Chapter 55: Class Bloodline

Leander’s wounded arm regrew from the bones, to the nerves, to an unblemished skin.

Ultra-speed regeneration that took seconds was only natural to demons and dragons. For humans, it’s impossible.

The glow at his fingertips manifested a weapon.

A greatsword from the light in Leander’s reborn hand. Gold and white, ornate, longer than his body, its blade carved with tiny runes that shimmered like frost. The flames that flowed of the blade wasn’t red, rather a pure, burning platinum.

"That’s..." a noble whispered.

Leander lifted the sword, and light cast a halo around him.

『Burning Dragon Sword Zelgius』

Adonis took a step back.

’No. No no no no. Stopping the Dunamis family from hatching the dragon egg...’

Sure, he’d prevented a disaster and a major event, but in doing so, he’d stolen the one moment that was meant to wake Prince Leander’s true power.

’Wait, putting the protagonist in a life-or-death situation...’

That was the trigger.

’I didn’t stop his awakening. I just delayed it and prepared that wrath for myself...’

Adonis shut his eyes for a second.

’Great. Wonderful. Fantastic. I screwed myself. And it just had to be a class bloodline.’

On the royal balcony, King Aldrius shot to his feet.

"That is... a class bloodline!"

"A class bloodline?!"

"The Third Prince has awakened a class bloodline?! At his age?! It hasn’t happened in decades!"

"The last one was in my grandfather’s time!"

Everyone was on the edge of her seat.

As you’d expect, a class bloodline was one of the rarest phenomena in the world.

Ordinarily, a class belonged to a single soul. A man awakened as a swordsman, a mage, a healer, and that was his and his alone.

But a bloodline class was different. It belonged not just to the one who held it, but to everyone who came before him.

They traced back to the Age of Gods, when deities walked the earth and took mortals as lovers. Their children carried a drop of divinity, and their children’s children carried a drop of a drop, thinning down the generations until it all but disappeared.

Until, on rare occasions, a descendant awakened a class that resonated with their ancestor’s domain.

When that happened, the class evolved beyond its limits. It reached places a normal class holder could never touch. It gave abilities that, to everyone else, were impossible.

The House of Falsbane was descended from the Platinum Dragon Bahamut.

The white flame on Zelgius was proof.

Prussia almost lost her mind.

"B-, Bahamut... that’s one of the divine dragons!"

Beside her, Alpis nodded slowly, her bored look was gone.

"I thought as much. Master has dragon blood in him. That’s why he could assimilate me without dying. But... I didn’t think it was that old."

Prussia looked down at the arena. Right now, Adonis looked like an ant before a blazing sun.

"He has to be safe, he has to."

She turned to Mariella, hoping for some assurance.

But Soron’s beautiful swan looked scared and pale, her fingers tightened against her dress.

She was just as scared.

On the sand, Leander looked down at his new body.

Platinum fire flowed across his skin. Dragon runes circled in glowing rings from his wrists to his collar, as if the bloodline were writing him a new body. He turned his hand over and watched the light breathe.

"This power. It’s... ineffable."

He raised his eyes, full of calmness, to Adonis.

"It’s strange. I should be furious with you. After all you’ve done but I’m not. Not even a little."

"...That’s great, actually. We should hug and—"

"You’re an inconvenience."

"..."

"That’s all. A speck. I thought I reached the peak of strength before... I thought I’d climbed to the top. But this? This is the summit of the mountain, the zenith."

He lifted Zelgius.

"I am the hero of justice. I am the law. The throne is a pebble in the sea of my destiny."

"Okay, he’s talking crazy now."

"I am chosen." Leander smiled gently. "And you are not."

He leveled the blade.

"I promise you death."

He vanished faster than the eye could see.

Adonis switched to Fusion Mode and threw his whole body backward and slammed Indra into the sand.

The spear’s core glowed gold, this was one hundred percent synchronization.

The third and strongest mode of Storm King Spear Indra.

"Take this!"

BOOM! BOOOM! BOOOOM! Water jets, dozens of them, all wrapped in lightning, roared out of the seven prongs. They zipped across the arena in streaks of blue and purple.

