[You are HYPED!]
[You are HYPED!]
...
It all happened in the blink of an eye.
Right before Skullius could taste the sceptre blade which was coming at him, not with its harnessed intent, but its full, sharp form, he used [Destined Warp Steps].
But not to dodge.
He accelerated his movement forward to face the cleaving wrath of the short Swordsman, while extending his one hand forward, as if to embrace the sword!
A burst of blood thirst washed from his figure, causing a little flinch to creep from his opponent!
The piece of rock he had been wielding had disappeared from his grasp, and with his open palm, Skullius boldly reached in, and made a gripping gesture at the luminous odachi falling on him!
'Is he mad?!' the short Swordsman asked himself, but to his absolute horror...
His sword, made of energy seeping from an irregular, floating gem atop of the sceptre, came to a silent halt as soon as Skullius gripped it!
All the momentum, and the bloodlust this special sword carried from its master, all vanished without a trace, and the Hybrid Luman responsible for it, still donning a grin, launched his foot right suddenly at his opponent's face!
Lost in the experience for a moment, the short Swordsman felt the hard, terrible bash, and groaned as he tumbled to the side. Yet, his grip on his sword didn't wane. He pulled it with him!
Skullius scoffed and took a sharp breath at the same time.
He almost sunk in what he was feeling right now.
He hadn't just grasped the sceptre sword for fun.
Without warning, a beam of mental energy streaked towards Skullius, but with him processing all the information from his skills at fifteen times the norm through [Beyond the Hype], he was already out of the way, creating more distance between him, and his opponents who immediately began to mobilise against him again.
The short Swordsman was livid as he dashed towards him, his body clad in red clouds! The kick hadn't done anything except transpose him, but he was questioning why his Incarnation was suddenly ineffective against Skullius.
Why wasn't it weakening him?
Skullius was amused at the subtle twitches from the short man which told him that he was struggling with the logic.
'Good.'
[Swordmaster's Quiescence] was still active, and he had a few more seconds to channel it into whatever he pleased with his consciousness intact.
Fulgardt's WILLS.
He felt them all surge, desperately gushing towards him.
Cunning, Understanding, Brutality, Bloodlust!
All these sank into him, and he readily devoured everything they infused in him as he was lost in them.
Lost not in Swordsmanship, but in the ideals of Fulgardt the Immoral!
'Right. Null Life Essence is the key...' Skullius thought as he bolted to meet his enemies.
Through his deal with Aurolio, he had learned to better manipulate Null Life Essence, and get to understand its properties. And through various experiences of his own, Skullius had discovered that Null Life Essence had many forms, but so far, he could only use the basic form of it freely.
Null Life Essence was very invasive, and dominant by nature, but unlike Voided Death Essence, it wasn't aggressive. One of its uses, was to reinforce the body to an incredible degree, ramping up hardness, and toughness.
As Skullius took rapid steps towards the Swordsman, he reinforced his body with a lot of Null Life Essence, channelling it quickly into his veins. He began to feel compact, and immovable.
Right before he met the short man, he recognised a change in the Swordsman's eye, and immediately, the curved rock appeared in his hand from the Temporary Storage, a cloak of Null Life Essence wrapped around it.
Then a clash came.
Skullius with a simple rock, and his opponent with a Legendary grade tool!
A crisp clang resounded, but neither of the two gave in to the other, much to the Swordsman's surprise. He ground his teeth viciously.
"How?!" he growled, but Skullius ignored him.
Instead, he turned his focus, and stamped his foot into the ground, breaking it apart. In the next moment, he kicked up a large chunk of stone, sent a ripple of Null Life Essence into, and swiped it with the tip of his boot towards the Mind Caster who had been about to sneakily take another shot at him!
The stone soared quickly, but the braided man didn't take it too seriously... until it ignored the cloak of Aura around him, and pelted him cruelly in the gut, which knocked the wind of him!
The Mind Caster groaned in agony, and above him, 10 Glass Units were visibly deducted, and transferred to Skullius!
Skullius returned to locking swords with the Swordsman who immediately drowned them both in his non-living Incarnation.
But Skullius didn't budge.
Instead, he did something that made the short man's hope turn grim... after he said something extraordinarily chilling.
"You know, your sword has switched loyalties..."
...!
The glowing odachi which was facing Skullius and his curved rock, rebelled.
Even while its sharp edge faced the Hybrid Luman, it was the short Swordsman who suddenly got a long, vertical cut on his face from where a stream of blood slowly flowed.
...!
