Chapter 1203 Calamities Manifest
As Arthur challenged the empyrean head on, he studied his appearance. It was an old man, not ancient in appearance, but with an agelessness that spoke of a life extended far beyond its natural span. His violet robes rippled with an echo of the temporal distortion that pulsed around him. His face was a mask of cold calculation, marked by lines etched not by age but by the weight of his terrible ambition.
There was no mistaking the bloodline, the eerie familiarity that flickered in his eyes. But while the Yalen King was a viper, this man was a storm made flesh. This, Arthur knew, was the apex of the power he"d been battling since coming into this world – the Empyrean of Yalen.
"Osian the Invincible?" the figure boomed, his voice an avalanche echoing through the distortion. "Do you think I would be scared with threats, outsider?"
"The name is Arthur Netherborne," he retorted, his voice tight with the simmering fury that threatened to burst forth. "And yes... you should be scared."
Black lightning snaked around Arthur"s form, crackling and snapping, a physical manifestation of his defiance. The very air thrummed with the clash of their spiritual energies, a prelude to the inevitable devastation that would descend upon Giant Garden if they chose to unleash their true potential.
The Empyrean hissed in frustration. "Impossible," he rasped, the word thick with ancient anger. "Your very existence is a violation of order!" Arthur"s reply was a roar of defiance as he launched himself forward, a blazing comet of black lightning and golden mana. He wasn"t merely fighting an old man. He was battling the very concept of control, of a world meticulously puppeteered by forces that sought to crush all that lay outside their grand scheme. A surge of frustration boiled within the Empyrean, twisting his once-composed features into a rictus of fury. "You will not defy me!" he roared, his voice a discordant blast that caused the mountains themselves to tremble.
The air around the Empyrean shimmered, warping and distorting into a grotesque echo of Arthur"s own spiritual manifestation. Within that swirling vortex, a single, glowing point took shape - a beacon of chilling intensity. The Empyrean reached out with a trembling hand, his fingers tracing runes older than any civilization, whispering incantations born from forbidden knowledge. The glowing point grew, then split. Not with the blinding brilliance of Arthur"s mana, but with a cold, sickly radiance that seemed to suck the very life from the vibrant Giant Garden. A tear opened, not into s.p.a.ce, but into the shadowy echoes of the Empyrean"s corrupted astral form – a twisted prison realm hewn from stolen moments, broken lives, and echoes of forgotten futures.
The tear yawned wide, and from within spilled abominations. They were vaguely humanoid, yet formed of shifting constellations, of nebulae twisted into gaping maws. One shimmered with the echoes of a dying star, another writhed with the remnants of planets devoured and broken down to their very essence. These weren"t creatures; they were calamities made manifest, fragments of the Empyrean"s own power twisted and given monstrous form. With a wordless command, they surged forward, a wave of cosmic horrors eager to feast upon the rebellious outsider. Arthur, for the first time since the clash had begun, faltered. There was no strategy, no technique to face this tide of destruction. His black lightning crackled and flared, lashing out like a whip that shattered one cosmic abomination into scattered stardust, only for its remnants to coalesce anew. His golden mana blazed, creating shields that buckled, warped, and almost extinguished under the onslaught of another creature of starlight.
The Empyrean cackled, the sound echoing with the madness of those who gazed too long into the abyss. "Despair, outsider! These are not mere beasts; they are forces of the universe itself, enslaved by my will. Your defiance is a pebble thrown into the sea of eternity!"
Arthur gritted his teeth, a defiant fire burning in his golden eyes. He was outmatched, outgunned, facing an unfathomable fraction of the Empyrean"s true power. But he refused to yield. He was not just Arthur, the outsider brought to this world by happenstance. He was defiance incarnate, the ember of rebellion born within a dying world, the embodiment of resisting the inevitable.
He raised his hands, black lightning and golden mana spiraling wildly, and roared his defiance into the storm of monsters. "Then I will be the pebble that sinks your d.a.m.ned ship, old man! Come forth, Kingdom of Wrath!" As he clapped his hands together, a giant gate manifested behind him, its doors gnawing open as a million spirits screamed for justice. The battle reached its climax as a million souls rushed to face countless astral beings.