Storm Lance. When it hit, water pierced the target, lightning paralyzed the nerves and cooked the victim from the inside.

The deadliest attack of all three modes, but it’d have to hit the target first.

Leander zigzagged between the first four lances like a leaf in a gale, and the fifth missed by a hair. His killing intent oozed off him like heat from a furnace, yet every movement he made was graceful. The essence of a true swordsman; a sword that never wavered, and footwork that never slipped.

’Faster.’

Adonis poured more mana in as the seven prongs spun like the barrel of a machine gun.

BRRRRRRRRRRRT!

Storm Lance bullets sprayed across the arena.

The sand exploded, stone pillars toppled, rows of stone seats disintegrated in clouds of dust.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

That was all they heard.

The coliseum was being demolished piece by piece, and still, somehow, the white figure in the middle was untouched. He moved faster than the eye could follow and each lance missed him by a breath.

Leander’s platinum eyes locked onto Adonis as he charged at him with a sword dash.

Adonis sidestepped and kept firing, and firing, and firing.

’If I stay at range, I might hit once. Just once!’

But Leander elegantly danced between the lances like he could see the future.

Then a whole curtain of lances came for him at once, a wall of blue and violet.

Leander viciously swung Zelgius and the white fire spread out like a wave and erased the storm lances.

Zelgius, the Dragon Sword that burns all in existence!

"Oh, that’s cheating!" Adonis grunted.

Leander was suddenly inside his reach.

The sword came down in a diagonal slash. Adonis ducked on instinct and felt the heat kiss the back of his neck. The strike missed his head by a finger, and the arena floor behind him cracked in half as a canyon opened to the far wall.

The back of the coliseum collapsed.

Stone rained down on the empty seats.

"Barrier! Raise the barrier!"

"All mages! Protect the royals!"

Several high mages in the stands slammed their staffs down and a shimmering dome rose over the audience, just in time to catch a rain of rubble.

Adonis rolled away and came up on one knee, gasping.

’Where is he? Where—’

He never saw it coming.

There was no sound, nor footstep. One moment the arena was empty, and the next the platinum blade hit him squarely across the chest.

CRAAAAAAASH!

The torso plate of the Magic Saint Armor shattered. Adonis flew backward and tumbled over the sand.

Cough! Cough! Blood sprayed from his lips.

Nevertheless, he got back to his feet and raised the spear.

BRRRRRRRT!

Another barrage of storm lances left the prongs. Leander swept his sword in quick arcs, burning each one to nothing, his arm like a flash. Every second he took one step closer.

But that was what Adonis wanted.

When Leander finally broke through the last of the curtain, he was within three meters. Adonis let the lances fade and drew every scrap of power the spear had left.

The seven claws spun together like a drill. The lightning at its epicenter gathered into an overcharged sphere of white-blue light that buzzed like a thunderstorm.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

It hit Leander point-blank.

The dust cleared slowly.

Adonis lungs burned and he could barely see with all the sweat and sand on his face. His arms had gone numb and just hung uselessly at his sides, all he could do was stand.

’Did I get him?’

The smoke shifted, a shape lunged out of it.

"Hah!"

Leander leapt at him with Zelgius raised, he’s covered in blood and burns but he’s still grinning like a wild beast.

Adonis cursed and fired a lightning bullet from the spear’s tip at point-blank range.

BANG!

It caught Leander in the ribs and hurled him sideways into the arena wall.

Adonis didn’t waste the chance.

A final barrage poured out, and every one of them slammed into the wall where Leander had fallen, burying it in water and lightning. If he wanted to kill Adonis, he’d have to answer with something equal.

Maybe the lightning could cook him to mush.

The barrage thinned, then sputtered.

Now, it’s dead.

Indra’s glow faded, Adonis’s mana had hit the bottom.

’Of course. I’ve been firing it for how long? It had to run out sometime.’

His knees wobbled.

From the cloud of dust at the far wall, a voice growled.

"I... will... kill you."

Leander stepped out. The right side of his body was scorched. His hair was singed to the root. But his eyes were still burning white, and his grip on Zelgius was unwavering.

"You will die by my hand, Adonis!"