Chapter 363: Total Suppression

Black Benn's longsword whirled around him in a tight arc, guided by his will, ready to deflect an assault from any direction. He knew what Wang Yu was like, to a certain extent.

After all, it was Black Benn who had warned the throne about the Prayer Network and its mysterious founder. It was Black Benn who had dragged Wang Yu, half-dead after cutting down three advanced knights, into the royal dungeons like a dog.

Even so, Wang Yu, who had only been an advanced knight a year ago, now dared to stand against an advanced grand knight like himself. Could he really have come so far in so short a period of time?

Wang Yu had done in a single year what had taken him a decade to accomplish. Any other foe might have felt despair, but Black Benn was exhilarated.

His lips curled into a bloodthirsty grin. He was Black Benn. He served the crown only because it fed his endless craving for slaughter. Genius meant nothing to him. All the better if Wang Yu were a genius. He would nip that brilliance in the bud.

He sent a wisp of mental energy into the storage ring on his finger and retrieved a vial of ignition powder from the royal alchemical forge. As he crushed the glass, the powder ignited.

Scarlet fire erupted around him. His potential, Blazing Raze, ignited everything in sight.

The air, the falling snow—the flames clung to everything in the vicinity, devouring them to rise ever higher. Wrapped in that infernal blaze, Black Benn charged toward Wang Yu, who was swathed in his bloodforged armor.

Black Benn inhaled sharply. His breath hissed as he drew scalding air into his lungs, quickening his blood and entering a battle-frenzy.

The fire writhed at his command, coiling into a serpent of living flame that darted for Wang Yu's flank, jaws wide.

But just as its fangs reached the bloodforged armor, scorching the surface with black marks, the serpent's head was seized by some unseen hand and torn apart like tinder. Sparks scattered and were snuffed out in the snow.

"?!"

A flicker of shock cut through Black Benn. The fire of his inner potential had been stolen, ripped entirely from his command.

There was no time to figure out what had happened. Wang Yu's greatsword of blood came at him in an upward arc. Caught without his opening strike, Black Benn had to meet it head-on.

Metal rang. Hardened blood splintered under the weight of his enchanted blade, until it struck something even harder.

The bloodforged greatsword cracked apart, revealing the jagged black edge of Wang Yu's starsteel blade within. The clash left them locked for a heartbeat as they strained against one another.

Wang Yu activated his blood. Where the two swords met, it began to crawl up Black Benn's sword.

Benn's eyes narrowed. His fighting spirit roared to life as he flung Wang Yu's weapon back and broke free. His fingers brushed the hilt of his sword, activating the dormant runes there.

Light blazed. The seeping blood dissolved away.

The royal alchemists had bound the sixth-tier spell Disintegration to the blade, and the high-purity mana crystals inlaid within would hold the charge for dozens of minutes. With Disintegration active, it was a weapon that could sunder almost anything.

The air trembled, then exploded.

The blood had burst in mid-air, proof that Black Benn had made the right decision. If he hadn't activated Disintegration, that explosion would have struck his blade directly.

Steeling himself against the blast, Benn anchored his body with solidified fighting spirit, then lunged. He would not waste the sword's fleeting enchantment. With it active, he would be like destruction incarnate.

His sword's glowing edge fell in judgment. Wang Yu raised his starsteel blade. The strike, with the full force of Black Benn's fighting spirit and strength, would be very difficult to parry—

But that didn't matter. Wang Yu didn't intend to take the blow head-on. Black Benn's eyes widened as the clash he was anticipating didn't materialize.

Wang Yu's starsteel sword fractured at his will, allowing Black Benn's blade to pass right through. It bit into his shoulder, splitting blood and armor before finally being stopped by bone.

Black Benn gaped in shock. The fact that Wang Yu's weapon had broken under his onslaught wasn't surprising—but somehow, the Disintegration enchantment on his blade had vanished as well.

