Chapter 453: Torrential Rain, Extreme of the Sword

"Good luck."

Lylia, at a loss for words, offered a strained smile to Wang Yu as he stepped out of the tower. None of the others possessed the strength to face Ethan Harris; they had no choice but to rely on Wang Yu, whose true limits remained a mystery to them all.

Generally speaking, Wang Yu’s nature was such that if he deemed a task feasible, it was. Yet, the title of "one of the most powerful legends" weighed heavily upon her.

"Don't worry. If I can't beat him, I'll just bring you all and run."

Leaving those final words behind, Wang Yu shut the tower doors and broke into a trot toward the encroaching rainstorm.

Battle aura surged within him, the power of the Chariot awakening. It began to tear at the fabric of the void, reshaping the environment around him: Chariot Power—Void Engine, activated.

Simultaneously, partial control of the Chariot Power shifted to the girl residing within the void. The magic crystals stored in the Eden Seed space began to decompose at an extravagant rate, transforming into a pure tidal wave of mana. The girl channeled this energy, swirling it around Wang Yu’s body, ready to manifest as any spell required: Chariot Power—Weaver, synchronized.

The records he had studied offered little detail on this powerful legendary knight who arrived with the rain, but his "power" was beyond doubt. The most likely reason for the lack of information was that his enemies rarely survived long enough to put up a decent fight, leaving nothing to record.

"You avoid conflict and rarely strike at others, yet here you are, knocking on our door. What is it you truly seek?"

His pace quickened.

With the aid of the void distorting the material world, Wang Yu’s speed reached a level invisible to the naked eye over a mere short distance. Air resistance and friction were forcibly negated by void energy.

Leaving behind a trail of blurred afterimages, Wang Yu surged forward across several kilometers with a momentum that defied his speed. There was no sonic boom, no tearing of the air; he simply maintained his terrifying velocity, slipping silently into the curtain of rain. In his hand, he gripped a sphere of scorched fire elements compressed to the absolute limit, charging toward the slow-moving Ethan Harris.

"Hum."

Ethan raised his hand, battle aura rising, his powerful muscles tensing in an instant. The longsword he held flashed through the air, and in the next moment, Wang Yu, having breached the rain, detonated.

"Boom!"

Amidst the blinding firelight and smoke, the Chariot Power swept through the air, pinning everything that obstructed his path back to the earth. The ground, shattered by the explosion, was instantly repaired by active earth elements.

A pool of blood churned, pumping fresh fluid to the wounds on his palms. They were enveloped, and within seconds, the injuries vanished.

"Patter, patter..."

The downpour fell in sheets, the raindrops striking Wang Yu’s body, yet he felt nothing. He halted, ceasing his charge, and stood face-to-face with Ethan, who had also stopped. Neither moved to strike.

Something had struck the compressed fire element sphere directly, shattering its structure and triggering the explosion.

This device was meant by Avia to be a precision tool for destroying the bodies of legendary knights; its destructive power was unquestionable. Had the girl not reacted quickly to contain the rioting fire elements, Wang Yu’s hand would have suffered far worse damage.

"Was that a slash?"

The thought flashed through his mind. Wang Yu had sensed a faint trace; the opponent had raised his sword from a great distance, yet the strike had traversed the gap, precisely bisecting the compressed fire sphere.

"Rain? I see."

It was easy enough to deduce. The rain falling from the heavens could not be mere water; Wang Yu could not influence these droplets with his Chariot Power, meaning they were an extension of the man himself.

Or rather, an extension of his inner realm. While he appeared to hold a sword with limited reach, in truth, wherever the rain touched, he could reach. This ten-kilometer rain zone was Ethan Harris’s domain of perception and attack.

"Truly strong..."

He murmured a soft acknowledgment, bent his knees, and prepared to sprint. Having grasped a portion of the enemy's power, Wang Yu had no intention of giving him room to maneuver. As he charged again, various elemental spells manifested around him, controlled by Avia, and rained down upon his opponent.

Ethan raised his hand; his battle-aura-infused sword vanished from sight due to the sheer speed of his slashes. In a heartbeat, he had swung his blade countless times, and the incoming magical bombardments were erased as if wiped away by an eraser. Their mana structures were shredded by the countless slashes cut from the rain.

