The smoke still rose in dense swirls, swirling around Kharizan's imposing figure. His thick skin was marred by burns and deep cuts, but his chest was heaving with the vitality of a monster that hadn't even begun to fall yet.
Seth watched, motionless. His eyes tight, his body alert - he sensed that something was wrong. Jackpot fell silent. Vaali, for the first time, didn't vibrate with excitement, but with caution.
A shiver ran down Seth's spine.
That's when Kharizan spoke.
"You killed my children, human." The voice was guttural, but clear, and carried an ancient weight. "And yet I smiled? Did you think you had won? This... was just the first seal."
The runes on his arms lit up with a dull purple light, almost old. Tribal tattoos began to move like living worms under his skin. The ground around him shook and cracked - not from ordinary magic, but from pure rage condensed into energy.
"You will understand what it means to invoke the Wrath of a Warrior!"
He drove both fists into the ground and roared.
From the ground itself, two stone columns exploded upwards - and in them, stuck like cursed relics, were two titanic war axes, covered in the bones, teeth and thorns of creatures forgotten by time. When Kharizan pulled them out, the ground groaned. The weapons were too heavy for any ordinary orc. But in his hands, they felt as light as twigs.
Fuuuuuuuush.
The air around him burned.
Seth didn't smile.
Not this time.
Kharizan advanced with a roar that seemed to come from an erupting volcano. The axes spun like mills of destruction. And even with his absurd speed, Seth barely had time to dodge the first blow. The double blade passed inches from his head - and yet the impact on the ground opened a deep furrow of broken stone.
Seth retreated, sliding backwards.
Vaali - Activation: Jackpot... failed.
"Tch... what the fuck?" he muttered, trying to restart the connection. Nothing.
Kharizan came again, now faster. A monster three and a half meters tall, leaping like a predator, its axes scratching the air like solid thunder.
BOOOOOM!
The impact of the second blow raised a wall of debris. Seth was thrown aside by the force of the indirect impact. He rolled across the floor, cracking bones. For the first time in months, he felt real pain.
Sweet, sharp, real.
"Hah..." he stood up, spitting blood. "Okay. This is going to be interesting."
Kharizan didn't stop. Like a raging demon, he smashed everything around him - columns, altars, corpses. Each blow caused a mini-earthquake, an explosion of ancient brute force. There was no technique. Just fury and animal precision.
Seth tried to counterattack - he parried a side blow with Vaali. The impact split the blade.
Jackpot: Incomplete Activation.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he shouted at the sword.
Kharizan laughed. Yes, he laughed.
"Your sword feels fear. It knows my blood. The blood of the first. She knows she can't beat me."
Seth felt the pressure. As if the air were thicker, as if time were slowing down just to make him realize how far out of his reach this fight was.
But he didn't back down.
He slid again. He avoided a blow - he countered with a cut to Kharizan's ribs. The orc's blood spurted out in flames. Seth was engulfed in them.
FWWWWSSHH!
He rolled away, feeling his skin burn.
He was being overcome. For the first time.
But that only ignited something else in him.
Not fear. Not despair.
Adrenaline.
"Okay... okay. You want a real fight?" Seth ran his thumb over Vaali's cracked blade. "Then you will."
He drove the sword into the ground.
Jackpot's runes began to spin slowly, trying to reconnect. Seth closed his eyes. He inhaled deeply.
Speed. Lightning. Precision. Focus.
When he opened his eyes, his body exploded into movement.
CRACK-FRAZZZ!
He reappeared behind Kharizan and slashed. The axe stopped the blow in mid-air. A sideways counterattack grazed Seth in the thigh, and he fell to his knees.
But he smiled.
Jackpot: New effect! Partial restoration!
Vaali glowed again.
[Effect: Conduction]
He spun around and slashed the orc's ankle. The electricity entered the creature's body, but instead of paralyzing it...
Kharizan laughed louder.
"PAIN. IT'S STRENGTH."
And then he drove one of the axes straight into the ground.
A wave of pure shock energy came out of the impact, like a heartbeat from hell. Seth was thrown into the air, struggling, bleeding.
He fell badly. Dislocated shoulder. Fractured rib.
But he got up.
Staggering.
"You may be strong..." he spat out blood. "But I'm stubborn."
Kharizan moved in for the final blow, raising both axes in a double arc, ready to crush Seth's entire body.
But at that moment - Vaali shouted. Jackpot restarted.
[Jackpot - Overload: Triple Effect]
"Now it's my turn." Seth whispered, and disappeared.
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
The final collision was so intense that it cracked the walls.
Explosion. Driving. And chaos in living flesh.
The impact resounded like thunder tearing at the bones of the world. The shockwave swept through the surroundings, reducing ancient columns to dust, shattering millennia-old rocks and throwing fiery fragments everywhere. The dust rose like a colossal mushroom, a dense storm of destruction hovering over the battlefields.
In the eye of the storm, the silence was almost sacred.
Kharizan was kneeling, his two axes buried in the ground to support his colossal body. His shoulders rose and fell, gasping with difficulty. Dark, thick, hot blood trickled down his temple, evaporating as it touched the boiling ground.
And on the other side, still standing...
Seth.
Standing amidst the debris, surrounded by live sparks, his hair disheveled by the energy, his eyes illuminated by a supernatural glow.
Smiling.
But it wasn't a calm smile. It was insane. A laugh from someone who was lighting up, not finishing.
"Hehe... HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Seth roared like a madman, his voice echoing off the stone walls like thunder that refuses to die.
Power flowed through his body like a river of thunder. Jackpot pulsed in his hand, now alive like an extension of his soul. The runes on the blade spun in a spiral, so fast that they formed a continuous ring of light.
Then a soft metallic sound rang out.
Tlim.
[Skill available for copying: Wrath of the Titan (Rank-C)]
[Do you wish to copy this skill?]
[You have 45 unused status points.]
[Hint: Point distribution can maximize synergy with current skills.]
Seth ran his tongue over his cracked lips, his eyes locked on Kharizan like a predator in front of wounded prey. He hadn't won yet... but the fight was now his.
It turned out that during the fight with the Orcs, he only had 30 points... However, after the fight, he didn't even notice, but... he was already level 30. And he had even unlocked another Copy Slot.
[STATUS]
[Name: Seth (Rank-E)
[Class: [None]
[Title: [Desert Sovereign (Equipped)]
[Level]: 30
[Strength]: 67
[Speed]: 70
[Intelligence]: 62
[Endurance]: 65
[Extra points: 45]
Skills: [The End (Rank-SSS)] [Killing Blow (Rank-E)] [Presence of the King (Rank-D)] [Fleeing Instinct (Rank-E)] [Storm Spear (Rank-A)]
[Storage] [Skill Slot: (1 of 3)]
[Temporarily stored copied skills: [Electrokinesis - Rank-D]]
[Next Slot: Level 50]
[Gold: 25. 978]
"Hah... so you have a trump card. Nice." Seth closed his eyes for a second. "But so do I."
"Distribute." His voice sounded like a divine command.
[Status Points distributed.]
+20 Strength
+25 Agility
[Strength]: 87
[Agility]: 95