Chapter 313: This was not Caelus Kross
Lunari spotted Caelus pushing through the crowd.
She raised a hand to call out to him, but her breath hitched in her throat.
He wasn’t walking toward her. He was walking straight toward Xander and the Olympian Covenant.
"No way," she whispered.
Xander stood at the center of his faction members, his arrogant voice carrying effortlessly across the waiting area.
"The first trial dropped a Transcendent Skill for me," he bragged loudly. "Zeus himself must be watching over my progress."
His followers laughed, practically tripping over themselves to nod in agreement.
"As expected of Lord Xander!"
"No one else could obtain such rewards!"
"It’s a pity Marcus isn’t here with us."
"We need to find the person who killed him and give him a fate worse than death."
As one of the members of the faction said that, Caelus stopped directly in front of them.
The laughter died instantly.
Xander’s eyes narrowed as he recognized the face before him.
"Oh? It’s the nobody from earlier." He crossed his arms with a sneer. "Did you come to apologize for your rudeness?"
His faction members chuckled.
"Maybe he finally realized his place."
"Pathetic. He probably wants to beg for mercy now."
Caelus tilted his head slightly, his expression perfectly calm.
"Can I ask why you are the way you are? Is it because of your backing, or are you naturally just this evil?"
The Olympian members stared at him in stunned silence before bursting into uproarious laughter.
"Is he serious right now?"
"Did this fool hit his head during the trial?"
Xander wiped a mock tear from his eye. "You really are something else, nobody."
The commotion naturally drew attention from across the massive waiting area. Players began gathering in droves to watch the confrontation, and whispers spread like wildfire.
"Isn’t that Caelus Kross?"
"The guy from the news?"
"Why is he picking a fight with the Olympian Faction?"
Candy appeared at the edge of the crowd, chewing her gum while watching the scene.
Freya pushed through the gathered players, her small frame squeezing between bodies to get a front-row seat.
Sylvia arrived moments later, her crimson eyes locking immediately onto Caelus.
Chad and his guildmates rushed over, their faces pale with absolute dread, while the members of Genesis City gathered behind them, watching nervously.
Lunari shoved her way to the front, her heart hammering against her ribs.
She couldn’t believe Caelus was actually doing this. Xander wasn’t just some ordinary player; he was the rising star of Greece, backed by one of the most powerful factions on Earth.
Xander’s smile twisted into an ugly snarl.
"Evil?" He stepped forward, towering over Caelus. "You call me evil for what?"
He spread his arms wide, addressing the massive crowd.
"Let me educate this ignorant fool about what true power means! The Olympian Faction stands at the pinnacle of humanity. We carry the blessing of the Greek Pantheon itself! Zeus, the King of Gods, has granted us power beyond mortal comprehension!"
"Our faction has existed for centuries. Kings and emperors have knelt before us!" He pointed a finger directly between Caelus’s eyes. "And you? You are nothing. A speck of dust beneath my boot. We are the people that gets to dictate what is Evil and What is Right."
Xander’s eyes gleamed with unchecked malice. Since birth, his talent had shielded him from consequence. He had been groomed into an arrogant tyrant who refused to take ’no’ for an answer.
"I could destroy everything you hold dear without lifting a finger. I could have your parents killed tonight. One word from me, and they would disappear from this world forever."
"That’s the difference between me and you."
The instant, Xander spoke those words, Caelus’s expression turned blank as the Chaos Axiom energy within him begin to stir uncontrollably.
The calm indifference on his face vanished, replaced by an absolutely cold look on his face filled with killing intent.
Chad felt the atmospheric shift immediately. "Oh no," he muttered.
Throughout the crowd, players had already pulled out their phones. Livestreams began broadcasting the confrontation to millions of viewers worldwide.
[Is that really Caelus Kross?]
[He’s picking a fight with the Olympian Faction? Where is this arrogance coming from?]
[This guy has no backing! What is he thinking?]
Just then, Xander raised his hand toward the ceiling.
Blinding, jagged golden lightning violently crackled into existence around his fingers, illuminating the room in harsh flashes of divine light.
