"It's time for you to understand that no matter how many times you try it, some outcomes can't be changed. That is why it is called fate. If you still can't accept it, then, go on.
Wait for another 30 minutes until the six-hour timer ends and try reversing the time, once again. Once in five tries, you might be able to save them from the Hydra. However, they will still die, today. If not, then, tomorrow.
Unless you plan on trying to keep protecting them personally all your life, these people will face life threats every single day. They will die regardless in one way or the other. If you want to save such people, you will have to force my daughter Moira, the Goddess of Fate, to change the rules."
The Reaper urged him to do it again and again so that he will either resign to fate and accept it or get motivated to become stronger.
Either of the choices will work for him. So, he wasn't worried about his choice. Moreover, he can already predict what his host will choose too.
However, to his surprise, Azzy asked, "Chronos, tell me one thing. Are my parents fated to die?"
The Reaper was taken aback by Azzy's sudden question. Earlier, he saw countless futures of the next moment. There were several futures where Azzy chose to not give up and try again and again before accepting the truth. The other futures showed him taking an oath to change the rules even if it's by force.
But, surprisingly, Azzy chose the option where only 1% of the futures that he foresaw.
In reality, Azzy never doubted Reaper's words. It's just that he felt pity for that family. So, he tried to save them by reversing the time.
Now that he realized the inevitable truth, Azzy worried about whether it is the same for his parents or if there is any hope.
In response to his question, The Reaper chuckled, "It looks like I underestimated you. Fine then, I'll tell you. No, they aren't. However, reaching rank 7 isn't enough. Unless you reach peak-rank-7 within the time, the possibility is low."
"I'm confident that I'll be able to reach it. But…" Azzy shrugged his shoulders and then, suddenly, his eyes were fixed on the swimming Hydra. "But, first, I need to take care of this…"
Despite not showing an expression on his face, he was clearly enraged inside and decided to kill it.
Summoning his Death Scythe, he quickly dashed towards the beast.
The battle went on for 20 minutes before Azzy killed it with the Death slash. After killing it, he walked past the corpse and reached out his hand to grab the monster's soul orb/spirit core.
It was then the Reaper stopped him and told him not to absorb it.
Azzy was surprised. He asked why.
"I'll explain everything but let me take over your body for a minute." The Reaper then took over Azzy's body and drew some mystical runes with the soul energy around the monster's core.
It disappeared within a moment.
After returning to the mindscape, The Reaper explained. "I sealed its soul orb within your universe, so that, if you ever decided to summon the undead, you can summon the hydra. This soul orb will help you unleash its soul skills too…"
***
<strong>Present-day;</strong>
The fire tornado lasted a whole minute, burning the two rank-5 beasts to ash.
After killing the two beasts, the tornado stopped. The shocked Floyd and Gold brothers found Azzy was staring at them.
"No way… even if this guy is a necromancer, his summoned beasts cannot unleash the soul skills. What kind of trickery is this?" Not only Floyd but everyone was also confused including Barbara and Vann.
As far as they know, a necromancer usually summons the undead beings from the underworld. Rare ones can summon the undead that he actually killed before.
However, there was never a case where an undead summoned by an Arcana Master was able to use its soul skills.
If not for the fact that everyone knew about Hydra's soul skills, they would have even believed that it might be Azzy's own soul skills that he was using through the four-headed snake.
Like everyone, Floyd also thought it isn't possible. In fact, he even believed Azzy must have used some kind of trickery like using skill cards with Hydra as a medium to fool everyone. Nevertheless, his Arcana spirit was killed and he can't do anything about it as he didn't have any revival cards with him.
His half-brother Gold Lyre, on the other hand, already lost the will to fight. Unlike his brother, Gold wasn't a fool. The moment he saw his soul beast get killed without ever being able to resist, he knew that Azzy wasn't an opponent he can face.
Still, he was here only to support Floyd. So, the decision was left to Floyd.
However, Floyd wasn't keen on accepting the defeat. After all, a few days ago, Rufus was defeated by Leo. Now, if both of them will also suffer defeat at the hands of this mediocre Academy student, he felt like it would tarnish their Academy's reputation.
Moreover, Floyd wanted to prove that students of Moon Academy can still win even after losing their Arcana spirit. Sensing Azzy's low soul power only boosted his confidence.
He decided to act and end the match before his opponent recovered his soul energy.
"Gold, can you distract that skeleton for a while?" Floyd took out chest armor from his storage card and handed it to him.
Several mysterious runes have been carved on it to augment this armor made of iron and some other elements. Floyd believed that it will protect his brother from even a peak-rank-5 attack.
Believing in him, Gold took it and wore it over his shirt. It adjusted to his size in the next second. He didn't even feel the shame to use it in a normal duel like this as both of them felt Azzy is strong enough for them to do so.
With the protection armor covering his torso, Gold dashed towards the skeleton Hydra to face it head-on. On the way, he took out a couple of skill cards to distract the beast.
Just then, Azzy made his second move. <strong>"Soul skill: Quicksand"</strong>
As soon as the undead hydra received the order from its master, one of the heads immediately responded by turning the soil, nearly twenty meters around it, into quicksand.
Gold, who was dashing speedily toward the beast, felt the sand suddenly turn too soft. In the instant, he lost his footing, and his feet sank into the mud.
While his body was sinking into the soil, Gold felt that his soul energy was slowly seeping away from his body.
As a representative from the top academy, he was experienced in situations like these.
He distributed the remaining soul energy to all of his body parts before trying to use Energy eruption, which is a technique one would release the soul energy from the body without any medium and destroy the shackles that were suppressing him.
However, Azzy was also experienced in that area. He already knew that his opponent will try to use it. That's why, he didn't waste any time ordering the undead hydra to unleash its fourth soul skill, the Hydro Blast.
The final head blasted huge volumes of water, targeting its quicksand while Gold Lyre used the energy eruption technique.
Alas, Azzy's opponent turned out to be faster.
With energy eruption, the sand was blasted off away, making a five feet deep and five-meter-wide pit.
He reached the bottom, which is only a couple of meters from the ground. As soon as his feet touched the ground, Gold pushed his feet against it and jumped high to escape.
However, right then, the water blast hit the remaining sand, forcing it to flow into the pit at a rapid pace.
With no more soul power left, Gold Lyre fell to a disadvantage and ended up getting his who body submerged under the soil except for his head and neck. Thankfully, one of his hands was also out.
With the left hand, he tried to free himself, but as the soil hardened, the suppression increased further.
"Gold…" Looking at his brother's dire situation, Floyd immediately took out a three-star skill card and threw it toward the skeleton Hydra.
With no more soul skills left, Azzy felt Hydra has served its purpose and turned his attention away.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