Chương 424: Chapter 413: A Step Too Far

Holding his breath, Priam watched Knightmare rise once more. The skeleton was nothing but a vessel, animated by undying obsession and anchored to a single Concept: Duty. That alone was enough to tether its soul for a few minutes more.

"That's… for real?!" His eyes and aether sight screamed one truth, but Priam refused to believe it. Could a High Tribulation simulate another? He had never heard anything to the contrary, yet Knightmare had only a simulated soul. For it to undergo a High Tribulation seemed absurd. Stranger still that Priam had seen no sign of one, only the Tier-up. If Knightmare wasn't tested, then… The thought struck like lightning. Then it was Kazuki who had been tried.

He must have endured his own High Tribulation in the real world. Knightmare had slipped free of a test because its original had already qualified in its stead. Damn it, what's happening outside?! I need to get out of here asap. Everything around Priam was just an illusion, but one that inevitably mirrored reality. The only differences were his own presence… and the absence of the mid-Tiers. In the real world, the hoplite offensive had probably collided with the Transcendents.

To save his men, Kazuki would have had no choice but to ascend to Tier 1. Nothing was certain, but the theory held water. Which meant his friend might need him. Thinking fast, Priam met Knightmare's hollow gaze and realized he had erred. The real danger began now. Less than a heartbeat after the Tier-up, something within the vessel shifted. Activating his Fate Vision, Priam peered into the heart of his foe and saw a spear rendered so vividly that its wielder blurred into irrelevance.

When Promesse trembled in his hand and his instincts bristled, denial was no longer an option. Even a blind man would have recognized it: Knightmare had just taken another step into Mastery. Kazuki had been half a step into the third stage, the absolute limit of what was possible at Tier 0. Now that the vessel carried a Tier 1 soul, its Supremacies were no longer shackled.

"Spear Mastery III," Priam whispered.

"Can it bridge the gap between us—" When the half-dead Champion lifted its weapon, Priam barely had time to throw himself aside. A fraction of a second later, a pressurized cylinder tore through reality where he had stood—like an unstoppable train screaming past his ribs. If that hits me… Game over. Scowling, Priam seized a ruined building within his Domain. Guided by kinetic mastery, thousands of shards rose into the air and streaked toward Knightmare at supersonic speed.

The skeleton dodged most of them with impossible grace—the mark of Micro II. Those it couldn't avoid, its spear brushed aside as if they were nothing. Under the rain of debris, Knightmare was immovable. Ripping up the foundation of the ruin, Priam catapulted several tons of timber at his enemy. A phantom spear cloaked the skeleton, who didn't even dodge. The projectile shattered on impact.

"The best defense is offense," Priam quoted grimly. Spear Mastery III meant becoming the spear. The vessel was a weapon—literally. Running through his arsenal in his head, Priam acknowledged the truth: aside from his ultimates, he had no way to wound his foe. I guess our duel ends here. Light flared at Knightmare's legs, marking its disagreement. That shimmering aurora was the telltale sign of [Celerity], his rival's acceleration skill.

For two seconds, it tripled his speed— With a single leap, Knightmare devoured fifty meters, and Priam instantly triggered [Kinetic Sovereignty]. The legendary skill left his enemy in the dust, but the Juggernaut grimaced. [Acceleration 33% higher than the average across 4 782 logged uses of [Celerity] by Kazuki Arashi. Probable cause: - Skill enhanced by increased aether potency (Tier 0 > Tier 1).] The Tier-up wasn't just for show.

Glancing back, Priam saw Knightmare accelerate again as its Wind Concept carved away drag. Each stride cratered the ground, propelling him faster still. By spamming [Celerity], the skeleton began to close the gap. The thought of taking flight to shake his relentless pursuer flickered through Priam's mind before supersonic javelins started raining down on him. This idiot is wasting my time. Mildly annoyed, the Pyro Sage chose to ride his Concept. Ten steps later, he was a kilometer away, soaring into the sky.

