Chapter 778 - 778: A fundamentally different kind of fight (part 8)

It took a few seconds for the explosion to subside and even once it did, a green gem-like colored pilar of light could be seen coming from deep down the abyss all the way to the sky, releasing small currents of electricity from time to time.

The pillar of green lightning energy casted a dim light of the same color all over the battlefield.

"Hssssss!", as a result, that green light which was shinning upon the whole battlefield, caused sizzling sounds as it illuminated Arlion whose body and magic avatar were regenerating as of current.

"Right, I forgot to mention it, but techniques ranked fifty and above have double activation instances, the main one which can be divided in more than one stage as you just saw and an aftermath effect, like the "Emerald Firmament, Breaking First Light", you are experiencing right now", casually said Aisha as she pointed at the pillar of green energy which was projecting light of the same color that was melting Arlion's battle aura, since it had the sea devil ore property imbued into it.

"Crack!", the crown which rested on top of Arlion's head had a crack which crossed the thing from side to side, appear on it, as a sign of how much vitality and battle aura he used to endure the rainstorm technique earlier.

At this point Arlion was perfectly clear about something, his blood conquer curse was useless against the silver-haired girl in front of him.

'The after effect counts as again another new type of lineage energy… this is fucking ridiculous!', he cursed to his insides as he gritted his teeth so hard that he made his gums bled.

You might wonder why did Arlion focus in lineage related things for the center of his fighting style, and that's because of the context in which he grew.

Like previously stated he lived the cliche of the super powerful old man trapped into a family's relic, in terms of lineage Arlion was the least talented of the princes from his generation, he had more of his mother's side blood than the one of the king of back then, who had the degraded version of the white disaster shark's lineage running through his veins.

He was better than his brothers in everything else though, politics, economy, even fighting skills, but his low White's lineage purity made it so he hit a wall in his realm at an early age and his brothers surpassed him with ease.

So, one day when he was looking through old family records and similar things trying to find a solution to that, he found the pendant where Dian hid to survive the battle of back then, and using the knowledge from his dear "ancestor" he solved that problem, how you ask, well, he had a knack for blood refining since back then, because he used his brother's blood to improve his.

Of course, the history was changed and records of the Arlion whose lineage was "trash", couldn't be found anywhere, for the people of clear water kingdom, he was outstanding in all aspects since birth.

After that, he had a tendency to look into lineages and related stuff, which is how he got interested in the angelfish clan, and why are we mentioning it now, easy, because that's the piece of intel Aisha got from the blood that ran down the corner of Arlion's mouth when he gritted his teeth.

"Fine, if you can't be controlled by me, then I'll just have to destroy you, you won't be the first nor the last anyway", said the past king as he extended his right hand and reached frontwards, which made his battle avatar do the same.

"Roooar!", the shark magic avatar trembled and roared in pain as the battle avatar looked into the shark's mouth.

"Crack!", a small crack on the space appeared inside the shark's mouth, from which Arlion retrieved an adult human sized white, blue and yellow colored crystal, upon doing so, the tri-colored magic aura which was coating the shark's stomach disappeared and the green ray which the shark was processing was spit by it, since Aisha's connection to it returned on the spot.

"Violet Firmament, Silver Starfall", naturally Aisha didn't wait for Arlion to calmly make his move, the sky inside of the demonite field dyed of a pretty violet color, which in turn seemed to project an insanely strong gravity field.

"Crack!", Arlion's battle avatar was forced to fall from the sky while it started to crumble apart due to the pressure, of course Aisha couldn't use gravity energy, it was everything in the mind of Arlion, he simply thought that he couldn't remain standing in Aisha's presence and it became a reality for him.

"Gah, full release!", shouted Arlion who had blood coming out of his mouth, eyes, nose and ears as he forced himself to break away from the pressure radiated by the violet firmament.

"Booooom!", just in time for the silver electricity spheres that had appeared all over the sky to explode and descend in the form of countless silver flashes that rained upon the whole battlefield.

"Clang!", however midway through the silver light rain, a loud metallic clashing sound drowned the sound of the explosions that were happening all over the battlefield.

