’s heart more than the physical pain did.

The moment Keter threw a kick, Zerphi, hidden within the wind until now, appeared behind him. His Authority wasn’t merely hiding within the wind. He could perfectly erase his presence without making a sound or leaving a trace. Before he was the former Sword of the South, he was also a swordsman who had survived countless near-death encounters while fighting near the Demon Capital’s borderlands.

Keter hadn’t noticed Zerphi, so he didn’t even turn around.

It’s over!

Zerphi swung his sword. It was an Aura Sword infused with the power of wind, strong enough to split even orichalcum.

However, Zerphi soon doubted his ears, and then his eyes. His sword had clearly slashed Keter’s back, and yet it left only a shallow sword mark. A wound that barely bled before stopping.

“

Huh?

”

“Ouch, that stings,” Keter grumbled.

That was the extent of Keter’s reaction to the strike Zerphi had delivered with all his might.

Keter was abnormally strong to begin with. Thanks to the Survival of the Fittest’s effects, his resistance to sword strikes increased, and he had also recently absorbed a dragon heart.

Moreover, Keter had actually noticed Zerphi’s ambush before it came. He had simply been curious about how much his physical durability had increased and took the hit.

Completely lost the will to follow up with another attack, Zerphi quickly hid himself in the wind again.

None of the three Primes’ Authorities worked on Keter, who handled them with ease.

Keter looked at Rajis. “Aren’t you gonna try?”

At Keter’s provocation, Rajis adjusted his stance and took a deep breath. Many thoughts crossed his mind and became extremely complicated. However, what surfaced the most right now was anger. Anger that Keter had killed the woman he had felt close to.

Rajis decided not to suppress his instincts.

“Prepare yourself.”

***

Unlike before, Rajis didn’t bother preaching justice. He immediately joined the other Primes and launched a coordinated attack on Keter. It was four against one. On top of that, all of them were Primes; even if they had lost the first round, they weren’t to be finished in a single defeat.

The clash of the five humans overturned the earth and sky. A radius of one hundred meters became a land of death. However, the outcome was not easily decided. Still, Keter seemed to be the one with more room to spare.

After the third round of attacks, the Primes of the alliance exchanged glances.

Let’s do it this time.

Sounds good.

Those renowned for their skill always carried a trump card that others didn’t know about, so did the four Primes.

“

Wuuoooh!

”

Magon stretched his hand toward the sky and used his Authority. His Authority was duplicating and controlling swords. The first time he had shown it to Keter, there were a total of 1,102 swords, but now the swords he summoned totaled 5,700, more than five times as many as before. Of course, that was still fewer than the number of Keter’s Arrow Wings, Angel, but he wasn’t done.

“Let’s see you break this with arrows, too!”

The 5,700 swords merged, growing until they became an enormous sword. The Mountain Sword revealed its might.

Keter looked at the Mountain Sword. His voice tinged in amusement, he said, “Alright, I’ll block that. Go ahead and bring it down.”

“I’ll admit, your confidence is surely unmatched in the world!”

Magon didn’t refuse Keter’s offer, immediately swinging down the Mountain Sword. Its destructive power was so great that even those hundreds of meters away couldn’t keep their balance from the shockwave.

However, Keter’s response was very unexpected. Instead of an arrow, he raised his hand above his head.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Is he going to block that with his hand?”

The other Primes murmured among themselves. They already knew that Keter’s physical durability was abnormally tough from their previous battle, but that didn’t mean he was invincible. If he tried to block the Mountain Sword with his bare body, he wouldn’t just be cut, but crushed. Was Keter seriously planning to stop it with strength alone?

Magon was confident since he had once split a mountain using the Mountain Sword as a test before.

As everyone nervously watched, Keter did nothing until the final moment and simply raised his hand as he faced the Mountain Sword. The instant it touched Keter’s fingers, it turned into sand and scattered.

“W-what?!”

“What just happened?”

It wasn’t only the bystanders who were shocked. Even Magon himself couldn’t understand it.

Overcome with curiosity, he asked, “What trick did you use? Is that your Authority?”

Of course, Keter had no intention of kindly telling him.

“I’ll tell you if you bark like a dog and crawl between my legs.”

“

Arghh

,” Magon grumbled.

That wasn’t Keter’s Authority. His Authorities were Unchain and Reversal, and neither of them could nullify another’s Authority attack. The secret lay in the hand Keter had stretched out—Eslow’s prosthetic arm.

What had destroyed Magon’s Mountain Sword was the power contained within Eslow’s prosthetic arm. Eslow’s Weaponization didn’t merely turn living beings into weapons. If their existence was powerful enough, special abilities were imbued as well. Naturally, the power to nullify other Authorities had also been imbued into Eslow’s prosthetic arm.

It’s a shame it’s a one-time use thing, but the good thing is that the opponent doesn't know that.

It had the weakness that it could nullify only an Authority that physically touched it. Also, once it was nullified, the power could never nullify that same Authority again. However, the very fact that it could nullify an Authority attack even once was an enormous merit.

It could be seen from how the Primes suddenly became much more cautious in their attacks. They hadn’t been affected because the Authority attack just now was a long-range one. However, if it had been launched in proximity...

... It could lead to a fatal wound.

As all the Primes had been holding themselves back, they only had minor injuries at the moment. Even those injuries had been treated with elixirs, so it only resulted in them losing their stamina.

Time is not on our side.

At first, the Primes of the alliance thought they could win if they just wore down Keter’s stamina through piecemeal attacks, but they realized something as time passed. Keter wasn’t only strong, but his stamina was absurdly high as well. As a result, it was the four Primes who were growing tired instead.

After Keter showed them the performance of nullifying an Authority, the four Primes glanced at each other.

Keter shouted, “Stop exchanging glances and just discuss it out loud. Either keep fighting like this and die, or retreat. I’ll wait.”

He actually crossed his arms and descended to the ground.

Seeing that, Zerphi’s eyes filled with skepticism as he said, “You’ll really wait?”

“You’re Zerphi Luban, right? The former Sword of the South. I’m the current Bow of the South. As your junior, I promise you ten minutes. I’ll wait.”

“

Hmm

, thank you, Junior.”

Even though they were enemies, Keter’s attitude of respecting him as a senior slightly moved Zerphi. However, it made Dust grow angry.

“What are you doing? You’re not seriously believing his words, are you? It’s obvious he’ll attack once he lowers our guard.”

“I trust my junior’s words.”

“This is insane...”

“If you’re that worried, one of us can keep watching Keter. The other three should at least discuss what to do.”

Dust furrowed his brows as he glared at Keter. “

Sigh

, I’ll watch Keter. I don’t trust him.”

On the other hand, Keter didn’t even look at him and instead pulled something out from his inner pocket.

“Th–that’s...!”

What Keter took out was jerky and whiskey. Calmly chewing jerky and drinking whiskey straight from the bottle, Keter looked as if he were on a picnic.

Rajis, Magon, and Zerphi secretly devised a plan, while Dust stared intently at Keter.

Just then, Keter suddenly began walking toward Dust.

As expected.

Dust adjusted his grip on his sword. He thought Keter was about to attack. However, Keter shattered his expectations.

“You’re going through a lot. Care for a drink?”

Keter held out the whiskey as if offering it to a friend.