"Since you insist on being foolish, I’ll show you what the blessing of Zeus truly means!"
"Die!"
[Faction Skill Activated: Thunderbolt of the Heavens]
The air itself trembled. A massive, concentrated bolt of divine lightning formed above Xander’s palm, its sheer power radiating outward in visible waves.
The crowd scrambled backward in terror.
"That’s a divine-class faction skill!"
"He’s going to kill him!"
Lunari’s face went sheet white. "Caelus! Get out of there!"
She burst forward, holy energy gathering around her body to intervene, but she was too far away.
The thunderbolt descended toward Caelus with catastrophic force, a roaring pillar of golden destruction.
However, seeing this, Caelus simply raised his hand.
His fingers closed around the core of the lightning.
CRACK! BOOM!
The divine energy didn’t just dissipate it shattered. Like a fragile glass sculpture struck by a hammer, the golden lightning fractured into countless crystalline shards that scattered across the floor before dissolving into nothingness.
Complete, suffocating silence fell over the waiting area.
Xander’s arm was still raised, his smug expression frozen in sheer disbelief.
Lunari skidded to a halt, her holy energy fizzling out. Her mind short-circuited seeing this scene. A divine-class faction skill had just been crushed with a bare hand.
How was that possible?
The livestream comments exploded in a blur of text.
[WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST SEE?!]
[HE CAUGHT THE LIGHTNING AND BROKE IT?!]
[THIS CAN’T BE REAL!]
[IS HE EVEN HUMAN?!]
[How did he physically break a power made up of energy? what sort of power or talent is this?]
[Does that mean he can break energy constructs with his barehand?]
Caelus lowered his hand slowly. His Ascended Body had done its work perfectly; pure energy was meaningless against his physical form. Combined with his Combat Score vastly exceeding Xander’s, the outcome was mathematically inevitable.
"Do you know who I am?" Caelus then asked.
This caused everyone to raise an eyebrow. Why would he ask something like that?
He extended his other hand toward Xander.
Telekinesis activated instantly.
BOOM!
An invisible force wrapped around Xander’s body, attempting to seize him, but a thick golden barrier flickered to life around the faction genius.
This must be an automatic protective barrier.
Caelus didn’t hesitate even for one second seeing this.
His fist shot forward.
Spatial Rend!
Space physically folded around his knuckles, rippling like disturbed water as Spatial Rend activated.
CRACK!
The impenetrable barrier shattered on impact. Golden shards rained across the ground like broken mirrors. Telekinesis seized Xander by the throat, lifting his feet off the floor and pinning his limbs to his sides.
Yet, even while immobilized, Xander’s arrogance refused to die.
"What are you?!" Xander gagged, struggling against the invisible bonds. "How can you be this strong? This is impossible!"
Caelus stepped closer and asked once more. "Do you know who I am, Xander?"
The Greek faction members finally snapped out of their stupor.
"Release Lord Xander immediately!"
"You’ll pay for this with your life, bastard!"
They charged forward all together, weapons drawn and skills flaring to life.
Caelus didn’t even look at them.
[Talent Activated: Gravity Domain]
An invisible, concussive wave expanded outward from Caelus’s boots. The very fabric of the room groaned under the sudden shift in physics.
The charging faction members were violently yanked toward the ground. Their legs snapped and buckled first, followed immediately by their torsos.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Over a dozen elite rank faction members collapsed face-first onto the marble floor. The crushing, localized gravity pinned them in place. They couldn’t move a single finger. Bones loudly creaked and splintered under the immense pressure; some screamed in agony, while others went completely silent, their lungs unable to expand to take a breath.
Lunari stood frozen. These were Elite-ranked players backed by one of the most powerful organizations on Earth, crushed effortlessly by a eighteen-year-old with zero background.
"W-What." Xander became even more pale seeing this.
For the first time since their confrontation began, genuine, primal fear bled into Xander’s face.
His world-view crumbled alongside his shattered barrier.