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

Fully focused, Wang Yu used the omnidirectional perspective of the Chariot Power to perceive the shifts in space. The spells he launched were never meant to harm Ethan Harris; they were merely to distract him and absorb the brunt of his offensive.

Slashes erupted from the space around him, hacking at Wang Yu from every conceivable angle. The blades were razor-sharp; Wang Yu did not doubt they could cleave through his flesh.

Crossing his arms, he maintained his high-speed charge while using void energy to distort the density of the air around his palms, using this hardened barrier to block the falling strikes one after another.

The penetration of the slashes was immense, devastating to flesh, but the force behind them was not overwhelming. With sufficient material hardness, the strikes could not impede his movement.

Yet, he could only block a fraction with his hands. The number of slashes had already exceeded a hundred. Behind him, above his head—everywhere, sharp blades cut through the air. For these, Wang Yu would need his other arms.

"Crack, crack, crack!"

Blood surged violently from his internal pool, instantly seized and reshaped by the Blood-Stained Fury Knight secret technique. Its form and composition were altered, reinforced by Wang Yu’s legendary-level battle aura to an unprecedented degree of hardness.

A multitude of extra arms made of blood erupted from Wang Yu’s back. Punching, parrying, and grasping, these limbs blocked the strikes coming from all directions.

When they met, the blood-limbs shattered upon contact, fragments scattering everywhere. They were tattered before they could even fully form, but they only needed to complete their task of obstruction. The blood pool surged, forcing the limbs to regenerate as quickly as they were destroyed.

Thus, pushing through the violent, rain-like barrage of slashes, Wang Yu sprinted, frantically closing the distance. He had to force the opponent into the effective range of his Chariot Power.

"Step... Boom."

His foot struck the ground, and scorching fire erupted at the point of impact. Seventh-tier super-magic: Scorching Dash—Modified. An unprecedented propulsive force exploded. The reckless casting method created a tail of flame behind him, barely different from detonating fire spells at point-blank range, but the acceleration it granted Wang Yu was worth the madness.

Fire flared, his feet left the ground, and his forward speed quintupled. At this velocity, any being below the legendary rank would likely have seen their body collapse under the strain. Two kilometers vanished in an instant, and the distance between Wang Yu and Ethan closed abruptly.

The burst of speed allowed Wang Yu to outpace the attacks accompanying the rain, leaving them to strike empty air. As he pierced a layer of rain, he felt it: the downpour grew heavier the closer he got to Harris.

"Zing!"

The rapid swinging of the longsword paused briefly. Then, Ethan slashed his blade in a cross, and a massive crescent of battle aura tore through the air. It struck faster than Wang Yu was currently moving. Even before the pure, compressed aura blade hit him, Wang Yu could foresee its devastating, ruinous effect on his flesh.

He stepped hard, the recoil, void energy, and mana hurricane all overlapping. His body, moving at an exaggerated speed, shifted ten meters to the side in a lateral blur, forcibly dodging the massive aura blade without losing momentum.

The blade flew on, cleaving through everything in its path, passing through a hill, and continuing into the distance without a hint of slowing.

Though he had avoided the strike, he did not forget that Ethan had swung his sword in a cross. Behind Wang Yu, within the rain, a massive slash accompanied by countless smaller ones descended upon him.

The blood-limbs on his back reacted instantly, converging into a shield of hardened blood. They met the strikes, but the moment they collided, Wang Yu realized something was wrong.

The intensity of these slashes, born from the rain, had increased by more than a level. If the previous destructive power was a 1, these were at least a 10.

The blood-shield was cleaved apart without resistance, instantly reduced to fine fragments. The slashes, having pierced the defense, struck Wang Yu’s back.

"Pfft! Crack, crack, crack, crack!"

Flesh flew. The slashes effortlessly tore through his tough skin and muscle, driving deep until they met his bones. A relentless, high-pitched grinding of metal against metal echoed incessantly.

"Hard-headed" was not merely a description of Wang Yu’s personality; his bones were truly, absurdly hard. An alloy skeleton mixed with countless substances, there were few materials on the continent that could rival its strength.

