I'm The Only One With Cancer-Chapter 158: Defend

The moment the bony claws made contact with his forearm, Arthur’s eyes widened in shock.

’This...!’

He felt dread covering every fiber of His being as He hurriedly used His free hand and performed a handchop on His other arm.

Woosh—!

’What...?’

Seeing his teacher decisively cut his own arm without a change of expression, Zen inwardly felt stupefied.

Despite his emotionless appearance, his mind was in chaos. ’Why did he cut off his own hand? Is my attack that strong—’

Just as he was beginning to consider the reasons behind his teacher’s actions, something happened.

Arthur’s arm, which He had chopped just a moment earlier, suddenly trembled.

Under the teacher’s and apprentice’s eyes, it looked as if countless worms were crawling under its skin.

It also began to "bubble’--- as if the very blood of the arm rose in temperature, alongside the fact that the nerves and blood vessels on it darkened.

In the span of a few seconds, it seemed to undergo numerous mutations, its bones piercing through the skin and other grotesque things the two witnessed.

"What the fuck..."

Zen’s emotionless voice resounded in the area as the flames in his eyesockets flickered.

Meanwhile, Arthur had just regained His composure as He looked at His apprentice, who was currently in the form of a blazing, evil skeletal demon.

He calmly looked at His arm on the floor, which did not look like an arm at all.

Then, with His remaining hand, He touched His wound as a chant resounded from His lips.

[Fire Weapon Art, Eighth Style: Life Flame Infusion]

Bright, sacred flames instantly covered Arthur’s wound— an arm also grew in its place in the span of mere seconds.

Seeing this sight, Zen could not help but feel both relieved and disappointed.

Relieved that he did not cause his teacher any serious injury that affected his life, and disappointed that despite giving everything he had in that attack, the wound he dealt was easily cured.

Seeing the flicker of disappointment in him that Arthur had somehow caught, He laughed.

"That attack of yours... might have really killed me, had I chopped my hand a second later..."

Glancing down at the remains of His arm on the ground, Arthur kicked it while cracking His newly born knuckles.

"I’m really surprised that you managed to make me give up an arm, though. At the very least, I’m now confident that you’ll be able to survive out there."

Despite Arthur’s confident smile, He was really shaken inwardly, ’No... They might be the ones who need to be careful around you...’

Of course, He would never say this out loud.

’It’ll be bad if he becomes too overconfident...’

Making some kind of excuse for himself, Arthur gestured towards Zen, "Go back to your position. The second round of the Rite of Firepower will now commence. Remember, you just need to defend with all your might."

"Oh, and don’t worry. I’ll make this fast, so your currently activated skills won’t run out~"

Hearing his teacher’s words, Zen nodded and immediately went back to his earlier position.

Seeing him quickly return to his position, Arthur seemed to fall into deep thought as He spoke in the next moment.

"My dearest apprentice, I want to ask you something."

The blazing skeletal demon in the distance tilted his head, albeit with no other change in his expression.

"Although I have many means to kill you, I want you to choose the way in which you’ll have the greatest gains."

’What does he mean by gains? How could being killed give me gains?’

Despite Zen’s confusion, he did not rush to speak.

Arthur continued explaining, "As you can see, I was really touched by the attack you made, so I’m offering you two choices: to die by magic, or to die by the strongest attack of the Fire Weapon Art?"

’Is he serious? He won’t really kill me, will he?’

Even though he thought that it was highly implausible, Zen still felt some fear inwardly.

After all, he really made his teacher cut off his own hand....

’Hmmm, but his offer is kind of good... if not for the fact that he’s telling me to face his attack...’

Nevertheless, Zen still considered his teacher’s offer seriously.

’Although I’m really curious about the latter styles of Fire Weapon Art, it’s something that I can unlock as I increase my proficiency. Magic, on the other hand...’

He remembers Adara endlessly praising Arthur’s magic in the past few days that they had been together.

Besides that, Zen felt more interested in magic, which did not have a solid path on its own, as opposed to the Fire Weapon Art that he already had.

’There’s also the fact that I might be able to learn something new from his magic...’

Only a moment had passed before Zen was able to make up his mind.

He raised his head, and with his screeching voice that seemed to come directly from his soul, he responded without an ounce of emotion, "I’ll choose the first one, Teacher."

Arthur nodded as He raised His right hand, His palm pointing towards the sky above.

[Skyfall]

With a simple chant, He calmly performed a downward motion with His raised hand.

It started from the position of its palm pointing towards the sky, and ended on His palm pointing towards the ground.

Such a simple action made Zen confused.

However, he still stared at the seemingly normal blue sky above him.

It was then that something happened.

For some reason, he felt that the sky seemed to be getting closer— as if it was "falling".

"What’s happeni—"

Zen was not even able to finish his words as a system notification rang in his mind, along with his vision turning black.

[Ding!]

[The player has died!]

[Time before the next dive in is permitted: 71:59:58]

***

Back in the training grounds...

The large black sphere slowly faded out of existence, revealing two figures inside.

Splurt—

The kindling in Arthur’s left eye disappeared as he coughed out a mouthful of blood.

Blood tears streamed down from his left eye, as the burnt marks around it further expanded on his face, looking like his skin had just suffered some degree of burn.

Noticing his situation, Adara immediately ran towards him and supported him by the shoulder.

In her eyes were a myriad of emotions, with worry and shock being the two most prominent amongst the others.

Adara’s lips opened and closed a few times before she finally organized her thoughts.

"You killed him..."

Arthur, whose face was still pale, replied with difficulty, "He’ll be fine. Otherworlders descend on this world with the System’s assistance, so his original body and mind should be fine."

"I know. But what I want to ask you is why?"

"Well, they’ve caught on to us, and this is the cleanest way they won’t be able to trace him from this place."

Hearing the word "they", Adara’s pupils constricted.

After all, despite the peace that they had experienced in the past few days, the two had never once forgotten that they were being hunted down by various organizations that wanted them dead.

Thus, even though the way Arthur said it was vague, Adara was able to comprehend the gravity of the situation they were in.

"We’ll need to pack everything by tonight."

Arthur forced himself to walk towards the dilapidated building despite the pain he was feeling from his injuries, "I guess that they’ll be able to sense us about two to three days later, but us leaving by tomorrow morning is best. Everything should be fine once we raze this place to the ground..."

"Understood..."

Adara supported his shoulder as they walked towards the dilapidated building.

As they walked, hesitation appeared on her face as she asked, "Why did you have to go that far? You even used Brother Ignatius’s power..."

"I know that this might sound nonsense..."

Despite the pained look on his face, Arthur could not help but smirk, "I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to kill him had I held back by even a little bit."

"!!!"

Adara fell speechless as she heard his words.

Glancing at her expression, Arthur’s smirk widened, "Haha, that’s just how amazing he is! Levels below the Mythical Realm won’t even matter to him now."

"Hmmm, now I have to think where we’ll go next..."

With him suddenly changing the topic, Adara could not help but stammer, "R-Right, where should we go?"

However, it was obvious that deep within her eyes, she was still shocked by his earlier words.

Nevertheless, Arthur kept speaking with the same carefree smile on his face, "Hmmm, I’m thinking about travelling westward from here."

"Sure, where do you wanna go?"

"I don’t really know... How do you feel about getting married at the Temple of Love?"

"W-W-What!?"

Adara, who had yet to recover from her earlier surprise, once again felt her soul shaking at Arthur’s words.

***

Meanwhile, in a simple room...

"Damn, he really killed me!"