Chapter 534 Pushed Into The Corner
From the desperate situation that is not able to be shifted if he didn't take any risk, Rex steeled himself to face the obstacle that lies in front of him. In an instant, he knows exactly what risk he needed to take, and that is to finish the blessing from the Countess of the Dark Luniric.
It's the only thing that he can think of right now to get out of this sticky situation.
The blessing given by the Countess of the Dark Luniric is the only thing he can rely on right now, one of the components to finish the blessing quest is to kill Zegrath who is the current Dark Prince. Even now Rex still can't believe that Zegrath turns out to be the other prince, the Dark Prince.
Zegrath becoming a Dark Prince is a terrifying coincidence if he thinks about it.
Aside from the weirdness of Zegrath turning into a Dark Prince despite being an Omega, it also seems like He turned into the Dark Prince way before Rex can even tap the Royal Black Prince bloodline.
Exactly how he's chosen as the Dark Prince is unknown, but Rex can't deny that Zegrath is a Prince.
The leaking mythical aura that is identical to what Rex himself is emitting shows that Zegrath is also a prince. Although the mythical aura is not as dense as the one that he emits, it's still a mythical aura belonging to a Prince.
Rex takes the huge risk of exerting all of his power into one last strike.
Nothing in his entire life can topple the power he can muster at that extreme moment, even right now he can feel his entire body screaming at him to rest as he already exerted power way beyond his bodily limit.
The risk he took pays off when he raises his gaze weakly to see Zegrath's corpse.
It was an instant death that Rex didn't really want since Zegrath does not deserve to have a swift and painless death, but he just needs to be thankful that he managed to squeeze enough strength to pierce through the red barrier made by Arnulf.
Everything can end up differently if he's not able to break the red barrier.
But that turn of events didn't happen as he managed to kill Zegrath, striking his heart and destroying it putting an instant kill to any normal Werewolf. Although Zegrath is not a normal Werewolf, the berserk energy inside Rex's claws shuts down his entire body.
Just like a fire that lit up a forest, the energy spread so fast and killed Zegrath instantly.
Rex slowly looks back to the onlookers that have their eyes glued onto him, some express relief while some express an absolute shock as they saw the corpse of the Dark Prince that they served. In their eyes, Zegrath is their hope in ascension.
Not only would they live a proud life, but they also will become stronger by sticking to the Prince.
If they helped and made Zegrath from a nobody into someone that can sit on the throne, an endless amount of joy will fall naturally to them but that hope and dreams got wiped away when they saw Zegrath's lifeless bulging eyes.
Even through his eyes alone, one can see that he didn't realize that he was about to die.
Zegrath can't even perceive what happened that fast and his dying stiff face shows that. Rex's claws stab through his chest and crushed his heart, fresh blood drenched Rex's entire body. Feeling the exhilaration dwelling inside of him, Rex looks up to the sky and roared triumphantly.
ROAR!!
It shakes the entire ground as it was a roar filled with pride and even anger at the same time.
Standing with the deceased Dark Prince stabbed by his arm, Rex's overbearing presence travels through the surroundings as if it also declares his triumphant win of him against the Dark Prince. Even Giana who is recuperating from the attack heard this roar.
While still on the foot of the mountain, she looks up and saw the small dots in front of her.
Giana is still a ninth-rank Awakened and she saw the Werewolf that Rex turned into lifting a corpse of another Werewolf, she unconsciously held her breath as she witnessed the triumphant roar coming from the supposedly rising star of humanity.
"So strong... he can even take down that Werewolf despite the protection from the Alphas..."
On top of that, the appearance of the black phantom above him shocks the surrounding.
Although a second before the place is filled with the sound of battles, it's completely silent now.
Not one of them manage to mutter any words upon witnessing the arrival of the black phantom, she was akin to the embodiment of darkness and the wife of terror. There's not one aura coming from her, but this makes her even more terrifying.
With her blackhole eyes, the black phantom swept her gaze across the battlefield.
