『Translator: RainTL』
༺ Fate Intertwined (1) ༻
“Aiya~. I’ve been wanting to see you for a while, my dear nemesis.”
Korin couldn’t follow what was going on – the sudden turn of events was completely outside his expectations.
In front of him was a man who appeared like a normal middle-aged man. Despite showing an amiable demeanor as if he was seeing a long-time friend, there was an unconcealable flicker of violence in his eyes.
Korin Lork knew very well who he was.
“Tates… Valtazar.”
“You know me?” he asked but only as an act of formality. It was evident from his tone that he wasn’t that eager for a reply.
“Why are you here?”
Valtazar let out an amused smile upon hearing his question. He looked dumbfoundingly nonchalant and unguarded – the hems of his coat fluttered as his spear remained behind his back.
“Is it that strange for me to want to see the one that interfered with my plan time after time, who even took one of the treasures away from me?”
“…I see. I guess I was a bit too proactive, huh.”
“Exactly as you say, junior brother.”
His words were followed by a heavy pressure weighing down on Korin’s shoulders.
Vampire, Marie Dunareff.
Heavenly Yaksha, Hua Ran, and one who can stride through the Domain, Alicia Arden.
Dimensional Witch, Josephine Clara.
King of Beasts, Dun Scaith and the Great Sage of the Forest, Dumnorix.
The unprecedented all-powerful Eochaid Bres.
Each and every one of them were heroes, or villains of a similar level. Even those powerhouses who could proudly leave their names down in the annals of history, had to kill their breath at the face of the confrontation of the two of them.
They weren’t the real main characters of this history – this era.
Savior of the World, Korin Lork.
Destroyer of the World, Tates Valtazar.
Their confrontation was a grand plot of destiny that was in correlation with the fate of the world itself. The radiance and pressure of the two main characters of this era weighed down heavily on everyone else.
“Now, what should we do? Korin Lork. I have as many questions as you do. It won’t be a bad idea to share our sides of the story.”
“I think so too but…”
Even though the two of them hadn’t seen each other before, they treated each other like old friends. It appeared as if they could easily dismiss their relationship which should be that of animosity and hostility, but unlike what their tone of voice suggested…
In the blink of an eye, during the faint gap in consciousness and perception, Korin rapidly pulled his muscles for a miraculous surprise attack, but…
The attack was met by the same move. The exact same move within the exact same Domain countered his spear.
— Kududuk!
Domain.
The dream and aspiration of every warrior in the world. A step through the suspended world.
Simply reaching that realm was one that was only possible by the greatest talents of the century so there had been a question roaming unanswered in the minds of everyone… one that was impossible to be answered.
What would happen if two same attacks, the same techniques holding the same amount of power, were to collide inside the suspended world of pure darkness?
The answer to that question was about to be revealed very soon.
“What?”
Those who couldn’t perceive the Domain muttered in doubt. It was because, by the time they realized it, their ally and their enemy were holding the tips of their spear against each other’s.
Soon, they noticed that something was happening at the point of conflict in between the two spears.
— Kuruaaaaaahk…!
What echoed was what sounded like a scream of the dimension itself. The world couldn’t withstand the crash within the Domain and started to quake, making everything ‘crumble’ around the point of conflict.
“H, huh?”
“Hoh~”
Even Alicia, who had entered the Domain numerous times, and even Eochaid Bres who had finished arming himself before Korin’s surprise attack, were shocked and awed by the phenomenon before their eyes.
The crash of the strongest physical attacks of ❰Heroic Legends of Arhan❱ created a small explosion that completely eradicated everything within a radius of 45 cm. It was completely different from destruction; they were literally rejected by the world and vanished to nothing.
“Even that doesn’t work, huh…”
“That was a magnificent move, junior brother.”
Korin clicked his tongue at the failed surprise attack, whereas Tates nonchalantly commented on his attack. Soon after, Tates raised his spear again.
…!!
It was the second intrusion into the Domain. Thanks to already seeing the unprecedented talent, Sword Fiend, and thanks to the support of the system under the skill of Domain Comprehension,
Korin was able to react and respond in time. In a short span of time, he entered the Domain twice which resulted in the dimension crumbling twice in a row.
“Good! Good! Twice is nothing, huh. Then how about three times?”
“What…?”
—
——
———
Third time,
He reacted to it.
—
——
———
Fourth time,
He parried it away.
—
——
———
Fifth time.
Domain was the realm where entering it once was enough to be praised as a miraculous feat. However, the pinnacle of martial arts was being repeated again and again.
———
———
— Kadurururuk!!!!
It was the clash of the century.
Seeing the world crumbling down again and again, the leader of the enemy faction shouted in joy.
“Not bad! A bit faster this time!”
The two heroes stemming off the same root fought each other like doppelgangers. However, there were some slight differences.
“Uht…?!”
