Seeing the 'King' encroaching on their territory, the Apollo Familia's command center panicked.
"He's walking. And in a straight line too. I don't know what it is but break his path. Make him circle around. We don't need to fight him, we need to stall him until I defeat Bell Cranel!"
The Captain of the Apollo Familia, Hyakinthos Clio, calmly ordered and rushed to find Bell Cranel.
At his orders, two mages, specialized in earth manipulation, were positioned on the front line, backed by the mana of eighteen more mages. They chanted in a feverish unison, pouring every drop of their total mana into the ground.
- RUMBLE!
The earth groaned and split. A massive trench, fifty feet wide and thirty feet deep, tore through the landscape directly in Raizer's path. The mages collapsed, gasping for air, their mana pools bone-dry, but they wore triumphant smirks. No one could walk over a canyon.
Raizer didn't even slow down. He didn't look at the pit. As his lead foot reached the edge, he simply stomped.
- BOOM!
Utilizing Absolute Control Lvl 2, Raizer didn't just exert force; he performed a microscopic inspection of the soil's molecular tension. He took the mana lingering in the air from the mages' own spells and fused it with a concentrated burst of his own energy.
Earth Magic: Rebound
The ground didn't just move; it obeyed. Like a recording played in reverse, the soil surged upward, the stones fused back together, and the trench filled itself in a violent geyser of dust and rock. When the dust cleared, Raizer stepped onto the newly solidified ground as if he were walking across a paved road.
"Impossible..." whispered Hermes from the observation hall. "He didn't just counter the magic; he rewrote the terrain. His mana reserves shouldn't be that deep!"
In reality, Raizer's reserves were only that of a high Level 3. But while an ordinary mage was like a leaky bucket, Raizer was a closed-loop system. Absolute Control allowed him to utilize every single drop of energy with 100% efficiency. He had the fuel of a car but the mileage of an interstellar craft.
"DON'T JUST STAND THERE!" The second-in-command screamed from the balcony, his nails digging into the stone railing. "GET HIM!"
A squad of thirty Level 2 adventurers, realizing their magic had failed, unsheathed their blades and lunged at him simultaneously. They came from the front, the sides, and the air, a whirlwind of steel aimed at the man who refused to run.
This was the true strength of Apollo Familia. All of their Level-2s had gathered to defeat a single foe while their Level-3 captain defeated Bell Cranel. Truly smart and insidious.
Raizer's arms remained casually at his sides. He didn't even draw his swords.
- SWISH!
The first blade missed his throat by a hair's breadth as Raizer tilted his head a fraction of an inch. Without looking, he caught the next attacker's wrist, pivoted, and used the man's own momentum to slam him into three others.
He moved with a terrifying, liquid fluidity. It wasn't a fight; it was a massacre of physics.
- CRACK!
A Level 2 brawler tried to punch Raizer's ribs. Raizer didn't dodge. He triggered Chi-Boost in his chest muscles for a millisecond. The brawler's hand shattered against Raizer's torso as if he had punched a diamond pillar.
Chi-Boost: Rapid Stream
Raizer moved through the crowd like a ghost through a wall. He delivered palm strikes that sent armored men flying twenty feet back, their breastplates dented by the golden glow of his Chi. He didn't strike twice. Every touch was a clinical shutdown of the nervous system.
One by one, the Apollo soldiers fell, groaning in the dirt, while Raizer continued his walk. He hadn't broken a sweat. He hadn't even looked at the men he had just dismantled.
In the VIP box, the Gods were deathly silent.
"He's toying with them," Loki muttered, her eyes wide. "He didn't use that 'thumping' heart trick. He didn't even use his blades. He's treating Level 2s like they're literal toddlers."
Hephaestus nodded, her expression grim. "His control is... perfect. Most heroes look like they're fighting for their lives. He looks like he's bored. He's holding back so much strength that it's actually insulting to the Apollo Familia."
Apollo's breathing was ragged. He bit down on his thumb so hard he drew blood, the crunch of his nail audible in the quiet box. He looked at the screen, Raizer was now halfway to the castle, and his pace hadn't changed by a single millisecond.
"He's not a man," Apollo hissed, his voice trembling with a mix of hate and primal fear. "He's a monster wearing a human face."
Raizer, unaware of the gods' panic, simply adjusted his collar. 'Twelve minutes until I reach the gates,' he thought, his mind perfectly calm under King's Resolve. 'I wonder if Bell has found the secret entrance yet. This aura-farming walk is actually quite refreshing.'
His gaze calmly staring at the trembling Level-2s before him, wondering if he was some sort of a dragon.
Ten adventurers lunged simultaneously, a chaotic thicket of spears, axes, and short-swords aimed at his vitals.
Raizer didn't stop walking.
