Chapter 304: Too Late... Again
The sky was a sickly shade of crimson while the air was filled with smoke, ash, and the screeches of the Drakenars.
Tranport pods littered the scorched ground and red cocoons were gathered towards the east where trapped students writhed inside.
A few charred corpses of the ones who had resisted were laid across the place. Their flesh had fused with blackened soil, as if the earth itself had swallowed their lives whole.
"Nooooo!"
The silhouette’s figure split the haze like a blade through silk as he descended from the sky.
His black and white hair whipped wildly with electric arcs swimming around his legacy sword.
The instant his boots struck the charred surface, a ripple burst outward. Qi thundered from his body like a living storm, hurling the nearest Drakenars off their feet and smashing them against the cracked blackened earth.
For a heartbeat, silence fell.
"...Victor?" Felix’s broken voice rasped as the boy clutched the bleeding stump where his right arm had once been.
His wide eyes gleamed with tears and awe.
The silence didn’t last.
The Drakenars screamed with their monstrous voices as they lunged forward in swarms, gnashing and howling with their lava-slicked bodies steaming under Victor’s presence.
Victor’s gaze at the corpses behind Felix.
Corpses of lifeless students...
His heart twisted.
He was too late again...
Anguish burned in his chest but he forced it down. Now wasn’t the time for grief. Now was the time for blood.
Within an instant, Victor sped forward with Wind Dash.
The ground split where he once stood as he appeared before two hulking Drakenars, both barely realizing he’d moved.
His sword hissed through the air with tendrils of shadow enveloping it.
"Shadow Crescent Strike!"
A crescent of darkness howled outward, so sharp the very air bled.
It cut through both Drakenars like paper, splitting their torsos cleanly in two before continuing its rampage.
A distant rock formation, hundreds of feet away, snapped in half and collapsed in thunderous ruin.
Every Drakenar in the path of the attack, screamed as limbs and torsos were severed causing chunks of body parts to rain from above in a sickening drizzle of black blood.
The survivors of the strike staggered as their molten eyes widened in horror.
’A monster has appeared!’ Similar thoughts ran through their minds.
Victor didn’t stop.
In a blink, he reappeared before Felix.
The boy was sobbing but trying desperately to hold back as his face paled from blood loss.
"You’re late..." Felix managed with a trembling grin.
Victor knelt and pulled out something from his jacket pocket.
He proceeded to press a mana-healing solution into Felix’s hand. "Drink it. Then hide. You’re not dying on me today."
Felix’s tears spilled as he stared at the corpses of their classmates. "In as much as I would have liked to join the fight... I’ll just slow you down. Please—kill them! Kill them all!"
Victor smirked faintly, masking the fury boiling inside. "You don’t have to tell me twice."
He squeezed Felix’s shoulder, then rose.
But before he could even withdraw his arm, a Drakenar lunged from behind.
It sharp blade like arms, made of molten rock was already cleaving down toward Victor’s skull.
However, before it could make contact, the attack froze.
The monster screeched while thrashing in a bid to force its blade like arms down but no matter how much it tried its arms remained suspended in the air as though caught by invisible chains.
Victor turned slowly with an unimpressed as his Void Emperor markings throbbed.
"Did I say you could move?"
With a casual flick that was too fast for the ordinary eye to see, his legacy sword carved through both lava-arms in a single stroke.
"KEEKKK!!!"
The Drakenar shrieked as molten blood spewed and sizzled into steam.
Victor didn’t wait for even a second longer before swinging his blade upwards.
His blade sang through the air, sliced through the Drakenar’s thick neck and sent its head sailing into the smoky sky.
More shrieks came in the next instant.
Three Drakenars barreled in from the flank.
Qi burst from Victor’s body as he raised his hand and with a simple motion, he sent Void Emperor energy towards the side.
It wrapped around the Drakenar whose body was mostly in lava form, causing It to freze mid-step.
Victor fingers curled as he proceeded to yank it violently from place and send it flying into its companions like a massive, grotesque flail.
Their bodies cracked together with bone-shattering force upon collision.
Victor roared as he charged forward while swinging the poor creature again and again like a hammer of flesh.
Each collision burst chunks of lava-flesh across the battlefield until what remained of the Drakener was a sizzling smear splattered into the ground.
"Next!"
The swarm obliged.
Dozens of Drakener leaped across the air with their molten bodies glowing hotter under rage.
Victor’s qi exploded as he drew more of the Void Emperor’s power, causing his hair to float like it danced to some unseen storm.
His form split into afterimages as he swept forward with immense speed, causing the Drakenars to claw wildly at illusions.
He reappeared behind them and then...
"Phantom Moon Slash!"
Up to hundred blades of qi carved into the battlefield from every direction...
Only ten were true strikes, hidden within the chaos.
The Drakenars tried to defend but failed...
Limbs were torn, torsos opened and the ground itself shredded with glowing gashes.
"My fire used to be weak against you bastards but now..." He inhaled deeply as a reddish glow appeared in the middle of his chest.
"Time to fight fire with fire... Dragon Breathing Arts—Skyfire Spiral!"
He exhaled, unleashing a circular storm of fire shaped like a whirling dragon.
The spinning flames shrieked as they tore through the monsters, cleaving them apart like wheat before a scythe.
Their screams echoed as molten flesh vaporized into cinders.
The smell of burning blood filled the air.
And still, they came from every corner of the surroundings.
Victor darted forward with Wind Dash, reappearing before another trio.
His palm glowed with frost qi.
"Frost Bloom Palm!"
He struck the nearest monster in the chest.
Frost raced through its molten body instantly, causing the Drakenar to howl in pain as its movement turned sluggish.
Victor smirked. "Not so hot now, are you?"
From the distance, Commander Aiz and Vayla watched the destruction with expressions of disbelief.
"Isn’t that one of the youngsters?" Commander Aiz turned to Vayla in confusion.
"He is," Vayla responded in bafflement. "Only the young humans can come through the circle... it is restricted to the older ones."
Commander Aiz eyes narrowed. "Then why... why does he hold so much power?"