Chapter 183
Chapter 183
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 183
Chapter Title: Proper Decisive Battle (2)
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“Take this!”
Nardok’s axe sliced in at a diagonal, sharp enough to cleave half his body clean off the moment it caught.
Dozens of solutions flashed through Arsen’s mind as he faced it down, each one appearing and vanishing in an instant.
This method wouldn’t work because of this, that one was out because of that, another...
As the dozens of countermeasures flickered by, one idea struck him like lightning.
Arsen put it into action immediately.
“Huh?!”
A sudden burst of light and thunderous roar engulfed Nardok.
The blinding flash clouded his vision, and the deafening boom shattered his focus, causing his axe to waver and lose momentum.
Arsen didn’t miss the opening. He deflected the axe precisely with the tip of his spear blade.
The axe slid obliquely along the conical spearhead, grazing past Arsen by a hair’s breadth.
“You—!”
He had no time to finish with “bastard.”
Arsen’s spear, having parried Nardok’s axe, thrust straight for his throat.
“Guh!”
Nardok grimaced fiercely and twisted his body with effort to deflect the spear.
Isht’s spear scraped across his breastplate, sparking wildly.
‘Tough!’
Nardok’s armor was no ordinary gear. Arsen’s strike had cracked it wide open, but it still shielded the flesh and blood beneath. For a weapon with Isht’s fearsome piercing power, that level of durability was almost unbelievable.
Arsen clicked his tongue lightly and fell back again, putting enough distance between them that reusing the same magnetic trick would be difficult.
Nardok brushed a hand over the deep gash in his armor and spoke.
“Clever. So that’s the trick you pulled.”
As he said it, the explosive javelins strapped to Arsen’s back rained down in a clatter.
“Hoo...”
Arsen exhaled softly at the stinging pain in his back.
Mid-pull, he’d detonated them all at once in midair for propulsion and to disorient his foe with the flash and boom. Strapped right to his body.
Detonating just one would’ve been blocked by his own anti-magic, robbing it of real power. He’d had to use every last one.
But it got him out of danger and even let him counterattack. Even if that counter hadn’t done much.
As he caught his breath, Arsen eyed one of Nardok’s axes.
The faint magical glow that had shimmered on it from the start—glowing brighter when the magnetism kicked in—was gone.
‘Magnetic spell’s single-use? Or needs time to recharge?’
He couldn’t be sure, but the situation suggested as much.
Maintaining distance, Arsen hurled a wing blade at Nardok to test him.
The flying blade met some strange force field and screeched like grinding metal.
“Annoying pest.”
Ranged weapons weren’t getting through. Arsen recalled the blade, noting it mentally.
No need to waste mana confirming what didn’t work.
‘For now, charge again!’
Time wasn’t on his side, so Arsen sucked in a deep breath and spurred the black lion into another rush.
“Come on!”
The opponent’s slow drawl reached him. Arsen obliged, thrusting his spear straight in.
Spear met axe in a shower of sparks, the clash booming loud enough to stall the area around them.
Then the exchange began.
Arsen and Nardok fought without pause, not even breathing, trading blows in that single frozen instant.
Clang, clang, clang!
Like dozens of giants hammering metal at once, their weapons collided several times a second, each impact thundering.
Their mounts—a lion and a bear—traded fierce advances and retreats, gauging distance, swiping with forepaws or baring fangs.
Those watching couldn’t help but lower their weapons and gasp in awe. Even the knights.
The scene was too transcendent for them.
“Good lord...”
“Are those really humans?”
Knights were already superhuman to ordinary folk—well-trained ones could mow down dozens of common soldiers like weeds.
That’s why regular warriors saw knights as more than human: absolute predators.
And now, those superhuman knights were staring at Arsen and Nardok the way commoners stared at knights.
Like facing a predator you couldn’t beat with any trick—just overwhelm with numbers and sacrifice.
Of course, Arsen—actually in the thick of it—felt no awe. Just the thrill of survival.
‘Can’t breathe.’
His adventures had made him insanely strong.
Strength, speed, even skill.
He’d nearly mastered the high knight techniques Kren taught him and adapted fully to his second essence absorption.
He could beat Kren now, he was sure.
But even with that growth, he couldn’t overwhelm Nardok.
The massive size gap bred differences in reach and raw power. Decades of battle experience still loomed between them.
If he were at his power level back from the God Ruins city, he’d have been crushed without a fight. His growth let him hold this long.
‘Thrust, parry, deflect, dodge, redirect...’
Arsen maxed his thought acceleration, focusing on reading his foe’s moves and tells.
He analyzed them on the fly, too—recalling Palato’s old lessons.
—Your gift is unique.
—How so?
—You can think while fighting.
—Think...
—Against equals, there’s no room for thought. Empty your mind, trust instinct, focus on matching and outpacing move for move.
—Right.
Arsen knew it well. Without acceleration, he was just a knight with killer reflexes.
What had Palato advised?
—So use that weapon well. What others lack is your true edge.
‘Think.’
Not instinct—analyze, predict the next move.
Impossible for most, even masters. Combat’s too fast; they drill dozens of forms so the body auto-reacts at key moments.
