Chapter 38: Awakening A New Skill!

"My sword is not the most powerful tool I possess," King Rowan answered, causing his son’s confused expression to deepen.

"Then what tool do you possess that is more powerful than your mighty sword, Soveurn?"

"The most powerful tools that I, Rowan, possess are two. They are this and this..."

Arlo looked at his fist, held by his father’s right hand, and then at his chest, toward which his father’s left finger was pointing.

"The most powerful tools you possess are your hands and heart?" Arlo asked in surprise, watching his father nod.

"Yes, Arlo. I would not be able to properly hold my weapon without my hands, nor would I be able to swing it without my heart guiding me along my path."

"You said you want to become the strongest War God of Umbrasol, did you not?"

Arlo gave a shy nod.

"Then watch your heart and make sure it never goes astray. Do what you believe is best, both for yourself and for those you love, and if you ever find yourself lost, simply think of me and ask yourself what I would have done in that situation."

"And after your heart come your hands. When it comes to training, you must never forget them, for they hold great potential."

"Train your hands well, and you will become unrivaled. That is why I will pass down to you the true art of the War Demon Style of our Eclipsion Dynasty."

"The War Demon Style!" Arlo exclaimed in shock as his father nodded.

"Practice the art well, Arlo. It will teach you not only how to use your hands but how to use your entire body in battle. Learn it to its absolute limit, and even a thousand swords will be for naught in your path, including mine."

"That is not possible," Arlo retorted, but his father shook his head firmly.

"No, it is true."

"But above all, make sure your heart never strays while practicing it, or all of it will be for naught."

His father said as he quietly stepped back, prompting Arlo to ask, "What is the War Demon Style?"

Calmly, King Rowan moved into a stance, one that made the wind howl loudly and the sky abruptly darken.

"It is the dance of a demon, Arlo. A demon born for war."

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

The sound of fists and claws clashing rang out as Arlo exchanged hundreds of blows with the abyssal creature, using nothing more than his bare fists.

"Faster..."

"Faster..."

He whispered as his cybernetic Gate furiously pumped energy into his cybernetics, his hands forming mirages of fists that collided relentlessly against the creature’s claws.

Chunks of flesh were ripped from his fists, causing blood to rain down, but it made no difference to Arlo, who simply kept punching without end.

"Everything will break before the might of the devil’s punch."

It was the ultimate belief of the War Demon Style: to throw a punch without fearing that it would fail to damage the opponent or that he would be outmatched.

It was a deeply ingrained belief that, no matter what his opponent threw his way, his fists would eventually tear through it.

The Vorath kept up with Arlo’s punches at first, the sight of blood dripping from the boy’s fists making it smile in disdain.

But its face soon morphed into shock when it looked at its own feet and saw a trail stretching roughly ten meters behind it.

Without realizing it, it had been slowly pushed backward by its opponent for ten whole meters.

"Surprised, weakling?"

Arlo called out, his punching speed reaching a deafening level as a strange smile graced his lips and his crimson-speckled eyes began to glow.

"I expected more from you. From how fearfully you were all described, I expected much more," Arlo declared, his eyes suddenly gaining a tint of anger as his heart violently pumped in his chest.

Immediately, the notification panel flashed.

[Host is being influenced by an art, causing a spike in heart rate and fierce circulation of Mana through the body, whilst reducing Conscious Memory.]

[Playful Magnifier has been activated.]

[Host is starting to revert to his Vorath magic due to the art!]

BAANG!

BAANG!

BAANG!

BAANG!

"Hehehehe."

A deranged, cackling laugh left Arlo as his fists pounded furiously against the Vorath, which he had already forced into a corner against the wall.

What followed was a series of mini-explosions as Arlo continued pummeling the creature.

Eventually, exhaustion caught up to him, and he slammed both knees against the ground, his lungs burning.

Slowly, the crimson glow faded as Arlo regained his senses and looked at his opponent, which had been reduced to nothing but gore and blood, its internal organs spilling out after being flattened against the wall.

"What... what just happened?" Arlo asked in shock, retreating from the gory sight.

[It seems you lost all reasoning for several seconds and reduced it to that state with your fists. Quite incredible.]

