"Brat!"
Marquis Voban abruptly raised his head, his bloodshot eyes locking onto Akuto. His gaze looked as though he wanted to swallow him alive.
He admitted it. Akuto had not even personally attacked yet, but he had already forced him to his limit.
Fine, then. In that case, he could only unleash every last bit of his power.
"Graaaaaaaaaaah!"
Along with a dragon's roar that shattered the clouds, filled with endless brutality and the aura of death, Marquis Voban's body underwent a terrifying transformation.
His body swelled rapidly. His suit burst and tore apart, his skin became covered in pitch-black scales, his limbs transformed into sharp claws, and his head elongated and warped. In the end, he became an enormous black dragon radiating dense death energy from the underworld.
His body was so huge that it covered a small portion of the sky, making even Tokyo Tower seem tiny by comparison.
Authority: Black Dragon of the Underworld.
This was Marquis Voban's final trump card: transforming into a black dragon of the underworld that brought death and destruction.
The black dragon's scarlet vertical pupils locked onto Akuto. It opened a maw large enough to swallow Tokyo Tower whole, and a crescent-shaped black breath attack began gathering wildly within its mouth.
It intended to erase everything before it from this world, along with that arrogant Akuto.
Akuto, who had been calmly observing the situation the entire time, finally raised his eyelids slightly. His gaze seemed to pierce through the black dragon's massive body and look at something deeper: Marquis Voban's violently fluctuating Campione fate line, which still had not undergone the "qualitative change" he had expected.
"As expected... this level of stimulation still isn't enough?"
Akuto murmured, his tone carrying a trace of disappointment too faint to notice.
...
Sure enough, trying to shake a fate line with one person's power was simply too difficult.
Unless... he personally intervened. Otherwise, even if Marquis Voban was forced this far, his fate line still would not change in the slightest.
"So be it. Since you want me to send you off, then for now... I'll grant your wish."
At the instant the black dragon's breath was about to erupt, Akuto moved.
He made no unnecessary movement. He merely raised his right hand slowly.
"Verethragna."
Akuto softly uttered a divine name.
Buzz!
A golden sun, pure to the extreme, as if it contained all light and heat in the world, appeared without warning above Akuto's palm.
Though the sun was small, the light and heat it radiated instantly drove away all the gloom and death energy brought by Marquis Voban, illuminating the entire dark plaza as brightly as daylight.
This was the Authority Akuto had usurped from Verethragna, the Persian God of War: White Stallion. It summoned the blazing white horse symbolizing the sun and justice, bringing judgment upon evil.
At that moment, White Stallion had been compressed by Akuto into a blazing sun in his palm.
Immediately afterward, Akuto slowly raised his left hand as well.
"Mithra."
Another divine name was spoken.
Above his other palm, another pure white sun suddenly rose, older and more majestic, as if it could purify all filth and darkness.
This was the Authority Akuto had usurped from the Heretic body of Mithra, also known as Perseus. In terms of the purity and strength of solar Authority, Mithra was even above Verethragna.
Soon, the golden and white suns, one master and one servant, shone from Akuto's hands and merged with each other.
A terrifying heat, intense enough to distort space, instantly spread out. The ground beneath his feet began to hiss and rapidly melt, while the glass of distant buildings shattered one after another.
"Be purified."
Akuto's voice was calm and without fluctuation. He pushed forward lightly with one hand.
The golden and white suns fused instantly, transforming into a pure solar torrent beyond description.
There was no world-shaking sound. Only a silence that annihilated everything.
Wherever the platinum solar flame passed, space itself seemed to be directly "evaporated," leaving behind a trail of nothingness.
The black dragon's death breath, powerful enough to destroy a city, was like snow meeting boiling oil before that solar flood. It could not even stir up a ripple before it was vaporized and annihilated.
For the first time, an emotion called "fear" appeared in the scarlet vertical pupils of the black dragon Voban.
It wanted to dodge. It wanted to flee. But that solar torrent surpassed space itself. Its enormous body simply had no time to make any reaction.
Sizzle.
It was like pressing a red-hot iron onto butter.
Pure light and heat pierced straight through the black dragon's scales and body, which were said to be able to withstand divine punishment, without the slightest obstruction.
The black dragon's massive body froze abruptly. Then, starting from the area struck by the solar torrent, it rapidly turned to ash like a sheet of paper catching fire.
There was no explosion. No scream. Only complete, soundless annihilation.
In only a single breath, the black dragon of the underworld that had covered the sky, together with Marquis Voban's main body within it, vanished completely from heaven and earth, as though it had never existed.
...
At the same time Marquis Voban disappeared, the system notification sounded in Akuto's mind.
[Ding!]
[Congratulations, host. Previous-life objective completed: Kill Marquis Voban. Although the target possesses a resurrection Authority, he was indeed killed ten times.]
[Congratulations, host. Reward obtained: Throne of Heroes: Pseudo (Gold).]
