Weapons of Mass Destruction

Chapter 561: 10th Roundʼs King

POV Nathaniel

The price to pay for getting rid of Derick is high. A projectile from Noelle pierces my side and burns a hole through me, eating away at the flesh around it. Another one hits the ground at my feet, generating a stunning field around me.

Even though I manage to escape even faster this time, there is enough time for that young Korean girl to reach me and deliver a blow to my head. Only my hastily constructed mana barrier saves me from instant death, but it shatters, and though the damage is reduced, I still take the hit.

It whips my head back and sends my body flying.

I absorb the momentum of my movement, and three lightning projectiles hit where I would have been if I had continued to roll. Then I boost myself to the side to avoid a heavy stomping attack from the young girl, which cracks the floor in the process.

For that short moment, silence ensues as I pull myself to my feet, my body swaying before I force myself to stand tall once more. I take a deep breath, then patch my body with mana as much as possible to stop the bleeding. I knit the wounds closed with mana threads or create patches of mana to keep the larger wounds sealed.

I’m missing an arm, the other is a hair’s breadth from being broken. My skull is cracked, and a hole has been torn in my side. Not to mention the hole in my chest that damaged my lungs, among other things.

In that time, the [King] of the 10th round comes closer as well. Like the girl, he shows no visible damage from the blast of my thermal orb. He moves lazily, looks me up and down, then sits on a nearby pile of rubble.

“Kang Jiwon,” he calls to the girl, “this is too much work; it was supposed to be a quick fight.”

The 12-year-old Kang Jiwon starts tracing out a circular trajectory around me with the same emotionless expression.

She calls to the man, “Master, please take this seriously. That man is dangerous. If you make a mistake, both of us are going to die.”

The man just shrugs and rolls his shoulders, “I canʼt bring myself to care, Kang Jiwon. Itʼs not like we can actually die here anyway.”

“Please, master, don’t make our round seem like a failure.”

“Sure. Sure.”

I donʼt interrupt and instead stay quiet, using the time to patch some of my internal wounds. It takes a bit of concentration to keep it all up, but itʼs better than just letting it be.

When Iʼm done, he turns to me and smiles, “Ready?”

Before he even finishes his question, he moves. The same dark blue armor with a metallic shine surrounds him as he appears in front of me using some form of teleportation. Only now do I notice the mark he managed to sneak into my space to allow for it.

Right under my nose, without me noticing.

I use [Eclipse], draining the colors from the area and modifying it against his armor, but this time it doesnʼt disappear. It resists, and the sword cuts diagonally at me, forcing me to use Wraith Dance to dodge.

The [King] follows behind me, each step of his armor tearing the ground under immense force. The constantly changing frequency of his armor resisting my attempts at disruption. The armor itself deflects my bursts of kinetic energy; even if they push him back, he comes charging at me again.

After dodging another strike, I let my mana seep out, forming a similar suit of armor which grows to match his before compressing even further. Then a sword forms as well, laced with my resonating mana.

We collide, and I get pushed back until I send more kinetic energy through my armor, powering it further and pushing him back.

He nimbly dodges my attack and slashes at my body hidden inside the armor. His sword expands in size and stops only against the arm of my armor. In an instant, his armor shrinks until itʼs skin-tight, and he leaps onto the chest of my armor and jams his sword into it.

I blink as that sword pierces through and stops only a palmʼs width away from my eyes.

His helmet disappears, and I can see him smile as he jumps back. The armor around him again expands to five times his height. The design stays the same, slim and deadly, but the sword is replaced by a hammer, which he swings at me.

A burst of kinetic energy slows the hammer, and I absorb the rest of the force, dispersing its impact as it crashes into me. At the same time, a few lightning projectiles embed themselves in my back.

That much should be enough.

I release more of my mana; it seeps out of me, swirls around me, fills my armor, and expands until it stands even taller than the other [King]ʼs.

While his armor is slim and deadly with a metallic shine, mine is thicker and affected by my pride; it is slightly ornamented, maintaining a pretty yet functional design.

I move quicker than he does, even though Iʼm still dealing with the greater mass of my armor. My kinetic mana heart beats quickly, converting mana into the kinetic energy I use for movement.

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My fist crashes against his head and sends him staggering back. Then my armor disappears, all that mana turning into projectiles that bombard the top of the tower where Noelle is. Dozens, even hundreds of them, tear the roof apart and follow her as she tries to dodge until one hits, and more of them smash into her.

Then the kill notification finally rings.

Floating there, I turn my attention back to the 10th round [King] and weave an [Empyrean Lance]. I shoot it at the spot where I sense his body signature. The lance pierces through the mana of his armor easily and reaches his body before a light flashes, and his figure flies out of the armor and crashes into the wall behind him.

