LRAB Chapter 55 Berserker
Chapter 55 Berserker
The next morning, Arthur was awakened by the tremors of the Dragonforce River.
The underground river of magic is roaring.
He sat up in bed, his dragon eyes opening, and a ball of gray-black light was approaching the mansion.
It was a pure "heavy" feeling, each step like a moving mountain, possessing a crushing magic.
Ayaka was already standing in the living room, her notebook open on the table, turned to the page on "Servant Class Characteristics".
"The magic attribute is 'heavy,' which is pure weight. Only Berserkers possess this attribute; Berserk compresses magic into a tangible form."
Her pen touched the paper, "My father wrote on page sixty-one the characteristics of berserk magic—as heavy as a thousand pounds, every strike sinks."
Arthur walked to the window, where the dark gray light had already entered the precise observation range of the Dragon Eye.
He was abnormally tall, nearly 2.5 meters, and his entire body was encased in heavy gray-black armor, with dark red light seeping from the gaps in the armor.
It is the light of blood and fury.
His helmet covered his entire face, with two very obvious scarlet dots at the slits of his eyes. He carried a giant axe, the blade dragging on the ground, carving a deep furrow in the asphalt.
"Hercules," Arthur said.
Ayaka's pen paused on the paper for a moment. "Hercules from Greek mythology, the Twelve Trials."
She looked up at him, her dark eyes meeting his. "How did you know it was him?"
"What my eyes see, the scent of blood in the magic, is the blood of monsters, the Hydra, the Nemean Lion, Cerberus."
The blood of the monsters he slew in his lifetime seeped into his magic.
Arthur hung the sword from the lake at his waist, thinking, "He's the only hero I can think of."
Ayaka lowered her head and quickly wrote in her notebook, "Hercules, Berserk state."
After finishing writing, she closed her notebook. "Let's go out."
Arthur looked at her. "Okay."
The street in front of the mansion was deserted, all the neighbors' windows were closed, and even the birds had stopped chirping.
Berserker stood at the end of the street, the morning light shining from behind him, stretching his shadow long and long, all the way to Arthur's feet.
With each breath he exhaled, the dark red light from the gaps in his armor brightened a little more.
Arthur drew the sword from the lake, its azure blade gleaming in the morning light, and Berserker's crimson eyes locked onto him.
Then he moved, very quickly, as if he "collapsed," like a mountain avalanche.
The giant axe was lifted from the ground, leaving behind asphalt debris, and drew a gray-black arc in the air.
Arthur turned to the side, the axe blade grazing his shoulder and slicing into the ground, shattering the asphalt.
The pebbles reached his calves, and the blast wave made his blond hair fly back.
Before the axe blade could be pulled from the ground, Berserker's second strike had already arrived, his knee slamming into Arthur's chest with an absurd speed.
Arthur drew his sword and slammed his knee into the spine of the blade. The sword made a dull thud, and Arthur slid backward, his shoes carving two shallow furrows in the asphalt.
His arms were numb and his hands were burning, but Berserker wouldn't give him a chance to catch his breath. The giant axe swung down a third time, a fourth time, and a fifth time.
Each strike was faster and heavier than the last.
Arthur's dragon power channels fully expanded, the heart of the furnace turned four times and then one, and dragon power surged up from the depths of the riverbed, pouring into his legs.
He began to move, his dragon eyes locking onto the dark red light emanating from the gaps in the Berserker armor, watching the "pulse" of the light.
Each pulse corresponds to one heartbeat, and Berserker's heartbeat is extremely fast, abnormally fast.
That wasn't his natural heartbeat; it was a frequency forcibly injected into him in a berserk state.
"Ayaka!" Arthur called out as he moved.
Ayaka's voice came from the entrance of the mansion, "His berserk state isn't natural! His heart rate and mana supply are out of sync!"
Her pen scratched across the paper, "The source of my heartbeat isn't him!"
Arthur's dragon eyes traced the pulse of the dark red light backward. The light seeped out from the gaps in Berserker's armor, but its source was not inside his body.
Behind him, at the end of his shadow, a very thin, almost invisible thread of magic extended from the back of his neck and disappeared into the void.
The other end of the thread is connected to someone who is not on the battlefield.
Fanatic Sangreed Farn.
