Chapter 280: Chapter 31: Let’s Get This Straight, You’re the Challenger (Part 2)

"And he’s trying to block it with his bare hands..."

"He’s completely insane."

A Knight sneered, "Duke Qinghui has had it too easy for too long. I think his brain has gone soft."

"It doesn’t look like Brolyte is holding back. He’s aiming straight for the head. If it gets lopped off, he might live if they treat him in time, but if the damage is too severe..."

"If he dies, he dies. Fate decides life and death in a duel. Should we expect special treatment just because he’s a foreigner?"

The Country of Yonglan had no tradition of favoring outsiders. In fact, it was rather xenophobic.

"Looks like this trial by combat will be over soon, thanks to Duke Qinghui’s carelessness."

Uther turned his head and instructed his students:

"Remember, even a lion uses its full strength to hunt a rabbit. Forget an opponent of the same Tier; you must give your complete focus even when facing an enemy far weaker than yourself."

Rafati frowned. "Lord Uther, I don’t think Duke Qinghui is that arrogant. Shouldn’t we wait before being so certain?"

Uther replied, "A professional Knight must dare to make a judgment! How can you possibly lose when you have an Unwarranted Strike right in his face?! It’s impossible! Even if this blow doesn’t defeat Duke Qinghui, it should at least cripple him..."

Just as the Black Knight was earnestly lecturing his apprentices, Brolyte’s charge-up was finally complete.

He swung his Giant Sword. The instant he moved, the snow-covered ground beneath his feet shattered, spiderweb cracks spreading for hundreds of meters. The fully charged Giant Sword accelerated in a flash, arriving before Westheid.

Duke Qinghui remained as motionless as a statue, as if he hadn’t reacted at all. Only at the very moment Brolyte’s Giant Sword came down did his own deep, violet eyes meet the Knight’s.

"BANG—"

The crisp shockwave spread through the air like a ripple, creating a visible distortion in space.

The anticipated violence failed to crush Westheid. On the contrary, the Grand Knight, who had kicked up a storm of white dust and sharp wind, came to a halt.

To be precise, he didn’t stop willingly—he was forced to. The roaring, surging collision and the impossibly heavy Giant Sword all vanished before a single one of Westheid’s index fingers.

It was as if a mute button had been pressed. After the initial impact, the world fell silent.

"BOOM—"

The full-force strike from the Rock Sword was blocked by Westheid’s finger. The heavy blade pressed lightly against the pad of his index finger.

Inertia itself was brutally insulted. The Heavy Armor Knight’s charge froze the very instant it touched Westheid, letting out only a muffled explosion as the tsunami-like shockwave abruptly ceased.

Brolyte’s body continued to twist, the ground he plowed through groaning under his feet, yet he couldn’t move the slender, seemingly fragile finger before him even a fraction of an inch.

All his efforts were useless before that index finger. It was as if the Grand Knight who had launched the devastating charge was the overconfident fool trying to stop a chariot with his bare arms.

Westheid revealed a mocking smile, raised an eyebrow, and said:

"Is that all?"

"Impossible!!!"

Brolyte’s terrified roar echoed across the snowy landscape, reverberating continuously:

"How can you possibly do that?! How can you block it so casually?!"

Brolyte could have accepted Duke Qinghui neutralizing the blow—by blocking with his Tachi, chanting some profound Technique to dissipate the force of the charge, or even relying on some last-resort defensive measure. All of that would have been within his expectations.

But there was none of that.

Westheid had simply extended a finger and forced him to submit.

There was no praiseworthy counter, just overwhelming power meeting power. Simple, pure, and absolute.

Though Duke Qinghui, with one finger extended, looked up at his towering opponent, his eyes were clearly looking down, dispassionately, at an ant that dared to challenge him.

"And why not?"

Westheid spoke, and the index finger holding back the Giant Sword gently bent. The tall and burly Rock Sword was instantly suppressed by an unimaginable brute force, his knees uncontrollably buckling until he fell, trembling, to the ground.

"THUD—"

"You... You dare make me kneel!?"

Brolyte’s eyes were wide with fury as he stared at Westheid, his expression a mask of ultimate shock.

The flawless, black-haired, violet-eyed young man, who looked as if he had stepped out of a fairy tale, smiled faintly and looked down.

