Bro, I'm not an Undead!

The primary use of [Just Light], the basic principle that it offered to its user, was the aspect of CONTROL. It was indeed a broad word to use but it was fitting.

How so?

Well…

Kenno gaped at the scene before him.

Suddenly, after the ground was shaken by an enormous amount of mana literally exploding out of his opponent, seemingly insurmountable dark orbs spawned all around him!

They stood in mid-air without as much as a small shift in their movement, a minimalistic design of half a skull over their non-reflective faces!

‘I can get used to using mana from a blue core to power normal skills. The effect is ridiculously fun!’ Skullius thought, his excitement growing.

Then, he attacked.

…!

Kenno ground his teeth!

A sudden burst of noise assaulted his ears without warning!

p No!

It wasn’t just his ears!

This noise affected the air which shook.

It affected the ground which tumbled.

It affected the ambient mana which shifted continuously.

This noise…!

It was as if millions of gigantic flies were zipping all around him and for a few moments Kenno roared in pain as he clutched his sound holes!

Blood leaked from them as they failed to register anything but this atrocious, strangely rhythmic acoustic that was in fact, the sound of the hundreds of thousands of [Beads of Malevolence zipping around the great open space!

This movement of theirs…

It was fast. Too fast.

Five hundred thousand orbs that had blocked the sunlight with just their appearance had suddenly vanished, becoming imperceptible to the eyes of even someone like Kenno if he didn’t apply his full focus, along with the boost from the Genuine Incarnation he had just summoned.

‘What kind of attack is thi—’

WHAAAAM!

Kenno spewed saliva from his mouth with thick, bulbous veins pressing on the skin of his temples!

He was suddenly launched far with by unreasonable force that upon knocking into him, instantly spawned a massive, spherical crater where he had stood!

A [Bead of Malevolence] had knocked the wind out of Kenno who crashed against the ground before he felt another black orb smite mightily right under his arm, a terrible shockwave making him spin in a different direction from the force.

‘BUUAARGGH!’ Kenno felt the disorientation from two conflicting forces ring across his entire body, messing with his navigational juices!

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

Hundreds of [Beads of Malevolence] busted against the SinSky Shatterer with an atrocious force, a nasty ringing flowing through the steel and reaching Kenno’s flesh!

‘Wait! It’s… it’s the weight! He must be applying the weight to every one of these things!’ Kenno thought as another orb the size of his fist smacked against his shoulder, the air crackling as if smitten by lightning from the crisp impact that caused another ring to the SinSky Shatterer!

Kenno was right!

The grinning Hybrid Luman that he was now two hundred meters away from was applying the weight of his mana to each and every one of the orbs as he had surmised, lightening them up for high speed travel before making them abnormally heavy right at the moment of impact!

The Pseudo-Mythical armour held but this didn’t matter.

A moment later, all five hundred thousand beads stormed against Kenno who kept getting launched this way and that after every hit, his only option being to guard his head with his arms as well as his Aura otherwise he would be killed instantly!

For a good thirty seconds, thunderous noises rang out for miles as one man was assaulted by fast moving balls with weight ranging from ten thousand to thirty thousand, all moving in a calculated sequence and all of them hitting their marks perfectly!

Skullius was delighted by the discovery that while he was limited to applying 30,000 tonnes on himself, he could apply it individually to the [Beads of Malevolence] though it cost a huge amount of his mana!

Who cared?!

This was fun!

‘This isn’t good! Even if my armour is strong, its durability will be chipped away at this rate! The special effect isn’t working either! By the time it disperses these things, they would have already hit!’ Kenno thought with his eyes bloodshot and blood leaking out of his mouth from having his organs shocked constantly.

‘I can’t deal with these things, but if I can kill their user…!’

Kenno was abused a few thousand times before he gritted his teeth and expelled his Aura at max, having it coat him excessively. This allowed the hits he took to at least be a little less than half as efficient as before which gave him a chance to breathe.

He couldn’t output his Aura like this for long though.

He had to make it count!

Kenno cupped both his hands and manifested six white cards with gorgeous blue etchings over their surfaces above his open palms. He then took a deep breath and blew at these cards.

With flaming trails of white that rivalled the [Beads of Malevolence] in speed, the six cards zoomed through the air and…

SWISH!

Skullius’ arm came flying off, the Hybrid Luman having been struck by an attack so fast that he couldn’t see it at all!

The distance this card had crossed was more than 700 meters and even then, it had flashed by before Skullius could tell his arm was severed, its razor sharp edge allowing it to seamlessly penetrate into the ground afterwards!

Terrifying.

Absolutely terrifying!

The range and speed of Kenno’s Object type Incarnation was serious.

