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Chapter 235 - Clash (4)

Henry cocked his head slightly as he looked at Arthus with cold, piercing eyes.

Arthus revealed himself along with two hooded monsters.

The reason Henry considered the two beings next Arthus monsters was simple: they lacked the distinctive liveliness of human beings.

“Arthus Highlander,” Henry said in a hushed voice.

The corners of Arthus’ lips slowly curved into a smile, and then he chuckled. “Haha.”

It wasn’t clear what Arthus found funny, but he started full-on laughing, revealing his teeth and shaking his shoulders.

Even though Henry found his laughter to be very unpleasant, he just stood there and let Arthus get it out of his system.

After a while, Arthus finally stopped laughing and said, “Henry Morris, huh... Fate is a funny thing, isn’t it?”

Arthus no longer spoke formally like when he was a duke. He was now the emperor of the Aenia Empire, so he could afford to speak however he wanted. He stared Henry down with a mixture of arrogance and pride.

“Well, I guess someone up there was bored, or...” Henry trailed off. He stopped for a bit, but then he straightened his head and, mimicking Arthus’ smile, resumed, “I guess someone up there didn’t want to see you on the throne.”

Henry lightly mocked Arthus.

However, when Arthus looked at Henry’s face, all he could see was the face of the man he detested the most. That man was none other than Henry Morris, the dead 8th-Circle Archmage, the sage of the continent, who just so happened to have the same name as the man in front of him.

For a moment, Arthus thought that Henry Morris had come back to life, but the man before him, even though reminiscent of the late Archmage, realistically had a completely different face.

The fact that Arthus could see the late Archmage through Henry was not a matter of physical appearance. Rather, it was because Henry had the same mannerisms as the late Archamge, the same aura about him...

“I guess you really are his disciple...” sneered Arthus as his smile dropped. The sight of Henry felt revolting to him.

Arthus swept his silver hair back, his gloves made of pure white silk. He then countered Henry’s mockery.

“I had these guys ready just in case... But you’re far different from your master. He used to fight fair and square.”

“Well, Master was too soft-hearted back then,” Henry sarcastically replied to Arthus’ distasteful accusation.

Arthus considered Henry to be a coward for taking advantage of the sparse troops at the palace and sneaking in like a rat.

However, Henry had completely changed; he wasn’t the same Henry Morris, who had died a foolish death. Moreover, Arthus wasn’t even in the position to call Henry a coward.

“Okay then, let’s see what the disciple of a traitor can do,” said Arthus.

Realizing that there was no point in arguing anymore, Arthus made a gesture with his hands, prompting the two creatures next to him to take two steps forward.

Henry raised his Colt Sword above his head in response, and said, “How annoying”

Rumble...!

As Henry raised his Colt Sword, a dark cloud formed in the clear, blue sky. The cloud soon turned into a thundercloud, and it seemed like a storm could start at any moment.

The Thunder God’s Cry was a 7th-Circle thunder magic that Henry had created. This was the spell he had used to turn Batz and Kinless, two peak-level knights, into roast meat.

Boom!

Tzzzzz!

It happened without any warning. Right after Henry summoned the thundercloud, two lightning bolts, which were the size of a giant’s forearms, twisted and struck like whips.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

The thunderbolts zapped the heads of the two creatures for a whopping three seconds. These thunderbolts were massive in comparison to the ones Henry had used on Batz and Kinless, which had only lasted for two seconds.

After those three seconds, the lightning vanished, leaving behind two charcoal-black figures, wearing robes, still standing like statues.

“Boring...”

Henry thought they couldn’t have been human, since they had thrown the ice boulder back at him. Of course, they could have been someone who had reached superhuman abilities, like a peak Sword Master, but he knew that Arthus didn’t have that kind of talent around him.

If this was the case, the Chimeras had to be Arthus’ last hand.

‘That’s probably why they’re hiding their faces.’

Thinking that those figures weren’t humans, Henry hadn’t hesitated to use the Thunder God’s Cry. Of course, even if it had been humans that had blocked his ice boulder, not Chimeras, Henry still would’ve used magic without hesitation.

Crack!

At that moment, Henry realized that those two figures, which he had initially assumed to be Chimeras, hadn’t actually been completely burnt by the lightning. It was only their hoods that had been affected.

Their hoods crumbled into ashes and fell on the ground, revealing two metallic-looking men. They looked as if two lumps of melted iron had been molded to look like two humans.

‘Iron?’

The metal didn’t look like armor, so they were clearly not human. However, the two creatures that emerged from their robes had the distinctive shape of humans.

“Are they human or what?”

The two creatures didn’t have a face. They just stood tall and sturdy like a young man in his prime and had the appearance of an iron man, their bodies glistening with metal.

“Either way, they’re perfectly fine.”

The Thunder God’s Cry was a 7th-Circle magic spell, and yet those two iron men seemed unharmed. The fact they had withstood such powerful twisting lightning bolts for three whole seconds confirmed that they were much stronger than Batz and Kinless.

“Seems like I’m finally about to have some fun.”

In all honesty, Henry had been disappointed with Batz and Kinless. They were peak-level Sword Masters and part of the Imperial Ten Swords, and yet they had died without putting up a fight.

