Chapter 22: New Authority! Haru vs. Voban!

~/ 10 Advanced Chapters on Patreon!!

~/ Extra Chapter Every 300 Power Stones!!

<><><><><><><>

A massive army of ten thousand undead surged towards Doni like a tidal wave, gradually engulfing him. Unfazed, Doni raised his sword, a thrill of excitement coursing through him as he prepared to face the onslaught of dragons, wolves, and an army of the dead.

Ignoring Doni, who was now embroiled in a chaotic battle against the undead legion, Voban focused his attention on the seemingly unimposing young man before him. He remained unmoved as the massive moon plummeted from the sky. When it was less than fifty meters away, a ripping sound filled the air as Voban's clothes were shredded, his body undergoing a drastic transformation.

Thick blue fur sprouted, covering his entire body. His fingers morphed into vicious claws, his nose elongated into a snout, and his lips stretched back, revealing sharp fangs. In an instant, Voban had transformed into a colossal blue werewolf, towering thirty meters tall. He raised his massive paws, effortlessly catching the red-hot moon as it hurtled towards him like a meteor. Then, opening his gaping maw, he took a huge bite out of the celestial body.

His jaws unhinged, expanding impossibly wide, swallowing the fifty-meter moon whole. A crunching sound echoed through the basin as he devoured it in a few massive bites. The giant werewolf smacked his lips with satisfaction. "Compared to the Sun God's fiery orb, this moon has a more refined flavor, like a fine Austrian cheese."

The monstrous beast turned his predatory gaze towards the diminutive figure protected by the orbiting moons, his eyes filled with a savage battle lust. "Since you've stolen my intended prey, you'll have to serve as the quarry for this hunt. Struggle as much as you like. I'll teach you, as a junior, the proper respect you owe your elders."

A gale whipped through the basin, swirling around the werewolf, minimizing air resistance and increasing his already monstrous strength by thirty percent. Rain lashed down, and a bolt of lightning split the sky. The werewolf caught the lightning bolt in his hand, wielding it like Zeus with his thunderbolts. His emerald eyes flashed, and Haru's movements stuttered, momentarily paralyzed. The werewolf seized the opportunity, hurling the lightning spear towards him.

The spear of lightning blazed across the distance, seemingly traversing space itself as it reached Haru in an instant.

Haru's pupils constricted. The miniature moons orbiting him pulsed with energy, shifting their trajectories to intercept the attack, forming a protective barrier before him.

A tremendous explosion rocked the basin, sending a massive mushroom cloud billowing skyward. Black smoke billowed outwards, engulfing half the valley. 

Simultaneously, Voban unleashed another Authority – Tempestuous Fury. He commanded the wind and lightning, bombarding Haru with a relentless barrage of ten-billion volt lightning bolts and razor-sharp wind blades capable of slicing through diamond.

An infinite, invisible force pulsed outwards. The black smoke, the raging lightning, and the razor-sharp wind were all disrupted by the terrifying power of repulsion. The attack, warped by the force that rejected all things, veered off course, narrowly missing Haru, scarring the distant landscape with scorched earth and deep gashes.

Haru waved his hand, summoning the twelve miniature moons once more. They scattered outward, distorting the surrounding space, sending out invisible waves that disrupted the gravitational field. Voban, caught in the sudden gravitational flux, froze mid-stride.

Within Haru's body, his Golden Core pulsed violently. A full moon materialized in the sky, its gravitational pull amplified tenfold by the distortions in the surrounding space. Drawn by the intensified gravity, the moon hurtled towards Voban at a speed of forty kilometers per second, mimicking the cataclysmic impact that wiped out the dinosaurs sixty-five million years ago.

The moon slammed into the spot where Voban stood. It crashed into the ground, yet no tremor shook the earth. Only a soft, rasping sound filled the air as white dust billowed outwards, engulfing the battlefield.

Haru caught a handful of the dust, examining it closely. He rubbed it between his fingers. "Salt!"

With a deafening roar, the giant werewolf reappeared. His eyes blazed with a green light, resembling demonic orbs - the Eyes of Sodom, stolen from the One-Eyed God of War, Horus. He had neutralized the moon's impact by turning it into salt.

