Chapter 160: Fated to Toil
After creating a new power rune, Priam glanced sideways at the outside confrontation for a few brief seconds, watching the deadly dance between the trio from the Ylisse clan and the furious Super Genius from the Divine Plane.
He could perfectly feel the fluctuations of Flaris, Shione, and Lumiere.
Their Ether was being consumed at a shocking speed. Their bodies were covered in wounds, and exhaustion was taking a heavy toll, but... their determination and focus had never been so great.
There was an unshakable will burning in the chests of the three of them, a fierce desire to prove their own worth before the entire Divine Plane.
Priam smiled from the corner of his mouth and looked away, taken by absolute certainty. They would endure the pressure for a little longer.
They needed that trial.
They needed to fight to the limit to show themselves, the world, and the watching Elders that they were not just accessories. They were geniuses who could not be looked down on, and they too would raise the Ylisse Clan again with their own hands.
With a violent push, Priam broke through the limits of his protective bubble, jumping toward...
The Elders watching everything almost jumped out of their seats, completely shocked by the boy’s audacity. He had already defeated his enemy in a terrifyingly short time, in a way that none of those figures knew how to explain.
Now, everyone expected him to help his allies and end this conflict. But...
Priam had other plans. He jumped, going straight to another bubble.
All the puppet lizards had been selected to be a challenge together. They were strictly identical in structure and power.
After deciphering the secret to victory against the first creature, and then synthesizing the Power Rune by combining lightning and the monster’s own poison, the other enemies stopped being a threat. They were just targets waiting to be slaughtered.
Priam smiled internally. This was his power of synthesis finally being used to the fullest.
He needed to accumulate as much knowledge as possible, as well as materials. That way, no matter the type of enemy, it was only a matter of time before he found their weaknesses, and then created the power capable of defeating them.
His Transcendental Anima, combined with the power of nature and his dedication to training, gave him the potential to survive long enough to achieve that.
*ROAR!*
As soon as he entered the place, the second lizard raised its colossal claws, roaring as it delivered a crushing blow toward the intruder.
*Boom!*
Priam moved by a hair’s breadth, dodging the impact with unsettling ease.
The monster’s attack missed its target, colliding uselessly against the ground. This made its powerful claws get stuck for a single second in the earth.
Taking advantage of the opening in the beast’s exposed flank, Priam attacked with Sky-Rending Wind once again.
*CRACK!*
A crack appeared in its scales, and before the lizard could react, a green-purple lightning bolt, infused with corrosive poison, shot forward like a spear.
The blow pierced the puppet’s flesh, instantly paralyzing its energy circuits.
The Elders were silent, all of them with stunned expressions.
This time, he won in less than a minute...
Priam didn’t stop to admire his work. He pushed his body forward again, jumping to the next protective bubble.
2 minutes to win.
Then to the next.
And the next.
What followed was a spectacle of speed and surgical precision. In total, in less than ten minutes, Priam jumped from zone to zone, ruthlessly defeating all four remaining lizards.
That lizard... had been selected to be a true challenge even for the Super Geniuses. Priam defeating one of them in a good time wasn’t shocking. But the Elders were sure he had to give everything he had, burning through a large part of his energies.
Clearly, they were wrong.
Priam was panting, with a very faint aura. Now, all the Elders were certain he was exhausted and had no Ether left at all.
"Damn it, get ready to save those three. That young Mage acted impulsively, without thinking about his allies. Now, he won’t have the strength to help them." The leader of the Elders spoke seriously, and everyone nodded.
Priam snorted. After using Sky-Rending Wind 5 times, he had lost around 95% of his Ether. But... he definitely wasn’t out of strength.
In truth, unlike every other Mage, Ether was only one of his weapons.
Priam turned his eyes toward his three companions.
Now, Shione, Lumiere, and Flaris were at the absolute limit of their strength, with their energy almost at zero and their bodies trembling from exhaustion. They could barely stay standing.
However, Priam’s chest swelled with immeasurable pride.
Shione’s ice barrier was filled with countless holes.
Flaris was covered in blood and had terrifying bloody wounds all over her body.
Lumiere’s body was full of heavy burns.
But those three had accomplished an unthinkable feat: they had completely blocked the massive attacks of a Super Genius. More than that, the trio’s stubborn resistance had wounded Walhart’s pride so deeply that it forced him to resort to his greatest trump card.
Walhart was now wielding his central weapon: a terrifying fire spear, whose blazing tip distorted the very space around it with tyrannical heat.
He had taken out that weapon a minute ago, when the three of them were already one inch from the end. Even so... he still hadn’t managed to win.
"Die, you damn insects!" Walhart roared with eyes bloodshot from pure hatred, raising the flaming spear to deliver the finishing blow against the three.
Before Walhart’s fire spear could descend even a single centimeter toward the trio...
...Priam’s silhouette simply disappeared from where he stood.
Then, he appeared like a ghost in front of Walhart.
**POW!**
The air cracked violently.
There was no time for reactions, defenses, or barriers. Everyone inside that valley, and all the Elders watching, saw that Super Genius get hit.
Then, a reddish blur shot away like a bloody meteor before exploding into the rocky ground.
The Mages of Walhart’s faction froze instantly. Their faces turned completely pale, and they retreated several steps in pure instinctive fear.
At the epicenter of the impact...
The dust settled, revealing Priam standing there.
He radiated a terrifying black aura, so dense and heavy that it seemed to devour the very light around him. His eyes shone in the darkness like two crimson stars, and his entire body emanated the indomitable pressure of a fierce bestial power.
Seeing that silhouette, Shione, Lumiere, and Flaris’s eyes trembled slightly.
A great weight was removed from their backs. The one before them was the invincible Priam they knew. In the trio’s minds, not even the greatest Super Genius in the entire Divine Plane would be able to match the anomaly that Priam represented.
The rest of the Mages in the faction watched the scene in a catatonic state, completely hypnotized by that overwhelming presence.
As for Dandara... she felt her heart hammering in her chest like a war drum.
She sensed something deeply abnormal and powerful coming from him. Looking at Priam at that moment made her own soul vibrate intensely, as if her blood instinctively recognized that power.
An overwhelming desire began to burn in her chest. She didn’t know where it came from. But this was the electrifying feeling of someone who had finally... finally found something they had desperately searched for over a long time, without ever succeeding before.
*WOOOOOOSH!*
In the middle of the elemental sea, a pillar of scarlet fire exploded toward the skies, resembling a furious volcano erupting.
Walhart, who had been violently struck back to the 90% mark of the valley’s path, rose amid the flames with all his power exploding at once.
Everyone turned toward the rumble and swallowed dryly.
The Super Genius’s state was grotesque and shocking.
The left half of his face was completely caved in, reduced to a deformed mass of crushed flesh and blood. All the bones on that side of his face had been mercilessly destroyed by the impact, and his entire body spasmed and trembled grotesquely.
It was an unbelievable sight. Priam had delivered a brutal attack against a Super Genius without giving him the slightest chance to react, leaving the once proud warrior in that pathetic and disfigured state.
"Good thing you got up," Priam murmured, breaking the silence with a faint and genuinely happy smile on his face.
His crimson eyes locked onto the bloodied figure ahead.
"Since you dared try to touch my people, I’ll make sure you never have the courage to show your face in public again..."
With a slight wave of his hand, something materialized in his palm.
The expression of everyone present instantly changed into deep strangeness.
Why the hell had he pulled out... a tree branch?
Priam sighed lightly. "Heavens... The Heaven-Wrecker, World-Ender Branch seems fated to toil away in the divine plane..."