Chapter 182: The Red Demon (1)

The Uncrowned Emperor completely changed his fighting style and summoned an enormous spear from nowhere, a long weapon ending in a massive gleaming blade.

Asterion erased the distance between them with a single King's Step and immediately thrust forward with everything he had. The spear tore through both air and space before electricity erupted across its blade, granting the attack an additional burst of power that caught the Golden Dawn Knight by surprise.

The knight responded by placing several layers of shields between himself and Asterion while retreating, but the lightning spear shattered through every one of them with ease and continued toward him as though its reach were extending.

Instead, the Golden Dawn Knight brought his invisible swords forward to intercept the spear.

He met attack with attack.

The hidden blades collided with the spear, compressing the air trapped between them before it exploded outward in a shockwave that shook the ground itself.

The invisible swords stopped Asterion's spear despite the tremendous momentum behind it.

But the old man didn't look frustrated in the slightest.

Instead, his grin gradually widened as he felt the unseen weapons pushing against him.

"An unwise decision, Golden Dawn Knight."

The spear trembled in Asterion's grip.

Electricity crawled along its length before spreading through the invisible weapons themselves, traveling across them until it struck the Golden Dawn Knight's body.

A violent electrical shock coursed through him.

His body froze.

Asterion exploited the opening immediately.

He surged forward, and an ominous black sword appeared in his free hand, its blade burning with black flames.

It was the same katana he had received from Ethan in the past.

A sword forged from Mathius's soul.

The Uncrowned Emperor swung the blade while reinforcing its flames with his aura, drastically increasing both the speed and power of the attack.

A dark arc erupted from the sword.

It tore through everything in its path.

Taking advantage of the paralysis caused by the lightning, the black blade struck the Golden Dawn Knight's armored body directly and sent him flying from the sheer force of the impact.

The knight smashed through three enormous stone pillars before finally stopping with his back against the fourth.

The black arc remained burning in the air where the collision had taken place.

Its traces refused to disappear.

Black flames also continued eating away at the knight's armor.

Asterion's attack had worked remarkably well.

And yet…

The old man was frowning deeply.

"What the hell kind of armor is he wearing?"

It hadn't felt as though he had struck another human being.

It had felt like hitting a solid mass forged from the heaviest metal in existence.

He had landed the attack, certainly.

But the dark katana had never reached the Golden Dawn Knight's actual body.

Which meant it had failed to penetrate his armor.

The Golden Dawn Knight's defense was on an entirely different level.

Asterion rested the spear over one shoulder with one hand while holding the katana before him with the other.

His eyes remained fixed on his opponent as he mentally organized everything he had discovered about the Golden Dawn Knight so far.

'He has an enormous amount of aura… but he isn't using it to protect his body.'

Asterion's gaze moved across the golden armor.

'He's reinforcing that strange armor instead. That makes his Aura Armor at least twice as strong as mine… Breaking through something like that is going to take a lot.'

While the Uncrowned Emperor analyzed him, his opponent had already begun his counterattack.

Golden spears erupted from the ground in an attempt to impale Asterion, while swords flew toward him from every direction at extraordinary speeds.

Asterion avoided them with ease using King's Step.

'His domain is enormous. At the very least, it covers this entire battlefield.'

Another cluster of weapons erupted from the ground where he had been standing a moment earlier.

'That means he can manifest weapons anywhere inside it.'

Asterion's eyes narrowed.

'Then there are those invisible arms and weapons…'

'All of this, and he still hasn't started using his own hands.'

A grin slowly returned to the old man's face.

'Which means he isn't fighting at full strength yet.'

The fact that the Golden Dawn Knight was still holding back despite everything he had displayed so far should have been terrifying.

But Asterion probably wasn't entirely sane.

Because that realization only made him thirstier for battle.

Their fight soon became too fast for anyone to follow with the naked eye.

Asterion moved at terrifying speed, stepping across every corner of the battlefield, and wherever his foot touched the ground, dozens of swords and spears struck immediately afterward.

Within mere seconds, the throne room had been reduced to complete devastation, filled with the golden weapons the Golden Dawn Knight had hurled at him.

The knight himself remained standing in place.

Asterion, meanwhile, continuously disappeared and reappeared at different points around him.

And finally, after nearly five minutes…

Five minutes that felt as though they had lasted forever…

The number of weapons being launched at Asterion gradually began to decrease.

The old man's laughter echoed throughout the battlefield.

"No matter how much aura you possess, you'll eventually drain yourself dry if you keep launching weapons saturated with this much of it."

The old man had played it cleverly.

Taking advantage of his superior speed, Asterion had deliberately baited the Golden Dawn Knight into bombarding him from a distance, slowly draining his aura in the process.

Unlike Asterion, the Golden Dawn Knight was fighting purely through instinct.

He couldn't use his mind.

And so he continued launching weapon after weapon without stopping until the amount of aura being consumed began exceeding what he could afford to waste.

As a result, the Golden Dawn Knight stopped firing.

Reducing the aura within those weapons would only make them incapable of harming Asterion through his High King-level Aura Armor.

"The real Golden Dawn Knight would've seen through such a simple trick immediately if he were conscious…"

Asterion's expression darkened.

"But instead, he fell into the hands of some filthy monster that knows nothing about a real battle."

The knight's crimson eyes flared at those words.

A violent reaction.

But it was obvious that the anger belonged to the monster.

Not the Golden Dawn Knight himself.

"Say whatever you wish, hunter. You have done nothing but condemn yourself to death."

Aldrich's voice emerged from behind the golden helm.

"From this moment onward, the Golden Dawn Knight will begin fighting seriously."

Aldrich's words became reality the instant he finished speaking.

The pressure surrounding the Golden Dawn Knight changed completely.

Then a massive sword radiating a brilliant yellow glow formed in his right hand.

Asterion's eyes gradually narrowed when he saw the ominous weapon.

It didn't take a genius to realize that sword was extremely dangerous.

The knight's crimson cloak whipped violently behind him.

Then it tore free and flew away.

The strongest hunter of the previous generation stepped forward.

For the first time since the battle began…

He was using his own hands.

Many believed the Golden Dawn Knight was powerful at long range but weak in close combat because his fighting style revolved around launching weapons, both visible and invisible, rather than fighting personally.

And throughout his life, that had usually been enough to end his battles.

Even Mathius, after becoming a King-rank monster, had failed to force the Golden Dawn Knight to use his own hands when they fought.

The knight had simply destroyed him from a distance with ease.

Yet very few understood just how terrifying the Golden Dawn Knight became when he personally took hold of a sword.

Asterion was the first opponent in a very long time to force him that far.

"Golden Dawn Knight…"

Asterion's grin widened.

"My blood is boiling, and these old bones of mine are trembling."

His aura began accumulating around his body, moving in perfect response to his will as he manipulated it with an efficiency no one else could reproduce.

"I'm living through the happiest moments of my life, so please…"

His crimson aura surged.

"Please…"

The Uncrowned Emperor lowered his stance.

"Don't you dare die before i reach the peak i'm searching for!!"