Bro, I'm not an Undead!

'Hmmm?' Kenno narrowed his eyes.

What was that darkness around Skullius?

WHOOSH!

There wasn't any time for questions though on Kenno's part, as Skullius immediately went on the offensive this time!

The Hybrid Luman's figure turned into an outstretched blur, the gravitational effects churned from Skullius' core allowing him to eject himself from one spot and onto another at an appalling speed!

Even Kenno lost track of Skullius for a brief fraction of a breath but with the SinSky Shatterer, he activated the skill [Dust Maker], a vacuum-like space covering half of the entire mountain in an instant and...

The rocks.

The trees and grass.

The ground.

All felt like they had been baptised by a corrosive energy, an unbinding pull that sought to return everything to the most primitive and insignificant forms!

The effect was like the descent of a Divine!

Even Skullius' breath was taken away!

Within a blink of an eye, everything turned to dust that rose up as the air was then rapidly sucked back in, returning to fill up the space and carrying with it all this matter that was akin bits of sand!

Such a terrifying ability!

Half the entire mountain – its entire height close to 1460 meters – had been destroyed, its top cone erased to create a semi flat surface that Kenno fell down to while bits of multi-coloured matter swirled around him!

Sadly, Kenno didn't look at all happy.

'How on earth is he still alive?' he wondered with his sharp eyes facing in a certain direction.

Surely, the Hybrid Luman descended from the height they had once stood and landed on the new ground a distance from Kenno who furrowed his brows a little.

The boss of the band of bandits currently being dealt with started to have different thoughts about Skullius. He had wanted to kill him before but now... he was getting curious about him. About his background and about why he had teleported him away.

'Was it to keep the Knights safe? If so then he truly did know about my armour and me beforehand,' Kenno thought.

This wasn't much of a surprise but it was strange nevertheless.

There was a reason why he was respected and feared. It was merely because he was strong. That he was.

Unless someone kept a distance from him, their lives were within his hands!

However, what made Kenno dangerous was his mentality and values.

This treasure was something he had lucked out on when he joined a raid on a Family's estate in a southern region. Since he was the one who found it, he stubbornly refused to give it up to the one who led the raid that day.

'There is no honour among thieves.'

Kenno had believed this statement religiously. He respected those who accepted that reality as well. Dying in this line of work, getting double crossed, betrayed and all. He accepted those possibilities and shunned those who were surprised when it happened.

With this belief of his came an acceptance to change but an embrace of caution. He kept much about him under wraps.

Beyond that, this belief of his extended to him knowing his limits. He wouldn't hesitate to negotiate if there was a chance he'd die against a monstrous opponent. It wasn't fear. It was the basic instinct to live on when such a deal could be brokered.

"You're a lot more of a troublesome opponent than I imagined," Kenno said to Skullius, but the latter didn't reply.

'The film of darkness around him. Even the effect of my armour isn't working on it,' Kenno thought.

WHOOSH!

...!

The man in the true sapphire armour suddenly saw Skullius disappear from the spot he was standing just now.

He guarded as his eyes turned to and fro.

This wasn't movement. No way.

It was...

BOOOOM!

Skullius appeared right before Kenno with his fist already an inch of the man's face, a terrible weight attached to it!

Kenno frowned and dodged to the side but not before a sizable chunk of his cheek was scraped off but the Luman's darkness covered fist!

If not for the immense Agility and Defence offered by his armour, he was sad to say...

'Just now! That wasn't his raw speed! That was...!'

Several shadowy blurs of Skullius' one hand launching a series of horrendously fast punches to Kenno's face brought alarm to the armoured man who dodged them all with extreme caution, as a tornado burst from the two's raw movement!

"Stay still, you sockethole!" Skullius yelled with a ecstatic grin, in his other hand which wasn't on the offensive against Kenno grasping tight on the image of a grey cube.

Kenno noticed this.

Of course!

Skullius was trying to catch him off guard by using the Forced Displacer's teleportation effects!