He tilted his torso seven degrees to the left, letting a spear-tip whistle past his ear. Simultaneously, he stepped forward, his lead foot planting exactly in the center of the squad leader's gravity. With his arms still casually at his sides, he rolled his shoulder into the dwarf's chest.
- THUD.
The dwarf was launched backward, his heavy plate armor crumpling as if struck by a battering ram. The sheer efficiency of the strike—utilizing the dwarf's own forward momentum—sent him spiraling into two of his subordinates, clearing a three-meter gap in the center of the line.
"Now! Close the gap!"
The remaining swarmed. They were the elite of Apollo's middle-ranks, men who had survived the lower floors of the Dungeon. They attacked in "Wolf-Pack" formations—three men to a target, aiming for the joints and the blind spots.
Raizer finally raised his arms. His hands moved with a blur that defied the naked eye. This was the pinnacle of Absolute Control: Zero-Latency. There was no gap between his thought and his action.
A swordsman swung a heavy claymore in a vertical arc. Raizer didn't parry. He extended his palm, the fiery glow of Chi-Boost igniting beneath his skin.
He slapped the flat side of the descending blade. The impact sounded like a hammer striking an anvil. The claymore didn't just miss; the high-frequency vibration of the Chi-boost traveled through the steel, shattering the swordsman's finger bones and turning the weapon into a useless vibrating reed.
Without pausing, Raizer spun on his heel. His longcoat flared out, a black shadow against the sun. He delivered a staccato of three palm-strikes to three different chests. Each hit was precise, targeting the exact moment the heart was between beats to maximize the shock.
- PHUT! PHUT! PHUT!
Three men collapsed instantly, their lungs seizing as the Chi-boosted kinetic energy rippled through their diaphragms. They didn't even scream; they simply fell like puppets with their strings cut.
"He's a monster!" a mage in the back cried, desperately trying to finish a fire-bolt incantation. "Burn him!"
Raizer didn't look at the mage. He reached out and grabbed the spearhead of a spearman attempting to retreat. With a sharp tug, he swung the spearman around like a human shield. The fire-bolt slammed into the spearman's shield, exploding in a shower of sparks. Through the smoke, Raizer's eyes glowed with a cold, dark light.
He was now fifteen meters from the gate. There were twenty men left standing.
They grew desperate. A group of five brawlers discarded their weapons, hoping to use their superior numbers to grapple him to the ground. They tackled him from all sides, their collective weight totaling nearly half a ton.
In the Gods' VIP lounge, Apollo leaned forward, his eyes bloodshot. "Yes! Pin him! Crush the life out of him!"
Raizer stood still for a heartbeat as the five men clung to his arms, legs, and back. He felt the strain on his muscle fibers. He felt the heat of their breath.
"This is Aura~," Raizer whispered.
He didn't struggle. He simply inhaled, utilizing Absolute Control to expand his ribcage and anchor his feet into the bedrock. Then, he pulsed his mana.
Chi-Boost: Quake
- KABOOM!
A golden shockwave erupted from his pores. It wasn't a spell; it was a physical discharge of Chi. The five men were blown outward as if an airbag had detonated in their midst. One hit a tree, another flew into the castle wall, and three were left gasping in the dirt, their equilibrium completely shattered.
Raizer took another step.
The remaining adventurers were no longer fighting to win; they were fighting out of pure, primal terror. They threw themselves at him with zero regard for form.
Raizer's combat style evolved. He became a whirlwind of violence. He didn't waste a single movement. If he could disable a man with a flick of his finger to an eye, he didn't use a fist. If he could trip two men by stepping on a single loose stone, he did.
He moved through them like a ghost through a graveyard. A backfist to a temple. A knee to a solar plexus. A gentle-looking push that sent a man flying into his comrades.
He used the Chi-Boost sparingly now, concentrating it only at the point of impact. To the onlookers, it looked like golden sparks were flying off his knuckles every time he touched someone.
One adventurer, a tall man with a twin-daggers, managed to find a gap. He lunged at Raizer's exposed lower back.
Raizer didn't turn. He simply tilted his pelvis, letting the daggers pass through the empty air between his arm and his torso. While the man was overextended, Raizer reached back and caught him by the back of the neck. With a flick of his wrist, he slammed the man head-first into the ground, the impact creating a small crater in the dirt.
By the time he reached the final five meters before the gate, the thirty adventurers were a carpet of groaning bodies behind him. Not a single one had managed to draw his blood. Not a single one had forced him to draw his sword.
Raizer stood before the massive, iron-bound doors of the castle. He was slightly dusty, his breathing was deep but steady, and his heart—the King Engine—was silent. He didn't need it. Against these men, his mere existence was enough of a burden.
He never looked back at the trail of wreckage he had left.
[Real men don't look back at explosions!]
'Indeed, they don't.'
Standing before the gates, he didn't knock. He didn't shout. He simply placed both palms against the iron-bound oak. He closed his eyes, sensing the structural integrity of the wood, the location of the iron bolts, and the tension in the hinges.
