Andrew Robinson Leinbach
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Chapter 176: King Hewin Vs Epecteos
🕑 Added 2023-07-04 23:45:04 +0000 UTCIsaiah
“So, you finally showed up.”
Isaiah had arrived in the capital city of Epecteos’s main planet of Toril about 30 seconds after Epecteos, so it wouldn’t be obvious they were together, even wearing a cloak to help hide his identity. And then he’d found a restaurant on the top of one of the city’s tallest buildings and ordered some food, waiting for Mila to either tell him she would no longer require their help or ask him and Epecteos to come rescue her.
Meanwhile, Epecteos had gone to a different restaurant and, as he owned the place, he’d just walked into the kitchen and asked for a specific meal before taking over a private dining area.
Then, however, a powerful aura spread out from the city’s teleportation platform, one obviously emanating from a C rank, and Isaiah watched as a man he recognized from several reports as King Hewin of the Violet Mountain Sect climbed into the air as if there was an invisible staircase.
“I’d started to think you were running away.” King Hewin used qi to carry his voice to the entire city down below and Epecteos flew out of the restaurant he’d been in and into the air to meet him
“Running away from what?” Epecteos also used qi to have his voice carry. “I don’t believe I’ve been issued any sort of challenge as far as I know. Was I running away from a planned ambush known only to you and the friends in your head?”
To Isaiah’s senses, King Hewin looked furious, but he took a deep breath so as to try and maintain his dignity. “Epecteos Ka’Dravone, I issue you a challenge to—”
“And I refuse.” King Hewin had been going to say more, but Epecteos cut him off. “I have nothing to gain from fighting you, Kalin. You may gain prestige by defeating me, but beating you again brings me nothing but political problems I don’t want to have to deal with.”
And with that, Epecteos started flying back down to the restaurant where he’d ordered food, while, at the same time, Aalam, also dressed in a cloak which obscured his features, arrived on the planet’s teleportation platform. Then he used the skill inscribed into his boots to teleport next to Isaiah, where he took a seat.
As soon as he’d seen King Hewin, Isaiah’d begun sharing his senses with both Aalam and Mila, and, while it seemed Mila was fine, Aalam had dropped everything and immediately come to join him, taking over the task of sending sensory information over to Mila, while also transmitting his senses to Diana and Irena as well.
As a result, as King Hewin summoned a large two-handed sword from his spatial storage ring and swung it with all his might at Epecteos’s back, Isaiah was able to see the cowardly move with more detail from sharing Aalam’s more powerful senses instead of having to rely on his own.
The offensive skill was infused with the power of the elements of lightning and fire, extremely domineering, and it was angled such that if Epecteos didn’t block it, all life on the entire planet of Toril might be destroyed. This was about as dirty of a move as one could perform, and also politically kind of asinine as, just within the range of Aalam’s Sensory Domain, seventeen different individuals were already filming the confrontation.
The cowardly act forced Epecteos to meet King Hewin head on, however, which was exactly what Hewin wanted.
What he probably wasn’t expecting, however, was the ease with which Epecteos defended. Meeting King Hewin’s blade with his longsword, Epecteos’s body, sword, and movements were all infused with his Laws of Stone, Iron, and Temporal Flux, blocking King Hewin’s sword with ease and weakening the qi and mana infused into it enough so that even the weakest G rank down below didn’t feel a thing.
“It appears you’ve improved slightly,” Epecteos spoke out, his voice ringing with anger. “But it seems your arrogance has grown at a far faster rate.
“Leave my Territory now, Kalin, and I’ll see to it that those recording us down below hand over their video files so the Violet Mountain Sect can save some face.” His voice then turned almost glacially cold. “Otherwise, I will end you for daring to attack my people.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” King Hewin began to laugh. “End me? Epecteos, you may have had a few breakthroughs since we last fought, but I’ve leveled up 13 times. You won’t even be able to injure me.”
