Free Web NovelChapter 18: The Law of Redirection
The courtyard dissolved into a localized hurricane of golden steel and purple shockwaves.
Moira was a relentless tempest. She moved with a savage, practiced fluidity that completely defied her heavy plate greaves, her massive broadsword whistling through the air in a series of lethal, overlapping arcs. Vince shifted his weight, his eyes wide as his Tier 3 Perception violently tracked the edge of her blade.
Clang!
Clang!
Clang!
Vince parried with his bare, hardened forearms, each collision erupting in a shower of brilliant purple sparks. He was moving at peak speed, but he was entirely on the defensive, forced into a breathless, backward slide across the shattered marble.
Why isn’t she slowing down? Vince’s mind raced, a cold bead of sweat rolling down his temple. My domain is active. The Gravity of the Unworthy should be dragging at her muscles and choking her mana. But she’s moving like she doesn’t even feel it!
He didn’t have time to calculate. Moira’s single visible eye burned with an unholy, martial focus, her high-tier aura flare completely suppressing the environmental weight through sheer, unadulterated willpower. She caught Vince’s brief moment of hesitation and stepped inside his guard, her shoulder slamming into his chest.
The impact sent Vince stumbling backward, his heels skidding across the debris until his back hit the cold, solid stone wall of the central tribunal tower. He was completely cornered. No space to duck. No angle to roll.
Moira didn’t hesitate for a fraction of a second. She brought her broadsword upward, her golden aura violently erupting into a towering, blinding pillar of destructive energy that shattered the arched windows above them.
"Die, brat!" Moira roared, bringing the blade down in a fatal, vertical cleave designed to split Vince and the tower behind him in two.
From the high walls, Elena Vance’s face drained of all color. Her knees trembled against her armor, a devastating wave of helplessness washing over her. Moira’s raw, monstrous strength was a tier above anything she could counter; she knew, with absolute certainty, that she was of no help.
Across the plaza, the huddled noble students tasted pure, intoxicating joy. Their eyes widened with feral anticipation. They had suffered under Vince’s ruthless tyranny for weeks, and they never for a second wanted the magicless piece of street trash to live. frёewebnoѵēl.com
In the VIP quarters, Cynthia Sterling leaned heavily against the glass, her amber eyes reflecting the blinding golden light of the descending execution strike. Her fingers tightened into a white-knuckled grip, her analytical mind suddenly feeling a rare pang of anxiety.
From the distant overlook, Commander Balthazar softly whispered into the wind, "It’s done."
Vince thought, his violet eyes locking onto the descending wall of golden steel. I think this is it.
With nowhere left to move, Vince crossed his forearms above his head, throwing every single drop of his newly upgraded stamina into a single system command.
`[System Command: Activate Active Skill — [Sovereign’s Kinetic Dispersion]!]`
BOOM!!!
The collision was cataclysmic. The entire central tower groaned as the structural stone violently buckled. But Moira’s attack was simply too powerful. Even with the system actively screaming and absorbing the impact, the sheer, ungodly velocity of a peak A-rank commander’s fatal strike blew past Vince’s threshold.
The remaining kinetic force hit him like a charging dreadnought. Vince was launched backward through the air, his body violently shattering through the outer reinforced wall of the tribunal tower and smashing deep into the interior masonry. A massive cloud of thick dust, debris, and pulverized stone erupted outward, swallowing the entire baseline of the structure in darkness.
An eerie, ringing silence fell over the courtyard.
Then, the students broke out into ecstatic, joyful screams. They cheered, laughing and clapping at the absolute obliteration of the commoner who dared to rule over them. Elena stood frozen on the wall, her breath completely gone as she stared at the gaping hole in the tower.
In her private room, Cynthia slowly let go of the windowsill, exhaling a long, disappointed breath. "So much for my investment," she muttered, her voice turning cold as she prepared to recalculate her options.
Moira exhaled a heavy cloud of vapor, slowly sheathing her broadsword back onto her mount. She wiped a smudge of dust from her cheek and began walking toward the dark, ruined crater where Vince had crashed.
"Just a brat after all," she muttered dismissively.
She took three steps. Then, she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks.
From the pitch-black depths of the broken tower, a low, ragged cough echoed through the silence, followed by the wet sound of blood hitting the floor.
"I gotta say..." a voice strained from the darkness, smooth but dripping with a dangerous, manic edge. "Under normal circumstances... that attack should have left me for naught."
The dust cloud violently parted.
Vince stepped out of the rubble. His dark Sovereign robes were torn, and a thick streak of blood trickled from his mouth, but his posture was perfectly straight. More terrifyingly, a dense, turbulent outline of stolen golden aura was violently swirling around his body, mixing with his own glowing purple energy. The veins along his neck and forearms were bulging, pulsing with the literal force of Moira’s own powerful attack, waiting to be unleashed.
Before Moira could even process the sight, Vince’s feet shattered the stone beneath him.
He moved in a blinding, instantaneous blur. In a fraction of a heartbeat, he crossed the entire courtyard and materialized directly in front of her face.
Moira’s instincts flared, but her broadsword was already sheathed.
Vince drove his fist directly into her stomach, releasing the stored, amplified kinetic energy in a single, devastating point of impact.
CRACK!
The protective aura shield around Moira’s armor instantly shattered into thousands of golden shards. The concussive force exploded through her torso, lifting her off her feet and launching her backward across the plaza. She smashed through an adjacent stone wall before violently sliding across the grass, her heavy greaves digging deep trenches into the earth before she finally caught her stamina.
Moira knelt on the grass, a heavy spray of blood bursting from her mouth as she gripped her fractured chest plate, her breath coming in ragged, agonized gasps. freēwēbηovel.c૦m
On the distant overlook, Balthazar’s grip tightened around his tower shield until the metal screeched, his massive frame trembling as he actively tried to restrain himself from jumping into the fray.
Vince stood in the center of the clearing, wiping the blood from his own lip as his violet eyes flickered. I expected the other vipers to have arrived by now, he thought, his chest heaving slightly as his attributes stabilized. But if a single commander is this strong under a twenty-percent domain debuff... then I better thank the heavens it’s a one-on-one right now. I better finish up here quick.
Vince rolled his shoulders, his eyes locking back onto the wounded Iron Maiden as his predatory grin returned.
"Now then," Vince said smoothly, stepping out of the crater. "Where were we?"
Moira looked up through her tangled hair, wiping the blood from her chin. Instead of fear, her face twisted into a wild, battle-hungry grin.