But Arsen was different. Special.
‘Next attack’s an overhead chop. Deflected his spear last time—dodge this? Vertical to horizontal now. Twist at the waist, fall back a bit, thrust to check. Then...’
Headache throbbed from prolonged acceleration, but he ignored it—think, judge, move.
That’s what made this brutal exchange possible.
‘Physical stats favor him, skill edge too... no, my gift evens it half-half?’
If body and skill weren’t enough, use what’s outside them.
Arsen had no qualms relying on tools like some ancient warrior purist.
Disposable artifacts were part of your arsenal—use everything to win.
Or allies.
Scanning terrain amid the chaos, he pulled back briefly to breathe.
Naturally, Nardok pressed without mercy.
‘Tired. Time to end it!’
Unlike Arsen, nursing a headache from constant acceleration, Nardok was fresh.
Elixir and Dragon Heart pulsed inside him, flooding vitality.
He could fight half a day more.
But he didn’t underestimate Arsen.
‘Unbelievable whelp. In ten—no, five years, he’d have beaten me.’
Nardok had trained since he could toddle—over forty years, easy.
His foe’s bared face under the shattered helm? Boyishly young. Younger than his own son, half his training time.
Yet that whelp’s skill nipped at his heels.
‘So end it now!’
Nardok wasn’t unscathed either.
One constant annoyance against Arsen:
—Capture if possible. Don’t kill the enemy.
His pre-battle order to all troops.
Absurd in a deathmatch, but necessary.
Killing the heir—the library key—had been mistake enough once.
Applied to him too. He could press Arsen, but no killing blows.
Lest this foe be the heir, repeating history.
‘But I can take him now!’
Arsen’s reactions slowed—he was tiring, retreating, losing will.
Step by step, Nardok advanced, axes whirling furiously.
Finally—a clang—and Arsen lost his grip on the spear.
Nardok maneuvered his horn bear, kicking the rolling spear far away with a forepaw. Disarmed.
“Guh!”
“Got you!”
Crying it out, Nardok relaxed for a split second.
He knew even that spear couldn’t pierce his armor fully. Natural.
So he never guessed Arsen had lured him here—hadn’t dropped it from fatigue, but on purpose.
Not even when the ground suddenly sank beneath his mount’s feet.
“Hah...!”
A soft *squish* as the earth gave way.
Already off-guard, Nardok froze in shock, mind blanking.
Eloise had made the trap.
‘Got him!’
Even in the melee, per Arsen’s earring request, she’d extended thorny vines underground, hollowing a pit and filling it.
When Arsen led Nardok over it, she got the signal and released the spell.
Unsupported, the ground collapsed instantly.
Size and mount normally put their eye levels near a meter apart.
Now, with Nardok’s footing gone, they matched.
Arsen charged, clutching a gem.
“What the—!”
Gripped in his fist, to Nardok it looked like suicide.
Flustered, he swung his axe flat to smash Arsen’s face.
Subdue, not kill.
‘Endure!’
Arsen saw the blade coming but didn’t flinch. He leaned into it.
A force field bloomed beside his face, halting the giant’s axe.
“What?”
Arsen’s relic armor—once Roaring Zanark’s—had a quirk: when helmetless, it shielded head-bound attacks.
Anun hadn’t known, lost to Zanark. Forewarned, Arsen had bypassed by choking instead of head strikes to win.
Seizing the stunned gap, Arsen shoved his hand through the field—right up to Nardok—dropped the gem, and leaped back.
The gem from hero Müshu’s last reversal shot. So potent even knowing its magic made one shudder.
“Grah, aaaaagh—!”
As Arsen retreated, black-red liquid erupted from the gem, engulfing Nardok and igniting.
Burning oil.
Ancient chemical weapon the ancients weaponized—unblockable even by knight anti-magic.
“Roooaaargh—!”
A piteous scream echoed from the blazing armor.
The oil swathed his whole suit, relentlessly scorching inside.
Nardok leaped from his jin, rolling madly on the ground. His flamboyantly burning form resembled a fire incarnate, in a way.
‘It worked...’
He’d weighed every failure chance: field blocking, armor resisting, Nardok dodging or batting it away.
A gamble accounting for all.
Suppressing relief-weakened limbs, Arsen fetched a new weapon to finish him—not the flung drill spear, but his secret ace: the mace.
He needed to be cautious with it.
But as he raised it to smash down—
Something blocked his path.
“Protect His Majesty!”
“Keep that monster back!”
“Mages! Extinguish the fire, now!”
The kingdom’s army, who’d been pressing Arsen’s allies toward suppression, wheeled en masse to assault him.
At terrible cost, of course.
Arsen’s cornered forces struck back savagely at the turned foes.
“Gahk!”
“Kill ’em quick! Don’t let these bastards reach big bro!”
“Help Sir Arsen!”
Bazkal roared, wind axe beheading two knights in a flash.
Yet even as spears, swords, arrows tore them, the kingdom knights lunged at Arsen to shield their king.
A dozen encircled him, weapons raised.
Arsen bellowed lion-like at them.
“Come on—!”
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