Right away, I sense that he is still alive, and I fly towards him, in my flight avoiding the Korean girl who jumps from the nearby wall in an attempt to stop me.

As I reach the [King], he is already on his feet, still undamaged. In his hand is a sword made of mana. Even though it is cracked, it still holds.

He moves quickly to get out of the field created by my lance centered around its impact crater, and I follow behind him. Only after a few steps does he stop and change direction to rush right at me. The girl does the same, and they attack me from different sides.

In the last few steps, the girl moves quicker than before, pushing her body over the limit and crashing into me at high speed.

As Iʼm absorbing the force of her attack, the [King] attacks from the other side.

I look towards him and allow my eyes to collect more information, straining my brain as I read his mana fluctuations.

Instead of falling back on [Eclipse], I send a disrupting wave at his mana sword, which disappears mere moments before it can cut into my neck. I twist my body and strike the girl with an open palm, releasing a concentrated burst of kinetic energy as I do.

As expected, she endures the first one, but two more follow in quick succession until they explode a chunk of her body, and she is thrown away. Before I can follow, my foot is cut off, making me fall to the ground. There, I roll to the side and avoid the stab of the sword into my chest before releasing another blast of kinetic energy at him.

He cuts through it with his sword, the same metallic shine surrounding it as his armor did before.

Then the girl is back and strikes against my chest.

I absorb all the kinetic energy from her attack and release it to move faster, stopping just in time to let a sword slash past me and drive my mana-formed hand into his leg. Before I can deal more damage, his sword shortens, and he takes another stab at my head, but I twist my body, and my shoulder takes the hit.

I reach through a mark I placed on his leg when I struck him before, and release a good amount of thermal energy, allowing it to envelop him.

The girl reaches me again, and I release a powerful burst of flames, impressive at a glance, but ultimately intended to blind her rather than deal damage. Aiming through the wall of flames, I fire off two mana javelins boosted by kinetic energy, and both of them pierce cleanly through her chest, impaling her against the wall.

Gazing at me and without hesitation, she pulls them out of her body, one after another, and breaks them in her hands. She takes a few steps towards me before coughing up blood and slowing down. She breathes heavily while watching me with that emotionless expression glued to her face.

The man is alive as well, stepping out of the fiery explosion, once more encased in armor, though it’s much smaller this time, barely matching the size of his body.

“Are you alright, Kang Jiwon?” he asks.

“Yes. I can attack one more time, master,” she answers.

That makes him laugh out loud, and he shakes his head, “You cannot. See you in the common area.”

With that, I send a small tricolored orb through the mark I left on her.

The explosion sends both of us staggering, and the system chimes out a notification about the kill.

Finally, I fully break through that annoying field left behind by the item and throw a few Ley Lines around the area.

Surprisingly, he can see it, his eyes moving and gazing over the exact places where that shimmering pale blue line is.

“Iʼm Baek Kwaneok,” he greets.

“Noname,” I answer back.

“Haaa,” he sighs. “Concentration types, all the same.”

Still looking at me, he says, “I wasnʼt able to get rid of the mark you placed on me, and I have no intention of cutting off my own leg, so do what you have to do.”

Even as he says that, he charges at me, and reaching through the mark I left on him, I send another tricolored orb, followed by a burst of thermal energy.

The two explosions surround him, but from inside of it he moves out. Four wings made of the same metallic, shining mana extend from his back, and his leg, where I left the mark, is clearly cut off.

I move to teleport, but I fail to activate it. In a last-ditch attempt, he takes over what remains of the field they created at the start of the fight with that item and reactivates it one more time. Both of his eyes bleed, and his heart skips a beat and sustains damage under the effort he needs to exert.

He crashes against me and attempts to stab his sword through me, but I let it stab my forearm instead and redirect it into the ground as we fall down.

“I lied,” he laughs, and with a huge smirk, he moves to headbutt me, the last of his mana moving to create a sturdy barrier around his forehead.

Instead of targeting it, I release collected kinetic energy in front of me, detonating his body and sending him flying back before he can hit me.

Noname (Beyond, King) ⟶ Baek Kwanseok (King) +5,000 pts

After searching through the area and making sure no one else is present, I take a deep breath and just lie there for a second.

Just one.

Then I patch up what remains of my body and stand up.

I know Iʼm probably being watched through the screens in the common areas of the other rounds, so I show no hesitation, no weakness. Looking up to where I think the ”camera” is, I release my mana, filling the area in a burst reminiscent of a blazing flame that surrounds me and reaches toward the sky.

I modify the way I radiate it and its fluctuation, and just that, combined with sheer pressure, breaks the barrier.

For that brief moment, I let all my mana blaze at full power to send a message. To her and everyone else.

Then I pull it back inside my body and contain it all.

Itʼs my mana, and even after the fight, more than half of it still remains.