Chapter 282: Don’t Blame Me for Fighting Dirty

If there were one word that could describe Frederick’s feelings, it would have been regret. If he had to be more specific, then it would have been bitter regret.

He never should have let that bastard open his mouth! Every single time Frederick felt even the slightest respect for him, Ji Jue would start talking. What the fuck was all this nonsense?!

Even though Frederick knew perfectly well that his opponent was deliberately trying to get under his skin, he still could not stop himself from becoming increasingly irritated and furious! What made it even worse was imagining what would happen after he was eliminated and sent back. Everyone would crowd around him and ask, “You’re so strong, so how did you lose? What was the creation that defeated you called?”

How the hell was he supposed to answer that?

Despite being surrounded by raging flames, Frederick broke out in a cold sweat. No, even if he refused to tell anyone, the Association could release the recording afterward!

It was over. It was all over! The moment he imagined the look on Master Yellowbeard’s face when he heard that his student had been taken down by Ex-Wife and Stepmother, his eyes stung with tears. If he really got hacked to death by Ex-Wife and Stepmother, his reputation would probably be ruined for the rest of his life!

Boom!!!

Flames erupted from Surtr once again. Furious, Frederick roared as his presence surged abruptly, reaching an unprecedented level of ferocity.

The greatsword in his hands slashed and swept across the battlefield, unleashing a storm of destruction. Dazzling tornadoes spiraled from the blade, turning the workshop into a natural disaster that vaporized blood energy and scorched armor. He intended to burn the enemy before him completely to ashes.

He couldn’t lose! He couldn’t lose! He couldn’t lose! He absolutely could not lose!

Frederick had become many times stronger than he had ever been before. Driven by unprecedented terror, he had climbed to an entirely new height that even he had never expected to reach. He suppressed, shattered, and destroyed everything before him!

With a thunderous impact, one of the armored figure’s arms was reduced to ash, but flowing mercury burst from the severed joint and reconstructed the arm in an instant!

The crimson blade swelled once more before slashing down. It was Ex-Wife!

Frederick’s pupils dilated, and his rage intensified. Fuck your Ex-Wife! I don’t even have an ex-wife! Hell, I’m almost thirty and I’ve never even held a girl’s hand! Why the hell should I have to suffer this kind of humiliation?!

By now, Frederick had completely figured out the blessings contained within those two weapons. They were the Swarm’s Warforged Edge and White Deer’s Daylight Plunder!

The former increased the weapon’s power through blood sacrifice, while the latter plundered spirit matter and vitality through destruction. Both were fairly common blessings. Although valuable, neither was particularly rare. Frederick himself had used them to forge plenty of weapons before, but it had never occurred to him that someone could combine the two and produce such an outrageously sinister effect!

The sheer power of the sword made his heart race with unease.

Ex-Wife possessed tremendous destructive power. Once it cut through a target, it would drain away large amounts of blood energy and vitality. However, it posed little threat to Surtr, who had taken a pure form of energy and spirit matter through Entropy.

The truly terrifying weapon was Stepmother, the short sword Ji Jue had been concealing in his palm and holding back until the right moment.

It was treacherous and vicious, striking without the slightest warning like a hornet’s stinger. Even the smallest puncture wound inflicted by it brought pain that seemed to sink straight into the marrow. Worse still, the curses and toxins within it could corrode the soul, plunder spirit matter, and leave behind damage that could not be repaired! Frederick had to stay on guard against it.

Bang!

Surtr shuddered. The short sword pierced straight through its chest, tearing open a massive hole that refused to close. Vast quantities of molten lava poured from the wound like blood.

The moment the blade pierced through, its curses and toxins spread. Crimson spirit matter began corroding from the inside out, ripping a huge breach through the giant’s energy-form body.

“What…” Frederick stared in shock. He had not even seen where the strike had come from.

He staggered backward in disbelief, but this time, his opponent did not remain in place and wait for him to recover. Instead, Assault Horsey charged like a storm and pressed the advantage with a relentless assault. As Ex-Wife came slashing down, the long saber contracted, transforming into a thin, crimson shadow-blade that severed Surtr’s wrist.

The greatsword flew from his grasp. Before it could even hit the ground, Assault Horsey had already closed the distance. Surtr roared and raised its severed wrist toward his opponent. A massive torrent of lava and spirit matter, red as blood, burst from it, driving Assault Horsey back. At the same time, Surtr’s flames dimmed rapidly, as though a large quantity of fuel had just been consumed.

Frederick finally seized the opening. He caught the greatsword with his left hand, gasped in alarm, and raised his guard.

A horribly distorted voice crackled from the damaged loudspeaker, sincerely saying, “Ah, I forgot to mention something. Ex-Wife and Stepmother can actually switch roles.”

In the armored figure’s hands, the long saber and short sword rapidly shifted. One contracted while the other extended, changing forms with perfect ease. The saber and sword had come from the same source!

Who said an ex-wife could not become a stepmother? If you tried hard enough, the reverse could work too!

Besides, from the very beginning, they had always been the same weapon!

Beneath the scorching armor, clasps snapped open. Slender chains connected to the ends of the saber and sword slowly dropped down, swaying through the air as crimson light surged along them.

