Chapter 84 - Clash Of The Grandmasters VI

"Divinity!!"

"The sword is a divine artifact!"

"How can a devil use it?"

"The prince is half-god so maybe he is resistant to it."

"He's not!"

"Yeah, his arm had been bleeding for a while now, the divinity is probably damaging him too."

The two ignored all the shouts from around them and clashed with their full power.

Arthur and Owen. One was a huge wave and the other a huge storm; a wave and storm that devoured everything in their path!

Clashing with their full strength caused shockwaves to spread everywhere, the ground within a nearly 100 meter radius around them cracked heavily.

Owen and Arthur, and fell to the floor.

So much sand had flown into the air that it was difficult to see what was going on. 

Sometime later...

People began to get a hold of themselves one or two at a time.

"Haa, haa!"

"What the hell is this!?"

"So who won?"

"Who won?"

The dust cloud began to clear.

And...!

Owen and Arthur were revealed. 

Arthur was on one knee, while Owen stood tall with his monsterized form deactivated.

Before people could talk about who was victorious, Arthur suddenly swung his sword towards Owen, the silver haze from before was gone completely.

Owen was completely exhausted, most of his energy had been used up, and his wounds refused to heal because of Arthur's sword, he got caught by the attack immediately.

Arthur followed the slash with a kick, one that sent him flying. 

Before he could land, Arthur was already behind him with his leg raised. Another kick sent Owen flying into the air.

Arthur then flapped his wings with enough force to create a dust cloud and took off into the air, forming a fist with his free hand, he punched Owen back to the ground.

Retracting his wings, he allowed gravity to do its work and fell to the ground, with his sword pointed downward.

Owen rolled out of the way just in time to avoid the sharp sword tip that came crashing down on him.

However, before he could stand up completely, Arthur swung the sword again, dragging some of the earth with it.

The spectators were all stunned silent, even those who felt that Arthur's attacks were unusually strong, those who felt that Arthur was not a superior stage master anymore, they were all silent.

Arthur continued beating Owen up, punches and kicks with the occasional sword slash mixed in.

"RAAAA!!!"

Owen gave a loud cry and used the last of his energy to activate multiple large scale magic. The city destroying power of a grandmaster was on full display.

Arthur, however, just laughed and pulled out five shields from his inter spatial ring.

Defensive artifacts that he didn't need to supply energy to.

**BBBOOOoomM!!!

Alongside the loud explosion, there were dust clouds and shockwaves that shook the arena.

The barriers that protected the spectators broke and the directors watching had to personally deploy new barriers.

For Deity realm existences like them, deploying barriers capable of blocking the city destroying power of grandmasters was a piece of cake.

They wanted to stop the fight but the glare they felt coming from the Arch devil of destruction behind them made them give up on that idea.

"I thought you didn't do that because you knew it would be futile?!"

Arthur's shout rang out through the speakers of the arena.

Using the damaged shields as footholds, he dashed towards a partially monsterized Owen and clashed swords with him midair.

They exchanged a flurry of attacks until a kick to the head from an afloat Arthur sent Owen flying once again.

Arthur landed on the ground before dashing towards him with enough force to crack the ground beneath feet.

Arriving in front of the fallen Owen, Arthur dragged him by his tail and slammed him into the ground multiple times before flinging him away once more.

He pulled out a face towel to wipe his sweat and the blood on his arm, after that, Arthur stabbed his sword into the ground before walking up to Owen and picking him up with his left hand.

He punched Owen down into the ground with his right hand, keeping him on the ground with his left, he continuously punched him into the ground.

He alternated hands and repeated this set of actions, each punch had enough force to crack the ground underneath.

He then held up the bloodied Owen and spoke.

"Weren't you acting all high and mighty earlier, about how I couldn't use magic or any energies at all?

Look who's laughing now?

Although I had to rely on artifacts, I was still able to beat you who is two stages above me, and even had the boost of your monsterization and your numerous runes that you probably devoured from the others who were caught up in your experiments.

Tsk...Fools like you should know their place."

Arthur statement caused a buzz around all the spectators. He said he was two stages lower than Owen!

That was the same as indirectly admitting to be in the grand master realm!

This also cleared the doubts of those who felt Arthur's strength was too much for a superior stage master.

If he was a grandmaster, it was understandable and more believable.

This brought a question of how he advanced but it was known that once could advance in realm through years of training and hard work although the difficulty was increased exponentially.

Looking at Arthur's phenomenal sword skills, they understood that although he was talented, the hard work put in should have been no less than his talent.

Of course, some were still skeptical but there was nothing they could say or do.

'They're becoming suspicious, oh well, I was gonna reveal it after going to Varona anyway, it'd just be less of a shock to them at the time.

Now then, let's use 'that' shall we?'

The 'that' Arthur was talking about was something unique to him.

He jumped high up into the air and used his wings to propel himself to the downwards, slamming Owen into the ground with great force and creating a dust cloud around him.

The vision of the spectators was temporarily obscured and that was what he was waiting for.

He used an ability he possessed as a 'person'. 

It was one he would have had regardless of what race he was.

Even if he wasn't the progenitor of a slayer race meant to end the gods.

Even if he wasn't the child of a god and a devil. 

Even if he was just a normal human.

The soul of the existence known as 'Arthurius Aidoneus Vaughnheim' would have still have this ability regardless of the circumstances.

The microphone embedded into his watch was deactivated, that was why no one heard the words Arthur spoke.

"Core Absorption"

The ability to absorb part of an opponent's energy core, with a random chance of gaining an ability or skill belonging to the opponent regardless of affinity.

Seeing red rune that flashed on the back if his palm before melding into his body, Arthur smiled in satisfaction.

There were other conditions that needed to be met before he could use it but even Arthur didn't know what they were.

He only used it now because he instinctively felt he could.

Owen's cry of pain was covered up by the cheers that resounded all across multiple areas in the academy.

Amidst the loud cheering, there were those who finally realized that they were currently supposed to be having classes and scrambled back to their classrooms, and those how felt the cheering was disturbing the other things they were doing too.

Arthur waved to the spectators while walking back to the semi-transparent blade he stabbed into the ground earlier.

Picking it up, he felt like it was at home in his hands. Like it was the only weapon he had ever used throughout his life when this was clearly his first time using it.

It felt like a part of him that had been separated had finally returned.

'What a weird feeling, still, how would I put this away now?'

The moment he thought that, the sword flashed with light before turning into a Crest that melded into his arm like the rune earlier.

Unlike before, this one left a small black and gold dot on the back of his palm.

Arthur stared at the sword in shock, not because of it responding to his thoughts, but because of the voice he just heard.

[Master, get stronger faster and recover all my fragments.]

It was a female voice, that of a young girl's.

'Was that the sword?!'

Although he asked himself that question, he was sure of the answer already. It was definitely the sword that spoke to him just now.

'To think it was an ego sword…'

However what was really weird was that it called him 'master' and told him to recover all its fragments.

'So it was incomplete? That's probably why it was almost transparent.

If it's this strong while being incomplete, it would definitely be stronger when it gets completed.

Oh well, that's  a matter for the future because right now I have other things to deal with than a wild goose chase for sword fragments I probably won't recognize.'

He sighed and dropped to the ground weakly, the medics who were on standby came up to him immediately and put him on a stretcher, taking him to the infirmary.