Reaper immediately got up after receiving the third and final strike of [Wielding Cross], the skull that served as his face now having cracks all over it as the impact was extremely powerful.
Stark expected for the monster to die after all of this, but it looks like it wasn’t enough.
And so… he was in midair, with Reaper already up, his hands glowing with a deep darkness that was taking over the entire area, the crowd cheering for their ‘master’ to finally win against the human.
“YOUR FATE HAS BEEN SEALED SINCE THE MOMENT YOU STEPPED FOOT IN THIS ARENA,” Reaper spoke, the small dots in his hollow eyes leaving a powerful trail everytime he moved his slightly, “AND THUS, THIS IS YOUR END!”
~FWISH, BOOM~
Stark finally landed on the ground, then looked up to see Reaper with his hands joined together, chanting some kind of spell, though the words were giberish to Stark.
And after a few seconds…
~BOOM~
His hands exploded with aura and… he spread them apart, looking up at the sky.
“…?” Stark looked up as well, and… well… “What the fuck…?”
A swirling vortex of darkness erupted above them, shadow hands, skeletal hands, dark aura and much more were stretching out like a monstrous claw from the spinning portal above.
Stark squinted against the oppressive energy, his instincts screaming at him to run, yet he couldn’t do that, not now.
“What the hell is that?” the sound coming from the storm above was deafening, even disrupting Stark’s very own thoughts.
Reaper laughed, a sound devoid of warmth, “Your doom, human. Prepare to witness the end of your existence.”
As the darkness churned and twisted, Stark’s heart raced. He needed to think fast, but the chaos swirling overhead threatened to overwhelm him as the portal that even created undead entities kept growing.
Stark turned his head toward his clone, yet it still wasn’t moving, also just looking up with the same confident and devilish smile it had.
“Why is it… so confident…?” Stark wondered, after all it wouldn’t be smiling if it wasn’t 100% sure that they would win, right?
And so, as Stark looked in front of him… he finally saw IT.
[Double Assault Perk: “Double Impact”, activated!]
This was a perk so rare to activate that it had only happened twice to Stark: in the fight against Sierra, the apostle with the crystal stun arrows; and the second time was against the [Corrupted Ghoul] back at the ‘Dimension Storer Association’ when he wanted to level up right before the second trial.
And… Stark couldn’t help but smile again once he saw that.
The reason was simple: “Double Impact” once activated has a 100% hit rate, the monster legitimately cannot avoid the attack that is coming.
And so…
“WHY ARE YOU SMILING, HUMAN?” Reaper had deactivated [Shadow Veil] already since it was useless when Stark could see it, moving his mouth up and down as he couldn’t show visible emotions.
“I don’t know…” Stark smiled, “But I won.”
“HUH, YOU THINK YOU CAN WIN? FATE’S JUDGEMENT IS A CONDITION SKILL, ITS OVER FOR YOU-” Reaper shouted, ready to finally order all of the entities and attacks that had formed in the vortex of darkness above to attack the human.
And yet… even then…
~FWISH~
[‘Double Impact’ activated!]
[Description: When using ‘Double Assault’, there is a very small chance that each attack will count as two hits (deadly), causing double the damage, but also double the status effect or knockback on your opponent.]
The last attack that Stark had done to the apostle was the swing at the top of its head.
Which meant…
~FWISH~
A crimson replica of Stark came out of the original’s body and jumped in the air, arriving at the exact position he was in when he had previously hit Reaper.
“…” the double impact clone summoned the crimson cross behind it, then swung down instantly: its job was just to attack a second time, no need to waste time.
“YOU THINK THIS IS GONNA BE ENOUGH? YOUR TRICKS WON’T WORK-” Reaper tried to avoid the attack by using another skill, “DARK SYMPHONY!”
But…
[Sorry, you cannot avoid that attack, apostle,] a panel appeared before him.
“Huh?”
~FWISH~
The clone swung down with the cross, and it hit Reaper’s forehead again, the impact just as hard as the last since it quite literally copied everything.
~BOOOOOOM~
“-257436!” even the damage was the same.
But doing this much could only mean thing… right?
“Gah-” Reaper’s little white dots in his eyes began to flicker as his HP reached zero, meaning that his real death was incoming, “YOU-”
[Reaper HP: 0/750000]
[Warning! You will die!]
