Level Up Legacy

Chapter 1205  Everything Futile

The clash was less a battle and more a cataclysmic event. The Empyrean, backed into a corner, unleashed the full extent of his violet mana. Reality twisted and warped around him, a desperate attempt to impose order on the chaos Arthur unleashed. Yet, Arthur's storm was not merely an attack; it was an extension of his will. The vengeful souls tore at the Empyrean's defenses, each flickering bolt of lightning burning holes in his temporal manipulations. With a roar of desperation born out of millennia of unchecked power, the Empyrean shifted tactics. Temporal distortions wove themselves into a grotesque mockery of life, a pulsating barrier of mangled moments and stolen futures that absorbed Arthur's wrath even as it writhed and shrieked in agony.

Arthur pressed the attack, his own golden mana flaring in defiance, a beacon against the Empyrean's warping of the natural order. Each blast, each surge of his spirit, was a hammer blow aimed at shattering the barrier and ending this once and for all.

Just as the Empyrean's defenses gave a final, shuddering groan, about to collapse under Arthur's relentless onslaught, something shifted. The Empyrean lurched, a flicker of doubt clouding his eyes. Arthur paused, his senses screaming a warning even as he held his attack. The storm-wracked skies above Giant Garden were no longer empty. Presences were gathering, vast, powerful, and numerous. Not celestial, not monsters from stolen worlds...but uniquely, undeniably of this place. They were the heavy tread of an army, an echo of ancient drums, and a weight of temporal power that felt uncomfortably familiar.

The Empyrean let out a cackle, a raw sound laced with both desperation and a chilling new confidence. "A pity you didn't finish me seconds ago, outsider! Even as we clashed, I reached moments into the past…a whisper, a vision of your attack painted for my heir, a plea for aid against their greatest threat!"

Arthur's gaze snapped to the horizon. Banners unfurled, snapping in the unnatural wind of the storm. The army of Yalen marched on Giant Garden, their eyes burning with a time-warped zeal, summoned not by loyalty, but by a vision crafted moments before.

And yet…instead of fear, something within Arthur snapped. It was the final straw, the ultimate insult to his very existence. He, a man who fought against destiny itself, now to be felled by a petty trick woven into the very fabric of time?

A laugh bubbled up from his throat, gaining volume, rising into a booming challenge. It echoed across Giant Garden, through the ranks of the approaching army, and into the very heavens themselves. His laughter wasn't despair; it was the raw, untamed joy of a cornered beast given a weapon worthy of his fury.

"Come then!" Arthur roared, and the ground beneath him shattered as true power was unleashed. "Let the whole world witness the fall of a dynasty!" Surrounded, his storm of souls faltering under the weight of the Empyrean's trickery and an encroaching army, Arthur Netherborne struck back. Black lightning split the heavens, and golden mana tore at the very foundations of the world. Within the heart of the storm, a figure began to coalesce…not human, but born of the very power Arthur embodied.

Lilo, the dragon. Yet, this was not the fledgling spirit he'd first encountered. This was Lilo tempered by years of hibernation in golden mana, of Arthur's own relentless growth. His scales shimmered not just with energy, but with the wisdom of ages. Where there had once been a spark of companionship, now burned an unbreakable bond of defiance. "They surround us, master," Lilo's voice rumbled, the words echoing within their linked minds more than through the air.

"So let them burn," Arthur retorted, and the Kingdom of Wrath roared in reply. Lilo roared with joy as he flapped his wings, rushing upward to tear through the armies. A smugness twisted the Empyrean's withered features as his army closed in, a tide of steel and warped intent. "You see, outsider? Even your defiance has limits! I have walked this world for longer than empires have lasted. Do you think I ever risked the whims of fate, left my victory to mere power?" He reached out, the astral cage flaring with malevolent energy. "This, outsider, is why I shall never be toppled!" Monstrous shapes flickered into existence, not one by one, but in a writhing, unholy wave – the remnants of worlds, the echoes of shattered lives, all bound to the Empyrean's will.

The Yalen army roared their approval, raising their weapons. The Empyrean preened, his victory all but assured. He expected fear, perhaps a final, desperate outburst from Arthur.

