Chapter 1038: The Next Step. 2 "...You know you won't land a hit, right?" "And who decided that?" Several voices that sounded like Scathach were heard. "I did." Victor smiled. "I didn't approve." Scathach suddenly grabbed the Spear in the air and looked down. "You can't move, right, Darling~?" Runes began to glow on Scathach's Spear, and a ridiculous crimson Power was concentrated in her hand. "Well, shit..." Victor laughed and began to prepare to defend against the attack because, as she said, he couldn't move from his position. Scathach opened her mouth and bent Reality by saying: "Pierce to infinity, Gae Bolg." The Spear was thrown towards Victor like an arrow of pure crimson Power. Victor's right arm turned completely dark, and the next moment, violet veins formed all over his arm. "Hold for me, Junketsu." [Yes!] Victor's arm was covered by his armor, and when the Spear and his hand met, a booming clash of Power erupted from the point of impact. The Spear and Victor's arm struggled for several seconds, but as time passed, everyone could see that the Spear was losing momentum, while Victor looked completely unconcerned. "Tsk." Scathach was annoyed that even her Technique failed to cause damage to Victor. Visibly, she expressed annoyance, but internally, she smiled as she saw Rose moving from the corner of her vision. As the Spear began to lose momentum, Rose appeared on Victor's left side. "Dawn." She attacked without holding back any strength; she moved with the intention to kill. Instinctively feeling the danger, Victor raised his left arm, and Junketsu immediately covered his arm as he defended the attack. For a moment, the space between the gauntlet and where the blade would hit completely broke apart, making the blade hit Victor's gauntlet directly. Victor turned his head to Rose. For an instant, Rose completely froze when she saw those cold violet eyes looking at her. She swallowed dryly and quickly moved out of her position. She made the right decision because the next second after she left, the area where she had been was completely annihilated from existence. An attack she did not see happen, but that would surely hurt a lot if it hit. Victor grabbed Scathach's Spear that was trying to return to her, and the next moment, he looked at his left hand. His gauntlet had a deep cut. "You did something very dangerous, Rose. For a moment, I almost lost control." Victor commented with an annoyed look. "...You used your left arm." Rose laughed. Victor's face became utterly expressionless, and he looked at his left arm again. Seeing that the gauntlet had been completely repaired from the previous attack, he laughed. "That's true, I used my left arm." "That's not all..." Scathach appeared next to Rose while pointing to the ground. "You moved." "...Indeed." Victor nodded as he looked at the ground, seeing marks where the attacks had pushed him. Victor laughed again in an amused voice as he threw the Spear to Scathach, and soon Junketsu returned to his body again. Victor 'lost'. It wasn't a very significant loss, considering they were just training, but still, he 'lost' in his own words. And a loss was a loss, and he wouldn't throw a tantrum about it. Reviewing the fight in his mind, he understood what happened. From the start, he had never stopped paying attention to Rose. If Rose had attacked 'normally', he wouldn't have reacted this way. What surprised him was that Rose attacked him with all her strength and the intention to kill; because of this, his instincts acted voluntarily to protect him, making him retaliate with an attack, one that even used the Divine Power of Destruction. If, at the last moment, Victor hadn't lowered the Power of his attack, Rose wouldn't have been able to dodge. 'Umu, this was a good lesson. I should start fighting more with Scathach and Rose giving it their all.' Victor nodded in satisfaction as he evolved once again. He might have lost, but he 'progressed'. "Progress, huh..." For some reason, this feeling filled Victor with a very strange sense of inner peace, as if he had taken an extremely powerful sedative. Amara and Roxanne, who were more deeply connected to Victor, immediately understood what he was going through. They both fell into absolute silence, preventing anything that might influence his state. With the same solemn look on his face, he looked at Rose and Scathach as he displayed a small smile, his body completely relaxed, and he felt extremely light, as if his body weight, which could even cause imbalance on planets, was nothing. "How long will you keep that expression? Are you satisfied just making me use my left arm and making me move from my position? Weren't you supposed to be Grandmasters of Martial Arts?" "What a disappointment. To think that my two Wives would be satisfied with just that." Scathach and Rose's eyes shone. That's right! Why were they satisfied with just that!? They were not children! They were Grandmasters who had taught several Disciples! "Victor..." Scathach murmured while her Spear glowed crimson red with several Runic symbols appearing. "You are seriously irritating me." "Indeed." Rose nodded as her sword was covered by a thin white aura, which grew in Power and quality. "Prepare yourself, Darling. I will show you why I am a Grandmaster." Rose took a stance while holding her sword. "I will not hold back anymore, Victor. I