Simple but deadly!

But… what of the other cards?

What had happened to them?

…!

Kenno was appalled, his eyes opening wide.

What was he looking at right now?! What did this mean?!

Right before Skullius was a curved green blade with a golden handle, its form slowly spinning in mid-air without a wielder!

Fragments of white Aura were dispersing under the dark red halo around the blade’s edge from its previous motion to defend its master, but now it stopped moving and floated at a slight angle ready to defend again!

On the blade, half a skull could be seen with a faint golden white halo covering the entire weapon.

The sword had blocked the other Incarnations!

Only one had managed to slip through!

What was going on?!

If Skullius couldn’t even see the Incarnations, how could he defend?!

“Hehehe. Confusing isn’t it, sockethole?” Skullius mocked Kenno from the distance.

PFFFFS!

The Precept of Light behind Skullius, the Preeminent Attegoth, was something he had created a little more than a day ago with the help of the [Wing of the Just] which allowed him to more easily manipulate [Just Light].

‘Attegoth’ was a word from an dialect he had learned some time ago, meaning ‘Sacred height’ or ‘Holy rise’ in some contexts.

With the prefix Preeminent attached to Attegoth, Skullius had effectively named the Precept, ‘the most significant sacred height.’

He took inspiration from the ‘life’ he had lived longest – bones and all – and had forged a tree made entirely out bones and skulls as his Precept of Light. This was the design he felt a connection to and it worked wonders.

The Precept had a shocking amount of features but he couldn’t access them yet with his low affinity with [Just Light].

But barring the complexities, what was the Precept of Light? No, rather what did it do?

Unlike [Evil Darkness], to fully master [Just Light], one need a central command centre, so to speak. A grand connection that refined its master’s will and execute it with a hundred times efficiency.

As Fulgardt’s texts had said, [Just Light] was for CONTROL, thus Skullius could literally control anything that was touched by his [Just Light]… eventually.

For instance, after summoning the thousands of [Beads of Malevolence], he expressed his will to the Preeminent Attegoth.

‘Have the [Beads of Malevolence] attack Kenno relentlessly.’

This order had been refined by the Preeminent Attegoth, allowing Skullius to not have the chore of controlling the orbs individually as the Precept could perform it far better than he could!

Indeed, this was amazing!

Skullius at the moment had free control of non-living objects without much of a limitation but when it came to living, sentient creatures, the effect was hard to pin, especially when they had high level means of protection. Even with the current basic Precept though, he could temporarily paralyse weaker, unguarded individuals. But just that though and nothing more, for a limited amount of time.

‘Time is running out. I better finish this guy off before the Precept runs out of mana,’ Skullius thought as he healed himself, grabbed [Demion’s Dance] hanging in the air and shot towards Kenno!

The man in the true sapphire armour grunted as he was bashed downwards by orbs three times his size, his body flying like a comet down to land on the ground while smaller orbs continued to bombard him!

‘Not yet! I’m not done yet!’ Kenno growled internally as he activated [Dust Maker], deleting the ground him and causing some of the orbs to disperse into masses of darkness before they reach him!

Most of them still crashed into him as he thought, but for this brief moment that he was freed from the onslaught, he dashed madly towards Skullius, dozens of cards storming from his position with white trails towards his enemy!

The unbelievably fast cards tore apart flesh without even being seen clearly by who they violated, including their owner who followed after them, charging up his Aura into his fist to deliver one decisive blow to Skullius’ head!

Whatever he was.

Whatever he could do.

Skullius would die with one blow to his brains!

‘No man can’t be kille—’

SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!

An unfamiliar noise rang out.

It was the air being sliced apart.

The sunlight was temporarily voided by a dreadful blackish-red hue that came with a chilling bloodlust, as if a curse had been given free reign over the space for a split second.

A cruel, straight, sharp line, a splicer across the world detailed from the edge of a green sword that was wielded by the image of a certain Hybrid Luman who had his muscles outlined perfectly as he slashed diagonally, his eyes white and his face painted with a dark mask of brutality as he delivered this blow, showed.

Kenno could have sworn his Genuine Incarnation had completely eviscerated Skullius just now.

Yet he was standing.

Yet he was releasing a deadly attack that flashed past him in a breath and cleaved the crust of Aigas horrendously for ten miles, digging a ten meter wide, nigh eternally deep trench that split the mountains beyond this one without a care.

“Ughhh…” Kenno choked.

He couldn’t think.

He couldn’t move.

What still had the strength to inch down though, was the diagonally split half of his head which slid and then fell down to the ground, followed by his entire body.

—

[Author’s Note]

Preeminent has quite a lot of meanings. You might see different definitions.