Chapter 561 - 10th Round's King

POV Nathaniel

The price to pay for getting rid of Derick is high. A projectile from Noelle pierces through my side and burns a hole through me and the flesh around it. Another one hits the ground, generating that field and stunning me.

Even though this time I get out of it faster than before, there is enough time for that young Korean girl to reach me and hit me on my head. Only the barrier I form with my mana keeps me from instant death, but it shatters, and though the damage is reduced, I still get hit.

It whips my head back, sending my body flying.

I absorb the momentum of my movement, and three lightning projectiles hit where I would have been if I had continued to roll. Then I boost myself to the side to avoid the attack and the stomp of the girl that cracks the floor.

For that short moment, silence ensues as I pull myself to my feet, my body swaying before I stand tall. I take a deep breath, then patch my body with mana as much as possible to stop the bleeding. I knit the wounds closed with mana threads or create patches of mana to keep larger wounds sealed.

Missing arm, nearly broken arm. Cracked skull, and a hole through my side. A hole in my chest that damaged my lungs, and more.

In that time the [King] of the 10th round comes closer as well. Like the girl, he shows no visible damage from the blast of the thermal orb. He moves lazily, looks me up and down, then sits on a nearby pile of rubble.

“Kang Jiwon,” he calls to the girl, “this is too much work; it was supposed to be a quick fight.”

The 12-year-old Kang Jiwon starts trailing a circular trajectory around me with the same emotionless expression.

She calls to the man, “Master, please take this seriously. That man is dangerous. If you make a mistake, both of us will die.”

The man just shrugs and rolls his shoulders, “I can't bring myself to care, Kang Jiwon. It's not like we can actually die here anyway.”

“Please, master, don’t make our round seem like a failure.”

“Sure. Sure.”

I don't interrupt and instead stay quiet, using the time to patch my inner wounds. I take some of my concentration to keep it all up, but it's better than just letting it be.

When I'm done, he turns to me and smiles, “Ready?”

Before he even finishes his question, he moves. The same dark blue armor with a metallic shine surrounds him as he appears in front of me through teleportation. Only now do I notice the mark he sneakily placed here to allow for it.

Right under my nose, without me noticing.

I use [Eclipse], draining the colors from the area and modifying it against his armor, but this time it doesn't disappear. It resists, and the sword cuts diagonally at me, forcing me to use Wraith Dance to dodge.

The [King] follows behind me, each step of his armor tearing the ground under immense force. The constantly changing frequency of his armor now resists my disruption. The armor itself deflects my bursts of kinetic energy; even if they push him back, he comes charging at me again.

After dodging another strike, I let my mana seep out, forming into similar armor that I grow to match his and compress further. The sword forms as well, laced with my resonating mana.

We collide, and I get pushed back until I send more kinetic energy through my armor, powering it further and pushing him back.

He nimbly dodges my attack and slashes where my body is inside the armor. His sword expands in size and stops only against the arm of my armor. In an instant, his armor shrinks until it's skin-tight, and he jumps against the chest of my armor and stabs his sword into it.

I blink as that sword pierces through and stops only a palm's reach away from my eyes.

His helmet disappears and I can see him smile as he jumps back. The armor around him again expands to five times his height. The design stays the same, slim and deadly, but the sword is replaced by a hammer which he swings at me.

A burst of kinetic energy slows the hammer, and I block the rest of the force, absorbing its impact as it crashes against me. At the same time, a few lightning projectiles embed into my back.

That much should be enough.

I release more of my mana; it seeps out of me, swirls around me, fills my armor, and expands until it stands even taller than the [King]'s.

While his armor is slim and deadly with a metallic shine, mine is thicker and affected by my pride; it is slightly ornamented, maintaining a pretty yet functional design.

I move quicker than he does even though I'm dealing with the greater mass of my armor. My kinetic mana heart beats quickly, turning mana into kinetic energy that I use for movement.

My fist crashes against his head and sends him staggering back. Then my armor disappears, all that mana turning into projectiles that bombard the top of the tower where Noelle is. Dozens, even hundreds of them, tear the roof apart and follow her as she tries to dodge until one hits, and more of them smash against her.

The notification for the kill finally rings.

Floating there, I turn my attention back to the 10th round [King] and weave an [Empyrean Lance]. I shoot it at the spot where I sense his body signature. The lance pierces through the mana of his armor easily and reaches where he is before a light flashes, and his figure flies out of the armor and crashes against the wall.

Right away I sense that he is still alive, and I fly towards him, in my flight avoiding the Korean girl who jumps from the nearby wall in an attempt to stop me.

