R-a - Volume 4 - Chapter 68 (Patreon)

R-a - Volume 4 - Chapter 68

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For hundreds of years, there existed a man whose Soul had lain dormant, hidden away inside an Inheritance, cut off from the rest of the world…

Waiting.

For the day he could return. For the day he could fulfill his destiny.

That man was an anomaly.

He was a Toren who foresaw the fall of his own people.

A Fallen Deity who did his best to save them…

A man who failed.

And now, among his people…

He stood alone.

Bearing a mission no man should have to carry.

To right the wrongs of an entire Race.

Most would flee in the face of such a daunting task.

Give up in despair.

Cry that one man’s efforts could change nothing.

But not him.

He would not falter.

He would not break.

His name was Yvvtal.

The Destroyer.

.. .. .. .. .. ..

Orion was a hair’s breadth away from ripping apart the golden haired man when it happened.

His instincts screamed at him.

Danger.

He, the First Lord of all these lands, the World's Strongest, was in danger.

In that split second, Orion had to make an instant decision. A choice that he would never be able to take back.

To continue his attack, confident in his abilities and strength, trained over hundreds of years.

Or…

To give up his pride and trust in his instincts.

The First Lord had barely any time to think.

Even so, the decision grated on him like nothing had in centuries.

It was laughable.

Throughout this entire fight, he had never felt himself to truly be in danger.

At worst, he was forced to fight seriously against Gregor Mantorel, but that was all.

He was the World’s Strongest.

No matter the foe, how dangerous could they truly be to him?

He did not underestimate his enemies, but, rather, had a complete understanding of himself, of his power, and of his skill.

Nevertheless.

Orion was not a fool.

He chose the second option.

The air exploded before Orion as he unleashed all the energy he had gathered within himself, creating an enormous shockwave in front of him. The mighty attack blasted a wave of energy into the ground and into the air, knocking Prime backwards several meters.

It was a grand show of force, but also a complete waste of energy. The attack merely grazed the golden haired man, not even breaking his skin.

This did, however, allow Orion to stop his movement and raise his guard, shifting his weight to his back foot and cross his arms in front of himself defensively.

Not a moment later…

Orion felt an enormous impact slam into his right forearm.

And then, a second equally large impact smashed against his left arm.

And then, a third blow smashed into his lower ribcage…

And a forth… and a fifth…

In the space of a tenth of a second, Orion felt 23 massive impacts slam into his chest and arms.

In the next moment, before the First Lord could even gauge the enemy attacking him, Orion’s body shot through the air like a rocket, flying so fast he transformed into a blur.

Blood spattered from Orion’s lips as he twisted in mid-air, gathering Elemental Lightning on his forearms and merging it with Master Tier Fist Energy.

‘Thunder King’s Martial Art - 1st Chapter, 4th Passage.’

‘Heaven’s Wall.’

A split second later, a loud clash of energy rang out as the Lord Justiciar’s sword slammed into Orion’s arms, attempting to split the Toren in half mid-air.

Orion redirected the force from that attack, spinning in a circle to knock Gregor back while at the same time regaining his balance.

Just as the Lord Justiciar was knocked backwards, however…

A silver rapier stabbed its way towards Orion’s heart.

The First Lord’s eyes turned red.

‘Enough.’

All of the rage, the pent up emotion storming in Orion’s heart, vanished.

‘Thunder King’s Martial Art - 1st Chapter, 1st Passage.’

A strange calm overtook the First Lord. His entire body seemed to relax, the tension in his muscles calming. The rioting energy outside his body vanished, condensing internally until it spread across his body perfectly evenly.

‘Eye of the Storm.’

Orion shifted his body slightly to the right and…

He let the rapier stab him.

The keen blade stabbed through the flesh of his left shoulder, missing his heart by mere inches.

In return, however…

The air trembled as he punched forward.

A simple punch, with no fancy technique named for it, no flashy energy exploding from it.

A single punch, coated in a thin layer of Master Tier Fist Energy, that collided with the chest of the invisible man before him.

That blow blasted Baron Fortuna backwards, shattering whatever power granted him invisibility and sending him flying through the air. The powerful blow broke the man’s ribs and slammed him so hard blood spurted from his mouth.

And…

It failed to kill him.

A muscle in Orion's cheek twitched.

His current state was his strongest, utilizing the Eye of the Storm technique that allowed him to free himself from emotion and operate under absolute control of his body. It was a technique he disliked, something that made him feel less-than-whole.

Yet…

He failed.

Again.

Baron Fortuna landed hard on the ground nearly 100 meters away. The staunch warrior stayed down after falling, his eyes rolled up and unconscious.

He had been taken out of the fight, but nevertheless remained alive.

‘I felt it.’

Orion’s head turned sharply, zeroing in on the golden haired man.

‘Him.’ Orion’s eye twitched again as he wrestled control of his emotions.

‘He pulled the other human back, somehow.’

Now that he knew that there was something interfering, Orion picked up on a couple of subtle cues. The way Fortuna flew backwards, the angle of his body… there had been a slight shift, just a split moment before Orion’s attack landed.

That tiny variation was the difference between Fortuna instantly dying with his heart imploded versus suffering from several rib fractures and a minor lung puncture.

‘What an incredible grasp of combat.’ Orion’s senses tingled as he stared at Prime.

To grasp the instant moment before Orion’s attack landed, and use some sort of force to alter the target of his attack…

It required precision on a scale of a thousandth of a second.

The psychic force Prime used was much more noticeable now that he was no longer trying to hide, though not quite strong enough to fully block the First Lord.

At the same time that he made that observation, Orion winced.

‘Broken? No. A few small cracks.’ His arms and two of his ribs tingled with pain as Orion’s gaze turned towards the man responsible.

