NOVGO.NET Chapter 1652: Battle-Drunk
Chapter 1652: Battle-Drunk
It was a violent whirlwind.
Something about Rex changed completely.
Though the naked eye couldn’t see the change, it was as clear as day for the senses.
The Faceless Reaper exerted every ounce of power within—even going past its limit by sacrificing its own life. Its senses were screaming in its ears, saying that Rex was extremely dangerous. Compared to earlier, he was more dangerous now.
Every part of its being was telling it to kill this man right now.
Rex straightened his back and met the Faceless Reaper’s eyes fearlessly, amused by its reaction.
“You’re a mere voidal monster, but you’re not dumb.” Rex nodded, applauding the Faceless Reaper to acknowledge his change. Applauding it for realizing the man standing before it right now was not Rex, but the Invincible Apparition instead. “Save me the trouble of slowly making you realize that you need to go all out.”
Overbearingly, when the powerful aura settled, Rex spread his arms to the side.
A welcoming gesture that the Faceless Reaper takes as a mockery.
“Come… Stimulate my existence.”
Boom!
Rex only blinked once, but during that fleeting moment, the Faceless Reaper covered the space between them—and hacked him with its scythe-arms. The blade struck against Rex’s armor with a dull sound of steel, sending him crashing away.
It was a devastating strike.
He shot like a comet, smashing through house after house, yet his momentum refused to die.
Everything spun hard as he stumbled onto the square, crashing against the fountain before eventually meeting the ground again. Rex looked down at his armor, and it was dented from one slash, even though it was made of a durable, high-quality material.
A faint smile crossed his face as he stood up again.
But the moment he turned, the Faceless Reaper was already on him.
Bam!
Rex’s eyes widened when the air in his lungs was forced out when the knee connected.
Once again, he was thrown—but this time, he was spinning skyward.
Moving at the speed of lightning, thundering with every step it made, the Faceless Reaper blurred and reappeared above Rex. It raised both scythe-arms overhead and hacked down again—with all its might, slamming Rex back into the ground.
A cloud of dust exploded upward, shrouding the entire city square.
One might wait until the cloud dispersed and see how Rex was, to see if he was hurt from the attacks.
But the Faceless Reaper wasn’t that kind of creature.
It knew that there was a time limit before its body shut down, and it needed to make use of every second.
Besides, to kill someone, it was best not to give any chance to breathe.
Attacking until the enemy’s death was certain.
Ngoong!!
Crossing its scythe-arms together, making an X, the Faceless Reaper charged its limbs with an immense amount of voidal energy. It drew upon the blood beads it consumed, allowing the voidal energy to veer away from its heart and clot in its scythe-arms.
One could see its arms trembling with tremendous power, the red outline growing thicker by the second.
Just then, its head was yanked backward when a hand grabbed its face.
Rex was already upon it, his eyes excited, but there was no more smile on his face—only the sheer thrill of battle. His molten eyes bore into the Faceless Reaper, “A knee to the stomach? Are there combat schools for monsters in the Black Rift?”
As he made those remarks, he pulled the Faceless Reaper by the face and threw it down.
Boom!
It was slammed into the square, right where Rex plummeted earlier.
Landing gracefully, Rex looked at his other hand and realized it was tilting unnaturally.
His elbow was broken, but he calmly fixed it.
“My other side fought against Demons in the Mortal Realm, vicious ones who eat babies and kill the helpless and weak. Most call them the Rastrikan Demons,” He said while arranging his arm back to its place and letting his regeneration do the rest. “But in the end, they feared my other side. He even became the embodiment of death to those Rastrikan Demons. Compared to them, you look like a mascot—soft, harmless, and barely wick—”
Before Rex could finish his sentence, a trailing cloud separated from the cloud of dust.
Looming with rage and hatred behind Rex, the Faceless Reaper swung.
Bam!
However, instead of throwing Rex away, its scythe-arm stopped an inch away from his face.
Rex pinched the blade with his hand, stopping it mid-track.
Glancing at the furious Faceless Reaper, his eyes glistened.
“I’m stronger than my other side, while you struggled against him,” He continued with confidence. “So, tell me, what hope do you really have? You should go down to your knees and ask me to kill you. It would be an honor.”
Roar!
Bam!
Another slash struck.
Rex caught the scythe-arm once more, but the force behind this strike was far greater than the previous one. Even prepared, the impact drove him back step after step until he finally anchored himself on the sixth, his stance locked against the crushing power.
Giving no time to breathe at all, the Faceless Reaper struck again.
But this time, it was aimed at Rex’s face.
Slash!
As before, the Faceless Reaper had calculated the exchange.
Surely, this strike would not simply push Rex back—but it would carve him open.
Like a haunting blade hungering for flesh, the crimson edge of its scythe-arm sliced horizontally in a direct arc toward Rex’s face, the kind of blow meant to end the fight in one decisive stroke. However, the moment the weapon-limb met flesh, the Faceless Reaper felt it—the impossible resistance.
The blade rang as though it had struck stone, jarring up its arm with a shuddering recoil.
It was like trying to cleave a mountain with a rusted blade; the only thing that suffered was the wielder.
Unlike the previous strike, the impact didn’t fling Rex away.
Instead, it merely forced his head sideways, his body unmoved, rooted like an unbreakable pillar. Even as the Faceless Reaper pressed harder, unwilling to accept this result, pouring its strength into the slash, Rex resisted.
His muscles strained as he wrenched his head back into place.
