Chapter 864 - Let's Rumble [Part 2]
The Deadlands was a world that hovered between the borders of Life and Death.
Those who appeared in this world had their own circumstances and goals, but there was one thing that all of them had in common.
They all wanted to live.
The same could be said for the Great Earl of Hell, who had escaped the pursuit of the other Gods who had intended to kill him.
Currently, Morax was looking at the Half-Elf who had taken part in the destruction of his plan to regain his Godlike Powers, and to take revenge on those that had made his life miserable.
"If only you hadn't appeared here," Morax said as he gritted his teeth.
He didn't know how many times he had said this out loud and in thoughts.
His hate for William had now surpassed his hatred to the Gods that had forced him to hide in this God-forsaken-place. If looks could kill, the Half-Elf would have died many times over.
"Now, it's just you and me," William said. "Let's rumble."
Morax, who had already absorbed the souls of his subordinates, didn't respond to William's words.
He simply held his Axe that had been forged in the fires of Hell. Its name was Fleshrender, Destroyer of the Night.
He couldn't unleash its full powers because it was a weapon that only Gods could activate. Right now, he had forcefully raised his rank to the Pseudo-God Realm, which allowed him to use some of its abilities.
Morax didn't even think for a moment that he would need to use his powers to deal with a mortal who only stayed in the Deadlands for a little over a month. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but it was something that he had to accept.
"You want to rumble?" Morax laughed out loud. His laughter was filled with anger and frustration. For a mere mortal to treat him like some second rate villain that the Half-Elf could easily beat made the Demonic Earl's blood boil like lava.
"Very well," Morax stated after he finished laughing. "Time for you to understand what it means to fight against a God."
This time he no longer cared about the consequences of his actions. The only thing in his mind was to obliterate the annoying insect that was standing in front of him.
"Devastate all opposition!" Morax raised the blood-red-axe with both of his hands. "Fleshrender!"
A shrill sound that resembled fingernails scratching a chalkboard made the entire world shudder.
Space cracks started to appear on the sky, on the ground, as Morax activated the power of his Divine Weapon.
"Die Half-Elf!" Morax hatefully roared as he swung his Axe in front of him.
William immediately turned into a lightning bolt and flew towards the sky. A second later, a powerful explosion shook the entire battlefield, which sent dust and smoke flying upwards.
The Half-Elf glanced at the gigantic crack that formed on the ground, which had split a quarter of the Deadlands into two halves. Unfortunately, Morax didn't give him time to observe the destruction he had made, before appearing in front of the Half-Elf mid-swing.
William raised Mjolnir and met Morax's attack head-on. A loud cracking sound was heard as the two weapons collided.
A few moments later, the Half-Elf crashed on the ground, with blood gushing out of his mouth.
Before William could even understand what happened, the Earl of Hell had once again reappeared in front of him with Fleshrender going down for the kill.
"Mjolnir!" William roared as the hammer exuded lightning sparks from its body.
William's body was pressed down on the ground, creating a crater over a hundred-meters wide.
Morax didn't relent his barrage and pummeled the Half-Elf with the intention to kill. Each and every time their weapons clashed, the bones in William's hand and arms broke. If not for his powerful regeneration, and the laws of the world reinforcing his arms would have definitely turned into meat paste.
Knowing that he wouldn't be able to launch a counter-attack at his current situation, the Half-Elf turned into a lightning bolt and skid across the ground in order to gain some distance from his enemy and to break Morax's momentum.
However, the Demonic Earl didn't allow him to take a breather and followed after him in a beam of golden light.
Every second that passed, William was being pushed back without gaining the ability to counter-attack. Earlier, he was able to match Morax's strength because of his suppression that had forced the God's rank to plummet to the middle-stages of a Demigod.
Now that his enemy had forcefully absorbed his subordinates soul, the disparity between them became apparent.
A Pseudo-God might not be a God, but it is the closest thing to being one.
"What's wrong? Cat got your tongue?" Morax sneered as he continued to deliver deadly blows that could cut a Demigod in Half.