"Not bad, kid. But you're still too young!" Voban sneered, his jaws stretching wide in a mocking grin.

Haru remained silent. His eyes flickered, and every rock within the basin rose into the air. With a wave of his hand, the rocks, heated by air friction, became fiery meteors, hurtling towards Voban in a dense and inescapable barrage.

The sky roared with thunder, lightning flashed, and wind howled. Before the rocks could reach Voban, they were intercepted by the storm, reduced to charred fragments or shattered into dust, falling harmlessly to the ground.

"Is that all you've got?!" Voban roared. He charged forward on all fours, like a proud alpha wolf. His fur shed, detaching from his body and transforming into a pack of thousands of monstrous, brown-furred wolves the size of bulls, a ravenous horde rushing towards Haru.

At that moment, the egg finally finished annihilating Siegfried's divine power, analyzing the information and extracting its world rules.

Siegfried, a hero from Norse mythology and the German epic poem *Nibelungenlied*. He had ascended to godhood through three great feats: forging a legendary sword (the tale of Gram's creation), inheriting a divine weapon (Gram passed down from his ancestor, the Norse god Odin), and slaying a dragon to gain its power (killing the dragon Fafnir and gaining immortality).

The dragon, the world tree from which the magical sword Gram was forged, and the very earth itself – all were embodiments of the earth's power. It was no exaggeration to say that Siegfried's strength originated from the earth.

Just as ancient people mined the earth for metal to forge iron weapons, the rare steel produced in ancient times represented the pinnacle of military might.

Because the essence of Siegfried's myth was rooted in the earth, his divine power contained the rules for drawing strength from the earth and transforming it into the power of steel.

The egg extracted these rules from Siegfried's divine power, instilling the most compatible one into Haru's very soul. As the rule merged with his soul, it transformed, according to the laws of the Campione world, into a new Authority!

----

Gazing at the approaching wolf pack, Haru charged forward with a triumphant laugh. "Round two begins, Voban!"

"I shall become steel!!!"

Haru activated his newly acquired Authority – Steel Incarnate. This power, born from the egg's analysis of the Steel God of War he had faced, allowed him to embody the essence of steel. 

As the Authority took hold, primal runes manifested across Haru's body, coalescing into a shadowy figure with bat-like wings, a lizard's head, and a long, serpentine body, enveloping him completely. It was the same form Siegfried had taken when he bathed in the blood of the dragon Fafnir, achieving his immortal, steel-infused body.

This terrifying power doubled Haru's already enhanced physique, which was ten times that of a normal Campione. He felt a surge of strength so immense he believed he could lift Mount Everest.

His body glowed red-hot as he took a single step, breaking through one hundred times the speed of sound. The shockwave from his movement alone, like a roar from the heavens, pulverized Voban's monstrous wolf pack into a bloody paste.

Haru unleashed a devastating right hook. His fist, moving faster than the human eye could perceive, blurred into a series of afterimages. It was a single punch, yet it seemed like countless punches at once, a manifestation of the principle of "One becoming Two, Two becoming Three, and Three becoming all things." The air around his fist ignited from the friction, creating a rainbow of colors as he unleashed a torrent of light composed of millions upon millions of punches, like a thousand-armed God.

Voban, caught off guard by Haru's sudden surge in speed, reacted instinctively. In a desperate attempt to defend himself, he summoned the Hecatoncheires, a monstrous hundred-eyed giant he had slain and enslaved as an undead servant years ago. The earth buckled as Voban disappeared underground, replaced by a fifty-meter tall behemoth wielding a massive wooden club, its head covered in countless eyes.

The Hecatoncheires roared, attempting to meet Haru's onslaught head-on. Time seemed to freeze for a heartbeat. Then, with a sickening crunch, the giant, who had been summoned barely a second ago, was reduced to a pulp, instantly incinerated by the superheated air ignited by Haru's punches. Not even the power of the Death Authority could resurrect it.

The spectral image of Fafnir surrounding Haru vanished, replaced by a sword – Gram, the legendary demon blade, forged from a dragon's tooth, a meter long and fifty centimeters wide, shaped like the fang of a monstrous predator.

