Emperor of Steel - Chapter 706
Chapter 706: Battle Between Father and Daughter 1
“Holy Bullet!”
“Huh, that can be blocked by Aegis.”
When Karen used Holy Bullets, Luke simply blocked them off by spreading out defense magic.
Karen immediately disappeared from her spot by using Blink and fired a powerful attack from behind.
“Thunder Bolt!”
Grrrng!
The moment Karen recited the spell and raised her hand, a lightning bolt appeared that went for Luke.
Fortunately, right before he got hit, Luke blocked the attack by overlapping shields.
However, he was pushed behind and had to step down on the ground.
‘Zen skill? It has to be a huge one.’
He could feel his left hand, which he used to manifest a shield, go numb.
It was fortunate that the attack got pushed out and only a shockwave entered through the shield. If not, Luke would have been unable to use his left hand for a while.
“Rain of flowers!”
When Luke was just standing still, Karen launched another attack.
Luke could perceive a fragrant smell, and he saw the rain of flowers pouring down on him.
‘Huk, this is different!’
Each petal was of a Dark Bullet level power.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
At the terrifying power the flowers held, Luke used Blink.
However, the Rain of Flowers followed him.
“How is she using Rain of Flowers!”
“How can a child like her…!”
Jo Mimi and Ja-hye, who was from the Southern Continent, were shocked.
The Rain of Flowers was developed in the Song Empire by a Zeitgeist of the Sichuan district.
It was the most famous skill in the place.
At first, it seemed like countless petal-shaped items were being thrown down, but later, it turned out to be martial arts combined with mind skills.
The Ki would be dispersed as thin as a needle and the Kitan would scatter around the Ki to form a petal shape.
Those who get deceived by the innocent flowers meet their end.
However, Luke succeeded in eradicating the Rain of Flowers because it was still in an Absolute Powerholder level.
“Princess Karen? From whom did she learn that skill from?”
“By any chance was it from the Court Tactician?”
At the questions of Jo Mimi and Ja-hye, Hwang Bo-sung smiled awkwardly.
It was because the right answer to those questions would only confuse the people.
In the future, the time, which disappeared, it was Zegal Soha, the Court Tactician who taught Karen all the Zen skills.
Loving and admiring Luke, she didn’t leave the place even after his death and remained in the Symphonia Kingdom.
And while struggling alongside Erwin, they both raised Karen.
‘But it can’t be her who taught Karen this…’
As Hwang Bo-sung continued to watch, Karen launched another Zen attack against Luke, who was getting ready to launch a counter-attack.
“Eternal Wind and Frost!”
“Huh, you’re going to keep attacking?! The Power of Breaking Bamboo!”
She saw Luke’s body change, and all the ice that were pouring onto him only broke.
“Z-zen skill?”
“Did you think that this dad was out of date?”
The Zen skill that Luke just used was one of the things he learned from Heaven’s Light Records.
Luke learned it in order to gain a little more power to defeat Arsene.
However, he thought that it would take a lot of time to learn skills that were very different from the basics he learned.
Such worries disappeared when Luke saw Heaven’s Light Records.
Heechang was the fist Zen skill user of the Southern Continent to ever leave behind a record of his skills.
He revealed that the skills he used were all based on what the Goblins of the North, or the fairies, used.
In other words, the basics of his skills were magic, that too the ancient magic of the Abaron time, the Mado civilization.
And Luke was familiar with it because in his time as Saymon, he researched it.
He understood that the Zen skill was a transformation of the ancient magic in the Southern Continent.
If magic used the mana in one’s body and heart to perform skills, then Zen was the use of mana that would surround the nature and person and convert it into Ki.
In other words, if magic would change the flow of water by creating banks, Zen skill was a way to transform it into a current and change its direction.
The only drawback was such skills were tough to initiate compared to magic.
Yet, since both the body and the mind needed to assimilate with the surrounding energies, Zen was more stable compared to magic, and the mana circles wouldn’t take much damage.
In addition, in Zen, using contradictory forces such as light and dark, chaos and order had no side effects.
“Once upon a time, a saint from the south said this, ‘to have a pretty child is like having a hawk.'”
Tak!
“Ah!”
Luke flicked the forehead of Karen.
The noise was surely loud, but it didn’t hurt as much.
However, Karen’s pride seemed hurt. It was because she thought Luke was making fun of her.
“Do it right! You were scolding me a while back!”
“Huh, you are being punished properly.”
Luke smiled thinly at the reaction of his daughter, who was rushing toward him.
He knew that Karen was the hope for a crumbling world.
And such a child would surely have a lot of pride.
More than anything else, Luke knew it was necessary to break down that pride.
‘You may have been the hope of that time, but I am the one who plans and looks after this era. So don’t act like that.’
Luke relaxedly avoided Karen’s attacks and struck her with the back of his sword.
“Kuak!”
“Princess Karen!”
When Karen fell to the ground because of Luke, who hit her, Hwang Bo-sung ran toward her.
He tried to hold her before she hit the ground, but Karen, regaining her balance, landed on the ground lightly.
“Ugh…!”
“Were you trying to follow me with those level of skills? This battle looks so ridiculous, don’t you think so?”
At Luke’s taunt, Karen yelled back, “This isn’t my full strength!”
“Right. This level is like playing around.”
Luke kept on taunting her.
Karen, getting pissed, chanted a spell by writing something on her palm.
“Warrior, Awaken!”
‘What is that, a Puppet summoning spell?’