A faint shift in weight during attacks, the manipulation of stride and foothold, and a flexible reaction to the clash of spearheads.
Put in one word, it was a difference in caliber.
“Kuhk…!”
The small, seemingly trivial yet detrimental difference in caliber made the Silver Spear pierce through the ground while the Spear of Light stabbed through Korin.
The spear, tainted with blood, penetrated through his chest and came out the other side.
“I, impossible…”
Alicia, Marie and Hua Ran… All of them were lost for words.
1 second.
The fight between the two spearmen, which only a select few were able to perceive, ended in just 1 second, but the result was incredibly significant despite the short period of time it took.
The aftermath of the explosions that had occurred due to the clash of the same attacks had created a large crater. The ground near them had disappeared – they weren’t destroyed; they were eradicated.
“Korin-ssi!”
❰Singular Sword of Arden, Domain Severance❱
The new Sword Fiend, who was able to freely roam through the Domain after reaching the level of a Heavenly Sword, approached Tates in the blink of an eye at a speed that even Tates couldn’t perceive.
Watching that from the side, Eochaid Bres was genuinely surprised.
‘That’s not just any normal Domain. Three steps in the Domain plus an attack on top of that?’
It was a ridiculous level of talent, at least when it came to making use of the Domain. The Demon-Slaying Sword slithered out of the scabbard, ready to cut everything in its path.
– Kang…!
However, her sword failed to cut his neck. In fact, it failed to even fully escape the scabbard. At the end of the handle of the sword was a large chunk of aura… It was firmly staying there as an obstacle stopping the sword from being unsheathed.
“That can’t…”
“Don’t be overly conceited with the Domain. It’s not an invincible, overpowered technique. Repeated entry into the Domain sounds great, but there is always a little gap before the activation and reactivation.”
Tates said while grabbing onto Alicia’s head. His grip was so powerful that she felt like her head was about to crack open.
“Uhhk…!”
A stream of blood flowed down her forehead. Alicia tried to escape from his grip through the Domain, but even that was proving to be difficult.
“You… How dare you.”
Hua Ran pounced at Tates from the back. Right when the living jiangshi with an Unbreakable Vajra Body swung her fist, her fist was stopped and her body was thrown towards Alicia.
Kwang! Alicia was dropped to the ground as Hua Ran fell on top of her. She was then punched and slammed repeatedly from above.
– Tu! Kwang! Kwang! Kwaaang! Kwang!
An absurd level of power smashed down on her relentlessly. Every time a fist landed on her body, the ground beneath them caved in, which thus deepened the crater.
“Kuhhk…!”
“You…!”
As expected of a living jiangshi with an Unbreakable Vajra Body, her body was unscathed despite the repeated, merciless onslaught from Valtazar. The only one suffering in that fight was Alicia, who was constantly being squashed into the ground.
– Charuruk!
In the middle of the fight, chains suddenly extended all the way to Tates’s arms. The chains that were restricting Hua Ran started to devour her aura and restricted not just her but also Tates.
Being a sacred artifact of the New Faith that held a divine power and will, and thanks to the Saintess’s prayer and less restrictions being in place, Hua Ran was able to use them somewhat like weapons.
“You… It’s over.”
Hua Ran gathered a great amount of aura into her fist and let it fly towards him, who was still confined by the chains.
A powerful fist that looked strong enough to destroy anything in existence was flying at him, but Tates didn’t do anything special to protect himself from it.
“Hew~”
Kwang! Tates was sent flying along with a deafening thud.
His body rolled across the coarse ground and was ravaged all around from the shock, but Hua Ran didn’t stop there.
With an astonishing amount of power in her legs, she jumped into the air and went crashing down from the heavens towards him. It was a simple yet destructive kick down from the sky.
Right as she was about to burst his head with the kick… Tates, who was still bound by the chains, responded with a faint gesture. All he did was slightly raise his leg. The moment her foot was about to land on him, he gently kicked it from the side to change the trajectory of the attack.
– Pang!
It was a gentle and dumbfoundingly simple interruption but it was more than enough to let him escape the kick.
– Kwaang!
The destructive kick down destroyed the ground with force, but unfortunately, her leg landed slightly away from his head.
“Amazing in terms of speed and power, but you lack experience. How unfortunate~”
“That… doesn’t change anything!”
Hua Ran, irritated by his nonchalance, flung him into the air but the chains restricting him were still in her hands. All she had to do was fling him back and forth until his body exploded to nothing.
“However, this is not what my fate is supposed to be.”
❰Enforcement of Destiny. Lia Fail.❱
“Huh?”
What happened next was so shocking that even Hua Ran, with her usual indifference, unconsciously let out a mutter in confusion.
“What…”
Tates pulled the chains immediately after landing on the ground, which drew Hua Ran towards him.
‘How is he so strong…!?’
