The First Store System

Chapter 373: Title in the Chapter

There was still a second worth of mantra left for Aakesh to chant. Not even the outline of the arrow had appeared, but the mantra alone was causing serious damage to the fabric of the environment.

The sky was rumbling; the land was shaking; the temperature was turning from cold to hot countless times in fear of what was to come.

Even the soldiers with higher levels than Aakesh weren't able to stand their ground as the effects caused by the mantra seemed to have no consequence on Aakesh, but the same couldn't be said for the soldiers.

The soldiers were directly bearing the brunt of the invisible pressure released by the mantra, which gave a moment of relief to Aakesh.

Any arrow shot toward Aakesh lost its momentum right after reaching the radius of a few meters around him and crashed on the ground. Soon it disintegrated due to the random turn of temperature at an unimaginable rate.

"…, Antanam Gatnam Namah!"

While the situation was going on, Aakesh's chanting of the mantra finally came to an end.

The space right above Aakesh's head cracked open.

Even the ruler of the fort stood up from his seat, seeing the crack. He couldn't help but frown as he was aware of what was to come.

"Get ready! Use your whole strength to defend right from the start," The ruler ordered the higher-ups, without any presence of his previous smile.

Even the higher-ups present on the top of the fort turned solemn, seeing the expression and hearing the tone they had never seen on their ruler's face. They got ready right away as they had no interest in angering the ruler and seeing his wrath.

After the space right above Aakesh's head cracked open, instead of restoring itself back to its original shape, it only got wider and wider.

Even the system wasn't able to mend the space right away by removing the effect of the arrow.

"Astu svIkarotu unmUlayati bhavataH amitraghna||"

The next moment, a hoarse unfamiliar voice in an unrecognizable language for most of the beings echoed in the area. The voice looked like it had directly arrived from antiquity, and it had unimaginable cruelty present in it. It sent chills down everyone present in the area, including Aakesh.

Right after the appearance of the voice, out of nowhere, an arrow appeared right into the right hand of Aakesh.

The arrow looked nothing more than a pointed rod made of ordinary wood. There were no tail feathers or an arrowhead present.

Instead, it was a straight rod but pointed at the top, where there was supposed to be the arrowhead.

A strange pattern was engraved from top to bottom in orange. While if one were to look very closely, they would see a black hole, the size not visible from naked eyes even for Immortals, present at the tip of the arrow.

It all happened so suddenly that Aakesh didn't even have a chance to detect when the arrow arrived or how his hand extended to receive it. Aakesh didn't waste any time in thinking much about it, as he was aware of the identity of the owner of the voice.

The arrow for which Aakesh had chanted the mantra was, 'Voice of the Antiquity'. Its name was such because it was the creation of just a voice that had enough power to devour dimensions.

The owner of the voice was one of the strongest Primordials in existence. It was Bhusunda, a creature in a crow-like body. It stood at the peak with a few figures in the third dimension.

Bhusunda had the power of devouring everything in existence. If not for Deva's ability to snatch two-thirds of the strength of any creature's strength if they wished to fight, the Bhusunda has enough power to cause an injury to the Deva.

The voice that echoed just a moment earlier contained such power, and the arrow in the hand of Aakesh was the incarnation of the sound.

After the appearance of the arrow, the space above Aakesh got restored in no time while the fabric of the environment also returned to calm as if whatever happened a moment earlier was only an illusion.

The soldiers whose faces had turned pale from fear and horror, seeing the arrow had no choice but to charge forward if they wanted to have any chance of survival at all.

Aakesh, with a calm look, nocked the arrow on the bowstring using his fingers, stretched the bowstring, only to stop when it began touching his nose, and then released it.

"Crack!"

As the arrow left the bow, the sound of something cracking began ringing in the area, as it directly cracked the space from wherever it passed.

In no time, the arrow reached the soldiers on the ground. The black hole, located on its tip, suddenly expanded and devoured the first soldier.

With devouring, it only gained momentum and strength. After a few seconds, only Aakesh and the arrow were present on the ground.