But even then, the apostle still wanted to use his [Mythical] skill, to at least take down the human and entire arena with him.
He spread his arms upward again, focusing all his power into this.
~FWISH, FWISH, FWIIIISHHH~
He was concentrating like he never did before as he had actually never been so defeated by a human: he would always be the one toying with them, not the other way around.
But now…
“AS LONG AS I TAKE YOU DOWN WITH ME, IT IS MY VICTORY,” Reaper suddenly clenched his fists, and the aura around them grew ten times in size, meaning that he was on the verge of activating his power.
“GKKGKGK~”
“HIHIHIHI~”
And for the first time too, the cheers in the crowd weren’t directed as his victory, but at his failure: they were cheering for the human.
“FATE’S JUDGEMENT… ACTIVATED!” in one final ditch effort, Reaper’s entire body glowed with an ethereal darkness, “I GOT YOU NOW-”
The vortex above flickered, and everything in it began to slowly come out.
“…” and yet, neither did him or his clone do anything to stop that: he obviously still had [Crimson Purification], so he could have definitely stopped the apostle, yet he didn’t.
And for the second time, the reason why was obvious.
To be honest, even Reaper should know what was bound to happen to him, the only thing he didn’t expect was for it to happen so FAST.
“MY VICTOR-” and yet, he couldn’t end his final sentence.
Because…
~CRACK, CRACK~
The cracks that had formed from Stark’s third strike were still present, making small particles of dust fall to the ground.
~CRACK, CRACK~
And the [Second Impact]’s attack only served as a way to deepen those wounds, spreading the cracks more and more as they kept advancing, soon enough taking over Reaper’s entire face, who was barely holding on.
~CRACK, CRACK~
In addition to that, the foolish apostle’s pride didn’t let him at least not use too much energy.
~CRACK, CRACK~
While trying to activate [Fate’s Judgement], the small cracks on his head literally glowed with darkness aura as Reaper was charging up everything he had, and from Stark’s perspective, it looked as though the apostle’s head was just a ticking bomb.
“I… CANNOT… DISAPPOINT… LORD… GODLESS!” Reaper shouted as hard as he could, the entire arena plunged in darkness.
But even then…
~CRACK…~
“Goodbye,” Stark smiled, and that was the last thing Reaper’s small white pupils looked at before IT happened.
~BOOM~
Overwhelmed by the cracks, and the intense usage of darkness aura to power himself up, Reaper’s skull head couldn’t handle it and actually exploded.
Reaper’s skeletal face shattered, and the dark energy he had gathered dissipating as his body crumbled. The vortex above flickered and collapsed, the shadowy entities it had birthed vanishing into nothingness.
Stark watched in stunned silence as the mighty Reaper, the Calamity Apostle, was reduced to nothing before his eyes as his skeletal body, which was only kept together thanks to aura, also turned into dust as well.
The arena was deathly quiet, the crowd’s cheers dying in their throats.
~THUD~
And Reaper’s body, now missing his head as its exploded because of the aura, fell to the ground in a thud, turning into dust while it fell.
“…Nice,” Stark smiled as he fist pumped the clone, who was still alive right beside him.
The fact a clone at one HP survived this entire battle though was baffling to Stark.
And to be honest, he couldn’t deny that he felt it was stronger than before, as actually being able to take down an apostle by itself was insane.
“Sigh… just what are you on,” he let out a small chuckle as he looked at it, the omnipresent smile wider than before.
“GIGIGKSKK!”
“HIHIHIH~”
“NRAAA~”
The undead in the crowd were all cheering and clapping, congratulating the human for his victory against the two apostles.
“Weird,” Stark didn’t know why monsters wouldn’t attack and actually be happy when their leader died, but as long as they didn’t attack, he didn’t care much.
He was extremely tired to begin with, as doing all of this absolutely exhausted his stamina.
But… in the end… it was worth it… because…
[Lother, The Grave Keeper has been defeated!]
[Reaper, The Undead Puppeteer has been defeated!]
He had actually done it, he had won the two versus two fair and square, meaning that he was officially stronger than a calamity-level monster.
Go read my other novel: Legendary Devourer Class Awakener! It’s very cool and stuff!!!