This was incredibly efficient as it was apparent that the strange darkness around Skullius was immune to the effects of his armour!

Of course it was.

For as long as Skullius could remember, or rather, since he attained the B rank in his affinity with[Evil Darkness], it had never been subject to complete erasure. At most, it would be dispersed by powerful attacks that pulled away its shape like when the Devouring Lantern Alpha Wolf (Ferex) had tore his [Perfect Night Domain] apart with a beam of energy or when Bassbion had broken apart its shape to get to him!

Completely destroying [Evil Darkness], especially if he was consciously weaving it like right now, was something Skullius had yet to see and it seemed even a Pseudo-Mythical treasure couldn't do that!

That was why...

WHOOSH!

Skullius freely blasted his way towards Kenno who rushed up to meet him!

Skullius still had half the mana he had taken from 127 Advancement Stage bandits from earlier and right now, he used some of it, disseminating it into the surroundings. As it appeared, he used [Mana Force] to form condensed orbs in front of him, where Kenno was inevitably going to appear and...

Explosions of mana rocked the space while producing a blinding light that Skullius took advantage of and lunged at Kenno whom he could sense easily with a vicious kick!

"That won't work!" the man roared as from within the bright flash of light, he clapped his hands with ALL his might before Skullius' kick could reach him.

A crisp clack shot out, rupturing Skullius' ears with their loud noise and intense vibration that blew the Luman away at rapid speed!

Kenno wasn't done.

He bolted ahead at a speed that left a flaming white trail and delivered forty-three ghastly blows onto Skullius, all with immense precision and all causing a layer of the mountain to crumble as they landed.

Kenno had used the other skill of his armour, [Heartless Breakdown] to aim all the armour's effect onto one target but this didn't work still. Only the force of his blows reached Skullius.

'Ha. It's tough. It just keeps reforming,' Kenno thought.

But he wasn't done.

On Skullius' body that had forty-some caves on its bare skinned mass, he launched an inverted palm strike that pulsed with destructive white Aura that propelled Skullius further away!

Kenno followed and caught up, the area around him fragmenting and howling with terrible winds as he heaved his foot and blasted Skullius hard with a deadly upward kick was launched him sky high!

"Like I said. It isn't personal," Kenno muttered from the ground while watching his opponent's figure leave a trail of white as it soared up.

The hits he had delivered weren't simple blows.

They were part of his standard technique as a non-Family member which he called Unforgiving Sequence.

The effects for when a full sequence of blows was delivered was the complete shutdown of the nerves in the body. Kenno would keep injecting his mana and Aura into the his victim's body with each hit until it was done.

In cases of people such as Skullius, the power behind the blows would likely kill them before the effects of his technique could even register.

That was fine though.

He had intended to kill Skullius from the beginning but had changed his mind later on. He had things he wanted to know but now, it was likely that he was dead.

"I'll just use his corpse to break the wills of those Knights. That ought to make things easier," Kenno thought.

The trail of white still streaming higher into the sky went on and on and...

"You are way too strong with that armour on, man."

...!

Kenno turned behind him to find... the bloody, shirtless figure of Skullius.

His face darkened quite a bit.

'What is the meaning of this?' he thought as his white Aura flared defensively.

Skullius breathed out as he looked up to the height he had just teleported from with the Forced Displacer just now.

"Those were some blows there. And funnily, you're not even using your Incarnation to give yourself a further boost with the armour. Haha. I can't tell if you're underestimating me or pitying me," Skullius said as he stored back the Forced Displacer into his storage ring.

Kenno was no longer in the mood for useless chatter. This man...

Even if he had some kind of means to heal, there was no way he could ignore his Technique which was amplified by the armour!

"How in the world are you still standing?" he asked in a serious voice.

Skullius raised his brow.

"I already told you. I'm not telling," Skullius said while wearing a big smile and looking like he was lost in the beauty of the demolished ground.

He then raised his hands up to his chest and gazed at Kenno with his blank eyes.