Arlo furrowed his eyebrows at the system’s strange words.

"Lost all reasoning?"

When he turned to look at the Vorath’s gory remains, he noticed that they had already dispersed into white gas and been removed from the realm.

The AI’s voice followed soon after.

"Winner: Arlo. Congratulations on successfully passing the test. Would you like to proceed to the third test, fighting a Lower Anouq Realm Vorath?"

The AI asked.

Arlo narrowed his eyes, then stood and picked up his sword before settling into a stance.

"Yes."

Since he could not actually die in the test, he might as well use the opportunity to learn his own limits.

{Your opponent will now be transported...} the AI announced.

In the next instant, a piercing white light flashed before Arlo. It soon disappeared, revealing an absolutely monstrous figure.

"What the hell is this?" Arlo asked in shock, looking up at a pair of eyes positioned more than three heads above him.

The Vorath was huge, incredibly huge, with four large muscular arms and bulging muscles covered in dark, slimy skin.

Its legs matched the same description, while its maw was large enough to swallow him whole.

Behind its back stretched a single slimy, bat-like wing, and like the previous creature, it possessed strange tentacle-like tails, except instead of two, it had five!

Its face resembled that of an octopus, with smaller tentacles hanging where hair should have been, while its two pitch-black eyes stared at Arlo with a listless gaze.

{Battle commences in three... two... one. Go!}

BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Before Arlo could move a single muscle, his chest suddenly caved inward, blood spewing uncontrollably from his mouth, and then...

BAAAAAAANG!

He smashed into the wall, digging a half-meter-deep hole into it as he coughed up even more blood.

He was given less than a moment to react before another tail rapidly lashed toward his head like a whip, forcing Arlo to duck at the last second as the wall above him was sliced open.

Arlo quickly tore himself from the wall and moved aside.

Turning to look at where he had been standing, he saw a two-meter-deep mark gouged into the wall by a single lash of the Vorath’s tail.

[It is far beyond your level!]

The system’s warning rang in his head as Arlo saw the Vorath slowly turn toward him.

Arlo instinctively rolled away.

Less than a fraction of a second later, a gigantic crater appeared where he had been standing as one of the tentacles violently smashed into the ground.

But that was only the beginning, as all five tentacles immediately began lashing out at Arlo.

Blood burst from his skin with every strike he failed to avoid in time, and the more he ran, the more blood poured from his body.

"Faster! Faster!" Arlo shouted in his mind as he ran at full speed, blood occasionally spraying into the air.

Just when two tentacles cornered him and three more violently lashed toward him from the side, Arlo felt that this was the end.

But an unwillingness to lose flashed through his eyes, a vein popping on his forehead.

Taking a single step forward that caused cracks to spiderweb across the ground, Arlo moved, even though he knew he would still be too slow.

Yet he moved anyway.

And when he did...

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

A crimson light exploded forth, its source none other than the cybernetic Gate implanted in Arlo’s chest.

Suddenly, flames burst around Arlo’s feet, and then...

BAAAAANG!

The air before him exploded as he burst forward with horrifying momentum, disappearing into thin air.

SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!

The three tentacles violently lashed through Arlo’s afterimage and tore it apart, but the expected blood never came.

The Vorath immediately directed its surprised eyes to the side, where Arlo crouched with massive amounts of smoke oozing from his legs.

"What... what just happened?"

Arlo asked in shock as he looked down at his own feet and saw the heavy smoke.

Raising one foot to examine it, he was shocked to see three circular holes around the sole of both feet, each one bursting with dark smoke and sparks of red that looked like flames yet not quite.

[Congratulations. Host’s fusion with his cybernetic implant has moved from 1% to 5%.]

[Host has awakened a cyber skill: Redshift!]

The system notification appeared before him as shock flashed through Arlo’s eyes.

"A... a new skill!?"

BAAAAAAAAANG!

CRASSSSH!

A colossal hand violently smashed into Arlo’s body, lifting him from the ground and slamming him into the wall.

Arlo turned to look at the Vorath, which was slowly walking toward him.

As he tried to quickly scramble away, he suddenly realized an unbelievable truth.

...