"So that's your real appearance, took you long enough", said Aisha as she saw the middle-aged man with short blue-white hair, in the records of the clear water kingdom, Arlion had a long life and ultimately died after being unable to reach the maximum stellar rank.

But that was of course a lie, he disappeared from the public eye after leaving the throne to one of his children, and the "Arlion" who later returned only to fail at his advance and die was a fake, the real one spent all his time in the shadows.

The part where he didn't reach the maximum stellar rank was true though, but he didn't do so because he chose not to, after all, he knew that the power paths in Neptune were incomplete and had already decided to hand over his old body to Dian, so he left his own body grow old and weaker to prevent that dear ancestor of his from pulling a fast one on him.

Instead, he was going to take over the body of a descendant whose starting potential would be way better than his, and aim to obtain a different kind of power to break out from the limitations of Neptune, that's why he wanted the power of a chosen one.

"You really are a pain in the ass, now I will have to take over another young body for the "trial" to be triggered, you damn bitch, do you know how much I invested in this one", said Arlion with a hatred filled voice.

The loud clashing sound came from a shark decorated tower shield which was projecting a barrier around Arlion's battle avatar, the shark magic avatar was missing as it had combined with the tower shield replica to protect Arlion from Aisha's technique.

That aside, let's explain why Arlion was so angry over having to become older and older, something that was explained during Lezabel's backstory is that besides a certain special "situation", "feats" are also needed to draw the attention of the system, in the case of the ghost girl, her situation was that she was the strongest fighter of her family which was in the middle of a war for extermination, a feat she achieved at an incredibly young age, which was reflected in the pairs of wings she had attained.

Of course, that's not everything there is, the system doesn't seem to do charity, so the person's circumstances must be of benefit for it, one way or another, plus there are other mysteries regarding the process of becoming a system user, but the previous appears to be the basic.

Arlion seems to be aware that he needs feats and as an old monster, he could achieve them easily in a younger body, that's why the curse instead of returning him to his peak, made him adapt to Terry's relative age.

He obviously planned to use the global raid as his "awakening" feat, but now thanks to Aisha, all his efforts were ruined, it would have been fine if the enemy was another old monster like Ereth, Karla or even the Lords and he was forced to undo more of the seal, but Aisha clearly was young, and he was losing against her, so while he still remained a candidate, he clearly felt the status of a chosen one getting further from him than what it was before this fight, so he was furious.

Of course, everything else came after his survival, so after realizing that he couldn't be a match for Aisha while playing to be Terry's age, Arlion had to completely undo the curse, and recover to the moment when he casted that curse, which was the prime he had reached before allowing himself to grow old and weak for the sake of his future plans.

Well, to the highest level he could express while within the layer of the blood prison realm where they were, to be more accurate.

"Mm?", feeling the pressure being applied from all over the place on her demonite field, Aisha raised an eyebrow which didn't escape Arlion's eyes.

"I must thank you for that stupid barrier of yours, this way the one who has to face the suppression of the blood prison realm is not me!", said Arlion as he exploded in magic aura which had a bit of a power that Aisha had seen in selected people both back at the four galaxies and Neptune, rules.

"Clear Water Royal Hero Pendant!", all the magic aura that Arlion had gathered turned into a giant necklace which held the tri-colored crystal from earlier, turning it into a pendant which Arlion then hanged around the neck of his battle avatar.

"Roooar!", the shark magic avatar came out of the tower shield returning it to its normal state to then make a turn around Arlion's battle avatar before turning into a white, blue and yellow stream of magic aura which entered the battle avatar.

"Clear Water Royal Battle Armor!", the previously white armor replica covering Arlion's battle avatar, changed into a tri-colored white, blue and yellow highly detailed armor with a shark theme design.

The armor wasn't the only one, all the replicas he had, namely the winged boots, the cape, the crown, the triangular and tower shields as well as the sword, spear and bow which were now mounted on the battle avatar's back, all stopped being white colored and also gained that shark tri-colored design.

As for Arlion's realm, the reason as to why Aisha felt the blood prison realm applying pressure against her demonite field, it's because Arlion had crossed to…the Stellar rank, he was an early stage stellar though.