[Throne of Heroes: Pseudo: It is not a complete Throne of Heroes, but it possesses a portion of the true Throne of Heroes' effects. It can summon heroes who successfully engraved their names in the river of history, Gaia's memories, and Alaya, while granting them the status of Heroic Spirits.
Under normal circumstances, only after completely conquering a world can cross-timeline operations be performed. However, with the Throne of Heroes, even before conquering the corresponding world, the host can still use holy relics or bloodlines to summon and bestow spiritual ranks.
Note: The host may freely choose the summoned hero's state, extracting the hero from history at the point in time the host believes is most suitable for sublimation.]
...
"The Throne of Heroes, huh? It's a decent tool for filling out mid- and lower-tier combat strength. Also, the fact that it can search and provide a list of heroes is quite useful."
"Although I can do the same thing after completing a world conquest, compared to slowly searching through history myself, it's much more convenient and efficient to search from a list."
Previously, Akuto could only "specify the person he wanted to find first, then retrieve them from history," and he could basically only retrieve characters who had appeared in the original plot. Now, after obtaining the Throne of Heroes, Akuto could even retrieve characters who had not appeared in the original plot, but had already been engraved into history.
In terms of supplementing mid- and lower-tier combat strength, the Throne of Heroes could absolutely play a top-tier role.
Of course, when it came to top-tier combat strength, he still had to wait for and catalyze the growth of the heroines. After all, only heroine-class characters could complete unlocks and rapidly grow into top-tier combatants in their corresponding worlds. No matter how many people the Throne of Heroes summoned, it would still be difficult for them to compare with heroines who ultimately grew to the upper limit of their original worlds.
...
"But sure enough, Marquis Voban isn't dead."
Listening to the system notification, Akuto looked at the place where Marquis Voban had vanished. Through the lingering aura of Voban's Authority, he seemed to sense Marquis Voban reviving in the Netherworld.
"In any case, I'll seize his fate line once later, then keep him like a livestock resource."
"Compared to killing him, keeping him in my hands will break him much more thoroughly."
Akuto admitted that Black Dragon of the Underworld was indeed an extremely useful Authority.
This Authority, usurped from the ancient Mesopotamian earth mother goddess Inanna, could separate Marquis Voban's soul from his body and transform it into a tangible black dragon over thirty meters long.
After transforming into a demonic dragon, his spiritual body possessed enough strength to suppress the Boar with a single hand, and the dragon's mouth could unleash powerful flames. During the transformation, Marquis Voban used a "ritual that evokes death" to dig out his own heart and transfer himself from the ground, through the underworld, to the boundary between life and death. If he increased his curse power, he could even move freely within Aisha's Corridor, which forcibly sent people to a destination.
The dragon's immortality made Marquis Voban's soul undying. Even if his body was destroyed, he could regenerate from a spiritual state.
Of course, that did not mean his body was a weakness.
After transforming into the black dragon, even if Marquis Voban's human body was killed, even if it was completely reduced to ash, he could still consume a massive amount of curse power and revive his body in perfect condition.
Although the curse power consumed would absolutely not recover within one to two months, Black Dragon of the Underworld truly was an Authority with both top-tier combat power and resurrection ability. It was quite useful.
...
Sizzle, hiss.
Marquis Voban had vanished, leaving behind only a huge molten crater at the center of the plaza, its edges as smooth as glass, and a heart-shaking heat still lingering in the air.
The wind stopped. The rain ceased. The thunderclouds dispersed.
Sunlight fell once more, shining on Tokyo Tower and on Akuto's calm, unreadable face.
He slowly withdrew his hands, as if he had only done something insignificant.
However, Akuto's gaze did not remain on the place where Voban had vanished. Instead, he lifted his eyes slightly and looked toward the top of Tokyo Tower.
There, a handsome young man in a black training outfit, with a faintly unruly air, was staring down in stunned disbelief while holding an ancient-looking bronze mirror.
"Lu Yinghua. You're done watching. It's time to come down."
Akuto's calm voice reminded him.
...
Hearing Akuto call him, Lu Yinghua jolted sharply and snapped out of his tremendous shock.
That was right. During the process of Akuto killing Voban, Lu Yinghua had actually been present the entire time.
It was not that Lu Yinghua had never imagined Akuto winning. He just had not expected Akuto's victory to come so easily.
He remembered that even his master, Luo Hao, had never truly defeated Marquis Voban, had she?
In other words... the new King Akuto's strength was even above Luo Hao's?
Lu Yinghua swallowed, suppressing the storm in his heart. Not daring to be negligent in the slightest, he immediately used qinggong and leaped from the top of the tower like a great roc spreading its wings, landing steadily several meters in front of Akuto before bowing respectfully.
"Lord Akuto! I have already reported the full result of this battle to my master through this artifact!"
Lu Yinghua carefully raised the bronze mirror in his hand. Its surface was smooth, yet at that moment, it clearly reflected Akuto's figure.
Clearly, Lu Yinghua had only been able to stream the scene here because he had received Akuto's permission.
(End of Chapter)
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