Chapter 79 - Clash Of The Grandmasters I

The top 5 of the second year class were all from Class A. 

Arthur was Rank 1

Layla was Rank 2

Nicole was Rank 3

Edward, one of Arthur's close friends was Rank 5. 

If so, who was rank 4?

After being defeated by Arthur, Jenson lost his motivation and was defeated by Nicole who took his rank. The person who was previously Rank 6 then defeated Edward who moved up to rank 4, taking his position.

The ranks have remained that way ever since.

The second year's Rank 4 was none other than Owen. In terms of ranks, he was the closest to Arthur, Layla and Nicole.

'That bastard knew from the start, he was just stalling so he could watch a show.'

Thinking of how he played into the hands of the mischievous friend of his, he clicked his tongue in indignation.

'That auction is awfully suspicious too, why have they prepared so much even though its happening next year, the location too is also worrying.'

While he was having such thoughts, a lot of students had already been gathered at the stands of the arena.

As it was currently break time, many were free to come and watch the battle.

News had also spread that Arthur accused a descendant of the House of Greed for being the mastermind of the incident.

Other members of the House of Greed were enraged upon hearing this and wanted to stop whatever Arthur was planning, but when a majority of the student body were anticipating the battle, there was little they could do.

Some didn't care about the whole situation and only wanted to see a fight between two members of the second year's top 5.

It had been months since any of the top 5 of the second year fought against each other.

All 5 of them were geniuses in their own right, there was Arthur who despite not using energy, was able to keep his position for more than a year.

Seconded by Layla who possessed absurd skill with not just guns, but other long range weapons and magic.

There was Nicole in third, she was the most innocent looking of them all but was surprisingly brutal during her duels.

Fourth was Owen who possessed all round physical and magic ability, he also had quite the amount of skill in ether manipulation too.

Lastly was Edward who despite being a lesser royal, was capable of defeating most of the devildom nobles of his generation.

All 5 of them were in the superior stage of the master realm, at least that was what the public thought.

The truth however, was different;

Arthur was an intermediate stage grandmaster, and as for Owen.

'Superior stage grandmaster, most may not notice it but other grandmasters can.'

The result of his experiments had increased Owen to the superior stage of the grandmaster realm, this was an even bigger increase in strength than Zach had.

After all, Zach was already an inferior stage grandmaster, the monsterization just increased his strength by two stages and brought him up to the superior stage.

However Owen was originally a superior stage master, his increase in strength brought him to the superior stage of an entirely new realm, and unlike Zach, and his was stable.

Arthur studied Zach and narrowed his eyes, 

'This bastard, he made Zach's monsterized state his normal state, there should still be more to this though.'

This meant that Owen default state was the same as Zach's monsterized state, yet his energy was not corrupted like Zach's, neither was he losing his sanity. He was perfectly fine, he had succeeded in removing the major disadvantages of monsterization.

Owen looked around at the gathering crowd and spoke,

"Did you call them here to watch your loss?"

However, the moment he did, he noticed that his voice resounded across the entire arena.

Arthur chuckled and rose his arm, attached to his watch was a small microphone artifact captured any voices within a 15 meter radius.

It filtered out other sounds and accepted only voices.

"Let's give them a show shall we?"

Owen glared at Arthur for a moment before nodding in affirmation.

"In the end, just a foolish prince who can't use his energy, dealing with you would be easy."

There was an uproar from Arthur's fans due to his words, however Owen did not care.

Like Zach, the monster that Arthur believed Owen had become was a rune Eater. And exactly like Arthur's thoughts, a blue rune flashed briefly on the back of Owen's palm.

'So he's starting with ice huh? Still, it seems he became more than a normal rune eater.'

"Quite bold, using me to test out your newly acquired abilities, oh well, I'd humour you for now."

Owen only snorted and flicked his fingers, he took a step forward. 

The cold air from his arm began to take shape.

Arthur grinned and pulled out an artifact from the inter spatial ring Cattleya gave him.

"I might as well use you to test out my new artifacts."

An earth wall rose up dividing the arena in two and separating him from Owen. However it did not last long.

The chilly air spread along the wall, and soon, the whole wall turned into cold ice. 

Rune of the extreme cold! 

***Bang! Bang! Bang! 

Arthur thought there was just a crack in the frozen wall, but it all collapsed at once.

However he was not surprised, it was within his expectations. His feet had already begun moving the moment the wall came up.

'World Steps.'

One of the many footwork techniques Creusery thought him but he never used.

Arthur appeared before Owen's nose. 

Owen thought it was impossible. 

The chilled air generated by the rune of extreme cold wasn't just an ordinary chilled air. 

It was negative Yin energy that consumed the body. 

Even if ordinary people endured the cold, the body would not have been able to move freely because of the Yin energy. 

But it wasn't the case for Arthur 

As a result of his affinity with all elements, his resistances to these elements Increased greatly. Since his affinity stretched into being compatible with all elemental laws, some of which required negative energy, he possessed high resistance to their effects.

Shock spread over Owen's face.

'Lightning Punch.'

Seven strikes with the speed of a lightning bolt struck Owen's whole body.

Owen lost his senses for a moment. 

The seven strikes poured like a bombing, aiming at the fatal points of the humanoid body such as the solar plexus (pit of the stomach), philtrum (the area between the nose and upper lip), and the temples (area between the ears and eyes). 

Since devils had a humanoid body and shape, their vital places were also like humans. 

However they were devils in the end, a race stronger than humans by leaps and bounds.

Owen lost his senses for a moment because of Arthur's attack, but he did not collapse at once.

In fact, not all seven consecutive strikes were successful. The last strike was blocked. Owen desperately moved to stop the attack. 

"Ra-kuhaa!" 

When the bloody Owen burst out into a roar, lightning sparked all over his body. Due to his increased realm of existence and energy level, his wounds were already healing at a speed nearly thrice of Zach's.

He switched to the lightning element and released a burst of magic.

Arthur who was close to him couldn't help getting caught up in it.

However, he barely took damage.

"Last time I fought a lightning user, I had my clothes torched, didn't really want that to happen again."

Another punch sent straight to Owen's face. This time, his fist was caught.

With the strength of a superior stage grandmaster, Owen flung Arthur away. 

Or rather he was forced to as his instincts screamed at him to.

However, looking at Arthur who regained his footing immediately, he did not see anything on him that would warrant such a reaction from his body.

'I wanted to test out my divinity infused punch for a bit though'

The reason for Owen's body's reaction was simple, the divinity Arthur possessed was detrimental to it.

Devils were incompatible with divinity, in most cases, they were weak to it. Besides the Arch devils and greater devils who had gained resistance to it, other devils would take great damage from it.

Arthur was thinking of a way to use his divinity without releasing his wings or awakening that troublesome negative energy of his.

And he was about to test it out on Owen just now, however Owen flung him away before he could.

'Using it at long range would he exposing myself so that's a No.'

"Tsk..."

Owen audibly clicked his tongue staring at Arthur who had regained his balance, the latter however just summoned a sword using his sword creation artifact and beckoned him over.

Mana condensed into Owen's palm and formed a similar longsword, he gripped it and swung it towards Arthur multiple times, letting out waves of Aura with each swing.

'His energy transition is quite smooth.'

With those thoughts in mind, Arthur dodged his swings while closing the distance.

He pulled out a gun from his inter spatial ring and fired towards Owen.

**PANG!

And just like he once did to Layla, his bullets were deflected at first, then reflected back to him.