Chapter 98 Chapter 98 - Wrath of an Empyrean IV (1/2)
CHAPTER 98
WRATH OF AN EMPYREAN (IV)
Two swords heaved across the sky like cannonballs in a perfect, shimmering, golden arc. Lino's physical strength was immense; as the matter of fact, him throwing weapon directly was at least four to five times stronger than someone of Early Purity Realm using Qi to do the same. However, Yox didn't know that. He merely scoffed, considering Lino a fool.
Two swords, naturally, weren't able to break apart the massive formation; however, two explosions were massive, obliterating clouds in the sky and breaking apart the shadows hiding the city beneath. Lino saw Yox fluttering in the air with shocked expression. He'd only met the Prince once, but it was more than enough to conclude he was nothing but a bastard.
Lino didn't pause; taking out another two swords, he repeated the same action while golden wings fluttered behind his back. Though his face was almost expressionless and his eyes appeared dull, and even if he couldn't exactly be called superbly handsome, at the moment he exuded a sort of majesty that Yox had never seen in his life. He, a former Prince, current Emperor, paled in comparison.
Two swords struck the shield of the formation... and exploded. Lino didn't seem to care, but even Yox felt his heart hurt as he realized both those swords were actually [Epic] tiered ones. Was this the style known as 'throwing money at your opponent'? Yes, yes it was.
Two more weapons emerged... and were thrown. Then two more. In a few seconds, Lino didn't wait until weapons blasted against the formation to throw new ones. Purple, red, golden, yellow, blue, green... nearly every color imaginable was interwoven in a single array of light reaching from Lino toward the formation's shield.
Explosions resonated one after another, stirring and collapsing the world around the city. In no time, cracks spread like spider webs across the formation, sending the already shocked Yox in a spasm of madness. Over and over and over and over again weapons crashed against the formation until, a mere few minutes later, the formation cracked like glass and Yox finally felt the true pressure. In the sky above him, there were twenty-four weapons, eighteen of which were [Rare] tiered ones, five were [Unique] tiered ones and one [Epic] spear.
It was like entering a treasury, except touching anything would mean causing an explosion strong enough to blow up half the city. Yox couldn't defend against the sudden rain. Weapons fell but, strangely, they ignored him completely. Rather, they struck at the city, leveling the glorified basin into dust. Yox watched as the world around him turned to ash bit by bit, realizing that all his confidence in facing Lino was but a mere fool's dream.
Lino didn't target Yox because he wanted to spare him, but because he knew those two Devils would never let him kill the Prince. Even if two Devils wouldn't actively attack Lino, it didn't mean they couldn't simply tie him down till Lino's borrowed strength expired. It was frustrating. It made him angry. He was too weak; he always knew it, but today he felt it deeper than ever before. He couldn't even avenge the people closest to him. How pathetic was that?
He could only throw the storm of swords toward the city and watch it burn. It wasn't even a consolation... it didn't even help him vent his fury, just further encapsulate the notion of just how weak he was. Frustration... anger... regret... pain... loss... grief... anguish... he tried pouring all those emotions into those weapons to cleanse himself, but it was pointless.
”... she's already dead, isn't she?” he suddenly asked, halting the onslaught for a moment.
”... he he he, ha ha hahaha,” Yox seemed to have finally been liberated from his fear as he saw Lino's expression. ”You realized? Ha ha ha. She committed suicide. Can you believe it? Said she didn't want to be sullied. Ha ha ha, what an idiot. If she served me properly, she could have had the best life she could imagine! Ha ha ha...”
”..”
He remembered his conversation with Ella, he remembered her opening her heart toward him and he remember him leaning against her shoulder and crying. His heart was bleeding more than ever before. He wanted nothing more than to just hide back in his shell and bury everything. But he knew he couldn't. The loss was too great.
For the first time since he learned of their deaths, tears of pure, unfiltered agony and fury began falling out of Lino's eyes. They were tears of pain, of anger, of frustration and, most importantly, of hate. Hate toward himself, toward the Devils, toward the world, toward mankind... toward the cruelty of reality. All his life he seemed to only ever come across the worst of cruelties; he couldn't understand it. No, he didn't want to understand it. Why has the world gone so cold?