Aakesh didn't need to tell the arrow what to do next as it had a high level of intellect. It changed its direction toward the fort and flew, cracking the fabric of space from wherever it passed.

This time the higher-ups intervened right away, without waiting for other soldiers to die as every death resulted in the arrow getting stronger.

The ruler also wanted to intervene and destroy the black hole, but since neither the damage nor the number of fatalities had crossed the 75% barrier, he had no choice but to let the higher-ups handle it.

One of the Yultes' higher-ups jumped down the fort and clashed with the arrow midair.

His broadsword attempted to stop the arrow, while the other three swords had a single aim, and that was to destroy it.

The Yultes wasn't the only one, as other higher-ups belonging to different races also jumped down to help the Yultes destroy the arrow.

They only had a few seconds to end this as the system didn't allow anyone except the ruler to float in the air.

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

The sound of continuous explosions began ringing in the area as the weapons of the higher-ups continuously clashed with the black hole and the arrow.

There were only eleven higher-ups present on the fort, and all of them were fighting right now.

While all of this was happening, Aakesh wasn't watching it. Instead, he helped the arrow in defending against the higher-ups since there was no side effect of not being able to act this time on him.

One second passed, two seconds passed, three seconds passed.

When five seconds had passed, the higher-ups began automatically losing their minuscule control over gravity that had allowed them to stay in the air for this long. They then started falling.

Eleven higher-ups had joined the battle, but now only six remained, and that too with one having a severe injury, rendering her unable to fight further.

The arrow had lost much of its momentum, but due to devouring the higher-ups, it still contained enough strength to reach the fort and kill some more soldiers.

"Boom!"

Then suddenly something unexpected happened.

Suddenly, the person decided to self-destruct since she couldn't fight anymore. It then caused the arrow to be almost completely destroyed.

What remained of the black hole couldn't sustain itself any further, so the arrow completely lost its momentum and disintegrated into nothingness.

"Thud!"

"Thud!"

The next moment, the remaining five beings landed comfortably on the ground with cold faces since balancing themselves in midair wasn't a big deal.

They landed on the ground, and the next moment, they had disappeared. When the higher-ups finally appeared, all the five beings had surrounded Aakesh.

Even Aakesh had to take this situation seriously, as these were all Level 7 beings.

"Clang!"

Aakesh suddenly turned his upper body to his right and shot an arrow aiming at the same place. A sound of metallic clash rang as his arrow clashed with the arrow shot by one of the five beings.

The next moment, all five attacked at the same time, without caring for the level gap. The Yultes, who had lost two of his hands, slashed using his two remaining swords; the archer shot a strange arrow without any tail feather; the spearman plunged his spear, aiming to rip Aakesh; the mace user smashed her mace, seeking to turn Aakesh into a mess, while the last person punched.

Aakesh couldn't avoid all the attacks at the same time, so he decided to dodge four of them while taking on the weakest.

Aakesh found the punch to be the weakest, but he still couldn't take it on his chest as it still had enough strength to cause a life-threatening injury.

Aakesh dodged the slash by sinking himself when the arrow came. Without thinking anything, using whatever strength he could gather in his legs in that split second, he jumped, and the arrow flew, missing him, but the next moment, the spear welcomed him.

He turned the upper half of his body to his complete left midair and successfully dodged the spear, and right then, the mace arrived to smash him into a pulp.

He bent down right away to increase the rate at which he fell and rolled down right away after reaching the ground to dodge the mace, but then the punch arrived.

As he had expected, he couldn't maintain the balance while rolling, so the punch successfully connected with his ribs.

The result of the punch exceeded Aakesh's expectations. A see-through hole appeared in the area right above the lower waist area.

Right at that moment, the next layer of soldiers arrived. They had begun jumping down right after the landing of the higher-ups. It was just that Aakesh didn't have that much time to consider as he was in a serious battle.

Time flew by.

Around two minutes later, a portal out of nowhere appeared in the selection area, and the next moment, Aakesh stepped out of it.