will make you pay for your snarky comments." Kali swallowed dry and took a deep breath. For a moment, she had completely forgotten to breathe. Ever since these women arrived, she had been completely ignored. She was annoyed by this, but when she saw their performance, especially those of Rose and Scathach, she fell silent. Even she didn't have the confidence to fight these two women at the same time. Morgana and Haruna were numb. They were just watching everything and felt great progress in their Martial Arts by observing. Meanwhile, Victor just smiled in the face of danger, but unlike his characteristic smile, this was a very peaceful smile. Whatever the source of the feeling he was experiencing, he was feeling too at peace now to care about it. In a somewhat unconscious and automatic manner, Victor stood up and placed his hand behind him as if he were grabbing something. Junketsu immediately reacted to Victor's desires, and a black Greatsword with violet hues appeared in his hand. Due to Victor's height, the sword looked completely perfect in his hand, but for anyone else, it would seem too large to wield. The blade of the sword was extremely sharp, and the entire body of the sword seemed to be made with pulsing Dragon Veins, showing that the sword was clearly alive. Badump, Badump. The sound of a heart beating was heard by everyone, and the next moment the veins on the Greatsword began to disappear, and Runes began to be written all over the body of the blade. Unknown Runes, Runes that, if one tried to understand, would only lead them to Madness, forbidden knowledge that few could access. The blade visibly began to darken even more until it took on shades of an Abyss. If it weren't for the bright violet Runes, the Greatsword would become completely invisible in the dark because it was so black. As the entire process of the sword's transformation occurred, an unknown pressure fell on everyone. Instead of feeling heavy, instead of feeling intimidated like they usually did... Victor's pressure invoked something that even the Highest Level Beings experienced. Fear... And not just any fear; it was a primordial fear that even affected Beings of great Power... The fear of the unknown. Once, a great writer named H.P. Lovecraft said: "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." And he was entirely right. Victor picked up the Greatsword and held it in front of him. In the next moment, he swung the sword to the left, and an entire piece of the moon was vaporized from existence. A dark aura covered Victor's body, and this aura merged with the Greatsword. "Prepare yourselves, my beloved Wives." Victor's voice came out in a rather sweet and distorted manner, a strange duality that left the two women completely tense. "I will no longer hold back either." Victor took a step forward, and his entire arm, holding the hilt of the Greatsword, took on the same appearance as before, impossibly dark with pulsing violet veins. Rose and Scathach looked at each other and nodded. As two Masters who had trained many people and who had already passed through Enlightenment themselves, they understood what was happening. Grotesque blood-red eyes appeared on Victor's arm and spread throughout the Greatsword, except for the blade. It was at this moment that they realized the strangeness of Victor, as if something was happening to him. Rose and Scathach looked at each other and nodded. As two Masters who had trained many people and who had already passed through Enlightenment themselves, they understood what was happening. The two promptly joined together and united to fight against Victor. What was once a training to help the girls, evolved into a duel... A duel in which Rose and Scathach would not stop participating in for anything in this world. … Victor felt at peace as if all the problems of the world suddenly no longer existed, and only he and the world existed. He felt connected to something. He felt progress, something he hadn't managed even after trying for 2000 years. Even though he didn't focus all his efforts on his Martial Arts but on his own Divinity, he never stopped training his Martial Arts, but progress had never been made. Because of this, he decided to focus on creating his own Martial Arts, Martial arts that fully used his monstrous body, and by creating these Martial Arts… He felt that he was close, yet at the same time, very far from reaching the next stage. Victor blinked his eyes, and again, he saw himself in that image. Large gates blocked his progress, gates that were full of cracks. Victor felt something as he looked to the right side and saw himself there but in a very different version. He had the form of a humanoid, but tentacles of dark Energy came out of his back, and his entire body was covered in blood-red eyes. That man was him, him in his Nightmare Form. Sensing another presence, he looked to the left and saw himself there, but this time, it was the version of him that was a Noble Vampire, a Vampire who had just finished his training with Scathach. "Hey, it's funny, isn't it?" The Vampire version of him spoke. "Indeed, it is funny." The version in his Nightmare Form spoke with a distorted voice. "A mere gate preventing my progress." The Vampire Victor spoke in disdain. "Limitations do not exist for me, so why is this here?" Eldritch Victor spoke, genuinely confused. .....