If killing Kazuki was no longer an option to stave off his soul-strangulation, then he had only two paths to survival left. The first: use the Seed of Experience stolen from Aydan to fast-track [Rule Breaker]. The second… The air warped at the edge of his Domain. Riding the Wind, Knightmare appeared. With a skeletal hand, it drove its spear into the Juggernaut's gut. Priam grunted in pain as the weapon skewered him. His stomach shredded, and he vomited blood, splattering crimson droplets across his enemy's bones.

Fire is blood, blood is fire. Phoenix blood sacrificed itself to summon Pyro, immolating Knightmare a second time. Transformed into a pyre, the vessel powered by Duty staggered back, bones cracking, what remained of its armor melting away. Meanwhile, Priam pressed a hand to his wound. [Four-headed Hydra - Epic] - … You may regenerate a limb or organ once a day, extremely quickly. Since his arrival in Elysium, the evolution of [Axolotl or Hydra] had saved Priam's life more than once.

His blood and his aether surged into the gaping hole, and the magic of the Myth fragment went to work. As the cocktail of vital fluid and primordial energy rebuilt his stomach, Priam wondered whether the Title's effect came from the System, or from the legend of the first Hydra itself. Lvl Up: [Rule Breaker] lvl 25 CHAR +3 Meta (Chance) +6 The notification snapped him back. Priam looked up at his stubborn foe. Already, Knightmare was lining up another thrust.

Guided by a Concept and a deep obsession, the vessel would not accept a draw. A spark lit in Priam's eyes.

"You're not letting go, are you? Fine. Heracles, I summon you!" [The Five Ages of Man - Mythic] - Second Merit. Heracles blesses your arm; once per day, your weapon may pierce any defense up to ten times your own. The image of a legendary warrior appeared behind Priam. He knew now it was the echo of a Myth. Once upon a time, a being whose story had carved its mark into the aether had taken this very stance. Guided by the phantom fighter, the Juggernaut executed a flawless motion.

His Heroic Aura streamed down the meridians of his arm, etching a pattern that resonated with his body. A technique that required no soul-bound rune to elevate an attack. A maelstrom of energy coiled around Promesse's shaft, siphoning Aura to form a white spark at its tip. If a black hole symbolized attraction, this white orb embodied annihilation. Priam's sharp gaze met Knightmare's hollow one. A kilometer above the ground, the two rivals clashed in earnest for the third time in their history.

"May the best win," Priam said with a smile. Two thrusts launched in the same microsecond. Wreathed in white Aura, Promesse struck against Dori, cloaked in a gray halo. The Juggernaut's constitution clashed with what remained of Kazuki's talent. Perhaps things would have been different had the true Champion stood here. Perhaps his otherworldly genius might have conjured a Mythic Skill on the spot, tipping the scales in his favor. The mindless Knightmare wasn't up to the task.

Promesse swept aside the rival spear, pulverized the hand that gripped it, and obliterated the arm behind it. Reaching the shoulder, its tip unleashed the white sphere in a blast of Heroic Aura. Struck head-on, the skeleton was hurled toward the ground, unable to control his fall. Priam didn't wait for the crash before resuming his ascent. He doubted he could finish his opponent in the three minutes his soul had left—so why bother trying?

As he climbed toward the stormcloud of the High Tribulation, Priam inspected his gate. Draconic runes now covered sixty percent of its surface. The faster progress compared to his first two temperings was easily explained—the harsher the environment, the faster the growth. After all, his soul was on the verge of bursting like an egg under the crushing weight of a tyrannical Law. The High Tribulation had decreed that Priam's bad karmic ties would strangle his soul as surely as a hangman's noose.

In short, he was being forced to pay his karmic debts on the spot. Working overtime to offset the effects of this abusive Law, [Rule Breaker] advanced at a breakneck pace. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. And yet, that growth was still too slow to save him. He needed to accelerate the process—by shocking karma itself. By stimulating his resistance at an impossible level. A daring solution presented itself: force the High Tribulation to back down!

