Chapter 150: The Facade Cracks
For the first time in the battle, a genuine thrill shot through Rivan. Tom's transformed punch had landed with a force he hadn't felt in years. The impact didn't just send him flying; it caused a web of fine cracks to appear across his face, like dried mud cracking under the sun. It was as if a brittle, ceramic layer covered his true visage.
Tom gave him no reprieve. A storm of primal fists rained down on Rivan, each blow spreading the network of fractures further across his face and body. With a final, earth-shattering punch from Tom, the ceramic shell completely shattered and fell away, revealing Rivan's true face beneath. It was identical, but now they could see a terrible, old scar—a deep, vicious slash that ran from his eyebrow down across his cheek to his lower jaw.
Rivan touched the scarred tissue, a faint, mocking smile on his lips. "All that... and you didn't even make me bleed." He spat on the ground next to Tom in a gesture of utter contempt.
It was a fatal moment of arrogance.
In that split second, Drew and Haeju, moving with the perfect synergy of their Saint-Slayer suits, struck from both flanks. Their powered fists, amplified to mid class saint-level force, connected simultaneously with Rivan's temples. The sound was horrific—a wet, crushing SQUELCH. Rivan's head was pulverized between the two impacts, and his body dropped limply to the ground.
For a heartbeat, they thought it was over. Perhaps Tom's relentless assault had weakened his skull enough for their finishing move to work.
Then, a chilling sensation crawled down their spines. They turned.
Rivan was standing behind them, casually brushing dust from his pristine white suit as if they were nothing more than a minor inconvenience. "Looking for me?" he asked, his voice dripping with boredom.
Enraged, Tom, Drew, and Haeju launched a coordinated triple assault. But their punches and energy blasts, instead of hitting him, suddenly curved away in wide, impossible arcs, striking the empty landscape around him.
Rivan gave an apologetic shrug. "Oh, sorry. I was just dusting myself off and accidentally twisted the local space-time fabric a little." With a casual flick of his wrist, a wave of pure telekinetic force erupted from him, hurling all three of them backward like discarded toys.
Drew scrambled to his feet, his suit's sensors screaming. "A tertiary element! Telekinesis, regeneration, and now spatial manipulation? Is he wielding three elements? No wonder he's this strong!"
Tom, however, offered a grim, knowing smile. He had a feeling this was only the beginning.
As if reading his mind, Rivan decided to stop playing. From his body, three identical, shimmering copies emerged. They were perfect in form but lacked defined facial features, like mannequins made of light. The three clones immediately engaged Tom, Drew, and Haeju in fierce, individual combat.
Drew's voice was a mixture of shock and disbelief over the comms. "Cloning?! A fourth element? Do wielders of four elements even exist?!"
While his clones fought, the original Rivan summoned a floating piece of rubble with his telekinesis, sat down on it as if it were a throne, and even pulled out a bag of chips from his storage ring. He began to munch, casually observing the battles below.
"Haeju, now!" Drew commanded.
At his signal, a dozen of their remaining king-level robots disengaged from the clones and launched a surprise plasma barrage directly at the snacking Rivan.
Without even looking up from his chips, Rivan snapped his fingers. A wall of pure fire erupted around him, instantly vaporizing the incoming plasma bolts and then the robots themselves into molten slag.
"Heh. Time's up," Rivan said, finally standing and dusting chip crumbs from his lap. "You two are arrows without a bow—lots of power, but no real aim. You have nothing to offer me."
He began to summon his weapon, the air crackling with the promise of a final, unstoppable attack.
"Berserk Mode, activate!" Drew yelled, his voice raw.
"Saint-Slayer Protocol, full release!" Haeju echoed simultaneously.
A terrifying aura exploded from their suits. Crimson warning lights flashed across their interfaces as their systems dangerously overloaded, pushing far beyond safe limits. They knew the toll on their bodies would be catastrophic, but they no longer cared.
What followed was a cataclysmic symphony of violence. BOOM! BAAM! DHOOM! DHAM! The two became blurs of black and purple, their movements so fast they tore through the very air. A hurricane of powered punches, energy blades, and hyper-velocity kicks descended upon Rivan.
For the first time, a flicker of genuine pressure appeared on Rivan's face. He was forced to actively defend. He didn't just dodge; he countered with a breathtaking, horrifying display of elemental mastery, using each one seemingly just to shock them.
