Meanwhile, a few minutes ago.
Arthur clenched his fist and increased the density around him. The storms warped, metal shards slowed as they neared him, but not all was affected, Roderic's strength still smashed through Arthur's manipulations, he was unable to manipulate Roderic's mass.
Roderic was able to breach Arthur's domain and pierced Arthur's thigh with a meta spike.
He bled, but healed the next second.
Roderic charged again, seeing his attacks were ineffective, tackling Arthur in midair. They tumbled through the void, grappling like animals, punching, and clawing at each other. Arthur kneed Roderic in the gut, Roderic headbutted Arthur hard enough to crack his skull.
Arthur's neck snapped backwards due to the attack, then twisted itself back into alignment as Roderic again grabbed him by the throat and crushed down with monstrous strength.
Arthur felt the bones of his throat collapsing, as blood started flooding his airway, but he didn't even need air anymore.
He grabbed Roderic's wrist with one hand and tried to pry it off his neck.
Roderic hissed with fury, throwing a barrage of superheated metal spikes into Arthur's torso. The glowing red-hot spikes tore through him, and exited through his back.
Arthur let them hit. They stabbed him again and again, punching holes through him.
As he healed, his strength, speed and durability all started improving tremendously.
Even Roderic could feel it, he couldn't drag out this fight any longer. He had to finish Arthur with a single and decisive attack.
Arthur smiled calmly, floating forward as lightning and Chi surged around him. "I told you at the start, didn't I? You're doing me a favor."
He snapped his fingers, lightning forming around his arm. His domain warped the air behind him, creating a slingshot effect.
"Your attacks are making me stronger."
Roderic bared his fangs. "Then I will kill you before you can grow any stronger! You abomination!"
Arthur smirked. "You can try."
And the sky tore open again as two monsters launched at each other, their power exploding in a violent clash that shattered the floating islands near them.
…
The fight had dragged on so long that neither Arthur nor Roderic noticed how far they had drifted deeper inside the pocket dimension.
The number of floating islands were fewer here, replaced by fractured chunks of boulders, and impossible geometric shapes floating in slow rotation. The sky darkened the closer they got to the center of the pocket dimension, where a massive spatial distortion churned like a whirlpool.
The air was thinner here, and there were very few light sources, which made the area appear dimmed.
Even Arthur felt a prickle of danger from the spatial distortion.
Both he and Roderic, who had been throwing fists that could level mountains at each other, finally paused, and hovered in the air like two wounded beasts catching their breath.
Arthur's shirt was shredded to strings, his body covered in dried and fresh blood. But his breathing was steady, and there were no wounds visible anywhere on his body.
Roderic, on the other hand, was gasping like someone who'd run a marathon for dozens of kilometers. His lips were cracked, his ribs bruised, and his stamina was draining fast. Sweat dripped down his jaw, which sizzled slightly and evaporated from the heat of his own body.
They floated about a hundred meters apart.
The only sound was their ragged breathing and the low gravitational hum from the giant spatial distortion nearby.
Arthur rolled his shoulders, testing a regenerated collarbone. "You good?"
Roderic spat blood. "Shut… up…"
Arthur smirked. "I'll take that as a no."
Roderic's eyes burned with pure hatred. "You… are the most cursed human I've ever met."
"Thanks. I'm touched."
Roderic snarled. "Why don't you just die?!" He had been trying to kill him for more than half an hour but to no avail as any wound that appeared on Arthur's body, it healed instantly.
Arthur shrugged. "That explains your skill issue."
Though Arthur was also unable to harm him much except when he used his spell Judgement, but after the first few attacks Roderic became cautious of that particular attack and mostly dodged them.
But even dodging them was useless as they were homing on him, he was helpless and had to divert his attention to attack those destructive lances too.
Roderic snapped and exclaimed. "No… no more. I'm done playing with you, human freak!"
Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like someone's losing confidence."
Roderic's expression turned cold and vicious, like he had made some internal decision.
"You forced me to do this," he hissed, reaching into his spatial ring bringing out a talisman.
Arthur's gaze sharpened instantly. The moment the talisman appeared in Roderic's hand, every instinct Arthur had screamed danger, and all the hair on his back stood up.
A palm sized rectangular metallic slab, etched with runes that were shaped like an ouroboros serpent biting its tail which Arthur didn't recognize, glowing with an almost malignant light.
Roderic held it between two fingers.
"You should feel honored," Roderic growled. "I was saving this for a Sage-ranked foe."
He didn't want to use it as it was his trump card as the attack stored inside the talisman could even harm a Sage rank mage. But he was helpless and had to use his trump card so early in the ancient realm, as there were still five months left to explore it.
Arthur deadpanned, "Wow, a Sage? I feel so special."
Roderic's smile was razor thin. "Die."
He injected mana into the talisman.
The talisman ignited. No, that wasn't the right word, it exploded with a brilliant light.
The runes flared white, then black, circling like a hungry serpent. The sound was like tearing metal and screaming wind. Space warped around it, distorting like the talisman wasn't bound by the normal laws of the pocket dimension.