His karmic resistance only mitigated the storm because it could do no better. In truth, the ultimate purpose of [Rule Breaker] was written in its name. To shatter one of the universe's most fundamental Laws—a gatekeeper of the Zenith—was the surest path to complete the tempering in a single loop. Or so I hope. Half the sky vanished behind a cotton wall. Priam smashed into it at full speed. The moment he entered the cloud, he instantly lost all sense of direction.

Stripped of his senses, he fell back on [Tribulation Hunter]. The unique skill had once lived up to its name by guiding him to the heart of the Deluge. Priam intended to repeat the feat. Wind buffeted him, rain drenched him, lightning painted white scars across the black of his closed eyelids. Yet despite the storm's fury, Priam did not waver. The skill remained silent, but he kept listening with a metaphorical ear. That didn't mean he was leaving his fate in Lady Luck's hands.

As he drifted through the cloud, a parallel thread of thought leveraged his high vivacity to analyze the situation. His mind uncovered a clue before [Tribulation Hunter] did. He accepted two truths as axioms: the High Tribulation affected him; every action created karma. Therefore, there had to be a karmic tether between me and my target. And here, I can see this link! Priam opened his eyes and looked upward. His soul groaned beneath the weight of billions of karmic threads.

Some dim, some bright, each varying in weight, size, color, and intensity. As the Juggernaut widened his vision, he saw it. So massive it was almost invisible, a black thread crushed his soul, swallowing all the rest. Unlike the others, this connection pointed upward. Got you! Drinking in the kinetic fury of the wind, Priam launched himself skyward at the speed of a fighter jet, straight for the storm's eye. The very heart of the High Tribulation. In less than ten seconds, he burst above the cloud.

There, under the star-strewn sky, stretched a white meadow, each blade of grass a single strand of the storm's vapor. Silence reigned supreme. Even when lightning carved glowing paths through the ivory dunes, no thunder followed. In a particularly deep crater, a kitten batted at a ball of karmic threads. One strand led to Priam.

"The image of Old Nekomata's Myth," Priam murmured.

"This is his High Trib, after all." He knelt beside it, reaching out. The animal was warm and soft beneath his hand. More than any living creature. Tangible beyond belief. More real. Transcendent. The word fit— Priam froze as he noticed something strange. As the Tribulation's core, the kitten should have been the nexus of the simulation. Yet no threads bound it to the simulated Aelbes and hoplites battling kilometers below. They were linked to the ball. In truth, the animal itself bore only four threads.

One linked it to Priam, the other three pierced the void. Fixing on them in turn, the Juggernaut received visions.

'Explosions rippled across the world. The burning sky poured dreadful light onto a ruined island. Nothing remained of the tribal encampment but ash. A black shadow loomed over the charcoal dunes—the warship casting it would have made an aircraft carrier look like a toy. On its prow, a lone homunculus studied the kitten. His soul bore the weight of the rare karmic threads that sought to strangle him, but none led to any nearby target. To endure his bad karma, the Tyrant had simply annihilated all his foes.

The ship's main cannon began to glow, and the kitten fled.'

'A black room. The click of gears. The hum of current. Static interference. Old Nekomata was lost. And so was the High Tribulation.'

'Smiling softly, Braato tended the wounds of a young child. A thunderous explosion made her flinch, but she calmed as a massive hand ruffled her hair.

"They won't come here," he said gently.

"And if they do?"

"Then I'll make them leave." Never once did he reveal the agony of his strangled soul. For his clan, Braato endured.'

"I guess everyone has their own way to conquer a trial…" Priam set the kitten down, shook his head, and reactivated [Tribulation Hunter]. He needed a weakness to exploit. The skill returned an error.

"The power gap is too great." Scowling, Priam stepped back, muttered an apology to every cat-worshipper, and cast Blood Phoenix's Breath. His ultimate drained his blood into his draconic lung, then exhaled a Blood Breath. At the last instant, his vital fluid transmuted into Pyro, unleashing a force no Tier 0 should wield. The column of fire struck the vision with enough heat to ignite the air itself. T he cloud recoiled for hundreds of meters, its surface glowing incandescent. In its wrath, Pyro burned even water.