"You're smart. Observant. Cautious. Earlier you clapped your hands to injure my ears after surmising that I rely on my hearing since I can't see. That was good. Maybe you would have won if that wasn't wrong," Skullius said to which Kenno did not render a response. "I like the way you think and with that in mind, I have an offer."

"..."

"Become my subordinate and I'll help you grow faster. I'll give all the treasures you could ever ask for and in the near future, I'll have you see another world beyond this one."

Kenno paused and tilted his head.

Huh?

A long-ish pause ensued.

"I don't even know whether or not to take you seriously," Kenno said while shaking his head in disbelief.

Grow faster? Look who was talking. An Advancement Stage expert who was probably three decades old.

Riches? Kenno was slowly acquiring all he could ever want and he was satisfied.

See another world? What did that even mean?

"Sorry. I don't have a habit of submitting to people I can kill if I try hard enough," Kenno said with a chilling murderous intent as finally, his Genuine Incarnation started to emerge.

Screw getting information from this guy! His hubris was annoying!

He was going to go all out and see if truly, this guy couldn't be killed.

Skullius grinned as he locked his already raised hands together.

"I do appear pretty weak, don't I?" he said as he also went all out with an ability he had learned recently.

FWOOOOO!

A pristine light overtook the sun's luminance.

It was gorgeous, mesmerising and incredibly authoritative as with its appearance, Kenno lost his breath for a few moments!

'What is this?!' he thought while taking a step back.

Something...

Something was beginning to form behind Skullius.

No, that wasn't it.

It was as if it grew from the ground and rose up.

Up and up.

Up and up and up.

A giant pillar of blinding light whose actual detail became clear the more one looked at it!

Kenno's eyes bulged!

This...!

It was...a tree?

Its thirty meter wide trunk was made of a bundle of thick, golden white bones that had an archaic look to them – cracks, sleek curves and sturdiness solidified through time!

This vertical bundle rose for sixty meters before it became hidden by a mass of skulls!

Luminous skulls double the size of those found on the average human could be spotted, the gaps of their mouths opened eerily wide while all their singular sockets showed a small spot of light!

Hundreds of them spun around the rising bundle and above them and with a wider arc above this bottom layer were skulls four times the size of a human's numbering in the thousands, two sockets imbedded on their faces while within their mouths, white miss was constantly being exhumed!

The top most layer of this 'tree's' canopy featured tens of thousands of skulls six times the size of normal human ones with four sockets, their mouths also wide open to release white mist. On top of each of these, small branches grew, at their ends, large leaves with a darker than night colour growing from them to freely announce the peak of this tree!

WOOO...

This tree was Skullius' Precept of Light.

No.

The Precept of Just Light – the Preeminent Attegoth!

The shocking luminosity from this structure almost crippled Kenno's will as he wondered how something that looked so vile could have such a holy brilliance. A pristine mist softly flowing around it gave it a sacred feel, but its owner, the man before it with an arrogant grin as he gazed at his opponent...

'Who is this man?!' Kenno fully summoned his Genuinely Incarnation, a dozen card-like objects with a radiant luminance and soft, sky blue checkered design appearing around him.

"Just so you know, Kenno..." Skullius said, garnering his opponent's attention.

"This wasn't personal."

At that moment, the Preeminent Attegoth shook, an enormous amount of mana blasting out of Skullius as another skill was used, one he hadn't used in a very long time.

No.

This skill was abused.

[Bead of Malevolence].

What appeared wasn't one or even a hundred of these orbs of [Evil Darkness] like how Skullius had used it before however.

A total of five hundred thousand [Beads of Malevolence] appeared all around Skullius and Kenno, all of them with a golden white symbol of half a skull on them!

--

[Author's Note]

It really has been long since Skullius used it.

[Bead of Malevolence | Lv.3]

A high performance orb created by compressing Evil Darkness and sustaining it in a spherical shape. Its primary use is for high speed attacks and its integrity cannot be broken by means that do not scale up to its quality and strength.

Mana Requirements: 350 Mana Points

Duration: Five minutes.

Cooldown: None

~~~