"Rock Sword... you may have always been proud of your strength. Achieving the rank of Grand Knight is a rare feat in the Mortal World, it’s true. But that doesn’t give you the right to run your mouth in front of me."

"You are merely an ordinary man, born in an era before I arrived."

Critical hit!

Brolyte’s old face flushed crimson with rage. The proud Grand Knight couldn’t bear such an insult. With a furious roar, he dropped his Giant Sword and lunged at Westheid.

"THUMP—"

He was met with a knee strike. The sickening crack of breaking bone echoed with a blast of air. The Armor on Brolyte’s abdomen and half his torso shattered in an instant. The Rock Sword’s eyes went wide, and a muffled grunt escaped his open mouth, clearly in disbelief at the pain he was suffering.

"!!!!"

The spectators who witnessed this were completely stunned. Mivana and Reiya were fine, having long since been refined into Westheid’s die-hard fans. To them, nothing he did was surprising; all they had to do was cheer.

But the Yonglan Knights were as silent as cicadas in winter, completely unable to comprehend Westheid’s appalling strength.

’He tanked a Grand Knight’s Unwarranted Strike, and now he’s countered with a stagger. Is an execution next?’

A dignified Grand Knight—even an old and weakened one—was a renowned figure in the Country of Yonglan, and he had been beaten to his knees just like that!

’Mmm... this is the feeling.’

Although there was no sound of spreading wings, being the focus of countless astonished gazes greatly satisfied Westheid’s vanity.

His daring to provoke a group of Grand Knights wasn’t a sign of madness. It was a conclusion reached after careful consideration.

If Westheid hadn’t shared in the Cursed Source Blood, he would have acted more humbly and low-key. But now that he had obtained the Tier T0 Combat Talent he had longed for, he was done pretending. ’I’ll take on ten of them!’

One must understand that stacking Tier T0 Talents wasn’t simple addition—it was multiplication!

Westheid was now using a fusion of the Withered and Flourishing Dragon Emperor and Heaven-Devouring Wave templates! And that was on top of his original Legendary Template—while the Qinghui Patriarch template couldn’t quite reach the border of Tier T0, rating it as T1 wasn’t a problem.

A super-adaptive physique, a heaven-defying-level of endurance, an all-around attribute boost, and the trait of growing stronger with every battle... Even without calculating his special authorities, Westheid’s physical stats alone possessed a kind of cold, numerical beauty. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

There was another, more critical factor.

After the separation of the divine and mortal, the limiter on the Legendary Celestial Rank was also removed. In the past, to control the Energy Level of the Mortal World, the Celestial Gods would only open stable, controllable paths. As a result, the power progression for the Legendary Celestial Rank had been very restrained.

Transcendent beings had grown accustomed to drawing power from these official paths. But in this new era, they could actually grow wildly. No one would dare confirm this without trying it, but from the first day Westheid advanced to the Legend rank, he had been absorbing power like a sponge, climbing and growing at any cost.

The Dragon Soul Furnace also gave him the capital to act so recklessly. From the very beginning, Westheid never intended to follow the established paths.

In a sense, Westheid was one of the first people to start preparing for the new game update.

Perhaps later, once everyone adapted to this new version, their strength would advance by leaps and bounds, and a large number of Legends—and even Transcenders above them—would emerge.

But at least at this stage, Westheid had already developed far ahead of the curve. He was, without a doubt, the undisputed number one.

Since he was currently reigning supreme, he naturally had to make the most of it. Westheid wasn’t foolish enough to do something as stupid as letting his period of advantage go to waste.

"Cough! Cough, cough..."

Kneeling on the ground, Brolyte coughed up mouthfuls of blood tainted with fragments of his internal organs as he forced himself to stand.

"Oh? You’re not surrendering? You want to keep fighting?"

Westheid looked at the Rock Sword and said indifferently:

"Apologize for your racist remarks, swear to no longer treat the Dusk Lamp Territory as an enemy, and I will spare you."

"Ptooey!"

Brolyte spat and roared:

"Spare me? And grovel to some Beastman half-breed? Who are you insulting? I would rather die in this duel than give up on my will to exterminate every last one of those non-human filth!"

Westheid sighed and shook his head.

"...Really, I gave you a chance. Since you insist, then..."

As his words trailed off, Westheid delivered a vicious elbow strike.

"As you wish."