A burly, muscular warrior with silver hair that was covered in a bright, silver Aura. That Aura was slightly weaker than it had been previously, but rapidly growing in strength as the warrior prepared another attack.

‘...a power that interferes with Time.’ Orion recognized what type of Aura it was instantly.

It was none other than a Celestial Aura, a power possessed by all members of the Celestial Race… or, in this case, a power that the body of the former Division Leader of the Ape Division of the Beasts of Providence still possessed.

When Yvvtal took over Silverback’s body, he had absorbed some of the powers that Silverback had originally controlled. Namely, all powers that Silverback’s body possessed, but none that were tied to his Soul.

In this case, Silverback’s body had the Celestial Silverback Type ingrained within it, and that Type stayed with his body, even after Yvvtal took control of it.

‘How irritating.’

Against his will, the strange power brought up unpleasant memories from the past.

Memories of a war long forgotten…

Memories of a hero he had abandoned…

‘Tallanoran.’ Orion winced, trying to force the name from his mind.

That lapse of control cost him dearly.

The smell of burnt flesh suffused the air as a beam of light pierced through the right side of Orion’s chest, melting a roughly one inch hole through the lower half of his torso.

“I figured that might work.” The Nirvana Saint’s eyes glowed golden as he spoke aloud.

“Your instincts are sharp, Thunderfist… but…” The Leader of the Purgatory Church continued, wiping off several drops of blood dripping from his nose,

“They don’t seem to trigger on non-fatal attacks.” The Nirvana Saint relayed the information to everyone present.

“Hah.” Orion laughed out loud, his eyes bloodshot with barely contained anger. His emotions warred with his Eye of the Storm technique, trying to get the best of him.

“Meteor Flame!”

The Great Wizard Shahsta interrupted Orion’s laughter by launching an enormous, blazing meteor of magma at him. The giant ball of molten rock flew through the air, rocketing towards Orion at breakneck speed.

The First Lord stared at the giant, 30 meters large meteor…

And he smiled.

‘Fine. I’ll do it the hard way.’

Orion didn’t try to dodge the attack or utilize his techniques to block it…

No, instead… he began to run towards it.

‘Thunder King’s Martial Art - 1st Chapter, 2nd Passage.’

The Dark Wraith gathered all of his energy in his legs, repeating his strongest movement technique.

‘Chasing Thunder.’

Orion flew forward at a speed invisible to the naked eye.

In just a fraction of a second, he collided with the giant meteor of magma… and blew through it.

‘If every attack I make is being manipulated… then it's simple.’ Orion thought, ignoring the searing pain as chunks of magma burnt through parts of his arms and chest.

‘To block the rain is easy, to block a waterfall, much harder.’

He would only attack in ways that left no room for manipulation.

Orion arrived in front of Shahsta in a fraction of a second later. Faintly, behind him, he could sense Gregor rapidly approaching.

However…

He was too late.

The Rakkonian Great Wizard, weakened by her injuries, was unable to react.

Just as Orion was about to blow her head off…

“You should have stayed dead.”

A wash of silver light flashed in front of Orion as Yvvtal the Destroyer abruptly appeared in front of him, moving supernaturally fast.

The bright Aura around Yvvtal rapidly faded, but not before the Fallen Deity intercepted Orion and began to attack.

In a single, transcendent moment, Yvvtal’s arms turned into blurs as he punched, and punched, and punched Orion. The Fallen Deity’s movements were a thing of beauty, blow after blow thrown forward in perfect unison from each hand.

The resulting clash formed a massive shockwave that blew Shahsta backwards, causing the already horribly injured Great Wizard to collapse in shock.

As for Orion…

29 times.

Just now, in that tiny moment, 29 individual punches slammed into the defensive posture he had barely managed to take up, each strong enough to crater stone.

With a sickening crunch, Orion felt his left arm break as he registered the impact of the attack.

Then, like a meteor falling from the sky, Orion flew backwards through the air and collided with the walls of the Sanctum, smashing through a half dozen layers of reinforced stone.

The wards guarding the Sanctum had been largely destroyed thanks to his efforts breaking in earlier, causing the overwhelming slew of punches to send the First Lord barreling through towards the center of the Sanctum.

Stone rubble and dust littered the air as Orion stumbled to his feet, his lungs burning. Blood dripped down from his injuries as he concentrated, activating the Elemental Lightning in his body to stimulate his regenerative powers.

The First Lord heaved a ragged breath before pausing, his senses picking up signs of yet another human.

“You damned rats are everywhere.” Orion muttered as he spotted the culprit.

A young, brown haired human standing near the one of the open sarcophaguses, at the center of the Sanctum.

And it was here, in this brief moment, that Orion reflected on his failure.

“Hah. My pride.” Orion muttered as he grabbed his left arm with his right, setting the broken bone.

‘I suppose that’s why things have gone wrong.’

The First Lord’s mind was operating at hyperspeed at the current moment, his senses tingling from the extraordinary battle he was fighting.

‘I thought nothing could stop me. That failure was impossible. That I had grown strong, strong enough to need nothing else… no one else… to gain victory.’

The air was electric as Orion took a long, deep breath, and then exhaled.

‘I was wrong.’

Orion felt his pride slip between his fingers as he laughed silently to himself, ignoring the pain from his cracked ribs.

‘To use a power gained from them…’ Orion’s bloodshot eyes trembled as a small blue screen appeared in front of him.

.

– - Title: The Herald of Ruin – -

He who has brought Ruin to everything he touched.

The Heavens welcome the Herald of Ruin.

.

‘So be it.’

For the first time since this fight began, Orion Thunderfist activated his Title.

And…

Not a moment later…

He was met with a sword to the face.

.