But soon her eyes landed on Rex that has killed the Dark Prince, there was a subtle smile that appeared on her beautiful darkness-covered face. It shows that she's pleased but then her eyes caught the sight of Arnulf.
Using this distraction, Arnulf recovers the first as he started to move.
Dashing violently without pulling back his strength at all, Arnulf clawed Adhara that is dazed from the appearance of the black phantom. She managed to raise her arm to block but she got sent crashing a mile away.
Arnulf took care of Adhara ignoring the pain from hitting her body.
Glancing back to the black phantom once more, there's a hideous expression on Arnulf's face.
Drawing another rune shaped like a crescent moon in the void, Arnulf glares at the black phantom. There's a hint of resentment in his eyes as he looks at the black phantom, and then Rex.
Unlike the others that look to be awed upon seeing the appearance of the black phantom, Arnulf didn't waver and kept walking forward despite the fear in his eyes. Even Rex can see a bleak aura coming out of Arnulf which shows that he's really scared.
"By the name of the Origin, I command the banished to go back into the void!"
Shatter!
After he finished the rune, it glows dark red and its energy is directed to the black phantom.
It was a wave of devastatingly powerful energy that even Rex was surprised to feel, that kind of energy is way stronger than even a ninth-rank realm! Something so powerful shouldn't exist in the mortal plane, but all of that energy attacked the black phantom.
Rex was surprised when he heard the Countess scream in her pain-filled voice.
The scream that comes out of her mouth is not human-like instead, it's astral but slowly turns diabolical as it went on. It hurts everyone's ear from simply hearing her scream as black chains start to appear around the Countess' limbs.
While witnessing this, Rex clenched his jaw as she was the only hope he has.
But Arnulf seems to know the identity of the Countess of the Dark Luniric and is even capable of carving a rune that can suppress her, even her entire being started fading once again upon getting hit by the energy coming from the dark red rune.
"Royal Black Prince!! How dare you stoop so low?!"
Hearing the roar of anger from Arnulf, Rex glanced at him with a frown.
Despite being blessed by the Countess of the Dark Luniric, Rex doesn't really know that much about her and only knows that she's an entity that shouldn't be here in this realm. But in a desperate fight such as this, nothing is forbidden.
Rex looks at the blessing quest searching for an answer,
<Break the Black Shackle imprisoning the Countess of the Dark Luniric: 0/1>
It was the other component that he needs to finish in order to complete the quest. The Black Shackle should be the chains wrapping on the Countess' limbs, it's obvious but Rex doesn't know how to break them.
p
'System, how can I break the Black Shackle?! Please don't leave me in the dust like before!'
With his only hope to get the answer from the system, Rex quickly asked while keeping his eyes on Arnulf that is inching closer with immense killing intent as if he has done something forbidden. Something taboo to the Werewolves.
But before he can even read the reply from the system, his eyes dilated.
Arnulf didn't waste any time and lunges forward like a crazy animalistic maniac, the killing intent started leaking out of him at the cause of Zegrath's death and the appearance of the black phantom.
Despite his hurting body from overexerting himself, Rex's eyes flash with battle intent.
Even though his body is bloodied all over he didn't deactivate his Berserker's Curse skill and kept it on, his claws clashed against Arnulf's claws as they both locked their arms together while glaring at each other. Ferocious growls escape both of their muzzles as they are locked in a power struggle.
"I've watched countless deaths of Princes through my times, but none has wicked motives like you!"
"I do everything to win, anything I can..."
"But this crosses the line, the Origin has forbidden us to converse much less working together with the banished Lunirich you fool!!!"
BAM!
Rex got kneed on the gut before getting a hammer fist across his face sending him crashing away, every hit he received felt like a portion of his soul got knocked away. Blood drooled out of his mouth as his eyes glared at Arnulf that is already jumping up into the sky.
With the hurting Countess of the Dark Lunirich behind him, Arnulf's body glows brightly.
