'I am not his match.' That was the first thought that appeared in Arthur's head.
However, what came out of his mouth was:
"There is nothing I do not dare to do."
He knew he couldn't appear scared. If not, he would lose the initiative before the battle even started.
Besides, he had to raise the morale of his team, and just as he thought, the face of Martin and the Goldsborn mages brightened upon his arrival. Only two people had different reactions.
Sophia harrumphed in displeasure upon seeing his timely appearance. She would never forgive him for humiliating her father five years ago in the tournament for the princess's hand in marriage. And if it wasn't for the Queen's liking towards the other, she would have used her status as a Duke's daughter to deal with him long ago. However, she could only rely on her strength if she wanted to have her revenge, something she hadn't been able to achieve till today despite her higher cultivation level. And she doubted if she would ever be able to.
As for the second person who reacted differently, it was Rita. A strange glint flashed within her eyes when she saw her-to-be-husband.
While the group was reacting to Arthur's arrival, the giant silently closed the distance to the former and punched out.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The space before him collapsed for tens of kilometers, as darkness swallowed the region far into the distance.
A spear covered in dragon patterns silently appeared beside the giant before piercing into him.
Or at least it tried to.
With the sound of metal colliding echoing in the surroundings, the giant waved his hand to swat the fly that had teleported to his side into meat paste.
Alas, his attack met nothing once again, except for turning the world before it into chaotic space.
Arthur appeared a short distance away, with sweat matting his forehead. He quickly raised his golden spear and stabbed out.
Strangely his spear point seemed to disappear into space, and before the giant could react, it appeared directly in front of one of his eyes before poking at it.
Still, no damage was done as the sound of metal clashing resounded once again. It seemed even the eyes, a common weak point of many races, were as formidable as the giant's tempered body.
Seeing the strange attack that appeared before it out of nowhere, the giant restrained his anger before narrowing his eyes at his opponent.
He could tell his opponent was a child, and even more shocking was his low cultivation.
'A weak master realm human brat was able to survive my attack twice?'
'Such talent.'
Even if Arthur was a spatial mage and could instantly teleport, it still didn't change the fact that he survived his attacks that were more than two times faster than the speed of light and should have overwhelmed his reaction speed.
It must be noted that even the princess, who he was beginning to admire for her talent and suspecting had to be related to that monster to be so powerful at her age, died under his attacks and had simply used her strange powers to survive.
However, Arthur did not, which showed that despite having a slower speed and power than the giant, Arthur's combat awareness was so unimaginably high to the point that his body was able to automatically react to danger even before his mind could process it.
'Not to mention his ingenious use of space laws in combat.' The giant realized the corrupted spatial mage he had converted and had thought was once in a generation talent was nothing but fart before this young teen before him
'He is a great danger to the young lord.'
The giant quickly arrived at this point as the talent of the human child before him sent chills down his prideful spine, and he concluded that he must kill him to sniff out the danger in the bud.
At the same time that the giant was lost in his thoughts after their brief clash, Arthur was similarly having his inner struggle.
'F*CK! F*CK! F*CK! '
'That was close.'
'Just the shockwave is enough to send me to Yama.'
'I have to run...'
'No, I can't abandon the others.'
'How about I just teleport them away before escaping?'
He shook his head inwardly as he knew the giant wouldn't just allow him to do as he pleased. Even with his teleportation speed, he knew the giant was still several times faster than him, and if it wasn't for the spatial sense that he had developed in recent years that allowed him to sense even the slightest change in the space around him, he would have long died to the first punch.
'Wait...'
'Is this giant a demon?' Despite not knowing anything about the giant before him he could tell he wielded unmatched might. So how could his enemy, Dean, who was the same age as him, be able to convert such an existence into one of his underlings?
Arthur couldn't help but feel fear grip his heart.
This was the fourth time he had ever felt fear in his life.
The first was when he was small and was almost killed in a dark alley by a food vendor for stealing his merchandise. That was the defining point in his life, as it was then he awakened his mana core.
The second time was five years ago when he stupidly barged into the Goldsborn capital and interrupted the tournament for their princess's hand in marriage. When the queen gazed at him, he didn't feel like he was looking at a human. Instead, he felt like he was looking at death in the eyes. Luckily, his master appreciated his talent at first sight and didn't act towards him. She had even shielded him from the repercussions of his actions and even accepted him as her only student.
The third time was similarly five years ago, when he saw the young girl, who called him big brother despite knowing each other for only a short while, killed before his eyes. He feared her death and resented his weakness.
Today, was his fourth time. With just a simple punch from the gigantic monster before him, his power, which he had always prided himself in, was rendered useless.
He couldn't help but smile wryly when his thoughts reached here.
He had just made a breakthrough and came out to flex some of his powers, only to be miserably humbled.
Now that he knew he wasn't the latter's match, Arthur did the next best thing he could.
"If we want to escape, we need to attack together."
So, he asked for help.
The arrogant, unruly, and stubborn 'him' asked for help.
Some would argue that he was a disgusting person, and honestly, he didn't think he could argue with them.
But could he blamed?
He grew up in the gutters with no parents. In a world of magic, where 99.999% percent of the population awakened their mana core, he belonged to the few 0.001%. Hence, he was deemed useless by society.
Left to fend for himself on the street, how could he not become unruly? How else would he have survived? With just his pure willpower and luck?
