The Conqueror roared loudly, and he ceased to speak the human tongue, but went with only shouts and roars of anger to show how massively furious he was. The audience was rowdy as they shouted for the Conqueror to torture Seunghyuk to the brink of death, and the Conqueror immediately sent a huge fist across Seunghyuk's face, slapping the mask off of Seunghyuk.
"So it's you...ITS YOU! YOU'RE THAT BRAT'S FRIEND!" The Conqueror angrily pointed at Jisung and Seunghyuk frowned, looking at the Nighthowler King's Mask sliding away from him as he called back, "Yeah, it's me, and so? You're still the same."
The whole audience went silent for the umpteenth time, and it was always at a time of shock that they would become quiet. It was always these times that Seunghyuk appreciated, but no one cares about an audience etiquette at an arena, so it was always amusing to see the audience have their lips zipped in an arena in the midst of a merciless fight.
"So you're just going to stare at me while inhaling and exhaling loudly? I didn't know being a bull was that good of a combat technique," Seunghyuk provoked the mad Conqueror, slowly mouthing through every word in order to buy time for him to stand up, and it worked marvellously, "Come on, bull, I don't have to buy a red cloth, do I?"
The maddened bull really did rush forward even without the triggering colour of red, and spikes started to rise out from the ground, causing waves to propagate around the mediums near the arena ground surface. Seunghyuk's Nighthowler King's mask vibrated and shook, sliding further and further away from him. Seunghyuk watched as the mask slid off, then immediately leapt forward like a leopard, landing on his stomach as he held the Nighthowler King's Mask down with his hand to keep it in position and stop it from moving around any further.
The Conqueror, of course, seen everything that Seunghyuk had done, and without thinking much, a dreadful spike rose from the ground area below Seunghyuk, catching him by surprise. Seunghyuk quickly stored the mask behind him, halfway in his pants as he quickly started to think of a strategy.
"Damn it!" Seunghyuk shouted out loud as he immediately sent a huge blast of fire to the ground area below him, and the spike pierced through the fire, still, Seunghyuk's plan worked and he was sent flying upwards into the air due to the magnitude of the fire blast, "I guess I got away again."
Seunghyuk was not fully correct as he landed in the wrong spot, where his back was awfully cut by a huge spike, leaving a metre-long blood wound on his back which made him wince in pain. It felt like a thousand leeches were sticking to his back and sucking out his blood at an extremely high speed. The sensation was nothing less than hell.
"I told you...I'll make anyone who angers me pay double and with interest!" The Conqueror started ranting off with his payment and interests again, but the most alarming thing was that Seunghyuk's Short-Fused Explosion skill's effects were about to wear off.
Seunghyuk knew that activating his unique and special skull of Short-Fused Explosion would boost his overall stats up by 5. Even if he used it twice in a short span of a few minutes, not even with an hour break between, he would still be able to use it without any known side effects. However, using it once again after the second activation ends sounded risky, and Seunghyuk did not want to risk anything at that moment, so he only had one plan of action, and that is to end things with the mad Conqueror fast and swift, before his skill activation time runs out.
"Okay bull, you've played enough," Seunghyuk said and that angered the Conqueror again, causing the Conqueror to unleash his skill of Body Drill again, charging towards Seunghyuk like death coming for him, "No, not today!"
Seunghyuk shouted out with resolution as he knitted his eyebrows, sending out his Snake of Ophiuchus and he suddenly wrapped his fingers around the centre of his palm into a fist, then slammed it into his other hand's palm. All that weird hand action was not for nothing, in fact, it was only simple hand actions that had brought about a huge offensive skill attack. Only one last step was needed and that was a loud yell of...
"Serpens Caput Strengthen!"
The Snake of Ophiuchus's head seemed to rematerialise but into a pure gold like scale, which absolutely shocked not only the audience and the Conqueror, but also Seunghyuk himself. Seunghyuk had only just gotten the new sub-skill because the Snake Of Ophiuchus summoning skill had just reached a one star skill mastery. It seemed pretty predictable to Seunghyuk at this point that the skill would give a sub-skill after every one skill of star mastery raised. The skill Snake Of Ophiuchus is one of the hardest skill to raise its star mastery, hence one sub-skill per star mastery was pretty guessable as a result.