Suddenly, she started being overwhelmed in terms of pure strength. Unable to even react in time, her tiny body was pulled in just like that.
But that didn’t matter – Hua Ran was confident that his punches wouldn’t be any effective on her, and thought to herself that she would respond back with her set of punches while ignoring his attacks.
With firm belief in the defensive capability of her invincible Unbreakable Vajra Body, Hua Ran hurled a straight fist enshrouded with demonic aura, to which Tates responded by deflecting it with both of his hands, and following that through with his knee soaring up at her temples.
“Uht…!”
His knee, with the support of the condensed aura, was exceptionally powerful. Added to the fact that it had landed straight on one of her vitals, it was enough to momentarily make Hua Ran dizzy but Tates wasn’t done with just that one attack.
Pressing on the chains, Tates crushed her balance and used his immaculate techniques to smite the other side of her head with only a few centimeters between them.
“This is nothing…!”
Ignoring the attack, Hua Ran retaliated. As she was about to rip Tates’ limbs out of his body, a sudden ding in the head made her drop to the ground.
“Huh…?”
Hua Ran’s knees dropped down and she was lost, confused by what she was going through for the first time in her life. Gazing down at her, Tates Valtazar commented on her state.
“No matter how tough your body is, you can’t do anything if you get a direct shock to the brain. Remember that.”
The man, who had the qualification to be called the Divine Spear and was at the stage where he could use his entire body as a weapon, raised his Spear of Light to finish things off.
It was then.
❰Combination Spell – Snow Flower❱
The world froze at once.
The severe coldness, enough to make even the air shiver on its toe, filled the surroundings with astonishing flowers of snow.
A grand spell of nature revealed its might for the world to see. The mage bringing about that phenomenon was naturally Marie Dunareff, who had been gathering an enormous amount of mana just for this moment.
“So you are that vampire, huh.”
“…Doggo.”
Heeding her call, a giant dog of blood emerged from her shadows. At once, the dog dashed at its foe.
“Kuruaaaaahh…!!”
The sheer amount of mana being poured out was the very proof of her being adored by mana itself. It was a demonstration of the potential of the genius mage and vampire, who had always had the gifts of a great mage.
A familiar, only accessible by high-grade vampires, sprinted forward, carrying with it the enormous support of its mother.
In a world frozen by the great spell of frost, Snow Flower, unperturbed by the layer of ice seizing him by the legs, Tates lifted his spear and pulled it back.
It was the typical posture for a javelin. However, it was counterintuitive to say that it would lead to a strong attack, considering how his feet were still stuck in ice.
How meaningful of an attack could it be, with him throwing it while standing still on the spot?
A spear that moves by itself—
It penetrates its target without fail—
—And always meets its mark.
The Spear of Light, after a simultaneous activation of three abilities, penetrated through the skull of the Blood Dog and started flying towards the defenseless Marie to stab through her body.
“Aht…!”
As the spear flew at her to bring her down to the abyss, the dimensions suddenly let out a crack as a fissure revealed itself in the middle of the air. It then absorbed the Spear of Light all too easily.
“Close.”
Josephine, the Dimensional Witch, said as the crack immediately started to close. Along with that was the disappearance of the Spear of Light.
“Josephine, my dear old friend. Isn’t it a bit late for you to step in?”
“Shut up, traitor. And… I’m not going to be the one stepping in.”
…….!!
Suddenly, an intense ray of heat poured out from his back. Behind Tates was a large sun, melting the frozen world.
Devouring the mana pool of the owner, which had increased by 740%, the sun revealed itself in full, threatening to scorch the world with its heat.
The manifested form of the sun poured out its oppressive heat. However, in spite of standing before the greatest flame in the world that had even cleansed the gigantic undead city of Nazrea, Tates still appeared nonchalant.
“Sun manifestation, huh. This should be much greater than what a single individual can maintain for a long period of time.”
“…”
In the blink of an eye, he saw through the weakness. It wasn’t looking very good for Korin – he had manifested the sun with nothing but his own mana in an area that hadn’t been prepared before in the slightest, and it was therefore hard to expect much from it.
“Even though it was slightly off the heart, that should have been a fatal injury. The speed of your recovery is magnificent.”
“Are you jealous? Why don’t you find a ghost in a library to send off to heaven then?”
“When you are at my age, you start to become conscious of your health. But hmm, I see. I can sense from you a Karma intertwined with the world.”
Tates realized instinctively that the boy would have engraved Precepts that were in total contrast to the future he was aspiring for.
“Student Korin! We need to retreat right now!”
“…I know. But we need to evacuate everyone else first!”
Korin had to keep the sun up to hold back Tates and his subjects. If he were to leave first, Tates would most certainly direct his attacks at Marie and the other girls.
“Ehh, do I have to continue watching from the side?”
“…”
“Just let the boss enjoy his glorious battle.”