Bullshit.
Then, what about when he suddenly awakened his power and even found out he was very talented? Could he be blamed for acting out?
Would any other person have done better?
Arthur didn't know.
But what he did know was that he regretted his actions in the tournament five years ago. His unruliness had forever changed the path of a very talented rival.
Now the world...no...the entire dark galaxy had to suffer it.
If it was before, he would never allow anybody to interfere in his battle, as only in fights did he truly feel alive.
However, he had changed over the years and had learned, in a painful way, that his every action had repercussions.
.....
Arthur didn't care about the look of shock on Martin, Sophia, and the other's faces. He could tell that even Rita looked surprised by his words. But he knew now wasn't the time to entertain such thoughts, so he quickly sprang into action.
"Let's join hands together to defeat him!" He shouted once again, and without waiting for a reply, he made his move.
The truth was that Rita, Martin, and Sophia were restricted on the amount of power they could use. If not, they would have long used their awakened will ability as a Red-core mage to control the laws around them and perform extraordinary feats. Alas, their combat prowess far surpassed their cultivation level, so they couldn't unleash their full strength for fear of affecting this lower world. Only in a middle or better, a higher world could they let loose freely.
Well, the same could be said for the giant, as Arthur could tell he wasn't even trying.
"Mirror clones!"
Ten Arthurs appeared in Rita's midst, and before any of them could react, five of the clones teleported the Goldsborn mages and Enigma-Ancient family elders out of sight.
The remaining five moved before Rita, Martin, Sophia, Brian, and his father before speaking simultaneously:
"Launch your strongest attack you could manage at me!"
At the same, the real Arthur clenched the shaft of his golden spear tightly before taking a deep breath.
Since he was still not a Red-core mage, he could not fly and could only remain on the earth, but he didn't care about such a limitation, as he could teleport freely around him, be it to the air or on the ground.
The spear in his hands was a heaven-ranked artifact his master gave him, but he couldn't use all its power for obvious reasons despite his mana outclassing a peak grandmaster mage in quality and quantity.
The gap between the grandmaster stage and the Red-core stage was almost unsurmountable, and the distance between these two realms could even be compared to the strength of the beginner stage to the grandmaster stage multiplied by several folds.
But the important key here is that the distance is 'almost' unsurmountable.
There was a reason why Arthur was far behind his mate in cultivation.
That was because he abandoned increasing his realm and focused more on understanding the space laws. Every time he meditated on the profundities of this supreme law, Arthur always felt free and at rest.
It was almost as if the space was his mother, and only within her embrace could he find peace.
Therefore, Arthur's accomplishment in the law was so great that even a monster like Sylvia had no choice but to admit defeat in this area.
The giant didn't seem to care that Arthur teleported some people away.
To him, only Arthur, who had the artifact he wanted and who he wanted to kill for his monstrous talent, and Rita, who didn't pale that much to Arthur, mattered.
"Dragon spear!"
Arthur poured his mana into the spear in his hand before stabbing out fiercely.
ROOAAR!
The golden spear released a resounding roar that shook the area, and before the giant could react, the spear point stabbed out from a hole directly behind him, despite Arthur still being before him.
Bang!
Once again, there was no damage.
But Arthur didn't care as he turned into silver flashes that kept the distance and teleported around the giant, his spear stabbing into the giant as it defied the laws of physics.
The giant remained at the spot and simply allowed Arthur's attack to land on him. He knew that if he wanted to kill Arthur, he had to do it in one fell swoop. And to do that he must catch him off guard.
As the spear point continued to materialize around him from places he could not even imagine, the giant's senses suddenly tingled causing him to shift his attention to Rita's position.
There, he saw one of Arthur's clones absorb a golden orb that seemed to be made of several clock gears condensed by the princess.
But that wasn't the end.
Killing intent suddenly radiated from Martin as his body became enveloped by a suffocating red aura that turned him into a red sun on Earth.
Without hesitation, Martian slashed his sword down, and before he completed his movement, the red aura around him was instantly absorbed by the falling sword before a massive red head flew out of it.
"Asura's fangs!"
The monstrous head image opened his mouth wide to reveal crimson fangs that shone with an eerie light. The attack flew towards another one of Arthur's clones, but the latter simply raised his left hand and the space before it rippled, before swallowing the Asura head.
At the same time, Sophia used all her mana to condense a small white ball, causing a chilling cold to spread out in the surroundings.
"Frozen end!"
The space around the orb directly froze as it moved towards Arthur's clone before disappearing without a trace once again.
Seeing this, the giant's trained senses tingled wildly, and he didn't plan on waiting for Brian and his father to prepare their attacks to find out what would happen.
Just when he was about to move, silver essence erupted from Arthur's body wildly as he raised his spear to shoulder height like a javelin before taking a throwing stance.
"True dragon spear!"
"ROOOAAAR!"
The spear turned into a kilometer-long eastern silver dragon that broke the sound barrier, Sonic waves left in it's wake, before it disappeared into space.
But Arthur didn't seem done.
Raising both his hands in the giant's direction, a resolute look appeared on his face as he invoked one of the three techniques h
e had learned in his recent breakthrough.
"Spatial Collapse!"
With Arthur at the center, the surrounding 30m suddenly shattered as chaotic space swam menacingly toward the enemy's gigantic body.