Despite the resistance, he turned to face the Faceless Reaper once again by raw strength alone.
Blood ran freely down his torn cheek, his skin split open where the edge had bitten. The scythe-arm had stopped only when it struck his teeth, his canines to be exact, that were harder than steel, grinding against them with a sickening scrape.
But Rex didn’t flinch.
His mouth was split and bleeding, but his eyes burned with feverish light.
Just from his expression alone, it was clear that he became more excited.
He liked it that the Faceless Reaper hit him harder.
Rex coiled his hands around its arm, gripping it tightly, and then made a sudden pull.
He pulled the Faceless Reaper hard and made a headbutt.
A painful grunt escaped from the Faceless Reaper’s mouth—as its face met with Rex’s extremely hard forehead. Blood was drawn as it stumbled backward, but there was nowhere to go with Rex’s hands still wrapped around its arm tightly.
Using his other hand, Rex wiped his face from bottom to top.
His face was still flat, but there was a hint of satisfaction now, as if the moment was a pleasure.
Just as he lowered his hand again, the Faceless Reaper already threw its face forward.
Bam!
It threw back a headbutt, cracking Rex’s nose and drawing blood.
Despite the excruciating pain that made his eyes watery, a faint smirk tugged on his lips.
“Finally,” He mumbled with a level, but clearly excited tone. “Someone who can actually fight!”
Rex pulled on the Faceless Reaper and reached out with his other hand.
His claws dug deep into the creature, shredding through sinew until they hooked around its collarbones, securing a handle as though the creature were nothing more than prey in his grasp. With a violent tug, he hauled the Faceless Reaper forward and drove his forehead into its face again.
Going back and forth, headbutting each other is quite fun.
For the Invincible Apparition, the dizziness it brought was akin to being drunk, and it was addictive.
However, the skull-cracking impact never came.
Instead, Rex noticed the Faceless Reaper bursting apart, dissolving into a spray of blood.
It didn’t splash onto him, but rather, plummeted to the ground and seeped into the earth.
“Tch!”
Rex clicked his tongue, his expression hardening as he was expecting a brawl, but it seemed the Faceless Reaper realized—that it was a disadvantage. Seeing how Rex was regenerating fast, going against him head-on would only be playing by his rules.
Until the Black Rift’s dark smoke arrived, it couldn’t afford to clash directly like that.
Several auras were picked up by Rex’s senses.
He swept his eyes across the battlefield—only to find the phantoms already circling around.
At least ten of them surrounded him, their figures shifting in and out of solidity, perched atop shattered rubble and the broken rooftops around him. Each radiated the oppressive weight of a Master Immortal Spirit rank, their mere pressure pressing like a storm upon the air.
One by one, their arms ignited with a sinister glow.
A seething crimson energy like molten veins under their skin.
Clearly, it was Haxel’s Echo’s doing, the Berserker of Skartold Echo, giving them more power.
Instead of lamenting, Rex raised his hand, palm open, and beckoned, “Come.”
Hating Rex for what he had done, the phantoms obeyed.
Roar!
In the blink of an eye, they launched forward—descending upon him in a crimson tide.
And what followed was utter chaos.
Blades of blood and claw clashed against flesh—and fang as Rex moved in a blur, his body a storm of violent precision. He ducked beneath a sweeping strike, caught another phantom’s wrist mid-thrust, and snapped it like dry wood before hurling the creature into the others.
More approached from behind.
Rex twisted, claws flashing as he carved an arc through their midsections, and he spun back into guard.
Every movement was honed to perfection, rid of any wasted moves—he wove his extreme-level of martial arts mastery with feral instinct. His reflexes read the battlefield before his eyes even registered the blows.
He was so fast and precise that he was about even despite being surrounded.
But he couldn’t endure the urge to bite and savor their flesh and blood.
It annoyed him to realize that all they were made of was blood, so there’s nothing much to savor.
Nimbly, he parried three attacks at once, almost taking a knee from the force.
Gritting his teeth, he pushed them back before shrieking his claws against their scythe-arms, then made a counter with a savage rising knee—that caved a phantom’s chest inward, almost causing it to splash back into blood.
Even then, the phantom crumpled—thrown like a rag doll into the ruins of a nearby tower.
All of that happened in a fraction of a second.
It was how fast the battle was, faster than anyone at the Master Immortal Spirit rank could imagine.
And with every clash, the air rang with the sound of their impacts—bodies slamming into brick walls and stones, claws tearing through flesh, the whistling of voidal and life energy, and even the collapse of buildings.
Every heartbeat was a whisper from destruction.
Despite that, the phantoms weren’t mindless fodder.
Some of their attacks slipped past Rex’s defenses, too, regardless of how fast his reflexes were.
Blades of crimson pierced into his side, gauging out blood through his gritted teeth—and when they struck, they twisted. It was unknown where they learned this from, but with every successful attack, they made a merciless twist that tore the entry wound wider than it should be.
Rex’s snarl deepened, his blood spilling freely, but his anger only rose.
His wounds were stitched in an instant, and his muscles bulged stronger.
Unknowingly, such a display made the phantoms feel one thing that they had never felt before: despair.
A new taste to their fleeting lives.
For every blow Rex received, he gave back threefold.
But his euphoria was halted when the Faceless Reaper made its appearance again.
It seeped out from the ground and manifested back to its physical form, but its arms were charged.
As Rex glanced over his shoulder, the Faceless Reaper dashed for the finishing strike.