Chapter 237: Arriving Late
Cassius moved.
One moment he stood twenty meters away. The next, red force rippled beneath his feet like a launchpad, and he closed the distance in a blur that made Lightning Body look sluggish.
Draven Force Art: Phantom Stride.
Kael’s eyes widened. He thrust his palm forward—Universal Push exploding outward with enough force to shatter stone.
Cassius didn’t slow down.
Red force wrapped around his body like armor, dense and compressed, and he pushed through the gravitational wave as if it were water. His expression remained bored.
Kael’s other hand rose. A massive Pulsar orb—fully charged launched upward into the canopy. It disappeared into the sky, a black-purple sphere vanishing among the burning branches.
Cassius glanced up, then back at Kael. A mocking smile curled his lips.
"Missing already? Disappointing."
The blade was at Kael’s throat before he could react.
Kael threw his hand up again—Universal Push, point-blank, every ounce of force he could muster.
Cassius’s free hand rose. Red force flooded into his sword, thick and heavy, amplifying the thrust beyond anything Kael’s technique could deflect.
CRACK.
Universal Push shattered like glass.
The Tier 1 blade punched through the remnants of the gravitational barrier and kept going.
SLICE.
Pain.
White-hot, screaming, absolute pain.
Kael looked down. His left hand lay in the dirt three meters away. Blood sprayed from the stump in rhythmic pulses, painting the forest floor crimson.
"GAAAH—!"
His knees buckled. Teeth gritted so hard. The Void Body Refinement tried to seal the wound but its’ regeneration was too slow.
Cassius kicked him in the chest.
CRACK.
Kael flew backward, crashing through a tree trunk thick enough to house three men. The wood exploded around him. He hit the ground hard, rolled twice, and lay still.
Darkness crept at the edges of his vision. His consciousness slipped—pulled toward the void like a drowning man sinking into deep water.
Stay awake. Stay awake. Stay—
"Lord Cassius!"
A Draven soldier in red-tinged armor knelt beside Cassius, mid Mana Heart realm by his aura. Sweat dripped down his face.
"The tribe is preparing to reactivate the barrier. Our scouts confirm it—if that thing goes up, every Spirit Soul soldier inside the territory gets their power sealed. We need to leave. Now."
Cassius wiped his blade clean on a leaf. "Tch. What timing."
He glanced at Kael’s crumpled form with mild disappointment. "Shame. I wanted to see what else the Vorn prodigy could do."
The darkness pulled harder.
Kael’s fingers dug into the dirt.
No.
He pushed himself up.
Blood still poured from his left stump, but the bleeding had slowed.
Cassius paused. Interest flickered in his red-tinged eyes.
"Hm?"
Kael raised his remaining hand. Two shadow clones materialized beside him.
"We are not done yet.", He murmured.
A massive orb materialized in his right palm —Quasar. Repulsive force compressed to its absolute limit, shimmering with unstable energy the size of a basketball.
Binding Contract.
The words formed in Kael’s mind, spoken not aloud but etched into reality itself:
"I will skip the chant of Gravitational Paradox. In exchange, let it drain all my mana."
The contract clicked. Reality acknowledged the trade.
The two clones lunged at Cassius.
He destroyed the first with a casual force slash—a wave of red energy bisecting it from shoulder to hip. The second caught him with a dark spear to the ribs before he shattered it with a backhand.
"You think clones can—"
Kael looked up.
The Pulsar orb he’d fired into the sky crashed downward like a falling star.
His face strained—veins bulging, blood vessels bursting in his eyes—as he reached up with gravitational manipulation and pulled. The descending Pulsar merged with the Quasar in his palm.
The two Origin Grade techniques—attraction and repulsion—fused.
A black hole materialized in Kael’s hand.
It was the size of a car. A sphere of absolute nothingness shimmering with purple-black energy, warping the light around it, bending the trees toward it, pulling debris and leaves and even the air itself into its hungry maw.
Cassius’s expression changed.
The smirk vanished. Red force flared around his body at full intensity—yellow, orange, red—as every instinct screamed at him.
"What the fuck is—"
He destroyed the remnants of the clones and lunged for Kael.
Too slow.
Kael raised his remaining hand.
"Oblivion."
The black hole launched.
It moved faster than Cassius could perceive—a sphere of gravitational paradox that didn’t travel through space so much as deleted the space between itself and its target.
Cassius’s eyes widened. He grabbed the mid Mana Heart soldier who’d warned him and threw the man into the attack’s path.
The soldier didn’t even scream. One moment he existed. The next, he didn’t. Oblivion consumed him completely—flesh, bone were completely disintegrated.
But the sacrifice bought Cassius a fraction of a second.
He placed his sword in front of him. Red force—dense enough to see, heavy enough to crush stone—wrapped around the Tier 1 blade like a cocoon.
"You think this toy can kill me?!" Cassius screamed, arrogance and desperation bleeding together in his voice. "I am Cassius Draven! A member of the main bloodline! A genius that appears once in a century! You’re a one-armed cripple swinging a chidish power—YOU, YOU CANNOT DEFEAT ME!"
The black hole hit.
BOOOOOM.
Cassius’s sword shattered first. The tier 1 force blade disintegrated into particles before the orb even touched it.
Then the orb hit him.
Red force held for one second. Two seconds. The ground beneath Cassius’s feet cratered downward as he was pushed back, heels digging trenches in the earth.
Oblivion punched through Cassius’s defenses and caved a hole straight through his stomach.
Blood and viscera sprayed. Cassius’s scream tore through the forest—a sound of pure agony as his intestines spilled onto the forest floor.
AHHHHNNNNNHHN.
The orb continued past him, carving a trench of destruction through the forest before dissipating.
Cassius dropped to his knees, hands clutching the gaping wound in his abdomen. His face had gone gray. Shock set in.
"Lord Cassius!"
A mid Spirit Soul Draven soldier materialized beside him, slapping a stabilization talisman on his chest. Green light enveloped the wound, slowing the bleeding.
The soldier looked up at Kael with murder in his eyes with a strong killing intent. Fire gathered in his palm—
Four figures dropped from the canopy.
Vyra Sable, Commander of the Fourth Pillar Knight Squadron, Spirit Soul realm aura blazing. Her sword cut through the fire attack before it could form, scattering the flames into harmless embers.
"Don’t," she said quietly.
Two more figures landed beside Cassius—Late Spirit Soul realm Draven soldiers, their faces grim. One produced a King Grade healing pill and forced it past Cassius’s lips.