King Hewin then attacked, his body and blade infused with Laws of the elements of fire and lightning, giving him an extremely domineering offense. But, as the angle no longer forced Epecteos to defend his citizens down below, Epecteos’s longsword was free to use a different style of defense than before, this time infused with Epecteos’s Laws of Rain, Shadow, and Soul Poison.
Epecteos had been lucky and had advanced his Law Pupa of Temporal Flux to middle grade only a few months after his Law Pupae of Void Slice and Iron, and, using the copy of the technique Diana had bought from the F rank Trial Tower, this had allowed him to train the Twelve Element Primal Code up to the 9th level during the time since. His version wasn’t as strong as Aalam’s heavenly spark variant, and he only received about 40% of the effect due to his foundation being absolutely terrible, but Epecteos’s control of his resources was far, far above Aalam’s from the beginning, so, with the Twelve Element Primal Code, he could now combine three of his Laws at once with ease. And this had allowed him to develop four new styles of his 12 Elements Psychic Swordsmanship.
The first combined his Laws of Stone, Iron, and Temporal Flux to create an incomparably powerful defense which he’d named Solid Stance. The second combined his Laws of Gust, Bolt, and Void Slice to create incomparably fast attacks which he’d named Speed Stance. And the third combined his Laws of Blaze, Illusion, and Regeneration to create attacks of ever growing power and mysteriousness which he’d named Growth Stance.
What he was using to fight King Hewin, however, was his fourth stance, Poison Stance. It was a shadowy style of swordsmanship which flowed like water. But the true danger of the stance was that every time he locked swords with King Hewin, a bit of poison entered into the king’s soul, and that poison was nearly impossible to spot as it was infused with the power of Shadow.
Even more important than Epecteos’s increased control of his resources, however, were the three temporary skills he and Aalam had managed to carve onto the surface of his soul. The first was a Rare grade berserking skill boosting Epecteos’s stats and energy flow for a limited amount of time. The second was another boosting skill which slightly increased the power of all of his Laws. And the third was a Rare grade version of the Heightened Senses skill which passively increased the accuracy of all of Epecteos’s senses.
With these three skills, Epecteos was able to make up for the difference in stats between him and King Hewin from the last time they had fought, and that made the difference between their Laws have a much higher effect.
After just a few minutes of fighting, King Hewin’s soul was filled with poison, and he was only just starting to notice, the poison beginning to slow and lessen the power of his attacks. And Epecteos then took the chance to launch an offensive, switching to his Growth Stance and putting King Hewin ever more on the defensive.
Over the next two minutes, Epecteos managed to nick King Hewin five times while King Hewin wasn’t able to draw blood once, and this seemed to anger the king into attacking with even more wild abandon, relying on his powerful armor to give him defense and putting his everything into his attacks.
This of course was incredibly stupid, as Epecteos just switched back to his Poison Stance and defended against every attack, even managing to nick King Hewin three more times. And being nicked by the Poison Stance was many, many times worse than being nicked by the Growth Stance, the amount of poison in King Hewin’s soul increasing by a very large amount and seemingly affecting his decision making as he attacked with even more unrestrained impulsiveness.
In a surprise move, Epecteos then changed to his Speed Stance, his sword becoming almost twice as fast, and, with his first stroke, he cut off King Hewin’s left hand at the wrist. Then he cut off the king’s right hand as well, the king’s sword and spatial storage ring both falling down into the city.
But Epecteos didn’t seem in the mood to show mercy, so he cut off King Hewin’s head as well.
This was nowhere near enough to kill a C rank, but King Hewin didn’t have enough energy to regenerate his body, so there wasn’t much he could do.
Floating down toward the city, Epecteos used Telekinesis to remove King Hewin’s armor from his body. Then he moved the king’s armor, sword, and spatial storage ring to the teleportation platform and used his status as the lord of the planet to teleport them to Earth before tossing the king’s head and hands on top of where his body had fallen.
With all his artifacts gone, King Hewin was no longer a threat, but still, as his head and hands reattached to his body and he stood up in only his underclothes, Epecteos held his longsword to the man’s throat. “Do you surrender?”
