Chapter 2474: Reaction

In a Behemoth Galaxy of Sector 721—

"...." The person sitting upon the throne, a Behemoth with an imposing presence who had ruled his entire Sector for millions upon millions of years and had long grown accustomed to watching events unfold from above... was visibly tense at this moment.

Before him stood a large number of enormous light screens spread throughout his vast hall, each one large enough to clearly display the distant scenes of the enormous war taking place elsewhere.

Each one transmitted a broadcast from the Soul Society to the outside through the seedlings planted within the spiritual domains of those operating those screens, and every single screen displayed a different scene from the battlefield, allowing him to follow numerous confrontations simultaneously.

One screen showed a swarm consisting of 100 Nota fleets accompanied by another 1,000 support fleets, all of them engaged in battle against a large number of Horde fleets as the two sides continued exchanging attacks.

Another displayed the movements of World Cataclysms across their portion of the battlefield, while yet another showed violent strikes and exchanges between the numerous Nexus States currently fighting one another.

One of the screens showed several Guardians clashing from an extremely great distance, the cameraman remaining so far away that practically nothing of the combatants themselves could be seen except the distant lights produced by their explosions, while three entire screens were dedicated to the exploits of the Burton Family’s Soul Masters, who moved together in organized units of seventy, bringing down Nexus States and comfortably engaging Guardians through their elegant and coordinated teamwork.

"You useless bastards..." The Behemoth gritted his fangs hard as his irritation finally broke through. "Where are the important scenes? What is this garbage they’re broadcasting?!"

This furious shout didn’t come from the mouth of that Behemoth alone. Every Behemoth and Monarch watching from elsewhere, everyone who genuinely cared about the outcome of this battle and even many of those who didn’t particularly care about it, shouted angrily in much the same way after seeing what the Shadow Swords had chosen to show them.

Most of them were closely following the events for one reason alone: evaluating strength. They wanted to see Renara, Marlik, and the other Behemoths in actual combat rather than merely standing opposite one another, so they could observe their techniques and methods with their own eyes, understand how they fought, and then think of possible ways to counter those techniques in case they ever had to fight against them personally. Information like this was literally priceless... but despite the enormous number of broadcasts covering the war, their hopes remained unfulfilled.

The Shadow Swords hadn’t broadcast anything from the actual battle between Marlik and Renara. They had continued filming until the exact moment Marlik finally lunged forward to begin the confrontation, and then that particular broadcast had simply ended... Was the cameraman supposed to have suddenly gone on vacation at precisely that moment? Obviously, he’d done it deliberately!

The exact same thing applied to the battles involving the other Behemoths. The cameramen would happily capture long, silent scenes of them while they were merely standing around and talking to one another before the battle, but the moment the actual fighting began and the information everyone truly wanted was about to appear, they would immediately switch to filming something completely different... like two warships chasing each other through space, or something equally unrelated to what those powerful viewers actually wanted to see.

Yet despite knowing perfectly well what the Shadow Swords were doing, everyone continued watching every single scene from every available broadcast with their eyes fixed firmly upon the screens. Every Behemoth everywhere, along with everyone else possessing comparable status and enough interest in the battle, was sitting there watching everything live... all of them hoping that one of those cameramen would eventually make a mistake, hesitate for a moment, or fail to switch the broadcast quickly enough and allow them to glimpse something, anything at all.

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Whoooosh

"Bring out your next weapon!!" Marlik advanced rapidly toward Renara once again with his sword raised, wasting no time after destroying her previous weapon.

And indeed, "Tch!" Renara immediately brought out a sword this time, replacing her ruined spear with another weapon, a third-grade planetary artifact.

This time, however, she didn’t attempt another thrust or directly compare her raw strength against Marlik’s after personally experiencing what had happened with the spear. Instead, she changed the manner of her attack and struck diagonally from above, bringing the weapon down with force while using the sword almost like a heavy cleaver.

"Useless!" Marlik didn’t change anything about what he was doing despite the change in Renara’s attack. He simply struck with his own sword as before, his eyes opened to their fullest this time as he carefully watched what was happening in front of him... watching.

BAAAAAAAM

An enormous wave of energy erupted from the collision and blasted through the surrounding region, violently crushing and distorting the space caught within its path.

Had a Nexus State been anywhere nearby when that wave swept outward, they would have been reduced almost instantly to a cloud of bloody dust without even having the chance to resist it, but fortunately for everyone fighting on the lower levels, the battlefield had expanded tremendously by now, spreading until the war covered an area approaching the size of an entire galaxy.