What was worse was that the King’s Subjects had yet to even move an inch. As expected of the strongest boss of the entire world, he was arrogant and therefore carefree, but it was hard to tell if his subordinates would stay out of the fight until the end or not.
“Behold.”
Tates remarked with a single gesture. With one flick of his hands, the world started to shake, forcing Josephine to mutter in shock.
“The dimension… is being broken?”
She was befuddled, shattering the usual image of her being a calm and collected senior professor of the Academy. Soon, she noticed what was going on.
Spear of Light, Areadbhair.
The divine spear of gods that always hit and pierced through its mark. Josephine realized that the spear was about to pierce through even the dimension itself to finish its job.
“Everyone, jump in!”
❰Unique Grade: Crowd Teleportation❱
She used the same great spell that had once teleported hundreds of students at once.
All the girls, the boy and even the injured Chairman Eriu… All of them immediately jumped into the crack in the dimension that Josephine had created in the air.
“Now, a question for you. That spear that I threw… ‘Who’ do you think it was thrown at?”
Following his nonchalant remark, the alternate dimension that swallowed Areadbhair started to crack open.
– Pakang!
“Hurry up…!”
Everyone made it in time into the separate dimension that Josephine created before heaving a sigh of relief. It was a dark plane of nothingness.
“Huu… I was in so much of a hurry that I couldn’t even enter the coordinates in. But we’re safe now. Let’s head back to the Academy.”
“N… no.”
“Chairman?”
Josephine asked in doubt. Unfortunately… Chairman Eriu was the only one there who foresaw the worst possible turn of events that was going to hit them very soon.
– Kaduk!
Flinch.
Suddenly, the sound of shattering glass reached everyone’s ears. They then turned towards the source of the sound in the otherwise silent dimension of nothing.
“That’s…”
“…A hole.”
– Kachaaaang!
Immediately upon perceiving what it was, Korin threw his body forward and stood in front of Marie whom Tates had thrown the spear at.
– Kajik!
“Kuhk…!”
However, the spear hadn’t been aiming for Marie all along.
“Chairman…!”
The Spear of Light… It penetrated through Chairman Eriu’s heart.
And—
『The Spear is a part of the owner.』
Like an arm being pulled back, the spear was rapidly brought back to the crack in the fissure and disappeared from their sight in the blink of an eye, along with the body of the skewered chairman.
****
After going through the process of freezing and being scorched, the land was desolate and wasted like a piece of land that had been recently struck by a storm. Standing there was Tates Valtazar, gazing at Eriu Casarr whose heart had been stabbed by a spear.
“Been a while, my beloved master.”
“Tates… Valtazar.”
Despite being pierced in the heart by Areadbhair, Chairman Eriu was different from a normal person at the brink of death. The body that should be composed of blood and flesh was pouring out fragments of rune stones, and his pale face was the same as before.
Neither of them was surprised by it however, because in the end, both of them were aware that it wasn’t a real death but a mere destruction of an avatar.
But that raised the question of why.
Why did Tates Valtazar prioritize the destruction of a simple avatar instead of anyone else?
“The destiny… of Lia Fail.”
“You seem to have noticed it.”
“So Student Korin… Korin is… your… contender, huh.”
Lia Fail, the Great Stone of Destiny. It had the ability to show trivial changes of the future and the fates of others, but that wasn’t the true potential of the great treasure.
A glimpse into destiny and its enforcement.
It had the power to go against any kind of principle in the world, as long as it was for the accomplishment of the destiny observed by its owner, and that included even the principle of time.
Unlike the other observations and trivial changes to the future that could be made depending on one’s course of action, that was the ‘arbitrary decision of destiny’ – one that was unchangeable and unbreakable.
“He and I will fight each other during the final battle. That fight will be what decides the destiny of the world.”
“I… see.”
“It’s ridiculous. To think the one stopping me wouldn’t be you, but a young and sloppy disciple of yours.”
“…”
Eriu… Erin Danua thought to herself. The flood of memories that had once been poured into her mind and the paradox she saw in the midst of the 300-years-worth of memories… was finally explained by her denounced disciple.
“I… see.”
There was no longer even the slightest bit of hesitation left inside her. She realized what it was that she had to do.
“Erin Danua. My goal is still the same as what it was 80 years ago.”
But at the same time, she was in deep sorrow. The disciple who had once been her everything, and the last disciple she had raised…
“I will eradicate this deceitful world and bring paradise back.”
Their contrasting aspirations was just another proof of their destiny to kill or be killed by one another.
The fact that this was all because of her own foolishness… was extremely disheartening.
– Kaduk!
The spear left the chest and soared up to behead the humanoid figure of Eriu Casarr. With this, there was only one way for her to meddle in the works of the world which was now on the brink of destruction.
She had no choice but to break the seal and leave the palace.
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