Arthur tried to rush sideways to dodge it. But the talisman blurred out of Roderic's hand and shot toward Arthur like a divine judgment, in an extremely fast speed that he couldn't react.
Arthur didn't even finish the motion of lifting his arm to block before…
SCHLUNK
The talisman punched straight through Arthur's chest, right where his heart was.
Arthur's entire world jerked, his ribs snapped open like brittle sticks from the impact.
His body jerked backward, impaled in midair.
"G…ghh…"
He looked down at his chest and saw a fist sized wound, the talisman had embedded itself inside his chest cavity, lodged in where his heart had just been.
Then the real nightmare began. His blood surged toward the talisman like it was being magnetically ripped away from his body.
Then followed his mana, and his Chi. All of it got sucked out of his body in a violent rush.
Arthur's body shriveled in seconds. His veins collapsed, muscles thinned, and his skin dried like he was being mummified alive.
His vision blurred, but his mind stayed disturbingly clear.
"So… that's how it is…" he muttered weakly, and watched as his own arm became thinner by the second.
Roderic smirked, exhausted but triumphant. "You're finished, human."
Arthur's voice rasped, low and rough as sand. "See… you… later."
The talisman trembled violently and glowed, as the stored energy reached its peak.
Selene, who was miles away but watching the fight, froze and had a drastic change in her expression as the talisman pulsed like a miniature star, and before she could react.
BOOOOOOOOM.
The talisman detonated, like a nuclear weapon.
"No…" she whispered. "Arthur…"
The blast swallowed Arthur completely, turning the space around him into a void of white light. The shockwave tore through the scattered boulders, even the floating islands miles away shook.
Worst of all, the spatial distortion was also within the blast radius and the moment the explosion occurred the spatial distortion started to destabilize
KRRRRRRRK…!
The spatial distortions spasmed, as reality buckled like cracked glass.
An extremely strong suction force erupted outward from where the spatial distortion had been moments before.
Roderic had already turned to flee before the explosion had occurred, was beating his wings desperately, but the pull was monstrous.
"What…!? NOOOOO!" he screamed as he was abruptly yanked backward towards the huge gap in space.
His voice cracked with panic. As he tried to envelop himself with his domain, and tried to use all strength to stabilize himself, but it was useless. He was dragged back like a rag doll.
Selene watched from afar, her eyes wide with horror as she felt the spatial center destabilizing.
The blast cleared, leaving a vacuum where Arthur had been floating.
And she watched, helpless as Arthur's half-destroyed figure, limp and charred, was sucked toward the vortex.
"ARTHUR!!"
Her scream tore through the pocket dimension, she tried to reach him instantly using teleport or warp space, but her spatial affinity refused to respond due to the distortion's interference.
Unable to teleport, she shot towards Arthur at her top speed, but before she could cover even half the distance, the vortex swallowed Arthur's remains, Roderic's flailing figure, and dozens of floating boulders nearby. She was only spared because she was extremely far away from the location.
SHOOOOP!
The distortion collapsed inward and vanished.
Silence fell, as Selene hung there in the air, with chest heaving, her expression frozen somewhere between disbelief and sorrow. A quiet, broken whisper escaped her lips.
"…No… no, no, no…"
She forced her way through space distortions, arriving at the last known location of the vortex. But there was no trace of Arthur left there.
She immediately closed her eyes and focused inward, trying to sense the connection she had with Arthur, due to the draconic insignia she had imprinted on his hand.
She let out a shaky breath, a mix of relief and frustration, as she felt the connection still existed. It was extremely faint and she was unable to pinpoint his location, like Arthur wasn't even in the same dimension anymore.
"Idiot…" she whispered. "Don't scare me like that…" She also remembered what he said before he left to fight Roderic, and heaved a sigh of relief.
Then her golden eyes hardened.
"I will find you," she murmured, her voice trembling but resolute. "No matter where you were thrown… even if it's beyond the realm."
She pressed her palm against her chest, and muttered, "Just hold on."
She turned toward the destruction-strewn region, scanning every inch with her domain. Then she returned to the island where Arthur's friends were.
On the island, Leon, Finn, Eva, Natalya and the others were waiting.
Finn voiced the moment he saw her expression as he felt a dark premonition creeping on his mind. "…Selene? Where's Arthur?"
Selene couldn't look into their eyes, and only whispered, "…He's gone."
Everyone's countenance changed, and Finn's heart fell into his stomach as he shouted angrily. "What do you mean by he's gone!?"
Leon grabbed his arm sharply. "Finn."
Selene finally looked at them, her usual gentle aura gone, replaced with a cold, stormy resolve.
"He's alive," she said. "I can feel him. But he is… somewhere else."
The group was puzzled, but was relieved at hearing that Arthur was alive.
Finn sighed and apologized, "I am sorry… I overreacted."
Selene nodded and looked back toward the empty sky. Her tone was soft, but every word she spoke was a promise. "I'll tear open every dimension in existence until I reach him."
***
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