Victor had decided long ago that to survive in this harsh world, he had to stop being a human. A normal human is weak, and are prone to the will of the powerful. So he replaced his human organs with mechanical ones, using all kinds of rare ores, and technologies to mimic their power. At one point in time, he even manage to become stronger than most of them.
They even began to invite him to their circle, but his hatred towards them was too deep. He was disgusted and fought them to the death. That was when he realized that he had shed his mortality.
There was advantages of modifying himself. First, he was hard to kill. Second, he did not have to rely on external devices to do his bidding.
But, there were also disadvantages. Because the strongest weapon he had was himself, he couldn't help but had to make a move on his own to take care of some problem.
He knew that his strongest robot would be nothing in front of Aldred. Instead of wasting resources, he reluctantly appear to stop Aldred. If not, the Archanite would extinct and his plan to dominate the continent would be harder to achieve.
Aldred understood that the weakness of a nation is their resources. Strike it, and they will go all out to defend it.
As intelligent as Victor was, he couldn't do anything else if Aldred decided to destroy the mountains of ice. He had to come out by himself to stop him.
If Edeline knew about this, she would be very impressed by his strategy. Aldred might not know much about politics, but he knew how to fight battles and win wars.
"You said you wanted to work together with me before," Victor said. "I have changed my mind. Let us work together. Help me liberate the continent from oppression and let us give justice to the world."
Aldred laughed manically. "I am not some naive fools, Victor. A thousand year old hunk of can like you wouldn't change your mind so quickly. I know you will kill all magicians and warriors including me when you have the chance. I don't like to play that kind of game, so just come and fight me to the death!"
"So be it." Victor raised his palm towards Aldred. A small hole opened up and a bright blue beam shot out at the speed of light.
The beam was so small and significant that it might looked nothing, but when it landed near Aldred, it created a massive fireball 4 KM in diameter. The power of the explosion was more than 1 megaton TNT. That was about 1 billion kilogram of TNT.
It was hard for an ordinary human mind to imagine that sort of power. And if they wanted to see it, it would cost their eyes and their lives.
The mountains of ice was of course melted, boiled, and turned into steam because of this power. Victor wanted to destroy Aldred once and for all. Even though a lot of Archanite would die from this, he did not care as long as Aldred died.
He also wanted to show his enemies that he did not have true weakness that they could exploit.
But suddenly, the ball of fire reduced in size and got sucked in from the inside. After a while, it was revealed that the flame entered Aldred's palm.
"You know that I was called the Monarch of Fire, right?"
"You look fine, but the impact has done quite a damage on your body," Victor said after he analyzed Aldred's physical state.
"That might be true. But I have these." Aldred grabbed a leather sac from his inventory, and drank the liquid inside.
Suddenly, Victor saw Aldred's body healed and regenerated at a rapid rate.
Aldred laughed. "Are you surprised?"
"The thing that you drank. It's blood."
Aldred smiled. "That's right. I am actually not a normal human. I am a vampire, and this is the blood of a young, maiden Diamond Rank. I can heal my body using this over and over again, but you will run out of spare parts sooner or later."
"And you think you will have enough blood before that happen?"
Aldred laughed again. "When I was crowned as Emperor, the Vampire King gifted me with an entire carriage of maiden blood."
"I can manipulate time to my will," Victor said. "No matter how powerful you are, it will be all for nothing."
Aldred smiled. He had put the temporal drive in his inventory, so Victor did not know he have it.
"I want you death, Victor. You are a dangerous existence. I wish we could work together, but you are too stone-headed in your ideology. I will have to kill you. Old ideas must be replaced by new ones."
"Your new ideas will bring injustice to this continent."
"Not under my watch."
Victor reached out with his hand, and a blade materialized out of thin air. The edge of the blade then flicked with electricity. Aldred also saw that the blade vibrated one billion times in a quarter of a second.
That sword might not be comparable to his Phantom Doomblade, but the damage dealt must not be underestimated.
Suddenly, Victor was sucked in by a portal and appeared right beside Aldred, slashing the blade.
Raising his blade to block, Aldred felt the vibration running through his arms then to his whole body. It created small cracks on his bones, although it quickly regenerated, but as the vibration was constant, the bones kept on getting broken and repaired all the time.
All of that happened in less than 1 second before Aldred kicked Victor away.
Aldred took in a deep breath to soothe the pain while Victor looked at his own sword which was slightly chipped and burnt.
Phantom Doomblade specialized in devouring soul, Victor only seem to only had a little of it, so the Phantom Doomblade couldn't affect him as much as to his other enemies.
That made sense since Victor did not require souls to channel his power.
That little bit of soul was probably the only bit of humanity he had.
If not for that, he would simply be an empty can of steel.
Aldred was impressed by Victor's sword, and Victor was deeply impressed by Aldred's blade as well.
Victor made this sword with the best technology and knowledge he had in his arsenal. He did not believe there would be many that might match its power as it could shatter mountain with just a touch.
"You aren't so easy to defeat," Aldred said.
"You as well. I have known you would be troublesome when you grow. That is why I tried so hard to kill you during your journey."
"Yet, you failed."
"I have. The curse of the treasure hunter affect everything; direct or indirect, aware or unaware. I cannot find any loophole in the curse to kill you without killing myself as well."
Aldred smiled. 'Father makes a really good system. Without that curse, I would probably long be dead.'
All these time, his parents had actually protected him from all kind of hidden danger. His talent, his prowess, and his fame had spread even outside of this continent and many powerful beings had even tried to kill him without him knowing.
Aldred did not even know how many times his parents saved him.
But more importantly... he did now know where they were as the steering wheel did not work yet.
"You don't want to prolong this fight," Victor said.
"Why?"
"As we speak, my army is currently coming towards your Empire, and I have informed that the Republic of Selia to attack together."
Victor's robotic eyes shone in sharp light. "You dare to attack my territory, and so, I will attack yours."
