D.I.O

*** The Light Goes Out II ***

“No one shall be in a position to even think of forgiving me.”

Instantly, Arthur’s body turned into a beam of light once more.

“Nobody.”

Arthur disappeared, and soon, the heavens and earth were divided. The blow was like the wrath of a god tearing the world apart, but amidst this fissure, the main target, Tan, stood steadfast. As he utilized powerful defensive spells and muttered Draconic Language spells, Tan scattered Arthur’s strong qi light attack.

Bang! Creak!

The heavens and earth were instantly filled with light once more. In a one-on-one battle, Arthur had no other choice but to be pushed back; however, once many other Masters joined, the battle grew more balanced.

Moreover, Arthur could also conserve his power.

‘Hmm, it seems they’re digging in for a prolonged battle.’ Tan thought.

Even though the ongoing battle was tense, Tan possessed an overwhelming advantage. While the Masters’ attacks were landing, Tan wasn’t suffering any significant damage. Additionally, he did not plan on partaking in a battle of attrition.

The only restriction Tan faced was the level penalty.

Unfortunately for the Masters, Tan’s mana levels, his magic power capacity, didn’t seem particularly limited. Although he consumed a tremendous amount of magic power to maintain the storm-like environment, he still seemed to have inexhaustible mana reserves.

And that wasn’t all.

The Creation God himself created Tan to execute the role of the universe’s Enforcer, and though Tan had fallen from grace, he could still pull from the bottomless pool of mana that existed throughout the universe. It was like his very existence was a draconic spiritual pathway. In truth, if Tan continued with his current mana expenditure, he could maintain this state for an entire year without breaking a sweat; in other words, Tan wasn’t burdened or restricted by his magic power levels. Even if the battle wasn’t going his way, it was just a short-term annoyance rather than a perceived threat.

On the other hand, what about the Masters?

They were holding up relatively well, but Tan’s attacks swept away the weaker users, killing them one by one. Since the Masters suffered an absolute loss in each exchange, it was difficult to believe they’d gain the upper hand with their measly forces, numbering only in the thousands. This was even more unlikely since the group’s cumulative power level was constantly decreasing.

‘Just what is their goal?’

Puzzled, Tan steadily blocked the oncoming enemy assault and counterattacked to deal with a few more Masters. Since many users had already died once, even if they revived, they’d be hard-pressed to effectively muster a proper attack at the same level as before.

‘Hmph. They seemed to be reviving at a steady rate, but there’s only so much Gerult they can handle. They should be reaching their limits fairly soon.’

Once Tan had this thought, he started completing another spell chant.

Whoosh!

From high in the sky, five or six fighter jets flew into the vicinity with a roar. However, since the jets couldn’t get close to Tan and the Masters, as the shockwaves and constant spell explosions made the airspace unsuitable, the jets remained a safe distance above the chaos and dropped something onto the battlefield.

Boom! Boom!

Although these objects were released hundreds of meters above the ground, they slowed down several times and safely landed on the battlefield. These ‘objects’ were 12 Masters. For them, such a feat wasn’t too surprising, but Tan’s eyebrows twitched when he saw the new arrivals. He felt something was off about them.

“Those guys are…?”

“Don’t you dare look away while battling me… Ha!”

Hanma shouted and charged toward Tan, but Hanma soon found himself stuck in the ground like a nail hit by a hammer. The user’s face twisted into a frown.

“Ah, man, the ground is too soft!”

“What do you mean the ground is soft? It’s asphalt! Don’t be stupid - maintain your space control ability! Is reinforcing your body the only thing you learned as a life force user?”

Hanma grumbled with a puzzled expression at Jeros’ scolding. Meanwhile, the latter was sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed, working to regain some of his expended magic power.

“It’s hard to maintain space control continuously… but… are you meditating in the midst of all this?”

“Of course. Didn’t you see my post [Recover anywhere! Properly utilizing meditation during battle] on the user discussion boards? It’s been the highest-viewed post this month. I gave lectures at all kinds of universities to state the importance of this mindset and ability, so it is no surprise that I can meditate under these conditions.”

“Hmm. You’ve been quite active, haven’t you… Ack?!”

Crack!