Panting, Priam closed his mouth and assessed his work. His face fell. The kitten's fur wasn't even singed. It tilted its head mockingly, then looked toward the earth and batted at the void. The strike ripped open the cumulonimbus, reaching the ground without shifting a grain of dust. Priam choked as half the Gaeserts and Aelbes collapsed where they stood. Survivors wailed in despair as thousands of new karmic threads clawed upward like spider silk, weaving into a ball beneath the kitten's paw.

With a Cheshire grin, the creature hurled it at Priam's soul, saddling him with the weight of his crimes. Lvl Up: [Rule Breaker] lvl 26 CHAR +3 Meta (Chance) +6 [Body Tempering - Karma Gate: inscribed at 72%. 187 seconds until completion.] The father of all headaches drove Priam to his knees. Meanwhile, the cooldown measuring his lifespan plummeted. With trembling fingers, Priam clasped the iridescent pearl in his palm. Shattering it would grant him a surge of experience in [Rule Breaker].

It was his only chance to stave off death. Cursing the recklessness that had led him into a High Tribulation far above his pay grade, he resolved to crush it. His instincts screamed before he acted. [Kinetic Sovereignty] let him partially dodge the ambush. Instead of his chest, only his left arm vanished. Pain seared, but Priam ignored it, eyes snapping to the threat. A hundred meters behind the kitten, Kazuki's skeleton floated on a gust of wind. The duel wasn't over.

"Goddamn it! That's harassment at this point!" As Knightmare hefted its lance for another strike, Priam merged with the storm's mist. With a colossal cumulonimbus beneath him, he had no shortage of places to hide. The skeleton struck blind. Four spear throws carved tunnels of emptiness through the cloudbank before the vessel relented. It was obsessed, not stupid. Knightmare's state was no permanent gift. Each invocation of its Mastery eroded its soul, hastening its collapse.

Hidden within the storm, Priam waited for his chance to devour the Seed of Experience in safety, eyes fixed on his foe. The vessel's hollow gaze swept the skies. When it became clear Priam would not return, Knightmare's gaze sank to its defeated army. Most of the hoplites were dead. The General without soldiers slumped its shoulders—then thrust into the void. By its simplicity, the strike was beautiful. Honest. Pure. Far away, Priam trembled. The afterimage of the motion seared itself into his retinas.

Even with his eyes shut, the spear remained—so real it refused to fade. Then he understood. No low-Tier technique could bend reality like this. Fuck. The air froze. Colors dulled. As the karmic tether binding Knightmare and Priam unraveled, relief washed over his soul. Yet Priam felt no joy. He felt like a spectator trapped inside his own body, watching a world bow before a weapon of mass destruction. For a heartbeat, Knightmare abandoned Duty. Wind no longer bore it aloft. It was the spear incarnate. Transcendent.

Half a step into the mid-Tier. An intolerable state for a Tier 1. Stripped of its army and final battle, Knightmare had made a ruinous choice—walking, in its last moments, the way of the Spear. Detection of a Broken Apocryphal Entity (T1 - Spear Mastery IV). Wanted dead. Low Tier users are advised to immediately evacuate the Sector.

Status: PHYSICAL: Strength 1 259 Constitution 2 317 Agility 1 659 Vitality 2 213 Perception 998 MENTAL: Vivacity (D) 666 Dexterity 988 Memory 1 219 Willpower 1 310 Charisma 1 052 (+12) META: Meta-affinity (O) 1 459 Meta-focus 902 Meta-endurance 1 692 Meta-perception 876 Meta-chance 1 455 (+25) Meta-authority 1018 Potential: 43 020 (+6) Tier 0 [Tribulation]: Five Tribulations pending.

Next thresholds: 12 attributes > 1 200 / 3 attributes > 1 800 / 1 attribute > 2 400 Next arc already complete on Patreon (50+ chaps ahead) if you want to find out what happens next! https: //www. patreon. com/ANovelConcept