Chapter 263: Ch-263: Sudden Interruption

"Ice Axe," Amber muttered, and a giant axe made up of Black Ice appeared in the sky.

The axe weighed about six hundred tons, and when it moved, it produced a sharp sound, slicing through the air.

Seraphina glanced at the axe in the air and gently waved her hand. Instantly, a wall of Darkness appeared above her as she watched it descend towards her.

Boom!

The axe struck the wall of Darkness, producing a loud explosion.

"Shit!" She cursed under her breath when she saw Amber had already turned the shotgun into its sniper form and was aiming at her.

Bang!

Before she could react, the sound of the shot firing left the gun, and Seraphina’s body exploded into a blood mist.

Flesh mixed with blood scattered everywhere on the stage as everyone looked at it. There was a beat of silence until...

"Holy shit, she’s dead!" Valerie said with a pale face as she looked at how badly the shot had killed Seraphina. She immediately became nervous as she started to doubt whether the stage could truly revive someone who had died on it, and looked at the royal family with fear and nervousness, but was surprised that they did not seem bothered.

What even shocked her more was the new wave of applause for Amber and cheers from the crowd.

"What on heavens was that attack even?"

"This is the first time I’m seeing a Soul Weapon that is a gun... this is insane."

"One shot and the Princess died temporarily."

"I never imagined the Princess would lose to someone her age."

’Oh, that must be the regeneration function,’ Victor thought as he watched the blood start to float. He had seen similar fighting stages before; even top guilds had one.

The blood started to float and converge together while the flesh lying on the ground started to writhe. Soon, the blood and flesh started to join together and formed the figure of Seraphina again.

"Huff... Huff." Seraphina panted with one knee planted on the stage and muttered under her ragged breath as she looked up at Amber. "You caught me off guard... not bad... no one managed to kill me with only a single strike."

"Thanks," Amber said as she walked up to her and offered her hand, which she took.

"Sigh, it had been such a long time since I experienced the feeling of dying," Seraphina said with a theatrical sigh, like she often died in battle.

Amber’s lips twitched upon hearing this and she could not help but become curious and asked, "It seems like you die a lot... if you don’t mind, how many times did you die exactly?"

"Hmm, I don’t remember, but..." Seraphina was startled for a moment due to the unexpected question and rubbed her chin as she pondered before replying, "Maybe 421 times."

"Cough... Cough... what!" Amber choked on her saliva, and her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. It seemed like she had discovered the second anomaly after Victor.

Amber then looked at Seraphina with awe and astonishment. Just the pain and mental strain of dying so many times would drive someone insane, but here she was, acting casual.

"Anyway, it’s time for the next participants. Let’s step aside," Seraphina remarked as Amber nodded and went back to the stage, and then King Alaric dropped onto the stage.

"Everyone, today I have an announcement to make. We have been graced by the presence of not one, but four human friends who have arrived in our Kingdom, and they will be treated with the highest standards," Alaric’s voice resounded across the arena.

The people were silent for a moment, but then everyone’s head snapped towards Victor’s group, and they sensed their aura, and their expressions changed.

"Heavens, it’s true. I can tell from this angle that they are humans."

"Even their looks are a bit different... the only difference is that we have horns and they don’t."

"Where on heavens did they even come from?"

Alaric was pleased with the reaction and then said something which made the crowd turn into a frenzy. "Today, I am going to fight Sir Victor."

Victor smiled upon hearing his announcement and also jumped onto the stage.

"Alright, bring out your Soul Weapon," Alaric said with a smile.

Victor raised his hand, and dark smoke erupted from his palm, and soon the shape of a scythe started forming.

As soon as the scythe appeared in his hands, everyone in the crowd felt a chill run down their spines, even the royal family, who had already seen it.

’From up close, it feels even more dangerous.’ Alaric’s face turned a bit grave while the crowd broke into an uproar.

"Why is my body shaking so much?"

"H-H-Heavens, what kind of Soul Weapon is this... how did this human get such a dangerous weapon in his hands?"

"I have never heard of such a weapon. My Bloodline is telling me not to get close to it... or something bad will happen."

"Such a vicious weapon."

Victor ignored the commotion, and his eyes glinted as he muttered in a chilling voice, "Bloodlust."

After a moment of silence, an overwhelming amount of killing intent suddenly burst from Victor’s body like a volcano, shocking everybody there.

"Aaaah!"

Many spectators screamed in terror the moment they felt his killing intent, and some of them even fell unconscious due to the hallucinations they started experiencing. The others who managed to remain conscious had pale faces and sweat covering their bodies as they grabbed the unconscious demons and moved several steps back. Even that was not enough, as the range of the Bloodlust was too great.

Despite the chaos, Victor continued to release his killing intent, filling the entire training area with it.

"T-This guy..." Valerie couldn’t stop her body from shaking with fear, and her body quickly became soaked in sweat.

Even the elders like Maria, Jack, Seraphina, Amber, and Rina couldn’t stand still.

Eventually, Victor had to concentrate the amount of killing intent he was releasing, as he noticed it was affecting the demons, and directed all of it towards Alaric, who also had an alarmed expression.

Alaric’s expression changed as he also released his own killing intent, and the crowd, which was already pale, became even whiter.

"Am I seeing this right? Father’s killing intent is getting overwhelmed," Jack said with an open mouth as he looked at Victor’s killing intent suppressing his father’s.

Even Alaric frowned upon seeing this and thought with a sigh, ’Just how many have fallen into his hands... as expected, even young and new Night Slayers are cruel and ruthless.’

The only reason Victor’s Bloodlust was greater than someone much older than him and way stronger, like King Alaric, was that Alaric was new and hardly anyone challenged or defied the king except during training and occasionally killing some demons. He had not killed nearly as many as Victor had in such a short period of time.

Even though Alaric was affected by the Bloodlust, he willed a shield to stop the hallucinations he was seeing, but Victor did not care, as he had already achieved his goal of activating the ’One for All’ skill of the Soul Weapon.

"This..." The next moment, Alaric’s voice trembled as he felt himself getting weaker, as more than half of his total power had been reduced, and he felt Victor’s aura surging on the other hand.

As Alaric became more and more panicked as he felt the aura around Victor increasing without a pause, Victor, on the other hand, was completely ecstatic.

"Holy shit, this skill of the scythe is completely broken!" Victor exclaimed and thought, "What if I also add the Origin Berserker Bloodline boost?"

Then Victor hurriedly manipulated his stats with his Bloodline and directly boosted his speed and physical strength to the max, and then looked at Alaric.

"Get ready, here I come!" Victor shouted as he tensed his legs.

"He is in trouble," Maria whispered as she could also feel a threat from Victor, and just as Victor was about to leap forward and strike...

"YOUR MAJESTY!" Both Victor and Alaric, who were about to clash, stopped and then looked at the person who had interrupted them.

They saw a soldier running towards them with a panicked look as he clutched his right shoulder, where his arm seemed to have been bitten off by something recently, as blood dripped from it.

Alaric frowned as he felt something was wrong and asked in a neutral voice, "What happened? Why are you so panicked?"

"K-King Alaric, it’s the devils," the soldier said in a terrified voice.

Hearing the word devils, the atmosphere instantly shifted and became chilly.

"This..."

Maria, along with Jack and Seraphina, landed near the soldier, and Maria asked, "Devils? What did they do?"

"DEVILS! THEY ARE ATTACKING THE KINGDOM AND SLAUGHTERING EVERYONE!" the soldier shouted at the top of his voice.

Everyone who heard this had their pupils constrict to the size of pinpoints as they shouted, "What?!"