Instead of despairing as any sane, normal man would, Kyle began to grin the instant he recognised whom the old man represented. “Disciple Greyborn greets Elder Huang!” Kyle quickly shouted, catching the old man off-guard.
However, the old man did not let go yet, though his brows were clearly furrowed in confusion. “Disciple Greyborn…? I don’t recall having a disciple with this name…”
“I was guided and taught by Disciple Salos in Raktor.”
Instead of relaxing, the old man tightened his grip, causing Kyle to wince as his arm was twisted against his back unnaturally. For all his stats and system buffs, even the Arcian physique did not bend that way.
“Salos, that dirty little rascal!” Elder Huang fumed, arcia energy rippling through his hand uncontrollably as it was slightly affected by the Negation Field, turbulent and pulsating outwards. A few tendrils seeped into Kyle’s skin, absorbed by his body automatically, with Elder Huang immediately noticing. Weird… “You… who are you?”
This is My Turf!
An invisible force pulsed forward, knocking Elder Huang back and forcing him to let go of Kyle. Kyle quickly recovered, but instead of going into a fighting posture, he clasped his hand together and bowed ever so slightly. “Disciple Salos has told me great things about you, Elder Huang. It is my pleasure to meet you.”
Elder Huang recovered as well, surprised at the sudden force that seemed to erupt from nowhere, though it was not the first time he had experienced such a skill. With a sudden burst of speed, the old man lunged forward, his fist aimed straight at Kyle’s face.
Kyle did not dodge, allowing the fist to be deflected by This is My Turf. However, the forcefield acted as a bubble instead, knocking Kyle backwards as the fist slammed into it, the air rippling. His feet grating against the metal cavity of the fallen mech with sparks flying, Kyle attempted to stabilise himself.
The elder raised his hand in the air as he observed the irregular flow of arcia energy coursing through his veins and capillaries. “An interesting trick. Might work against fledgling mages, but not against those who are more experienced.”
Is he talking about the negation field? Kyle wielded his warhammer warily, staring at the elder who seemed preoccupied with the effect of the Negation Field. “I do not want to fight you elder. I believe there is grounds for cooperation.”
“What cooperation is there to be had with a heretic?”
The eyes of Elder Huang flared with arcia energy. For a brief moment in time, Kyle lost sight of him immediately, the elder appearing behind and delivering a kick to the forcefield once more. Kyle grunted as he bore the reaction force, but a follow-up arcia blast from the elder knocked him over.
Kyle was bounced around the interior of the mech like a ping-pong ball, though he suffered no injuries. The forcefield suddenly dissipated as the duration ran out, causing Kyle to panic slightly. Can I take the elder’s hit head-on? Can I even defeat him?
The ADCON soldiers that were following Kyle all leapt into the collapsed cavity, intending to back up Kyle. However, the elder immediately launched a series of pure arcia bolts towards them, the bolt tearing and twisting through the weak armour and gouging out their innards, killing them on the spot as the point defence systems failed.. The elder turned to face Kyle, his expression enraged.
“Do not think I am not going to kill you. Fight!” Elder Huang roared, launching a furious combo head-on aimed straight at Kyle. The brutal impacts from each punch and kick fragmented the exosuit that Kyle was wearing, the armour being chipped off heavily despite the Sturore augmentation.
The elder weaved in a few blasts of energy bolt, attempting to blow through Kyle’s exosuit. Kyle’s eyes spotted the buildup of arcia energy beforehand, using his inbuilt point defence engravings to cancel the bolts, deflecting them as they lanced across the destroyed mech, burning holes through the metal.
Kyle activated every skill he had on hand to defeat the elder, yet he could only muster a meagre effort to fend and parry every incoming hit. The back-and-forth lasted more than two minutes, as the two danced a furious battle of strength and will across the metal cavity, their footwork impeccable as they avoided debris and sparking wires in a fluid movement.
I can’t keep up – Penchant of Violence only lasts so long, and Intimidation Aura hardly affects him! Kyle knew there was still a minute left on the Negation Field, but it seemed to have no effect on the elder as every punch and kick was still arcia-infused.
Through his racial ability to be Arcian, he could see the surface flow of arcia energy swirling along the edges of the elder’s skin, the fine control limiting the turbulence effect of the Negation Field. The elder is adapting to the constant force applied to the Negation Field. What I need to do is to switch it up!
“Elder, do not waste your energy. You cannot kill me; neither can I kill you!” Kyle huffed as he parried yet another hit, the arcia-infused strike bruising his arm.
The elder immediately took offence, his eyes flaring in the same pattern as before when he teleported.
Now!
Kyle immediately turned off the Negation Field, allowing the arcia energy to flow back as per normal. The sudden change in flow caught the elder off-guard, resulting in the skill’s attempt to be aborted while the rampant energy burst out of the elder’s pores, causing him to bleed all over in a split second, the blood barely visible as dark blotches on the surface of the red robe.
“Guh!” The elder staggered backwards as Kyle took the offence, immediately launching his own attack with the warhammer, swinging it right at the elder’s head without hesitation. Instead of turning the elder’s bald head into a splatter, the elder suddenly disappeared again for the third time.
Kyle instinctively continued the swing behind him, expecting the elder to teleport to his back, but there was no one there. Unexpectedly, a punch landed straight onto his helmet from the front, sending him sprawling through the debris, his warhammer flung off to the side, and his helmet completely cracked apart.