Just like the well-known shaman of the Werewolf race that can use moonlight-induced spells, Arnulf's body got covered with moonlight energy enhancing his strength almost identical to Rex's Pure Brace of Moonlight.
Expressing every inch of power, Arnulf landed a nasty punch caving Rex's stomach inward.
It was so powerful that the ground is also caved inwards following the curve of Rex's body, everything in the vicinity got completely destroyed by the shockwave of moonlight energy. While clenching his teeth so hard, Rex read the system's notification.
<Only the Royal Black Prince can destroy the Black Shackle>
<In order to break the Black Shackle, the user only needs to imbue enough energy into them>
Upon reading the notification from the system Rex's body rejuvenated with power once more, knowing the way he becomes even more motivated pushing his body way past the limit even more.
But as if he's possessed by a demon, Rex kicks Arnulf away before standing up.
Looking up to the hurting Countess of the Dark Lunirich, Rex gathered every energy that he can muster before condensing them into a steady stream of energy using his very high control of energy and directing it to the Black Shackle.
Gritting his teeth, Rex falls to his knees while keeping the stream of energy steady.
'Come on.... break!'
Rex fixated his eyes on the Black Shackle hoping that it would break soon enough, but even when his energy was about to be depleted he finds the Black Shackle only got a small dent from his stream of energy.
It completely fatigued his body leaving him in the open.
Kyran that is getting slammed to the ground by Ian saw Rex falling to his knees for a split second, his eyes widened before he spat a mouthful of blood feeling his entire back crack from that slam.
The same goes for Adhara that is slowly standing up weakly with wounds all over.
Glancing to the side she finds that Evelyn was about to move from her spot intending to help Rex that has already fallen to his knees, Adhara wanted to force her body to move but from taking a step she falls to the ground once again.
Her body is refusing to move, she slowly gazes up while lying on the ground face-first.
Despite her try Evelyn finally moved from her spot feeling that Rex would be needing her help, but her movement is not fast enough compared to Ruston that is already sprawling toward Rex with all four intending to kill.
Rex who is trying to break the Black Shackle is oblivious to this, his senses are already dull.
"R-REX!!"
"REX!!"
Both Evelyn and Adhara shouted at the same time attracting Rex's attention, it was just a split second but this allowed Rex to see Ruston that is already sprinting at him at full speed.
From the distance between them, it will only take a second for Ruston to arrive.
Rex gritted his teeth as his eyes turns bloodshot, he immediately commands the system through his screaming mind, 'System, use the Invincible item!!'
KABOOM!!
With the command from Rex, the system instantly uses the Invincible Item blasting a ridiculous amount of energy straight to Ruston that almost has his claws reaching the neck. It came at the exact time when the claws is less than an inch away.
Upon the powerful energy blast, Ruston was sent rolling on the ground.
The only reason he managed to stop was that he planted his claws into the ground, but when he raises his eyes again he can't help but shuddered in fear as Rex has completely changed form. Now his entire body is covered with markings.
Both very dark red lines started from his horns before encompassing his entire body.
It was devastatingly powerful that even Ruston can't help but widened his eyes finding that this level of energy is even stronger than any Werewolf that he has ever seen before, the energy he's feeling right now even surpassed King Baralt at his full power.
Rex stands with dark red smoke hovering over his body alongside the red steaming markings.
Every inch of his skin cracked and created red markings, both opening of the dark red lines connected back at Rex's forehead where a weird mark can be seen. It was a full moon with two sides of color, black and red, something that has never been seen before even throughout the thousand years of Ruston's life.
The devastating energy nourishes his entire body like an endless sea being poured directly at him.
With the full might of the Invincible item exposed, Ruston felt his throat dry upon witnessing the mark on Rex's forehead that is the source of this immense power, "D-Double King Mark?!"
On the other side, Arnulf also felt this terrifying energy.
"This level of energy... it already reaches the mid or even peak of tenth rank, impossible..."