*I shall become steel!*

*O sword of light and shadow, rending all things, the world has reached its twilight hour. Strike down the dragon of evil!*

Chanting the incantation, Haru swung Gram, the Demon Blade of Twilight. A dazzling torrent of light blasted towards the darkened depths of the earth, pursuing Voban.

The brilliant light illuminated the underground cavern. In the center stood the thirty-meter tall werewolf, his jaws stretched wide in a defiant grin. "Using light as your trump card against me? That's your biggest mistake!"

"Devour it, Wolf of Greed!"

The werewolf's maw expanded impossibly wide, swallowing the torrent of light whole.

"Tch!" Gram vanished from Haru's hand. The spectral image of Fafnir reappeared, and he unleashed another torrent of punches toward the depths, a divine king descending from the heavens, his power capable of shattering the earth.

"Trying the same trick twice? Tempestuous Fury!" Lightning bolts crashed into Voban's werewolf form, his body glowing with a blue electric aura. His strength surged, and he swung his massive claws with supersonic speed, unleashing a flurry of claw strikes that met Haru's onslaught head-on. The two forces collided, canceling each other out. However, the impact triggered a magnitude 8 earthquake, causing the cavern to expand dramatically. The ground beneath Haru crumbled, sending him plummeting into the depths along with a shower of debris.

Before Haru could regain his footing, Voban attacked, swinging a massive claw three meters wide.

Haru, anticipating the attack, countered with both fists, striking the fleshy pad at the center of Voban's claws, halting their descent. A deep thud echoed through the cavern.

"You're pretty good, kid," Voban growled, offering a grudging compliment.

"Thanks!" Haru retorted, mimicking Voban's grim tone.

In a flash, Haru channeled eighty percent of his strength into a devastating kick aimed at Voban's groin.

*Tick... Tick...* Seconds ticked by, followed by a sound like an eggshell cracking.

Voban's eyes bulged, blood vessels bursting as he frantically released Haru's arms, clutching his groin with both paws. "I'll kill you!!!" he roared, his voice trembling with pain.

Instantly, Voban's form vanished, replaced by a monstrous black dragon, thirty meters long. The air reeked of sulfur as the dragon, its body covered in obsidian scales, opened its maw, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth, and lunged toward Haru.

"Using a dragon as your trump card against *me*? That's *your* biggest mistake!" Haru countered, echoing Voban's earlier taunt. He roared the incantation for Steel Incarnate. *I shall become steel!*

Gram materialized once more, radiating blinding light. The torrent of light reappeared, piercing through space and time, impaling the colossal black dragon, pinning it to the cavern wall.

*Drip... Drip...* Black dragon blood splattered across the ground, sizzling and dissolving the rock, leaving the cavern floor pockmarked with corrosive craters.

The black dragon slowly faded away, replaced by Voban, his human form pale and aged.

"You... you win this time, kid. But don't get cocky. Don't you dare die at the hands of anyone else!" The silver-haired old man snarled, his voice echoing through the cavern as his form retreated into the netherworld.

Moments later, a voice called down from above.

"Hey, buddy, it seems you've acquired a rather interesting Authority, haven't you?" With a thud, a young man with golden hair dropped into the cavern from the opening above. It was Salvatore Doni, the silver-armed King of Swords. 

"That *is* a pretty cool ability! How about we spar sometime?" Doni said, eyeing the spot where Voban's dragon form had been pinned, his face alight with excitement.

"Get lost, you idiot! You got held up by a bunch of cannon fodder!" Exhausted from the intense battle, Haru slumped to the ground, weakly cursing Doni.

"Sorry, sorry. The old man's ancient knights had some pretty impressive sword techniques. I had to spend some time learning them, you know. But thanks to him, I hit the jackpot this time!" Doni laughed cheerfully, genuinely happy with the progress he had made in his swordsmanship.

"Hey, hey, you're not thinking of testing those new techniques on me, are you?!" Haru scowled, watching the idiotic swordsman gesture at him with his blade.

"Is that a problem?" Doni replied with a blank stare.

"Get the hell out of here! I'm going home!" Haru stood up, brushing the dust off his clothes. With a few powerful leaps, he reached the surface and sped off towards the spot where he had left Sora.

"Wait for me!" Doni's shouts echoed through the cavern as Haru disappeared. 

<><><><><><><>

To be Continued..

..