He flooded the door with his golden Chi.
Chi-Boost: Quake
- CRR-A-A-CK!
The door didn't just open; it disintegrated. The wood splintered into a million shards, and the iron hinges melted under the sheer heat of the Chi-Boost. The shockwave of the door's destruction blew through the castle foyer, knocking over the vases, the tapestries, and the final guards hiding inside.
Raizer stepped into the heart of the enemy's castle. He had walked in a straight line, and the world had moved out of his way.
- Tak! Tak!
Raizer stepped over the threshold of the shattered gate, his boots clicking on the polished marble of the foyer. He was prepared for a final, desperate ambush—perhaps a hidden trap or a squad of elite bodyguards hiding behind the velvet curtains.
Instead, he found absolute silence.
The tapestries fluttered in the breeze he had created, and a single half-eaten grape rolled across the floor. The castle was empty. The Apollo Familia, seeing the "King" dismantle thirty of their brothers without drawing a sword, had decided that their "sun" was setting and had bolted out the back exits.
Outside, the divine mirrors broadcasted the scene to the entire city. Apollo sat in the VIP box, his face a shade of crimson that rivaled a ripe tomato.
"They ran?" Loki cackled, clutching her stomach. "Your 'shining elites' saw a guy walking and decided to take a permanent vacation? Oh, Apollo, this is a classic! A total bankruptcy!"
Hephaestus shook her head, hiding a smirk. "It seems your castle's 'heart' had a bypass surgery before the King even arrived."
Raizer stood in the middle of the empty hall, his hand still glowing faintly with the remnants of Chi-Boost. He felt... awkward. He had made a grand declaration, marched in a straight line, and destroyed a massive door, only to find the prize was already gone.
Suddenly, a roar erupted from the courtyard outside.
"FIREBOLT!"
A massive explosion of white light signaled the end. Bell Cranel, pushed to his absolute limit, had landed the finishing blow on Hyakinthos. The War Game was officially over. The Hestia Familia had won.
Raizer sighed, his shoulders dropping an inch. "Well, I guess the kid won the race. Good for him. Saves me the hard work."
[...ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!]
The System's voice didn't just ring in his head; it felt like a physical vibration in his skull. The blue screen in front of him turned a violent, neon red.
[HOST! WE LOST! WE CAME IN SECOND! THE KING DOES NOT COME IN SECOND! THE KING IS THE ONE WHO SITS ON THE THRONE, NOT THE ONE STANDING IN AN EMPTY HALLWAY LOOKING LIKE HE'S WAITING FOR A DELIVERY!]
"Calm down," Raizer muttered, looking around to make sure no one saw him talking to the air. "Bell won. We have a connection now. This is a win-win scenario. Minimal exertion, maximum result."
[MINIMAL EXERTION?! I GAVE YOU THE 'KING ENGINE'! I GAVE YOU 'ABSOLUTE CONTROL'! I GAVE YOU A COOL CAPE! AND YOU LET A RABBIT WITH A KITCHEN KNIFE BEAT YOU TO THE PUNCH?! I'M PISSED, RAIZER! I'M BEYOND PISSED! I'M ABOUT TO SELL MY SOUL TO THE DEVIL FOR A NICKLE JUST TO RECOUP THE DIGNITY WE LOST TODAY!]
"You don't have a soul to sell," Raizer countered, walking toward a nearby chair and sitting down. "And you're being unprofessional. Where's that 'System' stoicism?"
[STOICISM IS FOR LOSERS! I'M GOING TO CHANGE YOUR TITLE FROM 'KING' TO 'WALKING DISAPPOINTMENT'! I'M GOING TO CURSE THAT BOY! I'M GOING TO DOWNLOAD A VIRUS INTO HIS DREAMS! I HOPE HE TRIPS ON A PEBBLE! I HOPE HIS MINOTAUR IS UNDERCOOKED! I HOPE HE—]
"Okay, okay," Raizer groaned, rubbing his temples. The King's Resolve (EX) was supposed to protect him from mental status ailments, but it apparently didn't cover "Annoying Artificial Intelligence." He tried to argue for another ten seconds, but the System started playing a high-pitched "Failure" siren at maximum volume.
"I give up," Raizer sighed, leaning his head back. "Do whatever you want. Sell your soul. Buy some popcorn. Just stop the siren."
[HMPH! FINE! But for the record, I'm putting 'Failure to Close the Deal' on your permanent performance review. We're going to the Dungeon tomorrow, and we're not leaving until we find something bigger than a castle to stomp on!]
Raizer closed his eyes as the cheers of the city echoed through the broken doors. He was the most feared man in Orario, a "King" who had terrified Gods and shattered armies, and he was currently being bullied by his own HUD.
'Ha~ Life of a normie is tough.'
Did Raizer truly believe that he was a normie? Guess both the system and its master were delusional.