Chapter 261: Rank Difference

Her sword was already descending with terrifying intensity as her voice rang across the battlefield, "Marvilas Semekrus ─ Soul Ender!"

Before Orivian could even turn his head, the sword landed directly on his nape, yet the real target of the attack had never been his physical body to begin with. The blade phased directly through his ashen flesh and struck his soul instead, carrying almost all of Velmira’s Soul Force into the attack while simultaneously activating Semekrus’s ability.

She had calculated everything before making the attack, and according to her understanding of her own power, there was absolutely no chance for Orivian to survive after having his soul struck by an attack of this level.

However, what followed immediately after the strike made Velmira’s expression change.

CLANG!

The sound echoed across the battlefield.

It was as though her sword had struck a piece of extremely hard metal rather than cutting through a soul. The attack had clearly landed on Orivian’s soul, yet instead of splitting it apart as she had expected, the blade had met resistance strong enough to produce an actual metallic sound. Velmira’s eyes narrowed as she looked at Orivian, unable to immediately understand what had happened.

’What?’ Before she could even process the situation, however, she suddenly sensed someone behind her.

A hand grabbed her from behind.

The next instant, Velmira was violently thrown toward the ground at a ridiculous speed, her body grazing the edge of the massive chasm below as she was sent flying away from Orivian. Atlas watched the entire exchange with narrowed eyes as he followed Velmira’s movement before looking back toward Orivian, ’Another clone?’

He wondered whether Orivian possessed the same kind of ability as the Guildmaster, because the figure that had appeared behind Velmira and thrown her away seemed to possess almost the same physical abilities as Orivian’s original body.

It was similar to how the Guildmaster’s clone had been capable of fighting with almost the same physical strength as the original, which meant that simply destroying one of these bodies might not be enough to deal with Orivian himself.

As for the tiny amount of damage Orivian had actually suffered from Velmira’s attack, it was completely useless.

The moment the attack had connected with his soul, Orivian had activated Event Absorption and completely absorbed the event of the impact itself. That was also the reason Velmira had felt as though her sword had struck something impossibly hard instead of cutting through a soul.

The event in which her attack actually damaged Orivian had simply been erased through absorption, leaving behind almost no meaningful damage.

Atlas sighed as he finally moved.

He had already decided that Orivian needed to die regardless of what abilities he possessed, and after observing him for this long, Atlas had already learned enough to understand how their current battle worked. There was no reason for him to continue watching Orivian’s abilities when he had already discovered the most important weakness.

’I don’t need to observe anymore. He can’t even touch me because of the flames.’ The moment that thought appeared in his mind, Atlas disappeared.

Using Mu-Ho, he instantly appeared directly in front of Orivian, his fist already moving forward with enough force to tear through the surrounding space. The Flames of Nothingness covered his fist completely, and the space directly in front of his attack began turning into Nothingness as the flames erased everything they touched.

Orivian’s pupil-less eyes remained fixed on the approaching fist.

"Event Absorptio—!"

He immediately attempted to use the same Ultimate Ability again.

This time, however, nothing happened.

The event of Atlas’s punch moving toward him couldn’t be absorbed.

More importantly, Orivian couldn’t even absorb the event of Atlas moving from his previous position to his current one, unlike what he had done when dealing with Kael. His pupil-less eyes widened immediately as genuine shock appeared across his otherwise calm expression.

’What?’ For the first time since revealing Event Absorption, Orivian couldn’t understand why his Ultimate Ability had failed.

He didn’t have enough time to investigate.

At the final instant, Orivian replaced his original body with another clone.

BOOOOOM!

Atlas’s fist landed directly on the clone.

The body disappeared under the force of the attack, completely unable to withstand the Flames of Nothingness that had covered Atlas’s fist. However, before Orivian could even wonder what was happening, Atlas had already appeared behind him again.

"Spirit Barrage." Atlas’s voice remained calm as he activated the Trait he had obtained from one of the Asfalon team members inside the Divine-rank Ruin.

