Eternal Empire Online: The Rise of the Mythical Detective

Chapter 20: The Fulfillment Of The Promise And The Heir Of The God King’s Legacy 1

SWASH! SWASH! SWASH! SWASH!

The noises of blades clashing echoed out on the previously peaceful Final Glade. Shockwaves and powerful blasts of air pressures strong enough to cut steel are detonating left and right. And looking down from the heavens, one can witness that the perpetrator of it all are two fast moving blurs, a black and a white one.

“Magnum Impact!”

Two blades swung downward.

“Sacred Blade!”

While a white light covered Greatsword blocked it.

When the two swords and the two-handed Greatsword collided, the ground where their wielders stood then shook and collapsed. The impact left a noticeable crater before the two clashing silhouettes vanishes with the wind. They then would reappear again somewhere nearby and repeat the same degree of collision, creating another destruction before disappearing. Thus, the flat green field of the Final Glade was turned into a perfect replica of the moon’s surface in just a matter of minutes.

SWASH!!!

Another Clash!

“Earth Splitter!” The Greatsword struck downward but its target swiftly stepped back and therefore, the attack misses.

However, the dust and shattered grasses that the Greatsword hammered on the ground burst and started twisting and expanding, enveloping both of them in a dense cloud of dust.

Then, everything quieted as the storm of dusts persist before slowly settling down.

The form of two people is then seen when the dusts thinned. The one holding the Greatsword was the Trickster Knight Loki, and opposite to him is the distinctive dual sword wielder form of his number one disciple, Grimm.

“You truly are something,” Loki said to Grimm as he deliberates his next move. “I can’t remember the last time I had a battle as stirring as this.”

Despite being a newborn Outlander that just recently descended from the World of the Creators, Grimm, excluding his King and his fellow Grand Knights, is by far the first and the only opponent that had last against him this long.

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Note: World of the Creators is the term used by the locals of Avelot when they addresses the Real World where the players also known as Outlanders came from.

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And aside from that, he was able to reign victorious against the Eight Kings of the Forest, nearly defeated him twice as Amradias, defeating his Amradias persona through supervising his fellow disciples, and finally, figuring out his identity and all his tricks, something that no one within his two aeons search had even got close in accomplishing.

And for Loki, those qualifications are already beyond impressive and within the margin of terrifying. And if it were him in the past judging him, he could have ended this challenge already and grant him the highest honor.

However, this is nothing like the Final Trials that their Sect was giving to their graduating pupils or the trainings undergone by his former platoon. This is for the glory of his King and Grimm hadn’t proven everything yet. So not until his satisfaction reached 100%, this judgment will never meet its end, for he won’t accept anything less than perfection.

“Same here,” Grimm replied. “It’s been a while for me too.”

“Good to hear that then,” he said. “So you wouldn’t mind if I increase the phase a bit?”

“Go ahead. I’m getting tired of this slow pace anyway.”

Loki smirked confidently. But deep inside, he’s still in the middle of deliberating of what his next move would be. Loki determined after battling Grimm for 10 minutes that in his current form, the two of them are fairly equal. He uses a Greatsword where each swing could take 800~1,000 Health in one blow. While on the other hand, Grimm with a lower attack power utilizes his dual wield to attack with one sword and defend and counter with the other. Therefore, the percentage of Health that they shaved from one another was almost equal.

However, that arrangement had only lasted on the first three minutes of their battle. For afterwards, Grimm began displaying a more precise method in battling him where all of his attacks either get parried or evaded while the attacks that he throws grow increasingly harder to defend and avoid. Thus, Grimm’s chances to solidly connect and deal damage had become significantly higher than his.

So even though he can guard perfectly, several of Grimm’s attacks still landed and inflict him damage that little by little accumulate and gradually eat away his life while he’s powerless to counter.

He could utilize the Sacred Aura from the Sacred Light Set or the Phantasmal Blade, Nine Headed Naga Strike which both will surely grant a tremendous advantage to him. But Loki is perfectly aware that that’s not going to be a good idea. Both of them are wielder of the Phantasmal Blade, Nine Headed Naga Strike. But until now, neither one of them had even once used the sword technique due to the obvious reason that the Nine Headed Naga Strike’s skill activation time is longer compared to their other skills. The delay is just a split or even just a quarter of a second slower. But on this degree of battle and movement speed that they are displaying, that kind of delay is disadvantageous. Same is true with the usage of the Sacred Aura. No, the Sacred Aura is far worst for it’s slower than the Phantasmal Blade. So the casting interruption rate for it is higher.

‘Then there’s one option left.’