Space itself throughout the region had become like a battered rag after everything that had happened to it. If this degree of destruction had occurred anywhere else, a Space Beast would have emerged in response, especially considering that they were fighting directly beside the Isolated Region... but there was no Space Beast that would ever sense what was happening here and willingly come out now. Even if one had originally been hiding somewhere nearby, it must have fled far away by this point.

"That’s it." Marlik revealed a wide smile as he stared directly into Renara’s eyes from close range after their weapons collided, apparently satisfied with what he had just confirmed. "Bring out the next one!"

"...!!" Renara’s expression remained steady despite what had just happened, though her brows were slightly furrowed as she kept her eyes fixed on the man standing opposite her. "Wipe your nose, then talk."

Her new sword had bent badly from the collision, its formerly straight blade curving until it looked more like one of those crescent-shaped swords... but despite the miserable condition of Renara’s weapon, the exchange hadn’t passed without leaving its mark on Marlik either!

Marlik licked the blood gathering above his upper lip with obvious annoyance, his expression growing increasingly irritated by the sight of it. "Prepare your next weapon!" Then he raised his sword overhead at lightning speed and immediately brought it down again, this time clearly preparing to split Renara’s already damaged weapon cleanly in half with a single strike.

"There’s something you’ve forgotten." Renara didn’t attempt to exploit the apparent opening created when Marlik raised his sword and thrust toward him, because she knew perfectly well that doing so would only result in her head being split in half by the descending blade. Instead, she calmly prepared herself to receive the incoming attack, a faint smile appearing on her face as she continued, "...This isn’t a contest of weapons and raw power..."

BOOOOOOOOOOM

Krssh

Marlik’s sword descended once again and collided with Renara’s weapon, causing the same enormous explosion to erupt around them, but this time Renara’s already bent sword could endure no more and snapped apart like a wooden branch under the overwhelming force.

Faced with Marlik’s wide smile and the obvious intention behind his next movement as he prepared to follow immediately with another swing from below to above and cut Renara down before she could replace the shattered weapon... Renara simply continued what she had been saying.

"...I have my Law."

Then she calmly raised a single finger toward Marlik, pointing directly at him as she activated it. "Energy Direction!"

Hooooooo~

At first, Marlik felt nothing more than something resembling a faint breeze of air brushing against him, so light that under normal circumstances it wouldn’t have been worth paying attention to.

Then a brilliant light suddenly began filling his vision, growing so intense that for an instant it felt as though he had somehow been transported directly into the heart of a star mere seconds before that star exploded.

Then... he couldn’t see anything anymore. He could only feel.

The enormous amount of energy generated by their latest exchange, combined with the energy released through the destruction of a third-grade planetary artifact, wasn’t allowed to naturally dissipate outward in every direction as an enormous wave this time. Instead, every bit of that tremendous energy was redirected and concentrated toward Marlik.

At that moment, standing directly before the tremendous force rushing toward him, Marlik was like a tiny butterfly facing the outlet of an enormous water dam that had suddenly burst open and released everything behind it at once.

Faced with that overwhelming amount of energy arriving almost instantly, Marlik didn’t say anything, nor did he attempt to turn around and escape from it. There simply wasn’t enough time for something like that.

All he could do, within fractions of fractions of a second, was gather and concentrate his defenses in front of his terrified face as quickly as possible... and brace himself for what was about to hit him.

Poof

BOOOOOOOOOOOOM

As though an enormous dragon had breathed directly into a helpless cat’s face from point-blank range, Marlik was violently sent flying backward through space, disappearing into the distance with no indication whatsoever that he would stop anytime soon.

"Hoooh~" Renara, on the other hand, remained where she was and released a long breath after watching him disappear into the distance. "That won’t keep him away for long..."

Then, without wasting the brief opportunity she’d gained, she immediately began searching through what she had for her next weapon, her brows remaining furrowed as she considered the limited choices available to her.

She didn’t actually have much worth mentioning... merely a handful of random weapons she’d picked up as spoils because they happened to possess cute, feminine appearances that appealed to her, along with two or three ancient weapons left from the Nine Paths Empire... but among all of them, there was nothing she could truly use properly in a battle like this.

Each one of those weapons would probably survive only one or two strikes against Marlik’s sword before breaking apart, while even the best among them might endure no more than three or four exchanges, but she didn’t want to sacrifice those particular weapons so casually because they were part of what remained of the inheritance left to her by her father and grandfather...

"...I have to find another way." Renara sighed as she continued considering the problem before her.

If she received even a single direct strike from that strange misty sword without another weapon standing between herself and its blade, the battle would be over.

This was the first time in her life that she had ever truly felt the importance of having a proper weapon!!

".....REEEEEEENARAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"