The snake with its strong golden head took off towards the Conqueror, controlled by Seunghyuk with his fingers, knocking into the Conqueror painfully with the audible sound of bones inside of him cracking and crunching. Seunghyuk remained calm and collected as he reeled the snake backwards to build up enough momentum, then rush it back in for a second attack. The Conqueror shouted inhumanely repeatedly as he raised both his hands to block, but the strengthened and golden head of the snake slammed into the Conqueror's arms with so much force that it almost rendered his arms useless.
"Now, I'd like to think that I've won this arena match," Seunghyuk said with his brows still knitted together without any intentions to loosen as he stared at the worn out Conqueror half-squatting on the ground panting heavily, "Even a raging bull has to admit defeT sometimes, right?"
Seunghyuk twirled his finger around, drawing little circles with his fingers as the Snake of Ophiuchus slithered through the air in a circular motion playfully just like how Seunghyuk had controlled. The whole audience was still quiet, as they obviously did not expect that turn of events. Silence is a good thing, but in that case, it helped to push people off edge. For someone like the Conqueror that Seunghyuk was currently facing, he likes attention so much that he has used that as a fuel to move himself on and continue to fight and win many arena matches and battles. Hence, this silence from the audience came out as a whole different signal for the Conqueror, seeming to say things like: We have had our trust in you, and now you've lost?
Silence signified disappointment, disappointment in the Conqueror's skills. That is to the Conqueror only, as Seunghyuk purely thought silence was calming. At this point, Seunghyuk was starting to calm down as adrenaline started to slowly seep out of his body, bit it was an absolutely bad idea for his body to think it was all over. Silence is a double-edged sword, and in this case, it seemed to cut Seunghyuk himself more than it cut the Conqueror when Seunghyuk wielded it, causing the once tired Conqueror to stand up. The black pupils in the Conqueror's eyes stayed lifelessly still, like it was still functioning but at a very low frames per second.
"There's no way..." Seunghyuk let that three words escape his trembling lips as the danger that once left had settled inside of him once again, watching the dangerous Conqueror standing up again, losing all consciousness, but still retaining the energy and spirit to fight, if it was not for the situation that the Conqueror had tortured Jisung, Seunghyuk would have respected the Conqueror immensely, "That's intense fighting spirit right there, but it should be useless against absolute power."
Seunghyuk spoke to himself because he knew jolly well that the Conqueror charging towards him at an unconscious state would not be able to hear anything. It was like an empty zombie vessel moving aimlessly hunting for brains, but much different, in this case that zombie had brains and was much faster and stronger. The Conqueror exuded so much animosity that Seunghyuk was almost squeezed into a box under the strong pressure.
The whole arena was swirling with a strong aura of disturbing danger, and Seunghyuk had absolutely no choice but to confront it face to face. The unconscious Conqueror immediately raised his hands and his skill House Of Arrows and the crossbows flung and shot arrows at Seunghyuk at a speed that he could not react to.
The Conqueror's highly awakened brain state due to his unconsciousness had led to high brain activity, so casting of spells are almost in an instant, which is a huge danger. Seunghyuk could only try his best to block away all the arrows coming towards him, but some unsuccessfully blocked arrows stabbing into him were inevitable. Everything all seemed so hopeless and Seunghyuk thought he was going to lose there, yet again. The thoughts of losing to the assassin badly had deepened those negative thoughts, and made that slight hopelessness increase threefold.
Just as Seunghyuk was about to let down his guard completely and let himself get hit, he heard a weak, but loud voice from outside of the arena. Seunghyuk had that instant few milliseconds to turn his head and register that Jisung was looking at him in shock and fright; shocked that Seunghyuk was facing such a huge opponent just for him and afraid that Seunghyuk would accidentally lose his life from getting too injured. Seunghyuk had read every single layer of expression on Jisung's pained face in that split second, which immediately vacuumed out the hopelessness residing in his body, replacing it with boiling, fiery anger.
"Jisung was hurt by people like you..." Seunghyuk circled fire all around him and sent it outwards, spreading the flame as it deflected all the arrows coming his way, then Seunghyuk retrieved the Nighthowler King's Mask from behind of him, wearing it carefully as he said, "Now that you're silent, you're less of a bull, but since you're an animal, I should stoop down to the same level."
When Seunghyuk finished, the whole arena watched silently as the open night sky of the arena turned pitch black with hints of red, and the crescent moon that once hung amongst the clouds had slowly shapeshifted into a full moon. The moonlight together with the red hues came together and dawned a red-white pillar of light down towards Seunghyuk. When the light and smoke dissipated together, what everyone had seen was no longer a human body, but a two-metre tall body of a Nighthowler.