And though it might be an Overkill to use such powerful technique against a disciple, not to mention that at his current body, the sword technique will place a huge toll on him, his aim anyway is to judge if Grimm is the best of the best or not. And there’s no better way to do that than to challenge him using the strongest attack that he can throw.

“Then, take this!”

Loki dashed and brandished his Greatsword flamboyantly. So does Grimm.

“Descent of the Final Illusion! Dance of the Naga!”

Eight Loki clones appeared and simultaneously surround and attacked Grimm.

It was Loki’s Strongest Technique, the Third and Final Sacred Art that can only be acquired after mastering both the Sacred Light and the Phantasmal Blade. It summons 8 clones. Each has 30% of his overall abilities and 70% of his overall attack damage and at the same time, imbues his sword with the holy light paired with one random element from Fire, Wind, Lightning, and Ice for 10 minutes. He got Fire.

However, it consumes 200 Health per clone per second and if they get killed, he will also receive 100 damage per clone. Therefore, it’s unwise to expose the clones for far too long.

Still, despite the several drawbacks, the damage it can inflict is beyond tremendous. It can overwhelm the enemy in both number and attacking power. So regardless of how good the enemy is when it comes to the art of fighting, their chances of survival after the attack is still near to nil. And even if they do survive, they’ll be completely torn into shreds with barely a Health intact.

So with this attack, he can put an end to this duel. His number one disciple can now either prove his worth or die trying. However, Loki had a hunch that something was wrong the moment that his clones lunges on Grimm.

‘Wh-what!? How!?’ He exclaimed inwardly as he and his clones were blasted by a powerful explosion that ignited the moment that Grimm whacked together the blades of his swords.

Supposedly, that attack of his was impossible to block or avoid judging by its degree of power. Moreover, Loki had never used or show the skill on him. It was an attack with a startling strength and 100% foreign to him. However, it seems that Grimm had already anticipated the emergence of the skill and countered it.

‘Don’t tell me…’ It was too late for Loki to realize it.

When he unleashed the Dance of the Naga, he forgot to consider a very vital thing about his target.

He forgot that Grimm is genius in countermeasures.

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Three Hours Ago…

In order to confront and defeat Stellio/Amradias/Bart, Grimm must succeed into generating the sword technique that he possessed in the real world into the game.

However, due to that his Game Avatar is significantly weaker compared to his real body, the spawning of the sword technique alone is putting a lot of strain into his avatar.

“Damn,” Grimm panted as the skill creation failed to reach completion again. “Another failure.”

He knows that this method of his will be hard to accomplish, but he didn’t expect that it will be to this degree. When he first completed the sword technique in the real world as Gen, he never encounters any problem generating and utilizing it. But of course, his body back then was already beyond suitable for it, so there are zero complications.

On the other hand, the current state of his game avatar is the complete opposite of it. There’s a huge strength gap and discrepancy between the technique and his avatar so the chances for failure are very high.

‘Still, I can’t give up.’ He persisted. If he can’t bring forth his technique into this world then there’s no way that he can defeat SAB once they battle. That bastard surely has a bag of annoying tricks up his sleeves and he needed a power strong enough to counter it all. Therefore, his victory depends on this. So failure is not an option.

Grimm had then done the math once again. And base on the result of his calculations, the degree of completion difficulty remains the same as his first try two years ago. It’s just that this time, instead of vagueness, his hindrance is lack of power.

‘Alright. If that were the case then there’s no reason for me to fail.’

Two Year Ago…

As a part of his Final Exam, the Five Grandmasters had each given Gen a challenge related to their respective Martial Arts, a challenge that Gen must resolve and overcome within the day in order to receive the blessings of his Masters for his upcoming journey towards his Mastership.

In the hope of prolonging his stay, the reluctant Grandmasters gave Gen the hardest challenges that could think of, which all ranges from improving a technique, countering an ultimate attack, perfect repetition, and most of all, creation of a new fighting art. Unfortunately, and expected from their dear disciples, everything were accomplished and the five grief stricken Grandmasters were left with no other choice but to let their beloved Gen go.

However, among the challenges that his Masters had given to him, the challenge given by Grandmaster Kagami Shin had piqued Gen’s interest the most and at the same, had given him the biggest headache in completing.

Master Shin and his older brother, Master Sato are both Japanese and between the two, Master Shin is a huge fan of their country’s media entertainment especially towards Mangas and Animes which are both among their top products.

So as he masters his Sword Combat Art growing up, Master Shin had made it a goal to supplement his sword techniques with those works of fiction fighting styles that he reads and watches. Some were viable, most are completely inapplicable. But the end game here is that he’d succeeded and many sword techniques and sword fighting styles that were once just works of fictions existed now in the real world.