The slashes broke his flesh but were forcibly stopped by his bones. Spine, ribs, skull—they clashed against the blades, holding the line even as blood and tissue sprayed into the air.

Broken flesh and ruptured organs were, to Wang Yu, minor injuries he could ignore. While the blood pool frantically repaired his bones and flesh, Wang Yu took the next step. The girl in the void confirmed and triggered a coordinate.

The distance was sufficient. Avia teleported Wang Yu to Ethan Harris’s side. Space rippled, and Wang Yu vanished, reappearing behind Ethan. He clenched his fist, swinging it with peerless force toward his opponent’s body.

"Hum!"

Ethan’s pupils contracted. Wang Yu saw Ethan, back turned, give his longsword a slight flick. In the pouring rain through which Wang Yu’s fist swung, countless tiny slashes acted upon his arm.

Countless forces, none individually massive, were distributed along the trajectory of his punch. Guided by an indescribable, exquisite technique, they forcibly deflected his strike, causing it to miss its mark entirely.

The closer one got to Ethan, the heavier the rain became. And the heavier the rain, the more the power he could channel through it approached the force of his direct swings. Within ten meters, the power was identical, while simultaneously allowing for the kind of fine-tuned manipulation that could only be called monstrous.

He decomposed a casual slash into countless tiny branches, then arranged them according to his will. It looked effortless, yet it contained an unfathomable amount of technique to neutralize the incoming attack.

Turning and stepping, Wang Yu followed the direction his fist had been deflected, throwing his entire body weight into a shoulder-check against Ethan. It was simple and unadorned, yet carried a force far greater than his punch.

Yet, against such an onslaught, Ethan merely pivoted, exerting but a fraction more force into his blade to weave a tapestry of interference points along the trajectory of Wang Yu’s strike, deflecting the blow once more.

The longsword followed the momentum, arcing effortlessly toward the throat of Wang Yu, whose body had been lured off-balance; compared to the finesse of his opponent, Wang Yu’s raw power seemed lamentably futile, for even at close quarters, he could not so much as graze his foe.

Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but Wang Yu sensed a flicker of disappointment in the other’s eyes—disappointment in him? It seemed Ethan had indeed been holding back, but Wang Yu cared little for the man’s inner musings.

The blade descended, its power unfathomable as it neared his neck; at this proximity, Wang Yu could feel the lethality of the strike, knowing that even his hardened bones could never withstand it. He was stronger at close range, and so was Ethan, but the Chariot’s power had already ensnared his opponent.

"Crunch!"

The blade twisted and buckled, the steel mangled into a lump of scrap metal by the Chariot’s force, transforming into a grotesque iron sphere attached to a hilt, instantly neutralizing the strike aimed at Wang Yu’s throat.

"Hum!"

The Chariot’s power erupted, blanketing all things in its reach, exerting a crushing pressure upon every object to force them into a violent halt, slowing the very flow of time—Chariot’s Power: Throne of the Commander.

As the world slowed, Wang Yu, moving at his natural pace, became a blur of speed; lightning coiled around his arms as Avia infused his limbs with terrifying mana, forging them into thunderous gauntlets. If pure physical force could be deflected, then he would resort to magic: Seventh-Tier Lightning Spell: Thunderclap.

Wang Yu slammed the lightning into Ethan’s chest; thunder elements inherently ravaged biological flesh, and at point-blank range, the power was pushed to its absolute limit, promising damage that could not be ignored.

"Not bad, but that is all."

Yet, this strike was met only by Ethan’s regretful words; even though his speed had been halved by Wang Yu’s influence, the sword aimed at his neck continued its descent.

Who said a shattered blade could not complete its strike? A sword is not so inconvenient a tool. A sharp sting blossomed at Wang Yu’s cervical vertebrae, signaling his brain—he was wounded, his bones severed, the most resilient parts of his body sliced through without a moment’s hesitation.

It was not merely Wang Yu’s neck that had been severed; rather, Ethan had cleaved the very space itself, and in doing so, had sliced through the bone of the man standing within it.

To sever space with a bladeless hilt—this was the ultimate sword mastered by the Sword Saint, Ethan Harris.