Chapter 158: The Physics of Godhood
Chapter 158: Chapter 158: The Physics of Godhood
Chapter 158: The Physics of Godhood
The dark clouds above Bastion Six had completely vanished.
Inside the invisible dome of the [Mana-Siphon Grid], the air was suffocatingly heavy. The raw, stolen magic of the Level 200 Edict surged through the geometric nodes and blasted directly into Draven’s core.
For the first time since his transmigration, Draven felt his mortal limits shatter. The sheer volume of mana rushing through his veins made the surrounding space warp and distort around his black uniform.
Tharzek Noctis slowly descended to the bloody concrete. His bare feet touched the ground.
The Fifth Elder was breathing heavily. His pale skin was twitching. His connection to the world’s leylines was entirely cut off.
His god-like Edict of Entropy was gone. The [Mana-Siphon Grid] had brutally dragged him down from the heavens and chained him to the earth.
"What kind of blasphemous trick is this?!" Tharzek roared, his voice cracking with sheer fury.
"You dare steal the ambient mana from a High Priest of the Eclipse? Do you know who I am? I am the Fifth Elder! I am a god among these insects!"
Draven stood perfectly still. He let the Elder rant.
"You are just an old man wearing a bathrobe," Draven replied, his voice a cold, mechanical hum behind his white mask.
"You spent a century relying on a magic cheat code because you forgot how to actually fight. Let me guess, it has been decades since anyone actually punched you in the mouth, right?"
Tharzek’s milky eyes widened with absolute, homicidal rage. The disrespect was unfathomable.
"You insolent worm!" Tharzek shrieked, his face contorting into a mask of pure hatred.
"You think suppressing my magic saves you? I am Level 200! My raw physical vessel alone contains enough force to turn your fragile bones into dust! I will tear your spine out with my bare hands!"
BOOM!
The concrete beneath Tharzek’s feet instantly exploded.
He didn’t use magic. It was pure, unadulterated physical strength. The Elder crossed the fifty-yard distance in less than a fraction of a second. His fist tore through the sound barrier, aimed directly at Draven’s chest. It carried enough kinetic force to level a skyscraper.
Aegon and Bram, watching from the rubble, widened their eyes. The speed was untrackable.
Draven didn’t blink. He didn’t even try to dodge.
He simply raised his right hand and caught the Elder’s fist in his open palm.
BANG!
A massive shockwave of displaced air exploded outward, shattering the glass of the surrounding Vanguard buildings.
Tharzek smirked, expecting Draven’s arm to turn into bloody mist.
But Draven’s arm didn’t even bend.
"You talk too much," Draven whispered.
[System Skill Activated: SSS-Rank Vector Manipulation]
[Application: Vector Reflection]
Draven didn’t block the force; he inverted it. He seized the terrifying, Level 200 kinetic momentum of Tharzek’s own punch and violently redirected the arrow of physics straight back into the Elder’s arm.
CRACK!
The sound of shattering bone echoed across the silent plaza.
Tharzek’s eyes bulged in shock. His own ungodly physical force bounced backward, snapping his right forearm cleanly in half. The bone tore through his pale skin in a shower of dark blood.
"AARGHH!" Tharzek screamed, stumbling backward and clutching his mangled arm.
Draven did not give him a single second to recover. He stepped forward, entering the Elder’s guard with the cold precision of a military assassin.
"Physics doesn’t care about your rank," Draven stated flatly.
Draven raised his boot and delivered a sharp, calculated kick to the side of the Elder’s left knee. He didn’t just hit the joint; he applied [Vector Shear].
He forced a kinetic vector pulling the thigh forward, while simultaneously applying a violent force twisting the calf backward.
CRACK.
Tharzek collapsed onto the concrete, his leg bent at a horrifying, unnatural angle. He gasped for air, his face pale and sweating.
"Your rank means nothing in a fistfight," Draven said coldly, standing directly over the crippled Cultist, asserting absolute dominance.
"Without your Edict, you are just a fragile old man swinging wildly in the dark. Your time is up."
Draven raised his hand, compressing the siphoned Level 200 mana into a vibrating, invisible blade of kinetic force around his fingertips. He aimed directly for the Elder’s neck, intending to decapitate him.
But Tharzek Noctis did not beg for mercy.
Instead, the crippled Cultist began to laugh.
It started as a low, wet chuckle, bubbling up from his throat, before evolving into a maniacal, deranged cackle.
"He... hehehe... hahahaha!"
Tharzek looked up at Draven. His milky eyes were rolling back into his head, filled with religious ecstasy.
"You foolish, arrogant boy," Tharzek wheezed, his mouth filling with blood.
"Do you think the Church of the Eternal Eclipse only evolves our magic? Do you think we rely solely on the leylines?"
Draven’s pitch-black eyes narrowed. His Tactical Appraisal screamed a sudden, violent warning.
’Something is wrong. Fall back!’ Draven’s instincts flared.
He immediately leaped backward, creating twenty yards of distance.
Tharzek knelt on the bloody pavement. He raised his mangled, broken arm to the sky.
"We do not just worship the Abyss! We invite it into our very flesh!" Tharzek roared.
"Behold the true anatomy of a High Priest!"
SQUELCH.
The sound was nauseating. Tharzek’s pale skin began to violently split open. The flesh peeled back from his arms, his chest, and his broken legs like a rotten cocoon.
Underneath, there was no white bone.
There was only pitch-black, hyper-dense metal.
The Elder’s entire skeletal structure had been completely mutated and replaced by Abyssal Steel—a supernatural alloy forged in the deepest spatial rifts.
The broken joints in his arm and leg violently snapped back into place, the black metal grinding together with the sound of screeching iron.
Tharzek stood up. The frail old man was gone.
He was now a towering, nine-foot-tall monstrosity of exposed black steel and pulsing red muscle tissue. The sheer weight of his new body cracked the concrete beneath his feet.
Draven narrowed his eyes. He instantly fired the compressed kinetic blade directly at the Elder’s chest.
CLANG!
The invisible vector struck the Abyssal Steel and harmlessly dispersed. The sheer mass and ungodly density of the mutated metal completely nullified the kinetic impact.
Draven’s SSS-Rank Vector Manipulation required leverage and movement, but he could not move something that possessed the density of a mountain.
Tharzek Noctis stood tall, rolling his massive, armored shoulders. His voice was no longer that of an old man; it was a booming, metallic roar that shook the very air.
"Let us see your physics break this, Commander!"