He forcibly instilled madness into Hercules with his own faith.
With each of his prayers, the silk threads vibrated once, and with each vibration, Berserker's heartbeat was forced to quicken; he was driving Berserker into a frenzy.
Arthur understood, and then he stopped dodging and waited for the gaps in the vibration of the silk threads.
Faith is not a continuous burning flame; even the prayers of fanatics have moments of respite, and in those moments, the thread will loosen.
coming.
With a slight loosening of the silk thread, Arthur's dragon power surged forth, his furnace core shifting from four beats to half a beat, dragon power flowing into his right arm, and the sword in the lake drew a lake-blue arc of light.
Instead of slashing at Berserker, it struck at the extremely thin magical thread at the back of his neck.
The art of killing gods does not sever the physical body, but rather the cause and effect.
The moment the sword light sliced through the silk thread, the thread snapped and untied, just like unwinding a string that had been wound too tightly.
Berserker's giant axe stopped in mid-air, the dark red light in the gaps in his armor flickering violently, and the berserk magic that had been forcibly injected lost its rhythm and began to wreak havoc within his body.
Berserker let out a low growl.
Arthur did not pursue. He sheathed his sword and took a step back. Berserker knelt on one knee, his giant axe driven into the ground to support his body.
The dark red light in the gaps of the armor gradually stabilized, no longer a frenzied scarlet, but a deeper, darker red, closer to the color of rust.
The berserk state wasn't lifted, but the "infused" connection was severed, and his heartbeat returned to his own hand.
The streets quieted down, and the morning light filtered through the gaps in the buildings, illuminating Berserker's grey-black armor.
Ayaka's voice came from the entrance of the mansion, "Did you untangle that thread?"
"Um."
"I didn't cut it off."
"Sever him, and he will die, and his Master will die too." Arthur looked at Hercules, who was kneeling on one knee.
"Untie him, and he'll simply no longer be bound."
Hercules raised his head, and the two points of light in his crimson eyes no longer flickered wildly. He looked at Arthur as if he were someone who "recognized something."
Then he stood up, pulled the giant axe from the ground, hoisted it onto his shoulder, turned around, and walked towards the other end of the street.
The giant, whose steps were as heavy as mountains, took a few steps and then stopped without looking back.
"Roar~"
Hercules' figure disappeared into the shadows between the buildings.
Ayaka walked over from the entrance of the mansion and stood next to Arthur, holding a notebook in her hands. One page was densely filled with records of the berserk magic pulsations.
She stared in the direction Berserker had disappeared. "Why did he leave? And what did that shout mean?"
"Hercules was driven mad by Hera during his lifetime, and he killed his wife and children with his own hands. That period of madness was his own." Arthur sheathed his sword.
"His Master merely awakened his own berserk state and then forcibly 'replaced' him with faith. Now I have untied that thread that replaced him."
Ayaka was silent for a moment, her short brown hair swaying gently in the morning breeze. "So, is he now, the person he was before someone else turned him into a berserk individual?"
"Um."
She looked up. "So, do we have one more enemy, or one less?"
"We have one less enemy who was tied up, but one more enemy who wants to fight again in his own way."
"Can we win?"
"We will win."
Ayaka closed the notebook and stuffed it into her pocket. "That's not so bad."
Back at the mansion, there was an extra letter in the mailbox in the entryway. Ayaka glanced at it, then handed it to Arthur, "It's from my sister."
The envelope still had one line on it: "Don't forget dinner."
Ayaka walked into the living room, opened her notebook, turned to the Berserker page, and her pen scratched across the paper.
Arthur stood by the window, the river channel at Merry's anchor point was glowing, and beside it, the very pale blue was a little darker than yesterday.
Mary sensed the battle raging on her side, so she contacted him.
He placed his hand on his chest, conveying the message of "peace".
After a long time, the river channel at the anchor point responded, and the final tremor became shorter.
The question "Who did you meet?" has been replaced with "I know."
Inside the Western-style mansion on the other side of the river.
Aige stood in the kitchen, the refrigerator door open, looking inside.
She reached out, took the eggs out of the refrigerator, and placed them on the counter, moving a little faster than yesterday.
The omniscient and omnipotent Root Connector, for the first time, she did something not because she "wanted to know".
The first time, she did something because she "thought about it".