It had lost its effect the moment it approached Wang Yu, and was now nothing more than a plain, if sturdy, metal blade.

This was, naturally, a result of Wang Yu's Chariot. His knowledge of alchemy now exceeded that of the majority of ordinary alchemists outside Skyborne City.

Wang Yu had come up with his strategy the moment Black Benn revealed his enchanted blade. It took him some time to identify the magical arrays within the blade, but the rest was straightforward. The Chariot bypassed all the layers of protection around the blade and disabled its mana circuits directly.

With Black Benn's blade stuck in Wang Yu's flesh and Black Benn himself caught off guard by what had happened, this was Wang Yu's best opportunity to counter-attack.

The starsteel blade dropped from Wang Yu's grip. In its place materialized two new crimson swords from his bloodpool. He kicked his knee up at the hilt of the falling starsteel blade, sending it flying straight toward Black Benn's abdomen.

At the same time, his twin bloodforged longswords scissored toward Black Benn's exposed throat.

With shocking speed and sharpness, the starsteel blade penetrated Black Benn's enchanted armor. It barely lost any of its power, and its ability to nullify magic left the enchantments inactive.

The starsteel blade penetrated flesh, only to be stopped by a thick barrier—Black Benn's secret art, Cadaver Plating. When his body was injured, Black Benn would immediately consume fighting spirit to generate a solid barrier of force to resist external attacks.

At the same time, Black Benn abandoned his sword lodged in Wang Yu's flesh and blocked Wang Yu's twin swords with his armored vambraces in a shower of sparks.

Wang Yu arched a brow, withdrew, and detonated the bloodforged swords.

Unfortunately, Black Benn was an experienced fighter himself. The fighting spirit surging around his body sent the two bloodforged swords flying away. The explosion had little effect.

The two knights retreated in the same breath with surprising synchrony, though for different reasons. Black Benn had to adopt an entirely new fighting style on account of his lost sword and understanding of Wang Yu's potential; as for Wang Yu, who knew what he was thinking?

Black Benn frowned, thinking to himself, "Just what exactly is this man's inner potential? I'm sure he couldn't have kept it hidden throughout his stay in Aleisterre's capital. It seems like blood manipulation, but there's no way it's that simple...

"He stripped both the Disintegration spell and even the flames of my own potential with his unknown force. If that's the case, then I can only respond with stronger flames. He shouldn't be able to wrest control of something too powerful."

Black Benn sent another wisp of mental energy toward the spatial ring on his finger. Another small vial appeared between his fingertips—but the moment he applied pressure to it, he froze. The ring no longer answered to his mind. The vial itself warped in his grip. The ignition powder within, which should have flared at his command, refused to burn.

"Damn it!"

A thunderous crack followed. Now that Wang Yu had smothered Black Benn's flames, he took advantage of the opening to launch a counter-attack. The power of the Chariot took hold of the icy, cavernous walls of the pit, wrenching them downward. The ice fractured instantly.

Shards of ice and choking white frost cascaded forth in a blizzard, veiling sight and sound alike. The world became a swirling storm of crystal and snow. Both men found their vision shrouded, their senses dulled.

Black Benn's eyes narrowed. This had to be Wang Yu's ploy. Amid this blinding storm, an unseen strike would come from nowhere.

Wang Yu's ability seemed to have been suppressing him from the very beginning. His strength, his items, even his potential—one by one, they had all been countered.

Wang Yu's Chariot was known only to a handful of people in Aleisterre, and those few in the know, like Rudolf, had long since died at his hand. No one else could have known of the power to which he had awakened late.

And who could have expected that, in little more than a year, Wang Yu would have risen through the ranks until he was an advanced grand knight himself?

Wang Yu had deliberately chosen Black Benn as his opponent. Through Charles, he already knew everything about Black Benn's potential, and he was certain that he could suppress it in a direct conflict.