“Give up, heretic.” The elder spoke calmly as he walked towards Kyle, apparently having ‘teleported’ in place. “No one can escape the judgement of Goddess Nona, not even false messeng-“ The elder suddenly paused, noticing that Kyle had a slight smirk on his face.
“That was your last shift, wasn’t it?”
“How-“
Kyle ripped off the vestiges of his helmet, bursting out in fury at the elder who was already injured from the previous destabilization of arcia energy. With a single command, Kyle unleashed all of his point defence engravings right at the elder, the green arcia bolts barraging the elder directly.
The elder attempted to deflect as many of the bolts as possible, using his hands to sway and direct the incoming bolts. However, some hit him right on the legs and body, causing him to weaken even further as Kyle charged right in barehanded,
“You!” The elder barely managed to utter as Kyle quickly pressured the elder into a stalemate while using the Necklace of Healing to self-heal himself. The elder did not dare to use his pure arcia energy bolt as he did not know if Kyle would activate the Negation Field again, potentially causing a backlash in energy.
However, the elder was no easy foe, even with basic combat skills – immediately using his overpowering strength and control to force Kyle backwards. The clear difference was the utilisation of arcia energy: the elder was clearly a master of infusing arcia energy with each strike and parry, reinforcing his own body, while Kyle could only rely on the quickly deteriorating armour of the Version 0 exosuit. I need to learn how to infuse my hits with arcia energy as well!
So far, Kyle has been relying on external engravings and inbuilt system skills to utilise arcia energy. Seeing the prowess of the elder gave him a new insight into how to use arcia energy properly through the body. Is that what the Arcia Reinforcement skill is about?
Kyle put his focus into channelling a small amount of arcia energy, taking one step at a time. The tendrils of arcia energy that leaked beyond his skin were noticed by Elder Huang, who was even more surprised at his stunning learning speed of Kyle. The intensity of the fight picked up as the elder tried to kill Kyle before he could match on par.
However, the Arcian physique of Kyle allowed him an increasing learning efficiency, with Kyle eventually being able to consistently imbue a tiny amount of arcia energy into his skin to serve as a defence enhancement, though he still winced under pain of each impact. His arms and legs were already badly bruised, only buoyed by the minor healing effect of the Necklace of Healing.
“Roach, just die!” Elder Huang spat through gritted teeth, having not expected to take this long to kill Kyle. The battle lasted for more than seven minutes, with Kyle only increasingly balancing the scales. If I knew he would have been this hard to kill, I would have kept Harrison alive!
Kyle knew he could not last forever as well – his body, too, had a limit, and there was nearly no chance that the elder would falter before him.
“No reason to fight, Elder!” Kyle shouted as he threw another fist which was caught. The two of them grappled, attempting to flip the other to the ground to pin them down, grunting and staggering over the fray of wires and metal even as sounds of fighting and explosions rocked the city of Utul. “I am willing to take the Prophet’s Trial as penance!”
The elder immediately stopped fighting, leaping backwards to create some distance between himself and Kyle, his face flabbergasted at what Kyle had just said before he quickly wiped the confusion away. “Do not try to divert my attention with mere sayings. You know not of what you speak.” However, the elder no longer tried to kill Kyle, instead examining Kyle warily.
Kyle smirked, knowing he had caught the elder. This was why he had used the Goddess Nona as the main message to rally the people in Versia. His original plan was to use the message to lure the cult members into helping with his rebellion while promising to do the Prophet’s Trial. It was a sound plan at that time, as Kyle had no supporting factions within Versia.
“Even if you consider me a heretic, I am still afforded the right to attempt the trial.”
“Every participant who has entered the ravine has never returned.”
“Except the founder.”
“You dare compare the founder of the sect to you? You’re but a whelp!” The elder bristled, about to fight again.
“Given enough time, I will be able to clear the trial. Even I was able to counteract your Dimensional Shift skill.”
The elder’s eyes widened as he was about to retort before thinking carefully about Kyle’s unique abilities to disrupt arcia flow. He knows of my secret skills and can learn through battles extremely fast. Perhaps….
Before Kyle could react, the elder lunged forward and slammed his palm right into Kyle’s neck, nearly choking Kyle out. The palm struck seared his skin with terrible pain, as a malicious arcia energy seeped into the depths of his body.
“Fine. The Trial is not open till six months later. You will have until then to prepare. Attempt to run, and I will chase you to the ends of the continent, even beyond the Great Waves, if you dare. Don’t even bother hiding – I will find you wherever you go.”
With that, the elder fluttered his robe as he turned around. “One more thing before I go. That was not my last shift.”
The elder disappeared from view in a violent, turbulent flow of air, teleporting to somewhere unknown. Kyle grimaced as he grunted, massaging his pained neck. He was originally not planning to take the Prophet’s Trial, intending to use the words only as a stopgap to buy time for him. Kyle would have loved to subjugate or even kill the elder, but right now, he was far too weak.
He tried to peek into his body using his Arcian physique, hunting down the malicious arcia energy that had gone completely dormant in his body. However, due to his low level of arcia control, he was unable to see it at all. I’ll try Negation Field later to purge it out.
The battle for Utul proceed as normal save for Kyle’s harrowing fight with the elder, the rest of the ADCON forces easily overwhelming the defences of Utul both from within and outside. In eight hours, most of the city was pacified, save for a few pockets of fierce resistance.
[Boss, what do we do with the captured leaders?] Feldon asked over the radio, having the industralists leaders all tied up and gagged in a row.
“Haul them all over to Tenar. Let Dekar sort them out. For now, scavenge every arcia ore and military supply we have. Prepare for our return to Raktor.”
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