The past king purposedly stopped advancing after reaching the middle stage of the stellar rank, but in this layer of the blood prison realm half stellar realm was supposed to be the limit, well, it should be the peak of the Arch rank in truth, but it has been increased due to the decay of the seal, caused by the Lords messing around all this time.

If they were outside of demonite's field, Arlion would have been attacked by chains the moment he surpassed the limit, but here he was saved the trouble thanks to Aisha.

"You wanted to finish the fight as soon as possible, but since you ruined my plans, I'll take my time to torture you before killing you, your lineage seems interesting, perhaps your race could be my next target", said Arlion as he slashed his sword at Aisha.

"Clear Water King Wave Breaking Slash!", it's worth mentioning that Arlion's battle avatar didn't grow much despite combining with the shark, it was only a few hundred meters bigger, reaching two kilometers.

The attacks released by it on the other hand, did suffer an exponential increase in their reach, as the ten-kilometer tri-colored slashing light released by Arlion's sword, suggested.

"Violet Firmament, Black Dawn", Aisha used a new combination to attack, the violet sky was not new, but she went with a high-speed attack aspect for it, that being said Arlion smirked as he said.

"That little trick of yours won't work on me anymore, we are both royalty now, so I don't need to respect your "authority" anymore".

He really had suffered due to the suppressing effect of Aisha's blood energy, so he especially wanted to rub this on her face.

"Black Firmament, Blue Dawn", the silver-haired vampire mother's answer was a second firmament series technique though, and a high speed one as well.

"Booooom!", the orichalcum and antinite imbued lightning flashes rained all over the slashing martial art used by Arlion and produced a loud explosion as they clashed.

But then midway through the clash, Arlion's attack suddenly shone in a tri-colored light which not only destroyed the black and blue energy flashes that were clashing with it, but replenished the power that the slash had exhausted and even made it accelerate, to almost reach Aisha the next second.

'You like to play with multiple effect techniques right, have a taste of my "absolute reach" rule magic aura!', thought Arlion only for his smile to freeze as he saw Aisha snapping her fingers.

"Violet Field, Devouring Shield", Aisha's pretty silver wings shone in a violet light and then the defensive metal shield projected by them dyed of a familiar black ominous color, it was a much deeper black color than that of orichalcum, but aesthetics aside, what mattered is what happened when the revived attack released by Aarlion landed on the defensive field.

"What!", the past king nearly lost it when he saw his slashing martial art not causing even a sound as it was… absorbed by the black defensive field around Aisha.

"Clear Water King Wave Breaking Arrow Rain!", refusing to believe that his magic aura could be nullified so easily like that, Arlion used the bow replica to shot a wide area martial art which resulted in a twenty-kilometer area having magic aura arrows descending from the sky.

The arrows that fell directly upon the black defensive field were absorbed, however the defensive field only covered a couple of hundred meters around Aisha, and all the other arrows that fell, after landing on the ground suddenly doubled their power and changed directions to fly towards Aisha as that was the effect of the rule in his magic aura.

"Violet Firmament, Devouring Sky", casually said Aisha, this time the whole sky inside the demonite field turned violet toned, before countless black ominous energy spheres appeared.

However, that wasn't an attack type technique, all the spheres instead created a huge suction force that dragged away the countless arrows that were flying at Aisha, devouring till the last one of them.

In case you haven't noticed, this was one of the two properties which Aisha didn't have it "easy" to use, and it was disaster's metal one, in other words the capacity to absorb and store any kind of energy.

"How!", screamed Arlion as he released attack after attack only for all of them to be devoured by Aisha's defensive techniques.

"Did you really think that just because you changed from curses to direct confrontation, I would be powerless against you, how foolish, to brute force your way through my techniques at the early stage of the Stellar realm you'll need someone a dozen of times more talented than you who actually earned their power with effort".

"After all, your magic knight state was obtained through "luck" right, since that happened, the chances for you to become a threat for me who is working in attaining it properly were zero".

