Re: Timeless Apocalypse-Chapter 97: Emperor(II)

He laughed, and his storm aether burned brightly within his veins, his flesh gaining the momentum of fierce winds and the weight of heavy rivers.

BANG!

With ease, from a crossing block that should’ve failed, he flowed into a parry, meeting Uriel’s glaive head-on and casting it aside.

Grinning, he stepped forward, his feet digging into the mud as his muscles flexed, and from that parry, he continued with a vicious lateral slash.

Uriel, his guard broken and his defense pried open, didn’t panic in the least at the prospect of the blade sundering him in half.

His mind spun, and a dozen spells were cast, all buffing him while simultaneously weakening the Emperor. The latter was a half-step D-Ranker, so his spells were barely a tenth as effective, but the quantity made up for it.

It gave him just enough leeway to react.

Like a rubber band pulled taut and then let loose, his parried arm sped back, spinning in his grasp and crossing in the path of the coming spear, its pole blocking.

The Emperor’s spear blade hammered against his glaive’s shaft, the echoing force rattling his bones and organs alike, but the most shocking part were the rippling waves of storm aether that followed.

They snaked across his skin, peeling and tearing his flesh apart as if his shell didn’t exist, fracturing many of his bones.

He slid across the muddy ground, his arms pulsating in dire ache, but he didn’t relent, his heart thumping loudly.

Just as he expected the Emperor to follow, he was yet again taken off guard. He had barely stopped sliding back when a strong gust of wind slammed into him, the force so mighty his mind blanked for a split second.

That split second was all that was needed for dozens of water bullets to come pelting across his body, failing to pierce through his shell, yet leaving purple bruises all across him, from which storm aether bloomed.

He was thrown into the distance, skidding across the mud.

Uriel hadn’t even realised his armour of darkness had faded away.

BANG!

Uriel flipped onto his feet, just in time to flip backwards again and dodge a water spear that would’ve pierced through his head and killed him.

His feet touched the mud and he landed, he blinked, and the Emperor was in front of him, his spear’s blade at his neck, covered in shimmering waves of water.

His uniqueness burst for just a split second before his mind pulled upon the atmospheric fabric of aether, twisting it into runes that assembled into what seemed to be hundreds of small circles.

Each circle acted on the Emperor’s spear, applying a counteracting force that nullified part of its momentum—when stacked across hundreds of spell circles, in a blink, the spear stopped, losing all speed and momentum at once. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

The Emperor’s eyes widened.

Pushed into a corner, Uriel’s arcane talent exploded just as his madness deepened.

His free hand shot forward, grabbing and yanking the Emperor’s spear—not to tear it from his grasp, but to pull him closer just as he stomped down.

Right between them, the ground turned to sand, and from the echo of Uriel’s stomp, dozens of vines surged through the sand, rising to pierce into the Emperor, who found himself off balance and right over the zone of danger.

"Oh? You’re finally starting to use your elements, I see."

The sharp vines tore upwards at ridiculous speeds, impaling the Emperor’s flesh, but to Uriel’s shock, the former’s body suddenly turned into an amorphous mass of wind and water.

The vines tore through the mass, dealing no damage.

The mass then churned and moved, reassembling right beside him, just as the Emperor reached for his spear, tearing it out of Uriel’s grasp and, in turn, breaking his balance.

And as Uriel fell forward, taken off guard, the Emperor’s leg rose and whipped through the air, slamming into his midsection with the force of a thousand men and sending him flying.

"If that’s the case, I’ll show you mine as well."

Uriel, rather than flying away, crashed into a wall of seemingly solid wind a mere meter from where he’d been kicked, his bones shattering as the force compressed into him, then bounced him back toward the Emperor.

The latter laughed, his palm shooting forward, catching Uriel’s body midair, fingers clamping around his throat before he threw him high into the air.

Discombobulated, Uriel twisted and turned through the air, trying to situate himself. In his panic, he failed to realise the flux of aether forming around him.

In a blink, he stopped, midair, a gigantic bubble having spontaneously formed to entrap him. The water suddenly began to boil, and he screamed, a foolish mistake he immediately regretted.

Through his mouth and orifices, boiling hot water invaded his body, an act just as painful as it was violating. Then, suddenly, the water became freezing cold, so much so that the whiplash made Uriel faint.

The bubble of water popped and he fell from the skies, caught in time by the Emperor’s spear, cleaving through the air to hammer into his wet and weakened body.

For the umpteenth time, Uriel’s shell gave way—but not entirely—the Emperor’s spear impacting his side, breaking his left arm and twisting it at an odd angle as he was thrown aside like a ragdoll.

His shell made puncturing his skin a ridiculously complex endeavour and boosted his flesh and bones, but what did it matter if blunt force could end him?

If anything, his body being so solid made it easier to break, since he couldn’t disperse the force as easily as most could.

The pain awoke Uriel and his body seized as he rolled and tumbled, keeling over to cough out mouthfuls of water trapped in his lungs.

He wheezed and coughed, breath refusing to come to him, as if the air in the atmosphere no longer recognised him, as if in the presence of its Emperor, he had no right to it.

Suffocating.

The Emperor had barely truly applied himself, yet each of his attacks could’ve easily killed Uriel, and whatever breakthrough the latter had achieved was seamlessly matched by yet another layer of mastery.

Suffocating—that was the only word.

He was an Emperor. A true one.