Hanma yelled and raised his hands to defend himself, but a falling crystal shattered both his arms and pulverized his head. Since Hanma was immobilized, he was an easy target for Tan.

Whoosh.

Hanma disappeared after changing into particles of light, though he soon returned uninjured next to where he had just died. Yet, perhaps it was from the trauma of his sudden demise, but Hanma looked slightly dazed.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“Ah? Ah, yeah, I’m okay. My stats have been reduced so much that if I revive one or two more times, I don’t think I’ll be of any help….”

Hanma looked up at the sky with a strange expression. There, Tan was floating in the sky, a perpetual magic storm emanating from him.

“… What’s the matter… Have you lost the will to fight because you keep dying? Do you want me to give you a healing buff?”

Hanma shook his head when he saw Jeros’ concerned face. It seemed Jeros was worried that Hanma had received some sort of mental shock due to his successive resurrections.

“Ah, s-sure. I’m okay. It’s just that-”

“Ack!”

At that moment, a Master archer attacking from the outskirts of the battlefield was hit by a falling bolt of lightning and collapsed. Unsurprisingly, this type of scene had happened several times, so neither Hanma nor Jeros was surprised, but that didn’t mean they were blind to the severity of the situation. Since they were veterans, they knew exactly where they stood in this battle.

“We need to do something. We need to strike a decisive blow or switch to a tactic that doesn’t cause so many casualties.”

“Huh? Ah, ah… right.”

“… Hanma?”

Despite Jeros raising a serious concern, Hanma still had a somewhat aloof expression. It was as if Hanma was looking at something far away; his pupils were out of focus.

“Hmm.”

Ignoring Jeros’ gaze, Hanma crouched down. Then, he looked at Tan before exerting strength in his legs.

“The Eight Ways of Fighting.”

Boom!

His muscles twitched, and a sound like iron being forcefully bent resounded. Hanma’s thighs swelled, and steam rose from his body.

“Earthly Thunder Strike.”

In an instant, Hanma disappeared. And immediately afterward, the ground he had stood on exploded as a deafening roar reverberated throughout the surroundings.

Whoosh!

“Oh, that idiotic madman! Why did he do that right beside me!”

After deploying a defensive barrier to block the shockwave, Jeros clicked his tongue. Even so, Jeros kept his gaze on Hanma as the life force user flew into the sky.

“What the hell is he planning to do?”

Tan wasn’t an opponent someone could successfully attack just by flying toward him at high speed. In fact, all of the Masters’ previous attacks had taken advantage of the gaps in Tan’s defenses, but didn’t the dragon block and counter them?

“What a headstrong fellow,” Tan commented.

Indeed, Tan instantly recognized Hanma’s oncoming attack and fired a shockwave. Hanma flew up faster than a modern bullet, but since Tan was a transcendent being who could immediately recognize such an approach, Hanma’s attack was essentially useless.

Yet, at that moment…

Boom.

Right before being neutralized by Tan’s shockwave, Hanma changed directions. His timing was so perfect that even Tan couldn’t respond properly!

Bang!

The Twelve Ways of Fighting. Utilizing a sky-walking skill to quickly change direction, Hanma approached, punched, and struck Tan’s defensive barrier. At that moment, Hanma reached out and ‘tore’ Tan’s swaying barrier.

“This… son of a bitch!”

Rumble!

Simultaneously, a thunderbolt thicker than a human torso hit Hanma, who couldn’t withstand the attack and fell to the ground. Yet, Tan wasn’t able to land a killing blow. Although Hanma died a little while ago and had his overall stats reduced, as a life force user, Hanma had somehow increased his stamina stat.

Due to this newfound opening, the other Masters fiercely attacked and pierced through the gap in Tan’s defenses.

“Yap!”

As Bruce rode his Black Unicorn and passed Tan, his sword qi, which had been trapped in his sword since he couldn’t land a blow, spurted out like a whip and struck Tan’s barrier. Ilyia had succeeded in opening the dagger’s Earthly Gate, or the 7th Gater, something she had done for the first time in her life, and she pierced a hole in Tan’s shield with the dagger’s aura-powered sword qi.

- Get off of me!