Linked by those chains, Warforged Edge and Daylight Plunder flowed freely between the two weapons. At times, they even overlapped, forming a configuration Frederick had never imagined possible.

An indescribable horror surpassed Frederick’s rage and confusion.

This was a composite blessed creation carrying two blessings, and the two blessings had actually fused into one! Ji Jue had managed to combine two completely different blessings from the Swarm and White Deer, subjecting them to Transformation and Integration under his will until they finally merged into a single whole. He had accomplished this despite the immense interference caused by all those blood sacrifices.

Jiang Tongguang immediately understood what he was seeing. “Convergent Form? There’s something else mixed in too. It looks a little like… Myriad Source Convergence? No, that can’t be right. Since when did that miser Zhou Zhong become so generous?”

“It probably wasn’t generosity. He simply failed to guard it,” Gustav replied. His gaze lowered as he saw through the underlying structure. “The application is still somewhat immature, and the approach is completely different from Zhou Zhong’s. Convergent Form serves as the main framework, but Ji Jue has developed it in an entirely different direction.”

And that was not all. Ji Jue had managed to infer the underlying principles and theory of Myriad Source Convergence from only scattered fragments of its application techniques. Then he had actually transplanted those principles into Fluid Alchemy.

Somehow, it worked. He could make it function, control it, and put it into actual use!

“If he published a paper on this, wouldn’t it be enough to earn him an annual Gold Badge outright?”

That was assuming he was willing to make the theories behind Fluid Alchemy and Myriad Source Convergence public.

The two exchanged a glance. For a moment, neither spoke.

“He still has two other blessings,” Jiang Tongguang said, shaking his head.

Anyone who could rise to the upper ranks of the Association, earn the title of Laureate, and become one of the eight council members who, to some extent, governed the Taiyi Ring could possibly be lacking in ability, judgment, or experience. Even if they were still far from the level of a grandmaster, they were well beyond ordinary masters.

As they looked down through the observations of the Myriad Transformations Tower, the two men understood what was happening the instant they noticed the change. The situation could not have been clearer to them.

“It’s over,” Gustav said softly.

The heavily wounded Surtr surged back to life. Boundless flames gathered and descended upon his many wounds, restoring every damaged and missing part. No, it would be more accurate to say that the body was being reforged.

The entire workshop now effectively served as Frederick’s furnace, while the endless flames embodied both creation and destruction. With a single thought, he could cast his enemy into an inferno of molten fire. With another, he could restore himself completely!

Surtr’s true terror lay in its nearly lossless conversion between energy and spirit. In other words, as long as fire still existed anywhere on the battlefield, it could continue regenerating without end. Even if only a single spark remained, it could freely transfer itself to that location. Unless someone could destroy this entire sea of flames in a single strike, defeating Surtr was absolutely impossible!

“Sorry. I didn’t want to win in such a way either,” Frederick murmured softly as flames surged around him. The molten giant roared, and the blazing greatsword grew once more, swelling to a terrifying size like a Celestial Pillar. It swept in a full circle, not sparing a single blind spot.

The flames rose in waves hundreds of meters high in every direction. The instant the intruder was forced into a dead end, the scorching greatsword thrust forward, shattered the crossed defense of saber and sword, and pierced straight through the cockpit!

Flames erupted from the back of the armor like a raging tide. The crimson light within the armor’s eyes faded away. The armor cracked, melted, and dissolved into thick smoke and molten iron until nothing remained.

There was nothing inside!

Frederick’s pupils dilated sharply. Where was the craftsman? Where had the craftsman gone?!

Something cracked within Surtr’s chest. Shrouded in mercury, a severely burned figure pushed himself upright amid the flames. The edgeless sword in his hand pierced the giant’s chest from behind. It seemed as though the blade had torn straight through its heart.

With the loudspeakers destroyed, no more words could be heard, yet in that fleeting silence, Frederick felt emotions he had never experienced before—a bone-deep chill, fear, bewilderment, and despair.

Crack!

The giant’s chest shattered like glass, freeing an agonized scream that could no longer be suppressed. Cracks rapidly spread across Surtr as the flames faded away at astonishing speed. The flames, red as blood, vanished without a trace, and the workshop that had become a blazing inferno rapidly lost its heat. Its core had collapsed, all because of that plain-looking black weapon.

Although it had the general shape of a sword, its edges were sharply defined, making it resemble an octagonal iron rod. Its interior was divided into distinct sections, and rather than a sword, it looked more like an iron mace!

This was the true second weapon!

With a single strike, the giant shattered. It collapsed beyond recovery, while the craftsman who had transformed into the giant was critically wounded and left on the verge of death before crashing into the ash and mud below.

He no longer had any strength left to resist, but he still could not stop himself from turning his head and staring with wide eyes at the expressionless replica and the weapon in its hand.

What the hell was that thing?!

“It’s the Dissociation Technique.”

Outside the projection, the suspicions of the two examiners were finally confirmed. Jiang Tongguang could only sigh, momentarily at a loss for words. He had never expected that even he would be fooled by this brat!