William's body was in an endless cycle of breaking down and regeneration. He noticed that Morax was forcing him to enter one of the spatial cracks that he had created around the Deadlands.
If not for the fact that he could turn into a lightning bolt and dodge the spatial cracks, he might have already been sent somewhere in the vast multiverse, leaving his important people behind.
This one-sided pummeling continued for nearly twenty-minutes before William stopped retreating and smashed Mjolnir into Morax's chest, sending the Demonic Earl flying.
"Okay, warm up is over," William declared as blood spilled at the corner of his lips. "I gave you the chance, but you weren't even able to hurt me. Weakling!"
Cathy who was inside the Black Tower felt a strong urge to smack the Half-Elf's head at the moment.
However, since this was not the time to do that, she just stood in the center of the throne room as she passed the calculation power of the Black Tower into the red-headed teenager's head.
William had learned the second Law of the Deadlands and this allowed him to repel Morax's relentless attack with a single blow. However, this required extreme and complicated calculations that the Half-Elf wasn't able to do.
In order to utilize this law, he needed the calculation abilities of the Black Tower, which Cathy had passed to him.
Morax who had been pushed back by William glanced at the Half-Elf in confusion. However, this only lasted for a brief moment before he once again charged at the Half-Elf who was hovering above him.
"Too slow," William sneered as he vanished from his spot.
This time around, Morax saw the Half-Elf appear in front of him with Mjolnir in mid-strike.
He immediately raised his weapon to block, but Mjolnir had already smashed into the side of his face before he could even raise his Axe to defend against the attack.
Just like he did to William earlier, the Half-Elf didn't stop and unleashed a barrage of attacks that smashed every part of Morax's body.
The Second Law of the Deadlands was Vector Manipulation. This allowed William to have complete control over anything that moved in his vicinity. He could forcefully slow or increase the speed of anything that moved.
For example, if he threw a rock, that rock's speed could reach almost the speed of light, thereby making a devastating weapon in the Half-Elf's hands.
Unfortunately, this required precise calculations, which William was unable to do on his own. The Black Tower was like a super computer that managed everything in the Deadlands. With Cathy's help, these calculations were passed over to William.
All he needed to do was execute them like a program, and the effect would work instantly.
"Die!" William unleashed a full powered strike that had been imbued by the Third Law of the Deadlands.
However, before his attack could land. A crack appeared behind Morax, letting his body disappear in a tear in space.
William didn't stop his attack and fired a powerful lightning bolt at the tear of space, in the hope that it would hit the blasted Earl of Hell into pieces.
After William's attack ended, the spatial tear disappeared completely, leaving nothing behind.
William scanned his surroundings. He believed that Morax had only relocated himself somewhere in the Deadlands using the power of Space.
Because of this same power, the Demonic Earl managed to escape the pursuit of the other Gods and managed to save his life by directly appearing in the Deadlands.
"This power should have been mine," Morax's hate-filled voice spread across the surroundings. "It should have been mine! You stole it from me!"
William frowned because even with his acute senses, he wasn't able to perceive where Morax was currently at.
The only thing he noticed was that the number of spatial cracks in the Deadlands had increased.
"I didn't want to resort to this, but you forced me to," Morax reappeared in one of the spatial cracks that he had created and stared at William from afar.
The Demonic Earl held a blood-red crystal in his hand and activated it.
"I agree to your proposal, but I have one favor to ask," Morax said as an image enveloped with flames appeared within the crystal.
"And that is?" a cold voice inquired.
William's body unconsciously shuddered when he heard the voice coming out of the crystal.
The voice was very familiar to him.
The owner of the voice was someone that he wished he could strangle in his dreams.
"I need you to take the Black Tower," Morax stated. "It is important to me."
"Very well," the cold voice replied. "Give me your coordinates."
Morax obliged and a sneer appeared on his face.
A few seconds later, a gigantic spatial tear appeared on the skies of the Deadlands.
From within it, two burning eyes that spoke of destruction appeared and gazed at the world of Life and Death with contempt.