Way of the Knights

The overwhelming dominance that the God Emperor previously had was swiftly neutralized.

Even with the backing of the Forbidden Ultima Core, the God Emperor still couldn’t completely dominate Raven.

It makes one wonder how in the world is it possible for Raven to be this strong and why isn’t he well known in the Outer Worlds? Why has the God Emperor never knew he exists? Just what did he do to achieve this level of strength? How many sacrifices did it require?

Then again, Raven is human. There’s no denying that. The Human Race isn’t known to be conquerors. They’re creatures of habit and preferred to mind their own business. Plus, they’re weak. There are plenty of races they can’t fight.

So how was it possible that they have Raven? Why must he appear?

Augustus’ expression turned solemn. He gripped his fist tightly and looked ahead. There is indeed no doubt that this would be the most difficult fight he’ll encounter in his life so far.

The stakes are high. Therefore he couldn’t afford to lose.

The two of them measured each other’s gazes.

Air seemingly solidified because of their presence and time seems to come to a crawling speed.

In a blink of an eye, as if the string snapped, the God Emperor shot forward, flying so much faster than light itself. The impact of his flight came several seconds late. He actually arrived in front of Raven before it even occurred.

With eyes blown wide and with the Void flaring in rage, the God Emperor cocked his fist back and delivered a full power punch towards Raven.

Everything happened so swift that aside from these two, nobody would even be able to follow it.

As Space itself screamed under the pressure of this blow, Raven himself didn’t even flinch. He stared at the incoming fist with a bored look on his face, as if he’s actually getting bored waiting for it to arrive.

Inches away from hitting his skull, a golden and silver radiance appeared and solidified into a rune which blocked the blow for Raven.

The God Emperor felt his fist connecting with something incredibly hard, he felt the satisfaction of landing a solid blow to Raven’s face and even sent him flying, but that’s not what really happened.

The rune completely protected Raven. It absorbed all the impact and dispersed it evenly on his surroundings. The reason why Raven flew all the way back to the opposite corner of Paradise is be because of the residual momentum. He wasn’t actually hurt even a little bit by that.

Thinking that he got some sort advantage, the God Emperor didn’t intend to stop. He followed Raven and delivered yet another solid blow to him, causing him to fly to another corner of Paradise.

Their moving so fast that they left space burning a trail behind them. They just appeared as streaks of light that nobody could even make sense of.

Each time the God Emperor punched, he’s depleting a percent of core’s power output. Yet weirdly enough, he didn’t even hear Raven grunting even once, nor did he really see him trying his best to react to his blows.

This caused the God Emperor to stop his onslaught.

He paused and looked at Raven, surprised by what he saw.

Raven was fine. Completely fine. Unharmed and still in his pristine form. He didn’t look haggard nor stressed. He wasn’t even sweating. He still had that smile on his face, a mocking one on God Emperor’s perspective.

Not even a wrinkle could be seen on his clothes. This was enough proof for the God Emperor to know that his blow did absolutely nothing so far. Not even close.

“That was cool…” Raven commented, he unfolded his arms and began walking towards the God Emperor. “Let’s see…”

The God Emperor blinked…that was his first mistake.

“Was it something like this?”

Boom!

Raven did the exact same thing as what the God Emperor did. The only difference is that instead of the power of the Void, Raven’s fist roared with the wrath of Destruction and Spacetime.

And unlike Raven, the God Emperor didn’t have any method on stopping this blow. He could only rely on the bark of his skin to neutralize the force behind the punch while siphoning more power from the core so that he could endure it.

Sadly, that wasn’t enough…

The wrath of Pure Destruction raged on the God Emperor’s body and permeated it completely. Everything, down to it’s cellular level was destroyed. It also carried the essence of Spacetime which interfered with the effects of his regeneration.

The God Emperor experienced excruciating agony upon his failure to endure that blow.

And since Raven was adamant on giving back what he received. He followed the God Emperor. He even arrived right before he crashed and delivered yet another solid punch on his face, his fist connecting in a satisfying manner.

They turned into streaks of light again, and when Raven felt like it was enough, he stopped.

Several stars exploded during their exchange, Paradise suffered tremendously because of their fight.

The God Emperor didn’t fall, but he was battered completely.

He had lost count on how many teeth flew out of his mouth, how much flesh he regenerated and how many bones shattered inside of him during the last few moments.

As he stood up, it’s visible that his regeneration was still catching up and patching up his body. He spat out a glob of blood as his face became intact once more.

He looked at Raven solemnly, noticing that he’s not even out of breath after that. Seriously, how freaky is this guy?

That being said, the God Emperor didn’t bother wasting time. He drained 5% of the core’s total power and prepared for another realm-ending strike.

He focused his power between his palms. A pitch black orb appeared. The orb was so dense in power that stars turned to dust just by being in its presence.

This orb is a concentrated Void. It has the ability to devour entire realms to nothingness. The God Emperor used weaker versions of this back in their days of conquering civilizations but now, it was used as an attack to bring down a single person.

And just like before Raven didn’t run away from this either, he stood his ground and waited patiently as the gaping hole of nothingness grew larger and larger until it was close enough to swallow him whole.

At this point, Raven waved his hand and a rune appeared on his palms. He then used this to slap the void hard enough that it completely shattered like fragile glass. The shards turned into miniature runes that gradually dissipated around him.

The God Emperor was gobsmacked by what happened. He didn’t expect that an attack which can end realms, still isn’t enough to bring down this bastard.

Once again, Raven copied his actions. He gathered power between his palms and conjured a pure white orb. He grabbed it and threw it towards the God Emperor.

The God Emperor readily braced for the impact, but to his surprise, a sudden development caught him off-guard.

The white orb suddenly multiplied and completely surrounded him. They sealed every possible escape routes available to him, effectively restricting his movements.

In his shock, he wasn’t prepared when the first blow occurred.

The God Emperor reeled in shock, his eyes widened, feeling as if someone hurled a star into him without his knowledge.

And it didn’t stop there.

One by one, the orbs struck him, punching gaping holes into his body. By the time a part of him regenerated, it will be blown up by the orbs once more.

The God Emperor had to endure this horrible agony. He never experienced this kind of pain and suffering in his entire life. He tried defending against the attacks but it’s no use…

Either, a) the orbs that were supposed to hit would stop right before the impact, and another would hit him where’s undefended, or b) the orbs would continue anyway, tearing his defenses like paper.

The God Emperor counted in his head. He didn’t know why but he did it anyway.

He got hit 999 times before it all stopped.

And just like before, he saw Raven standing tall in front of him. Waiting until his flesh regenerated and for his next attack.

The God Emperor gnashed his teeth. In his anger and frustration. He directly siphoned 10% of the core’s total power and conjured a black sun made out of concentrated void.

This was worse than any attacks he had thrown so far since this one, if it hits, not even Paradise would be spared.

Even for the God Emperor himself, this attack was difficult to pull-off. His body was repeatedly abused before so there came a backlash when he did this move.

But…to his overwhelming shock and horror…

He looked forward and saw Raven standing in front of him, holding a white sun that is just as big as the black sun of his.

Their eyes met for a second and the God Emperor couldn’t help but freeze on his tracks as his mind deciphered the words Raven mouthed:

“Too predictable, how boring.”