Chapter 352: The King Of Heroes V The Hero In Black
Hayley continued watching the exchange unfold in the distance before something suddenly occurred to her.
She glanced at Ethan. "Why is your summon only evading?"
Ethan let out another sigh, rubbing the side of his head. "He has this rule about him. He’ll never take up arms against someone he considers innocent... or anyone he doesn’t sense evil from."
Hayley’s eyes widened slightly.
"Yup," Ethan nodded. "Even as his summoner, I can’t command him to do otherwise."
He still remembered the last time he had tried.
Rather than obey an order that violated his own code, Arthur had simply turned the blade on himself instead.
It was an infuriating character trait, and one of the summon’s notable limits. Yet, ironically, it also made Arthur the perfect summon for this particular situation.
Dark Nova might have been a complete pain to deal with, but he hadn’t been entirely wrong.
The damage they had caused had indeed begun affecting the nearby expressway, and by extension, the civilians who traveled through it.
Trying to kill the Hero Agent wasn’t what Ethan actually wanted.
The problem was that nearly every other Beast Class summon he possessed would instinctively pursue the quickest path to victory.
He could order them not to kill, of course, but doing so would greatly limit their effectiveness against an opponent who was clearly no ordinary awakened.
Arthur, however, was different. Restraint had never been something forced upon him, rather it was something he had practiced throughout his life as a king.
He understood better than most how to navigate situations like these without allowing that restraint to become a weakness.
"Moreover..." Ethan added, his eyes remaining on the battle. "He’s not just dodging, he’s also reading the opponent."
He smiled a bit. "Arthur isn’t naïve enough to believe someone can’t turn hostile at any moment. So asides the evasion, he’s actually preparing for the worst."
"Oh..." Hayley murmured, slowly nodding in understanding.
Ethan smiled to himself. His experience with this summon over the past few months made him understand why Merlin had spoken so highly of Arthur.
A true king indeed.
—
Meanwhile...
Arthur landed several meters farther back once again, deliberately creating another sizeable gap between himself and the pursuing Hero Agent.
Dark Nova followed just immediately, his body exploding through the air with both arms extended straight before him, charging like a projectile toward Arthur’s position.
But this time, Arthur didn’t move.
He calmly watched the Hero in black hurtle toward him. But just before impact, Dark Nova came to an abrupt stop.
His eyes widened, prompting him to look downward, only to see that multiple black chains had erupted from the earth and wrapped around his limbs and torso before locking him firmly in place.
Almost immediately afterward, a strange aura surged through every chain. At that very moment, Dark Nova felt his mana rapidly being siphoned away.
The Hero gritted his teeth, every muscle in his body tensing as he struggled against the restraints.
"It’s no use," Arthur said calmly, watching him with an unreadable expression. "Struggling against Sir Yvain’s Dragon Binding Chains will only accelerate the mana drain."
One of Arthur’s core skills was called; Round Table.
Once activated, it allowed him to call upon the signature skills of the ordained Knights of the Round Table, wielding them as though they were his own.
"Now, as I was trying to explain..." Arthur continued politely. "My Summoner understands your warning."
"I assure you, he was already preparing to leave these premises before you made your presence known."
He placed a hand on his chest. "But I give you my word as a king, my Summoner is not a bad person."
"He understands the damage that has been caused, and he has no intention of causing any further destruction here."
Several dozen meters away... Ethan slowly dragged a palm over his face, letting out a long, disappointed sigh.
Dark Nova then went still for a brief moment, lowering his gaze to the black chains that had coiled tightly around his arms, binding him all the way to his wrists.
Arthur’s words barely seemed to register in his ears, his attention fixed entirely on the restraint itself.
"Hm..." The sound left him almost thoughtfully.
And in the next instant, with nothing more than a violent roll of his shoulders, the Dragon Binding Chains shattered apart before dissolving into mana.
Even from the distance, Ethan’s eyes widened in genuine shock.
As the name suggested, the technique was highly effective against dragons and had once been used to suppress a rampaging Beilong long ago.
But before he could fully process what had happened, the hero’s hand shot forward and wrapped firmly around Arthur’s neck.
Dark Nova lifted the king off the ground, and drove him straight into the earth, causing an impact that collapsed the ground into a wide, quaking crater.
But he didn’t stop there.
Arthur had barely begun recovering from the impact before Dark Nova yanked him back out by the neck and hurled him into the distance.
The beast class summoned bounced violently across the ground before adjusting his body mid-flight and forcing himself back into a proper stance.
The moment he lifted his face up, Dark Nova was already there with a fist that traveled toward his face.
Arthur barely managed to cross both arms in time, guarding against the punch.
The force behind it drove Arthur backward, his boots carving a a long trench through the earth as he was pushed several meters away.
Only after the momentum finally died did he lower his arms slightly. Arthur clenched both fists instinctively, feeling the lingering ache travel through them.
His first thought was almost immediate. ’That felt like Sir Agravain’s punch.’
Dark Nova, however, made no attempt to pursue him further.
Instead, the Hero slowly turned his gaze toward Ethan before exploding through the air with the force of a sonic boom, heading straight for the Summoner.
Hayley was just about to move, but Ethan quietly raised a hand in front of her, stopping her before she could take another step.
His eyes were also on the incoming Hero, and not once did he flinch.
Dark Nova closed the distance, his fist drawn back and already on the verge of driving it forward.
But that was when his body was suddenly yanked violently backward by Arthur, who had already appeared behind him.
With visible effort, he had gripped the Hero’s cape and swung his entire body, hurling Dark Nova several meters away from Ethan and Hayley.