Chapter 167: The God of Death’s dread (2/2)

“Do you know now the taste of fear?”

Lotton fell back more than a dozen meters all of a sudden, as though he didn’t feel like bothering with Charlotte’s avatar. His gaze fell on Ayrin just then.

A shadow appeared on Ayrin’s back.

“What?”

But what made Lotton’s breathing stop was, the shadow raising from the Ayrin’s back vanished once again.

Ayrin immediately leaped from the ground and charged wildly in Lotton’s direction.

“Even the Evil Blood Corrosion is… useless? Why!”

Lotton’s eyes widened.

He realized that the traces of corrosion on Ayrin were not only not enlarging, they were shrinking instead.

“Death’s Snare!”

His state of mind imperceptibly changed as he watched Ayrin charge his way. His mind was filled with the thought that he didn’t want Ayrin to come anywhere near him.

Along with a quiet chant, the patch of ground Ayrin was stepping on suddenly caved in.

“Hiss!”

But just at this moment, Ayrin’s breathing suddenly became extremely intense. The ups and downs of his chest were enough to make one’s heart shiver in palpitation. It seemed he was going to inhale all the air in front of him.

At the same time, Ayrin’s strength flared explosively once again. When pitfalls were forming on the ground, he’d already dashed his way over.

“Boom!”

A huge, white block of ice appeared in front of Lotton. It transformed abruptly the next instant, becoming a crown of ice and snow charging his way.

Lotton’s figure flashed, reappearing away from the sharpest tips on the crown.

The Crown of Ice and Snow Ayrin launched with the assistance of Holy Body Ignition failed to hit its mark.

“Ah!” “Ah!” “Ah!”

However, like a madman, Ayrin once again hammered the Crown of Ice and Snow with his fists.

This crown immediately split apart. Countless fragments of ice shot away like sharp blades.

“Puff.” “Puff.” “Puff.” “Puff…”

Countless ice fragments struck Lotton.

“He’s gone crazy…”

Looking at the crazed Ayrin, Charlotte couldn’t even untangle her chaotic feelings any longer.

“Why?… Fear, isn’t it an emotion no one can overcome?… Why is my strongest skill ‘Greed—Beast of Fear’ completely useless?”

Lotton’s figure suddenly vanished in front of Ayrin just then, but his absent-minded self-mumbling still floated to their ears.

The next second, Lotton appeared against a wall to the side. There were several wounds on his forehead, on his cheeks, blood was flowing down from them.

Ayrin’s body was already nearing the limit of the burden it could bear. He was trembling non-stop.

“You simply have no idea what true fear is.”

Still, he braced himself and straightened, looked at Lotton, panted fiercely, and yelled, “Fighting the enemy in a sealed, secluded underground passage, it’s far from being the most frightening thing, even if the enemy is the Grim Reaper himself. The most frightening thing is when you have no idea at all what you have to do, when you have no idea at all what you can do to change the situation. If you had to fight in a place like this day after day, fight against the Grim Reaper, unable to change anything at all as days pass by one after another, if the only thing you can do is to barely survive in a place like this no matter how desperately you struggle, if you can’t even see the light of hope, then that would be a truly frightening thing… I already fought against the Grim Reaper in a place similar to this one for seven years. I endured and persevered. Even though there was no trace of hope for any better tomorrow to be seen anywhere, I still never lost the courage to fight… The little bit of fear coming from your skill, what do I care about it!

“In Cororin, even studying was a luxury. There was no hope anywhere. Now, I can join Holy Dawn Academy and study, I can participate in the national tournament, I can fight for the sake of my dreams. What would I be afraid of? Why would I ever give up?!”

“You, however, you’re already so powerful, but do you really know what true fear is, do you know what you have to do? A traitor like you who’s turned his back on the beliefs of an arcane master!”

“So he’s led such a life…” Ayrin’s roar sent Charlotte in a daze. Her eyes strangely became red.

Against on the wall, Lotton didn’t move at all. Then all of a sudden, he repeated Ayrin’s words: “What true fear is?”

All of a sudden, like a scared child, he huddled himself and started shaking. Kept shaking.

“A traitor who’s turned his back on the beliefs of an arcane master?

“When did I ever believe?

“Hope?

“From the moment I opened my eyes to this world, when did I ever feel hope?

“In a similar place…I had to kill others, even kill my own family, eat their corpses so I could to survive… I merely want to survive.”

All of a sudden, the trembling Lotton shouted again with dread, “Don’t!! … Your shadows, don’t appear in my mind!”