As I reach the [King], he is already on his feet, still undamaged. In his hand is his sword made of mana. Even though it is cracked, it still holds.

He moves quickly to get out of the field created by my lance at the place where it crashed, and I follow behind him. Only after a few steps does he stop and change direction to rush right at me. The girl does the same, and they attack me from different sides.

In the last few steps, the girl moves quicker than before, pushing her body over the limit and crashing against me with surprising speed.

As I'm absorbing the force of her attack, the [King] attacks from the other side.

I look towards him and allow my eyes to collect more information, straining my brain as I read his mana fluctuations.

Instead of [Eclipse], I send a disrupting wave at his mana sword, which disappears from his hand just a moment before it could cut into my neck. I twist my body and, with an open palm, hit the girl, releasing a concentrated burst of kinetic energy.

As expected, she endures the first one, but two more follow in quick succession until they explode a chunk of her body, and she is thrown away. Before I can follow, my foot is cut off, making me fall to the ground. There, I roll to the side and avoid the stab of the sword into my chest before releasing another blast of kinetic energy at him.

He cuts through it with his sword, the same metallic shine surrounding it as his armor did before.

Then the girl is back and strikes against my chest.

I absorb all the kinetic energy from her attack and release it to move faster, stopping just in time to let a sword slash past me and drive my mana-formed hand into his leg. Before I can deal more damage, his sword shortens, and he stabs at my head, but I twist my body, and my shoulder takes the hit.

Through the mark I have placed on his leg while piercing him, I release a good amount of thermal energy and it envelops him.

The girl reaches me again and I release a powerful burst of flames, impressive but not that strong and intended to blind her. Through the flame wall, I shoot two mana javelins boosted by kinetic energy, and both of them pierce through her chest, stabbing her against the wall.

Gazing at me and without hesitation, she pulls them out of her body, one after another, and breaks them in her hands. She takes a few steps towards me before coughing up blood and slowing down. She breathes heavily while watching me with that emotionless expression.

The man is alive as well, stepping out of the flame explosion with the armor surrounding him again, this time much smaller, only the size of his body.

“Are you fine, Kang Jiwon?” he asks.

“Yes. I can attack one more time, master,” she answers.

That makes him laugh out loud, and he shakes his head, “You cannot. See you in the common area.”

With that, I send a small tricolored orb through the mark I left on her.

The explosion makes both of us stagger, and I get the notification about the kill.

Finally, I fully break through that annoying field left behind by the item and throw a few Ley Lines around the area.

Surprisingly, he can see it, his eyes moving and gazing over the exact places where that shimmering pale blue line is.

“I'm Baek Kwaneok,” he greets.

“Noname,” I answer back.

“Haaa,” he sighs. “Concentration types, all the same.”

Still looking at me, he says, “I wasn't able to get rid of the mark you left on me, and I have no intention of cutting off my leg, so do what you have to do.”

Even as he says that he charges at me, and through the mark I left on him, I send another tricolored orb, followed by a burst of thermal energy.

The two explosions surround him, but from inside of it he moves out. Four wings made of the same metallic, shining mana extend from his back, and his leg, where I left the mark, is clearly cut off.

I move to teleport, but I fail to activate it. In a last-ditch attempt, he takes over what remains of the field they created at the start of the fight with that item and reactivates it one more time. Both of his eyes bleed and his heart skips a beat and sustains damage under the effort he needs to exert.

He crashes against me and attempts to stab his sword through me, but I let it stab my forearm instead and redirect it into the ground as we fall down.

“I lied,” he laughs, and with a huge smirk, he moves to smack his head against mine, the last of his mana moving there to create a barrier around his forehead.

Instead of targeting it, I release collected kinetic energy in front of me, exploding his body and sending him back before he can hit me.

Noname (Beyond, King) ⟶ Baek Kwanseok (King) +5,000 pts

After searching through the area and making sure no one is around, I take a deep breath and stay lying there for a second.

Just one.

Then I patch up what remains of my body and stand up.

I know I'm likely being watched through the screens in the common areas of the other rounds, so I show no hesitation, no weakness. Looking up to where I think the "camera" is, I release my mana, filling the area in movement like a blazing flame that surrounds me and reaches toward the sky.

I modify the way I radiate it and its fluctuation, and just that combined with sheer pressure breaks the barrier.

For that brief moment, I let all my mana blaze at full power to send a message. To her and everyone else.

Then I pull it back inside my body and contain it all.

It's my mana. And after the fight, though I went through so much, more than half of it still remains.

***

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