However, on this occasion, two iron men had appeared before Henry, and it still wasn’t clear whether they were Chimeras or not, as Arthus had experimented with those creatures before. Thus, this was definitely a good opportunity for Henry to test how powerful he had become, something he hadn’t been able to do with Batz and Kinless.

After gesturing to the twin iron men, Arthus turned his back and walked toward the throne the iron men had shielded with their bodies. He then sat down and crossed his legs, making himself comfortable.

‘Huh?’

As simple as Arthus’ actions were, the message was clear:

-Go ahead, show me what you’ve got. I’ll watch the show from here.

Arthus was incredibly arrogant.

Henry clicked his tongue in disbelief and said, “Okay, then, I’ll put on a good show for you.”

Henry dismissed his Colt Sword.

Arthus wanted to see how powerful Henry was, so instead of showing him the sword he had learned to use after being reincarnated, he was going to use magic, the thing Arthus hated the most about the Henry Morris of the past.

As he watched, Arthus thought, ‘What a good spirit you have. However, as long as you’re a wizard, do you think you’ll stand a chance against these two guys covered in Black Mythril?’

Black Mythril was a rare metal said to block even elven mana. The handcuffs used on Henry Morris at the time of his execution had been made from this metal.

The two Chimeras wrapped in Black Mythril were Pim and Rim, two notorious martial arts brothers.

Pim and Rim had once been monks in St. Hall, but after learning the Holy Code, they couldn’t stand the dull monastic life and left the Holy City in order to live according to their desires, which mostly consisted of murder and rape.

After harming over a hundred women and soldiers, the brothers had finally been captured and sent to Killive. They ended up as two of the many masterpieces Dracan had recently produced.

Crack, crack.

Following the Thunder God’s Cry, there were a few moments of silence.

Pim and Rim stretched their bodies, cracking their joints as if they still retained some of their humanity. They took their fighting stance.

‘Hand-to-hand combat?’

At first, Henry thought the two iron men would engage in the kind of hand-to-hand combat that knights often practiced, but he quickly realized that it would be some other kind of combat.

“Fly.”

Henry rose in the air.

Just then, Pim and Rim bent their knees, crouched down, and launched themselves at Henry. They were faster than an arrow and far more destructive than a catapult.

As Pim and Rim shot up with lightning speed, Henry instinctively cast his Magic Shield, but the moment their heads collided with his shield...

Znggg...!

“...!”

Pim and Rim’s heads pierced through most of Henry’s Magic Shield and got right in his face.

‘What the...!’

Henry immediately fired a highly concentrated wind blast, sending the two iron lumps flying toward the ground.

‘They pierced my Magic Shield?!’

Up until this point, Henry’s Magic Shield had withstood even the attacks of the Imperial Ten Swords. However, the fact that these two iron creatures had managed to almost destroy the shield meant that they possessed some destructive powers that Henry couldn’t recognize.

As Pim and Rim had crashed on the ground, Henry quickly looked at the Magic Shield that was shattered, and he noticed one surprising fact.

‘My mana has been nullified?’

It was hard to tell, but his Magic Shield hadn’t actually been shattered. Rather, it looked as though Henry’s mana had come in contact with something incompatible, something that negated it.

His mana, which was bound together by runes and formulas, had been disrupted by those two iron men.

‘Can it be?’

Henry hurriedly tried to think of an explanation. He looked at their smooth bodies and hypothesized: what if their bodies were laced with a substance that prevented mana from condensing?

If that was the case, there was no time to stand around and think. As soon as he made a hypothesis, Henry jumped into action to test it.

“...Explosion Syndrome.”

Henry cast a 5th-Circle spell that detonated explosions all over the opponent’s body with just the snap of his finger.

This was a mage-level spell, so Henry could cast it as easily as he blinked.

As he snapped his fingers with both hands, Henry targeted Pim and Rim with Explosion Syndrome.

But at that moment, tiny little sparks, which looked almost like dust, rose from Pim and Rim, only to be extinguished as if someone had blown out a candle.

‘I knew it!’

Henry’s theory turned out to be correct.

Their bodies were acting like some kind of mana insulator, preventing mana from passing through.

‘Just how? The only thing in this world that can nullify mana is Black Mythril... Can it be that they’re covered in Black Mythril? Can a living being be covered in that metal?’

Henry’s mind raced. As he confirmed his hypothesis, he couldn\'t help but be in awe.

‘Ha, Arthus, you maniac...!’

Black Mythril was the only metal in the world capable of disrupting mana, which was why the handcuffs back then had also been made of this specific metal.

...But how could Arthus think of embedding such a precious metal in a living creature’s skin instead of armor? It was an inhumane, grotesque idea.

Henry detested Arthus in many ways, and this just added to Henry’s disgust for him; he was even more enraged.

But at that moment, Pim and Rim crouched once more, preparing to jump up again.

“That was a cruel idea. I’ll give you credit for being creative, but...”

Henry closed his eyes and opened them again. Then, the pale, emerald Aura that had enveloped his entire body erupted like a volcano.

“My mana is a bit special, you see...”

Henry wore a sharp, cold smile.