Silence was his only answer. Arthur reached forward, not with an open hand to unleash his lightning, but in a clenched fist– a gesture not of attack, but of something…deeper. Golden mana exploded from his body, not in familiar blasts, but as an incandescent aura that clung to him like liquid light. His spiritual energy, always a potent force, thrummed with a new, terrifying edge. Then came the black lightning, not as arcs of annihilation, but as something that seeped into the other energies, warping them, twisting them into…something else. An anomaly. A paradox.

Black lightning shouldn't empower golden mana. Spiritual energy shouldn't taint the purity of creation itself. Yet, it was happening, a defiant perversion of the very order the Empyrean held so dear. It crackled around Arthur, a swirling vortex of impossibility made manifest. The Empyrean, for the first time, knew fear. "What…what IS this?" he screeched, his voice no longer booming, but trembling.

Arthur Netherborne, the outsider, the rebel, the one who defied destiny itself, smiled. It was a smile that held the weight of ages, of battles not just against empires, but against the heavens themselves. And then he spoke, his voice a rumble that echoed across the ruined landscape.

"I am Netherborne…" The world itself seemed to pause, the very name a curse, a broken promise, an echo of a name long forgotten. "The king of a realm you never dared touch, old man. I fought gods who sought to reshape creation according to their whims. You think your petty tricks, your stolen time and broken worlds, could ever contain me?"

Even as the Yalen army unleashed their arrows, their spectral blades, Arthur stood. The ground buckled beneath him, the air itself moaned in protest at the sheer, impossible power he held. But his back didn't bend. He was a monolith, a testament to the impossible becoming reality through sheer will.

The monstrous horde shattered against him, not in a burst of destruction, but as if their very existence was incompatible with the paradox of power that was Arthur. Arrows crumbled to dust on contact, spectral weapons sputtered into nothingness. The Empyrean's final, monstrous trump card failed even as it was played.

And through it all, Arthur Netherborne, the outsider, the rebel, the returning king... merely stood. His smile widened into a grin, not of triumph, but of a predator seeing the fear in its prey's eyes.

"Now," his voice was a death knell, "it's my turn." n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

The paradox he had created was a ticking bomb, a testament to the impossibility of these forces coexisting. Yet, where the Empyrean saw only a prelude to destruction, Arthur saw a weapon.

With a single, fluid motion, he reached into the heart of the anomaly, the swirling vortex of black lightning, golden mana, and tainted spiritual energy. He didn't pull back a familiar lance of lightning or a blazing sphere of creation. His hand emerged gripping a dagger.

It was less a weapon, and more a physical manifestation of the disharmony he'd unleashed. The blade was a shifting, unstable thing– part midnight black, part blinding light, flickering with the residue of his unleashed spiritual energy. It wasn't meant to merely cut, but to unravel the very laws upon which the Empyrean had built his reign of terror.

Arthur didn't leap into battle, didn't unleash a cataclysmic blast. He merely took a single step forward, the dagger held low, and slashed.

It was a simple gesture – nothing a master swordsman wouldn't recognize. Yet, the result wasn't the arc of a blade, but utter, unrestrained chaos. The very fabric of reality tore, not cleanly, but with the tortured shriek of existence itself. Mountains didn't crumble; they vaporized, reduced to their base elements in the blink of an eye. The Yalen army didn't merely halt in fear; they scattered, their mortal forms too fragile to withstand the impossible energies unleashed.

The dagger in Arthur's hand screamed, the blade shivering as it sought to annihilate itself, unable to bear the unholy combination of powers it was forged from. Arthur didn't seek to control it – he was the catalyst, the embodiment of the impossible, and this was his will made manifest.

The Empyrean, his smug mask of superiority now replaced by a grotesque echo of primal terror, unleashed a desperate counterstrike. No manipulation of time – that was clearly futile against Arthur's existence. Instead, he drew upon the very source of his power, the heart of his astral weapon.

But everything was futile now. As the empyrean of Yalen stood before the ensuing destruction, he realized what an ant he was compared to this outsider he looked down upon.