His hands moved.

Hundreds of punches were launched almost simultaneously.

BOOOOOM! BOOOOOM! BOOOOOM!

The barrage of attacks descended upon Orivian’s position, each punch carrying the Flames of Nothingness as the surrounding space continued being destroyed. Orivian’s instincts immediately warned him of the danger, forcing him to replace another clone with his original body before the attacks could reach him.

’What kind of flames are those? My Ultimate Ability is actually failing to absorb the events connected to them?!’ For the first time, the existence of those flames seemed to threaten his ability and his entire being itself.

At this moment, Orivian’s current body was at the same cultivation rank as Zaakrax ─ Astral World Rank.

This was the first rank beyond Special Ex-rank, and entering this realm represented a fundamental change in the strength of a living being. An Astral World Rank individual’s physical attributes went beyond anything that the inhabitants of Eliomor could ever imagine.

This was also the reason Kael had been unable to see Zaakrax’s stats during their previous meeting. The difference between an Astral World Rank existence and the lower ranks was simply too great for his System to display normally.

However, Kael had still persisted in trying to analyze Zaakrax and the Ancients by using the System’s Analyzing Protocol, and eventually, the System had managed to produce a rough result.

And the result?

Their numbers were in the tens of thousands.

The weakest Building Gatekeeper Kael had encountered in that Church City alone had possessed around twelve thousand stat points, while Kael himself, despite currently possessing the raw physical strength of an SSS-rank, had not even reached a thousand stat points in total.

At first glance, the difference appeared ridiculous.

So, how was Atlas capable of remaining comparable to beings whose displayed stats were multiple times higher than his own? The answer was that the Codex did not function in the same way as the System used by Kael.

As of now, Atlas had reached 100 points in every attribute, meaning that the numbers displayed by his Codex were extremely small when compared to the values produced by Kael’s System.

However, one point in Atlas’s Codex was not equivalent to one point in Kael’s System. Based on the difference that could be observed between their measurements, 100 points in one of Atlas’s attributes were roughly comparable to around 700 points in the corresponding System stat.

In other words, if Atlas’s attributes were converted into the System’s measurement, his 100 points would be equivalent to approximately 700 points. From that perspective, every individual point in Atlas’s Codex was effectively worth around seven times as much as a corresponding point displayed by Kael’s System.

Even that, however, didn’t mean Atlas could simply treat himself as being seven times stronger than someone with the same number of System stats. Their abilities, techniques, physical bodies, energy reserves, and other factors still played an important role in determining the outcome of an actual battle.

The comparison only explained why Atlas’s seemingly tiny numbers could produce results completely disproportionate to what the numbers themselves suggested.

But even with that difference in efficiency, there was still a massive gap between Atlas’s current attributes and Orivian’s raw physical abilities. That was why Orivian could dodge Atlas’s attacks and replace himself with his clones with such ease.

Even though Event Absorption was failing against the Flames of Nothingness, Orivian’s calm expression didn’t completely disappear because he still possessed a physical advantage that allowed him to react to Atlas’s attacks. His current body was simply too powerful to be overwhelmed by Atlas’s raw physical strength alone.

Orivian reappeared several meters away from Atlas, ’This is becoming difficult. At this rate, I won’t be able to take such a high-potential soul—’

He suddenly stopped thinking as instantly he sensed someone was behind him.

The movement had been so fast that even Orivian couldn’t react before something pierced directly through his stomach from behind.

SHHHK!

"Khug!"

Blood escaped from Orivian’s mouth as he lowered his head and looked at the blade that had emerged from his abdomen.

Behind him floated Kael.

A Katana shaped sword remained embedded deep inside Orivian’s body, while Kael’s hand firmly held its handle. His expression carried a mischievous grin as he looked directly at Orivian, "Hehe, got you, you fucker!" Kael’s grin widened.

"You ignored us as if we weren’t even worth your attention. Now this sword will keep all your abilities sealed for an entire minute!"