He shuddered, and drew his sword from the clash to strike at Skullius again with quicker speed.
Skullius easily parried each of his erratic strikes.
The Swordsman drew back, and got into his aloof stance from a distance. Skullius knew what he was trying to do, a desperate gleam in his eyes.
....
Nothing happened.
A sharp whisper didn't rush towards Skullius like the other times, and the short Swordsman only grew more appalled, and pale.
"What did you do?! What did you do to my sword?!" he screamed, red with rage.
Skullius grinned, his white eyes full of a controlled malice.
He held out the rock sword, and gave a ridiculing reply.
"I don't know. My sword... is right here."
As if spurned by these words, a hiss like that from a great serpent loudly shrieked from the stationary Hybrid Luman, echoing around the pillar scape – though only the two Swordsmen could hear it.
It blew towards the short man like a gust of wind, reaching him in a blink.
The sickening sound of bursting flesh was heard, and the short man's face was ripped open, a wide wound showing on it!
10 Units flew from his cache.
The man shrieked in pain, but he didn't realise that his enemy wouldn't give him a moment to breath. He blinked, and Skullius was right before him, bare handed, his arm cocked back!
Through his bloody eye which was half carved through along with his skull, the short Swordsman saw a fist dart into view, an ungodly force behind it that pulled on the air like a canvas!
This sensation...
This feeling of unimaginable weight...
He remembered it.
BAAM!
A force of 155,000 tonnes struck him point blank in the face, and decimated everything that received even a sliver of the impact through vibration!
The man's face sank in grotesquely, and he took off, speeding through the sky, disappearing out of sight!
Skullius frowned.
His duration of controlled [Swordmaster's Quiescence] usage ended right here, and he cancelled the skill altogether.
He had to say, he wasn't quite as pleased.
10 seconds was barely enough for him to get a feel of what he imagined an extremity was.
He had yet to fully feel the full effect of the WILLS of Fulgardt.
'My 'sword' can't do that much damage, even with Null Life Essence around it. I managed to value it as a sword, which allowed even [Unmatched Sword Sense] to view it as one, but it's not enough to kill these guys, especially when they are on guard...' Skullius thought. 'Maybe the Mind Caster...'
While using Null Life Essence, Skullius could bypass Genuine Incarnations, since they couldn't defend against it, only mana. But the damage he could do with a reinforced rock was only so much.
Sure it was a sharp rock, or rock sword. But it wasn't a proper sword with any properties attached to it
Also, Skullius only had access to the very bare type of Null Life Essence.
His next option was to use the weight property of his mana. However, if he coated his limbs with mana externally, the effect would be neutralised by Genuine Incarnations. So, Skullius channelled the mana within his body so that it wouldn't be erased, and his arm would genuinely be 155,000 tonnes.
Doing this, unlike the former, had the side effect of making Skullius' feel the full weight he would be exerting as well – 155,000 tonnes. Though, he could mitigate it somewhat by making other parts of his body light.
'This is still not enough. I'm not where I need to be yet,' he thought.
In a rare moment of fortune, the red clouds rising from his body suddenly began to dissipate, and soon they vanished completely.
Skullius grinned.
He doubted the Swordsman was dead, but he must have suffered quite a bit of damage.
Almost instantly, his whole body was healed through the effects of the Super potion, and he felt really good. With a pinch of Null Life Essence, he recovered his gear to fully cloth himself again.
...!
A spark of alarm cut Skullius' jovial moment short.
A large blurred dome expanded to net him in.
While Skullius couldn't see, or even sense its outline, he did feel the rush of mental energy gathering.
There was still one other opponent.
Honestly, he didn't know how the Mind Caster had managed to avoid being sliced apart by the short Swordsman. He had heard the short man compliment his technique, and had realised that there was more to it than stalling thoughts.
The braided man was standing fifteen meters from Skullius, a large pillar behind him. His lively staff was in hand, and he was focusing his mental energy through it.
Skullius got ready.
He had held off on finishing the Swordsman because this man was still darting around, and he was just as dangerous as the former.
'Well then, I'll have to—'
...
A square-ish thin, transparent plate flew in between the two.
Both Skullius and the braided man looked at it, puzzled, as it fell.
Its outline, which highlighted its shape, and made it look more like a clear glass, at its centre, an erratic, branching swarm of lightning that seemed frozen in time, showing.
Skullius who could process things faster right now, opened his eyes wide in realisation, and was gone as soon as he remembered what this was.
The Mind Caster was a little slow, and as a result....
He got caught in it.
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