In the end, Tan couldn’t stand the attacks any longer, and he activated a Draconic Language spell and shook off all the approaching Masters. He looked at the users in disbelief as they were flung away.

‘They’re… growing…?’

This was exactly what was happening. The Masters were growing at a tremendous rate while fighting Tan. Of course, this wasn’t the case for all the users. This was because many Masters instantly perished, as they couldn’t withstand his attacks. Furthermore, most gradually expended their strength and eventually lost their focus, which made them ultimately succumb to death.

However, unlike [most], some Master-level users showed incredible improvement during the battle. These users were entirely different from just 20 minutes or even ten minutes ago. There was no doubt that the number of Masters was decreasing, but the remaining players achieved a stunning speed of growth; it was to the extent that the Masters’ collective power output didn’t drastically differ from before.

‘Nonsense! Isn’t this something that only happens in some fantasy hero story?!’

The scene was literally like a scene from a fantasy novel. Masters were changing and developing while facing a mighty foe, and that was affecting the outcome of a battle, which should have concluded with Tan as the obvious winner.

“Humanity’s god, we have arrived.”

“At last, this is the final fight.”

“Sir Arthur….”

Moreover, the newly-appeared forces who fell from the sky also got on Tan’s nerves. His transcendent senses were telling him that the 12 newly revealed beings were abnormal.

“Arthur, what the hell are you planning to do?” Tan asked as he looked at Arthur.

This act of questioning was possible because the battlefield was in a momentary lull, as Tan had forcefully pushed away all the approaching users just a moment ago.

“What do you mean what am I planning to do….”

Arthur raised his sword toward Tan. All of a sudden, the Masters floating in the air with pets or magic-powered flying shuttle-like mounts encircled him and looked at Arthur and Tan, who were facing each other.

“I’m planning to kill you.”

Tan laughed coldly after hearing Arthur’s low voice.

“If you truly think that’s possible, you’ll be greatly disappointed. Do you honestly believe that the battle has continued as a stalemate because our power levels are similar?”

Tan never even considered the possibility of defeat. Furthermore, the truth of the matter was there was nothing to sway him from this perspective.

Arthur had transformed from a pseudo-transcendent to a full transcendent by using a non-traditional shortcut, but still, he had just barely taken the initial steps into the transcendent realm. Among transcendents, Arthur had entered the lowest rung. To put it in terms of DIO’s level system, Arthur had gained less than a hundredth of the experience within Level 20.

On the other hand, Tan was an Emperor Class transcendent power, a rare existence even in the vast universe. Even though he had sustained a penalty, his staggering power, abilities, and skills did not completely disappear. Despite the limit to the attack power he could generate, nevertheless, he could still send out overpowering attacks through his current skillset.

Even if a transcendent of the same level appeared, Tan was confident that he’d easily prevail. Yet, now, after gathering a bunch of abnormal humans, a kid who managed to become a newbie transcendent through a shortcut was stating that he’d kill Tan.

Even if Tan was further restricted and faced even worse conditions, he felt that it was impossible for Arthur and his motley crew to defeat him.

“You are too full of yourself. You’re too conceited.”

“Heh… Conceited? Am I being conceited?”

Rumble!

The blue spiritual qi arose, and the surrounding air began to vibrate. However, Arthur didn’t flinch.

“Fine.”

As he spoke, twelve beams of light radiated from behind Arthur.

The ones emitting the light were the 12 Masters who fell from the fighter jets earlier, and the energy qi waves emanating from their bodies were emitted as light.

“Hey, wait a minute. What’s this? Isn’t that Arthur’s photonization?” Jeros commented.

Adol, half-covered with his Tower Shield, narrowed his eyes after hearing Jeros, who was watching Arthur and Tan while preparing a spell. Since he was also an internal energy user, Adol knew just how abnormal the current situation was.

“To think that there are 12 other people who have successfully transformed their internal energy into light….”

It should have been impossible. Only Arthur had succeeded in transforming his qi energy like this; other Masters couldn’t even think of imitating such a feat.

However, the 12 Masters flying behind Arthur were emitting a light so intense that it made the other users feel like it had come from Arthur.

“What the hell is going on? Weren’t those guys just average at best?”