He met a punch from Drew with a fist sheathed in solid granite (Earth). He evaporated Haeju's energy whip with a torrent of water that then flash-froze around her leg (Water). He deflected a plasma blast with a mirror of ice (Ice), and then countered with a whip of lightning (Lightning). Vines of dark wood shot from the ground to entangle them (vegetation), only to be shattered by their raw power, which he then smothered with a dome of absolute darkness (Darkness).
He was a one-man elemental apocalypse, toying with them using the very fabric of reality.
But the Berserk Mode was unsustainable. With a final, shattering CRACK, the internal mechanisms of both Saint-Slayer suits failed simultaneously. The overloaded cores ruptured, and the advanced armor that had housed such immense power exploded outward in a storm of shrapnel.
Drew and Haeju were thrown clear, their suits destroyed, their bodies broken and spent, crashing to the ground in a heap of smoking metal and torn circuits. They had given it everything, only for Rivan to dismantle them with the casual ease of a master demonstrating his supreme, unassailable dominance.
With the mechanical suits of Drew and Haeju lying in smoldering ruins and their bodies broken, Rivan finally decided to end the farce. The air shimmered as he summoned his weapon—a massive, crimson scythe, its blade curved and wicked, standing a full one and a half times taller than he was. He hefted it effortlessly, his intent clear. He would finish the two interlopers who had dared to challenge him and then collect his prize.
His gaze, however, lingered on Tom. The giant's bloodline transformation had faded, leaving him slumped on the ground, looking more drained and broken than ever before. He was utterly defeated.
Tom's mind raced, a torrent of memories and responsibilities crashing over him. He saw Drew and Haeju, who had risked everything to save him. He thought of Yuseong , Luiz, who had entrusted him with Ashveil before ascending to the Stellar Tier. He remembered the promise he had made.
But most of all, he remembered his own past. The orphanage that went bankrupt. The children scattered, some to other institutions, others, like him and Luiz, left to fend for themselves on the merciless streets. He remembered the accident—the blinding headlights of a hyper-advanced car, the impact, and the pain. He remembered Luiz, just a scrawny kid himself, fearlessly standing up to the car's owner, a man of unimaginable power and wealth: Steve Lee.
But Steve Lee had not been angry. He had been kind. He had not only paid for Tom's medical treatment but had given both boys a home, a life of luxury, and an education. He had treated them as his own, alongside his biological sons, Sam and James. Steve Lee had given them a future.
And now, Tom was the one guarding the future of others. He was the guardian of Ashveil, and of the people within it, like Moon and Kai. To hand over their contracts was a betrayal of the deepest trust. It went against every principle Steve Lee had instilled in him. His heart felt like a stone in his chest, heavy with the weight of an impossible choice: betray his principles, or watch his friends die.
As Rivan raised the colossal scythe, poised to cleave Drew and Haeju in two, Tom's resolve broke. He couldn't bear their deaths on his conscience.
"STOP!" Tom's voice tore from his throat, raw and desperate. "Wait... I... I'll give you the contracts!"
A triumphant, cruel smile began to form on Rivan's lips. But it froze as he suddenly flinched, his head tilting as if sensing a distant disturbance. With an annoyed grunt, he slammed the base of his scythe into the ground. The earth trembled, and a few yards away, the very fabric of space fractured with a sound like shattering glass. A green, jagged dimensional rift tore open.
From the rift emerged Aria, Monkey, and Shami. Their clothes were slightly disheveled, and they bore a few minor scratches, but their expressions were calm, showing no surprise at the apocalyptic devastation surrounding them.
Rivan, however, paid his cousins little mind. His focus snapped back to Tom. "The contracts. Now."
With a hand trembling from exhaustion and self-loathing, Tom Lee accessed the secure dimensional storage of Ashveil. Two scrolls, shimmering with binding energy, materialized in his hand. He held them out.
Rivan snatched them, his fingers closing around the scrolls with finality. The eyes of Tom, Rivan, and Aria were locked on the documents with an intensity that could shatter diamond.
Rivan unrolled them just enough to confirm the names, a look of profound satisfaction settling on his scarred face. He looked down at the defeated Tom.
"That's my good baby," he purred, his voice dripping with condescending victory.
Without another glance at the broken forms of Drew, Haeju, or Tom, Rivan turned and strode casually into the waiting green portal. Aria, Shami, and Monkey followed silently behind him, the rift sealing shut after them, leaving only silence and the scent of ozone and defeat.
To be continued…