"The factions you talk about..." Caelus continued walking, looking up at the dangling Xander with indifference. "They don’t matter to me."
His eyes began to glow with an intense, haunting sapphire light.
"The factions. The guilds. The gods." Each word landed like a physical hammer blow. "You boasted about your power. You threatened my parents. You thought yourself untouchable."
Deep, ethereal blue energy began to bleed off Caelus’s skin, rising like smoke.
"What can that power do to me? I will tell you myself."
"NOTHING."
BOOM!
A terrifying, suffocating pressure erupted from Caelus’s body. The instant it spread, every single person in the waiting area felt their souls shudder.
This wasn’t just killing intent they were feeling but something far more sophisticated.
It was the Origin itself.
Sylvia’s crimson eyes widened seeing this.
She was going to step in but she realized something after observing the situation further.
One, Caelus was angry.
And, Two. This was no longer the ordinary Player Caelus Kross speaking.
But the Ender of Origin, the balance of all Enders and the Irregular of the Axiom Origin.
The livestream viewers couldn’t feel the pressure, but the visual broadcast painted a horrifying picture. Grown men and women were falling to their knees, trembling violently.
[What’s happening?!]
[Why does everyone look so scared?!]
[This guy is terrifying!]
Xander’s body shook uncontrollably in the telekinetic grip. Every trace of his former arrogance had been thoroughly annihilated.
"Wait! Stop!" His voice cracked, tears streaming down his face. "If you kill me, my faction won’t let you go! The Greek Pantheon will hunt you to the ends of the Earth!"
Caelus looked at him with a dead, indifferent smile.
"You think I care?"
He raised Xander higher into the air.
"I’m tired of people in power doing whatever they please to the people I care about. The factions can come. In the end, they are all insignificant before me."
"WAIT! I’LL DO ANYTHING! PLEASE!" Xander shrieked.
Caelus’s expression remained entirely blank.
[Talent Activated: Gravity Domain]
The invisible force around Xander’s body violently multiplied fivefold.
His screams were cut off instantly as the gravitational pressure compressed him from all directions simultaneously. Bones pulverized into dust. Flesh condensed. In a matter of seconds, the rising star of the Olympian Faction was reduced to a cube of highly compressed matter no larger than a fist.
The grotesque cube dropped to the ground with a heavy, sickening thud.
Complete, suffocating silence reigned over the room.
Caelus crouched down and placed his hand over the remains.
[Extract?]
He mentally confirmed.
[Ding!]
[Extraction Successful.]
[You have obtained: Template Change (Lower S-Rank Talent)]
[Template Change: Create multiple skill loadouts and switch between them instantly. Each template can hold your full skill configuration. Switching cooldown: 15 seconds.]
A satisfied smile crossed his face.
Finally. The exact talent he had been hunting for.
The livestream chat also exploded with comments.
Chad stood paralyzed, unable to process that his childhood friend had just brutally executed one of the most protected players on Earth in front of millions of viewers.
Freya clapped her small hands together. "Big brother is so cool!"
She managed to witness some good show today. She was going to join but realized Caelus could handle things on his own.
The Genesis City members stared in a mixture of awe and absolute terror. Their city owner was a monster beyond mortal comprehension.
Then, Sylvia moved.
She rushed forward through the stunned crowd, her silver hair flowing beautifully behind her. She reached Caelus and threw her arms around him, pulling him into a tight, grounding embrace.
"It’s okay," she whispered softly into his ear, her hand gently stroking his back. "Everything is alright now. You don’t need to be angry anymore. I’m here."
The glowing sapphire light in Caelus’s eyes slowly dimmed. The terrifying, existential pressure that had suffocated the area gradually receded.
His rigid body relaxed into her warmth.
"Sylvia," he murmured.
"I’m here, hubby," she said, holding him tighter.
Just then, a system notification flashed before everyone remaining in the waiting area.
[Attention All Participants]
[The Third Trial will now begin.]
[Transporting in 3... 2... 1...]
Blinding light consumed everything. When Caelus opened his eyes, he found himself standing in an entirely new environment.