"…", Arlion nearly suffered a collapse right there, because yeah just like Aisha had said, she wasn't a battle mage, as she hadn't ignited her life spark yet, her energy had both mana and battle aura characteristics yes, but it wasn't battle mana, in other words just with her normal energy alone Aisha could defeat a magic knight like Arlion with ease.

"Why, why are you telling me all this!", exclaimed Arlion who seemed to be going crazy to which Aisha whose expression became death cold directly answered.

"Because you deserve to die knowing that you were nothing, it's the very least I can do for all the people you harmed".

"Black Firmament, Devouring Prison", with a snap of Aisha's fingers and before Arlion could react, the sky obscured and a black ominous metal cage appeared around his battle avatar.

"Clear Water King Wave Breaking Tsunami!", Arlion casted a huge amount of magic aura into a giant tsunami which then doubled its power and size, only to see in horror how everything was devoured by the black cage surrounding him.

"On the other hand, the power of luck really is quite something, right at the end you scraped the border of the "Plan A" strength limit", said the silver-haired vampire mother who was casually floating towards Arlion.

"Originally your life should have been taken by someone else, but since she is not here, as an apology, I'll make sure you die in the most horrifying way possible, you were thankful about my demonite field, right?", said Aisha as she extended her right hand.

"Crack!", silver and violet lightning exploded around Aisha's hand mixing to then take the form of a gauntlet, but that wasn't all, white-silver energy gathered in front of Aisha's hand expanding and solidifying into a long sword.

"Violet Empress Gauntlet, Demon Sword", said Aisha as she grabbed the white-silver sword floating in front of her.

"Booom!", as if angered, there was a violent reaction when the lightning energy gauntlet touched the white-silver metallic sword, producing electric arcs and small thunders on the spot.

That was the second metal property which Aisha couldn't easily use and of course it was her own personal element's one, namely demonite.

The moment that sword appeared, Arlion started going crazy inside the devour prison, he released martial art after martial art, only to see the thing not budging in the slightest.

"What do you think, this is a technique for "Plan B" strength, you see despite being a mage I have always been more of a close-range fighter, so a combination of a partial enhancement technique and a weapon creating technique is the start of me getting serious", said Aisha to which Arlion who was punching the devouring cage with his battle avatar only to see the fist being absorbed by the black ominous metal cage every time thought, as he bled due to backslash.

'Weapon creating technique, that wasn't among the ones she mentioned before…', only for Aisha to answer his doubts.

"Of course it wasn't, if I actually revealed my true capacities to an enemy like that, I would be scolded by my darling, so I limited myself to mention the basic techniques I created, the empress and weapon creating series are intermediate ones", she said as she used the intel she got from Arlion's blood which made it seem as if she had read his mind, since Aisha wished to obtain his newest memories so the blood reading did that.

"W-Wait, we can make a deal, yeah, I have knowledge that could be of use to that masked guy, he could become a chosen one easier with my help then…", before Arlion could finish his sentence he was interrupted by Aisha's laugh.

"Pfft, frogs at the bottom of the well can be funny sometimes too, listen, the status of a "chosen one" is not a miraculous almighty solution to your problems, but more of a magnifier, therefore, if before becoming a chosen one you were a piece of trash, then after attaining it, you'll only turn into a glorified piece of trash, nothing more".

'That's why I have been working so hard all these years, I have to be as good as my darling was before he awakened, so that I can stand next to him for all eternity, right, Eve?', thought Aisha who saw a blurred figure appear in her mind.

'Hurry up and kill this guy, he is feeling such despair thanks to you that the gate is gaining interest in him', said the administrator girl, from within Aisha's mind.

"Sorry, but this was also a part of my challenge, apparently we need to have a conversation with that angelfish princess later", said Aisha, which again messed up with Arlion's mind.

"What have you been talking about, the only princess ever was my…", the past king's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when he felt a horrifying sensation invade his body as the white-silver sword from earlier suddenly pierced his chest.

Aisha had flashed from her previous position and was now floating in front of Arlion with an indifferent expression on her pretty face.

"I told you, you were going to die in the most horrifying way possible, so of course that includes dying with regrets, unfulfilled goals, doubts, terrified and in pain", casually said the silver-haired vampire mother.

"Ahhhhhh!".