Then for his challenge, Master Kagami had tasked Gen to finish one of his incomplete fictional sword techniques, the Elemental Sword.

“You’ve played an RPG before, right?”

Gen nodded. “Of course. I mean, who hasn’t.”

“Then you’re already familiar with the elemental weapon?”

Again, Gen nodded.

“Can you tell me something about it?”

“A weapon created or empowered by the use of elemental powers, like a sword wreathed in flames or a spear made of ice. It gives an already deadly weapon an extra edge and at the same time, it looks so freaking cool.”

“Exactly,” Master Shin nodded and then said. “You’re Final Exam with me will be related to that.”

He pulled out a scroll kept at the Dojo’s ledge and handed it over to him.

“This is my incomplete research of turning normal swords into elemental swords,” he explained. “And my Final Exam task is for you to complete and practice it before sundown.”

The nature of the challenge was both a completion of a technique and a confirmation of a theory. So the task has a ridiculously low success rate, enough to bring anyone into the pit of despair if ever it was given to them. But who was Genesis Soteria? If he were diffident from the very beginning then he wouldn’t be in this position right now. So after checking the content of Kagami Shin’s theories, he immediately went to work and assembled every similar theory and concept that he could get his hands to. Eventually, after several hours spent on research, trial and error, and intense practice, he had finally completed the Art of Elemental Sword.

When both the completed scroll and the demonstration of the technique were presented to Kagami Shin, the expression of the Grandmaster of Swords and Blades was filled with both great awe and disbelief but at the same time, a hidden corner on his expression is saying that he was already expecting it.

“What would you call this technique then?” Gen asked his Master.

“You tell me, it’s your technique after all.”

But the reply he gave him was totally unexpected.

“W-what?”

“You heard me, it’s yours. Therefore, you name it.”

“………..”

Master Shin then revealed to Gen that the concept to complete the elemental sword had been figured out be him a long time ago. However, he never applied it for the reason that the completion and application of the said sword technique was never meant for him.

“The elemental sword can only be completed and actuated by a Martial Artist who practiced the Martial Arts of the Five Grandmasters. In short, it was a technique that had always been predestined for the Disciple that the Five of us has approved and trained with everything we know.”

And at the end of his words, Master Shin spread the completed elemental sword scroll in front of Gen along with an inkstone and an inkbrush and instructed him to give the technique a name that he desires which will serve as the final part of his test.

Back to the present… 

Ding!

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With the Holy Power of the Final Glade and your vast knowledge in sword combat,

A Rank SS Sword Technique had been created.(+500) Fire Damage added to All Attacks

(+500) Lightning Damage added to All Attacks

40% Chance to Burn, duration 5 minutes

40% Chance to Stun, duration 1 minute

Attack Speed, Movement Speed and Evasion Rate will increase by (+200%)

Increase Attack Damage by (+250%)

Increase Critical Attack Damage by (+2,000)

Increase Critical Attack Rate by (+100%)

Increase All Defense by (+150%)

Fire Resistance increased by (+200%)

Lightning Resistance increased by (+200%)

Total Invincibility for 5 seconds

[Sword Chaining]

When executing Sword Attacks in succession, (+20%) Increase Damage and (+10%) Attack and Movement Speed for each successful strike. Cancelled if the strike failed or interrupted.

When activated, the Burning Flames of Life bestows rejuvenation [Restore 30% of your Health] and the Piercing Sparks of Swiftness encourages life [Health Recovery increased by 25%].

Duration: 20 minutes

Mana Cost: 7,500

Advanced Sword Mastery required. 

Sword(s) must be equipped. 

Restriction: Level 500 

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Creator’s Privilege: Instead of Level 500, you can acquire the skill once you reach Level 400.

As you are now, with your current Level, Mastery and Rank, it’s completely impossible for you to use the skill. But through the Creator’s Privilege, you are allowed to freely use the Sword Technique once for the duration of 10 minutes. However, after the usage of the skill, your weapon(s) will be destroyed as a drawback.

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Fame has increased by 2,210 due to the creation of a Rank SS Sword Technique.

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Grimm then finally breathed out a sigh of relief. After multiple attempts and painful failures, he’d finally brought his sword technique into this world. And though it had unexpectedly turns out to be too outstanding that he’d almost not able to use it with his current level. At the very least, he was given a one shot with it before it becomes completely unavailable for him for the time being.

And then, for finality, the same instruction that he fulfilled two years ago under Master Shin had once again appeared before him.

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Please set the name of the new Sword Skill.

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“The name is…”