User blog:Seieireppa/God Eater:Universitas, chapter 35: Strength to Destroy, Strength to Protect, part 2

With blow after mighty blow, Arthur brought his buster blade crashing down against the wall before him, the wall that represented everything holding him back, everything that kept him from reaching his true potential and achieving his dreams. Time after labored time he struck, yet the wall refused to budge.


 * What’s wrong?  Is that the strength of your convictions?

There was the Horizon’s voice again. It taunted Arthur, egging him on. If he couldn’t break down this wall, he’d never be able to become who he was meant to be… and he’d never be able to save everyone, his friends at the Liverpool Branch…! No matter what, he could not let that happen!

“Rrraaaaaaahhhhhh!”  With a mighty yell, Arthur continued to lay into the wall with all of his might—yet not even his strongest attacks could make a dent.

Was this truly his limit…?

“God… even with all of my power, I STILL can’t do any damage? What even IS this thing?” came Arthur’s exasperated words as he slumped down on his God Arc.  “Am I going to just… die here?”

No… no matter what, that was the one thing he could not do. For his own sake, and for the lives of his friends and everyone on Earth affected by the Aragami attacks… he had to succeed!

Heaving his God Arc back, Arthur charged up for his final strike, a Charge Crush with every last bit of his energy invested in it. If this didn’t work… well, Arthur didn’t even want to consider that. It HAD to work, or else…!

“Damn Horizon…” spoke Arthur through gritted teeth, as he continued to pour his energy, his life force, his very existence into this attack. “I’ll show you… that I have what it takes to become the person I was meant to be! For everyone’s sake… for my own sake… I cannot—no, I WILL not fail here! I don’t want to live in a world…”

Mid-sentence, Arthur swung his God Arc down, the blade imbued with every last ounce of his life force. And as it came down—!

“…where people have to dieeeeee!!!!!!"

-

With a mighty roar, Arthur held his blade back and charged up for a Charge Crush—perhaps he could pierce the Aragami’s defenses through brute force… but as his blade swung down, it met with yet another of the Boundary Yan Zhi’s shields—

—but Arthur wasn’t done yet.

“This is iiiiiiiiiiitttttttt!!!! Die, you monsterrrrrrrr!!!!”

At that moment, Arthur’s blade flared up with an incomprehensible amount of Oracle energy, the Charge Crush aura expanding to the length of many meters, almost reaching to the ceiling.

“Where…” Bal began, “…is all this energy coming from?”

Sigma looked on at the sight, Arthur’s Charge Crush aura now twenty meters long, piercing the ceiling of the training room and causing the Boundary Yan Zhi’s shield to crumble away.

“Could it be…?” he began, before an idea struck him. “Wait… that’s it!”

And as Sigma spoke those words, the last of the Boundary Yan Zhi’s shield crumbled away, the Aragami reduced to dust by the force of Arthur’s aura.

As the Aragami crumbled away and the temperature gradually returned to normal, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Arthur, on the other hand, was stunned.

“Where… did all that power come from?” he wondered aloud… but his question did not go unanswered for long.

“Arthur,” came the voice of Sigma, “you just traveled to the Horizon, didn’t you?”

Arthur merely nodded in response.

“I figured as much,” Sigma replied. “Arthur, what you obtained from the Horizon was the power of ‘parallel networking,’ the ability to unify yourself with all of your infinite selves from parallel universes. Naturally, this means that you can call upon their energy reserves and share knowledge at will, giving you functionally limitless power and Oracle energy as well as information about things you otherwise would not be aware of. Not exactly the most elegant power, but it essentially lets you overpower pretty much anything through sheer force alone. It will take some time to master it… but that’s a matter for another time. Let us return to our rooms and rest, everyone. We’ve got the rest of today as well as tomorrow before the scheduled departure… so you should all prepare yourselves.”

Everyone present turned towards the elevator and departed the training room.

Another one of their own had obtained the Horizon’s power…

…and thus, the battle with Feldman drew ever closer…

-

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