Unable to ignite any flames, stripped of his enchanted weapon, Black Benn was all but powerless. Though his physique was comparable to Wang Yu's and his control over fighting spirit far superior, he simply had no way to take advantage of them with his best tools suppressed.

Black Benn took a deep breath and raised his fists. He had no other choice. If he could close the distance between him and Wang Yu, relying on nothing but his secret arts, his flesh, and his will, he would be able to defend against that unnatural power and fight on even footing against Wang Yu.

His secret art, Cadaver Plating, would allow himself to remain uninjured as long as his reserves of fighting spirit lasted. If he could destroy Wang Yu's body before his own strength waned, the battle would be his.

Rarely had Black Benn been driven to such straits. At the height of his power, he was a storm of carnage on the battlefield, a reaper cloaked in fire. Even so, this peril didn't terrify him. It set his blood ablaze. The taste of imminent death was as intoxicating as the ecstasy of killing.

He expanded his senses, straining to sense the faintest motion through the snowstorm. Then he heard it: the soft scatter of displaced snow. He turned sharply. Wang Yu burst through the storm behind him, closing in fast.

His opponent's thoughts seemed to mirror his own: settle this in close quarters, body against body. The wound on Wang Yu's shoulder was gone, healed without a trace. Black Benn's jaw tightened. Was endurance Wang Yu's strong suit? So be it. Whoever could outlast the other would be the winner!

The two collided in a rumble of thunder. Fist met fist and flesh met flesh in blows thrown with brutal instinct. Their clash was raw, primal—a whirlwind of bone-breaking strikes and shattering force. Fighting spirit roared and guttered, blood flew, flesh tore; ice cracked beneath their feet.

Black Benn's strikes, bolstered by his fighting spirit, were significantly stronger than Wang Yu's. They shattered his bloodforged armor and ripped his flesh apart. Meanwhile, Wang Yu's blows were ineffective against Black Benn's Cadaver Plating.

Yet Wang Yu did not falter. His wounds closed almost as swiftly as they opened, blood and sinew knitting together anew.

𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

And each time Black Benn struck him, Wang Yu answered with a blow of his own, never yielding an inch.

But Wang Yu was no fool. He didn't intend to make this a battle of attrition against a veteran knight's hidden trump cards. He would do everything he could to take down Black Benn quickly.

Hidden shards of shattered starsteel erupted from underneath the snow, propelled by the power of the Chariot. They speared toward Benn from every angle, targeting his eyes, throat, and spine with deadly precision.

Still, Black Benn did not retreat. His aura flared, his barrier ready to repel every strike. He was waiting for a chance to cripple Wang Yu.

The moment came quickly. He seized the chance. The barest hesitation in Wang Yu's control over the blades gave Benn an opening. He lunged, seizing Wang Yu's head with a gauntleted hand and driving his knee up in a bone-splintering arc toward Wang Yu's skull.

It was a killing blow, but even as it landed, Wang Yu sprung his second trap. A deafening crack split the storm. Wang Yu had hidden not only the starsteel shards, but also his Conqueror, deep within the snow. Guided by the Chariot's unseen hand, it had taken aim at Black Benn's back. The very instant Black Benn committed to his attack, the weapon discharged.

The bullet tore forth, a steel round seething with crushing momentum and laced with a shattering enchantment. It would pierce through his fighting spirit, splinter his barrier, and burst his heart—just as his knee caved in Wang Yu's skull.

Black Benn felt the threat of death from behind. His hair bristled, every nerve screaming at the lethal threat closing in on him. That bullet would kill.

In that instant, the blaze within him flared hotter than ever before. His potential, honed through countless battlefields, responded.

His slaughter, his madness, his joy in killing and living on the edge of death—only under such circumstances could that flame truly awaken.

Conqueror's bullet ignited in mid-air, burning away to ash before it even touched Black Benn's body. Black Benn had broken through. He had taken a step onto a higher plane.