Did Karen have a Puppet like Hwang Bo-sung?
While Luke was in his thoughts, something rose below Karen’s feet.
A huge steel doll with Puppet magic circles engraved on it with a white armor appeared.
Not just Luke, but even Hwang Bo-sung, Erwin, and the princesses, who were watching it, were shocked.
“A Gigant?”
It wasn’t just any Gigant.
It was the Hero class Gigant, Veda, made by the Arthenia Magic Tower, the first class weapon of the Holy Empire.
Moreover, the Veda in Karen’s hand wasn’t a mass-produced one.
Looking at the clover crest on its armor, it was the special Gigant made for Arch Duke Gregory.
“Where in the world did you…”
“Stole it.”
“Wh-what?!”
She stole it! That too from the pillar of the Holy Empire, the Arch Duke’s Gigant!
Karen opened the hatch and entered the Gigant.
“You told me I was playing around right?”
At Karen’s voice, which came through the Gigant, Luke stepped back.
“Stop for a second! If you use that, the Baroque Imperial will find you…”
Pop!
Luke’s words were buried in the flames that Veda shot.
Fireball amplified by the core engine.
It wasn’t just one shot, but hundreds that were scattered around like petals.
Kwang! Kwang! Pop!
Hundreds of Fireballs exploded at once. The powerful explosion let out heat waves.
“Th-this!”
“This isn’t how it should be done!”
Jo Mimi and Ja-hye were puzzled.
The power at which the Fireballs exploded was like a thousand shells being thrown at once.
Was there a man who would be safe if he was buried under such an attack?
Unlike those, Erwin was calm.
She knew Luke, so she understood that such kind of attack could be prevented and avoided.
And her thoughts were right.
As the detonation subsided, a silver Gigant boasting with dignity came into sight.
It was Avenger, the Gigant dedicated to the King of Symphonia Kingdom.
Luke summoned Avenger from his subspace just before the Fireballs exploded, and he unleashed Aegis Shield.
Thanks to that, he was safe and sound, but his surprised heart didn’t calm down.
‘Even though I told her not to do it!’
Luke secretly needed to infiltrate the Imperial Palace, Nemesis, and was leading the troops to destroy the ruins.
And he was moving in a sparsely populated area, but the enemy could definitely sense that huge explosion.
‘I feel like I need to be stern with her.’
Luke decided to set Avenger on the ground.
It wasn’t like the fight couldn’t happen in air, but a Gigant’s combat prowess could be better shown on the ground.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Who is His Majesty fighting?”
The troops, who were resting on the other side, ran in shock because of the sounds they heard.
They saw Veda confronting Avenger and went stiff. They then looked over at Hwang Bo-sung, as if asking him to explain the situation.
“Your Majesty is disciplining Princess Karen.”
“Huh?”
What kind of disciplining would happen with Gigants and battles?
While the troop members were confused, Luke with his huge sword rushed for Karen’s Veda.
Tat- Tat- Tat!
The Avenger kept jumping on the ground with light feet while Veda showed more mobility.
It moved sharply as if it was skating on the ground, and it avoided the sword attacks from Avenger.
“Using Grease Magic?”
“If you thought that I would feel awkward controlling a Gigant, then you are wrong!”
“I didn’t think you would feel awkward. I just thought you’d run like a thunderbolt.”
“Ugh…!”
Karen, getting caught in Luke’s provocation, swung her sword.
It seemed like the Gold Sword, but it turned out to be different.
As elegant as a butterfly, but a sword that had the sharpness of a bee, a clear Southern Continent skill.
‘It looks similar to Zegal clan.’
And he was right. Karen had practiced and mastered her sword skill from Zegal Soha.
However, she didn’t think that it could defeat her father since most of the Zegal clan’s sword attacks were a deception before the real attack.
Kang-!
As a response to Luke’s counter-attack, Veda dropped the sword in her hand.
However, instead of a smile, he felt something off.
‘She dropped her sword too easily.’
The wind made it tough for Avenger to hold its balance.
Karen went for the gap.
The slightly lowered Veda’s fist went for a sharp punch. The golden punch pierced Avenger’s stomach.
Kwanng-!
“Yo-Your Majesty!”
The two princesses and the troops seemed startled.
Karen was able to use the skill, but it looked a lot more strong for someone her age.
Even if she was using a Gigant, it seemed like Luke wouldn’t have taken much damage.
“Ho, ho, ho! How does my fist taste, daddy?”
“Kuek, quite spicy. When did you learn the Trinity Martial arts?”
“A long while back. Rather, are you giving up?”
“I am sorry, but that is something you need to say.”
After using swords, Zen, magic and Gigant, Karen seemed like she was able to use the techniques of the Hwang Bo clan.
Luke was shocked, but he wasn’t stepping back.
Luke raised his sword and began to unfold the second half of the Gold Sword.
It was because he knew that Karen couldn’t be subdued with the low power he was using.
The Golden Aura, which came from the giant sword, started to rush for Karen like a typhoon accompanied by thunders.
“Huh, what will you do? You won’t be able to beat me with the Second Half of the Gold Sword!”
Karen, who recognized Luke’s swords, seemed proud because she was also learning the second half of the Gold Sword.
She swung her fists that had a golden aura. However, something unexpected happened.
Suddenly, the world had stopped, and Avenger suddenly appeared in front of her, and the tip of Avenger’s giant sword was right above her cockpit door.
Checkmate.
If it was a real battle, Karen would have been dead.