Book 5 - Chapter 64 - A Difficult Escape (1/2)

The Arcturus of this moment was completely different from the scholarly Governor everyone knew. He was surrounded in holy light gifted to him by the Seraphs, which robbed him of the kindly erudite air that was typical and replaced it with a domineering righteousness. In an instant his vast mental energies were restored to their peak.

His wings spread forth, four meters long from end to end. The electric energy that composed them gathered rich and thick.

His graying hair had become snow-white. Even merely standing before them the Master Demonhunter dominated the area with his presence. It felt as though he could obliterate them all with just a thought, as though Arcturus Cloude wasn’t a man at all but something more.

He was like a god!

Judas, the elder demon, was shaken by what he witnessed. A note of surprise wormed into his crimson gaze. “You… you have turned yourself into a Seraph. Impossible… how?”

Skycloud’s Governor, the realm’s ultimate demonhunter, was a Seraph? Was he created at the hands of the gods and installed here as their agent among humanity? It was an incredible revelation that was too much to grasp!

Indeed, it was impossible! Seraphs didn’t have independent thought, but Arcturus had been revealed time and again to be a genius. Whatever Arcturus was, he was no puppet. Quite the opposite. He was wise, capable in leadership, exceedingly well-learned to the point that no one in all the realm could compare. Nothing about him could be likened to a puppet.

Oren, a member of the Cloude family himself and Knight-Commander of the Demonhunter Corps, stared at Arcturus’ transformation in speechless amazement. He was one of the Governor’s most adoring and faithful supporters… and yet he’d never seen a hint of Arcturus’ true face until now.

He was a man whose breadth of power was rarely seen in all the history of humanity. His capabilities were boundless. What other secrets was he hiding? It seemed clear Arcturus could destroy any man or demon who stood in his path, so why hide it for so long? What was his strategy?

Oren wasn’t alone. Frost’s heroic features had also gone slack in astonishment.

His heart was a storm of emotion. For a whole decade Frost had been by the Governor’s side, but he realized now he’d never really seen the man. It always felt like staring into an unfathomably deep ocean. But even that wasn’t right – it was more like staring into the endless black of a night sky.

Cloudhawk’s features were grave. He recognized this. Arcturus Cloude reminded him of Squall.

Of course, the two men were on entirely different levels, but it seemed clear both Squall and Arcturus had undergone similar transformation methods. Similar to the Seraphs, Squall could also take command of his own puppet in Blackfiend.

Blackfiend the Undying was a demonic version of Skycloud’s protectors. A Fiend.

At their root, Fiends and Seraphs were the same. Squall had once empowered himself by borrowing from Blackfiend, just as Arcturus was now by the several Seraphs surrounding him.

Were these similarities just coincidence, or was there something more?

Arcturus made his move. His electric wings began to beat.

A million crackling bolts of electricity were released, blasting out for a thousand meters all around. In a breath he’d summoned a terrible, localized thunderstorm that blinded the eye. Like angry vipers those lightning bolts snaked through the air with an electric hiss. Everyone instinctively backed away for fear of being burnt to ash.

Soon there was only Arcturus and Judas, with a field of a thousand meters to test their strength. A mighty demon elder, and a demigod.

Ripples of foul energy continued to gather around Judas. Lightning that came within his sphere of influence fizzled into nothing.

Arcturus reached out casually with his hand. From the loosely gathered lightning around him he extracted a sword of lightning. When he spoke his voice boomed through the storm, like a god of thunder. “You – an elder from a fractured race, ranked least among your peers, a failure of the Great War. It is laughable to think this paltry gathering can challenge the gods. If your inferior kind had the strength, they would have defeated the almighty ones thousands of years ago.”

“If you underestimate a demon elder, you will pay the price.” The energies gathered around Judas suddenly spread out. In a blink the field swelled to several times its original size. Wherever it passed, Arcturus’ lightning faded into nothing and the space came under his control. Anything unfortunate enough to be caught inside – be it physical of energy – immediately was rent to its basest components and was destroyed.

Arcturus pulled back his arm and flung Ruin toward his foe.

As the blade left his grip all the world around it warped. The sword tugged at reality as though possessed of an intense magnetic field. Those scattered bolts of lightning changed trajectory and flowed toward it like rivers toward the ocean. With each additional surge of electric power Arcturus’ attack blazed brighter, until it burned like the sun.

Was he throwing his weapon? No – he was creating and throwing a small star! With such power it seemed anything in its path was destined for destruction!

Judas felt the danger crest upon him with an intensity he hadn’t felt since the Great War. His red eyes seethed as the breadth of his mental energies were brought to bear. His field of control burgeoned out further with incredible speed, voracious and undeniable. The two mighty and opposed power eventually met.

The darkness gobbled up the small sun like a hungry beast.

What followed caused eyes to bulge and jaws to drop.

Countless bolts of electric energy were released inside the field. They evaporated before they could spread far, and Judas’ field of power similarly began to dim. The conflict of these two power was so intense everyone could feel it like a mountain on their chest.