Atticus’s Odyssey: Reincarnated Into A Playground - Chapter 1524

Chapter 1524: Tilt
Through the simmering waves of fire and ash, Atticus narrowed his eyes in alarm as a tremor tore through his being.

The tree felt like an unbreakable mountain wall. He’d expected a clean slash, the trunk getting torn to shreds the moment his attack landed, yet the opposite occurred.

The tree was actively dispersing his will. The longer he clashed with it, the more of his will he lost.

Atticus gritted his teeth and poured in more and more will, his suit absorbing far more mana than it should ever handle, working in overdrive as he tried to break through the tree’s defenses.

But its effects were absolute. His will engulfing the blade scattered, leaving the katana bare.

‘Shit!’

But the moment the blade touched the bark, a deafening crack rang out. Atticus’s eyes lit up.

‘The life weapon!’

He pushed harder, intending to cut through, when a sharp surge of danger ripped through him. He retracted the blade instantly and tore backward, narrowly avoiding the lethal slash that came down from above.

Regaining his footing, Atticus narrowed his eyes at the sentinel now hovering between him and the tree.

“I won’t let you,” the sentinel hissed, throwing a fearful glance at the life weapon in Atticus’s grip.

‘He figured it out.’

Atticus’s gaze slid to the small slash now carved into the tree trunk.

He had poured the bulk of his will into the tree and hadn’t left so much as a scratch, yet a single moment with only the katana had done this.

He’d misjudged the weapon completely. He wasn’t using even a fraction of its true potential.

‘It’s from a higher plane.’

For a being who possessed technology capable of negating will and granting wishes to fear a weapon… that alone spoke volumes.

Atticus had been treating it like any other blade, wrapping his will around it and swinging, but it was so much more. A weapon that could cut through will itself…

He had been searching for the Willguard’s weakness all this time, only to find it sitting in his own hand.

‘I don’t need to wrap my will around it.’

Atticus adjusted his grip on the katana, feeling the sentinel’s cautious gaze lock onto him.

He drew his will back from the blade’s edge and condensed more than seventy percent of it into his arms, spreading the rest across his body.

The blade caught the harsh flare of the sun, its reflection cutting across the sentinel’s face. Atticus heard the man swallow hard.

Their eyes met, and the thundering battle around them fell into silence.

They vanished.

Atticus felt the wind whip violently against his body as he materialized in the middle, sensing several piercing thrusts coming at once.

He matched the sentinel strike for strike, their blades colliding in sudden bursts of sparks and light that blasted violent winds in every direction.

The sentinel’s eyes narrowed at the sight of Atticus’s bare blade clashing freely against his will coated one.

His will flared violently around his twin blades, and he unleashed a flurry of even faster, sharper attacks.

Atticus felt tremors shooting through his arms from every clash, but the bulk of his will reinforced them, absorbing everything. His arms moved even faster, meeting each attack in explosive force.

‘It’s working.’

His katana clashed with the sentinel’s will without resistance, and he mitigated the backlash by reinforcing his arms and body.

It was a new style of battle, one Atticus cursed himself for not discovering sooner. His fight with Merek would’ve been different.

“T-this should not be happening!” the sentinel thundered, but Atticus barely heard him.

The world had fallen silent as he slipped into logoth. The sentinel’s movements broke into signs and vectors. Atticus read every grain of him.

His next hundred moves flashed through Atticus’s mind, and he moved as though he already knew.

His movements flowed seamlessly from each clash, his katana dancing through the onslaught like a streak of cold light, until he burst straight through the attacks, closing the distance.

“How!?”

Atticus’s katana came down on the sentinel’s remaining arm, slicing cleanly through. Black blood splattered through the air, painting a dark backdrop behind the sentinel’s trembling eyes.

Before he could react, Atticus’s fist smashed through his armor and into his face, jerking his head back, concentric circles warping across his vision before he shot backward in a streak of gold.

Blood sprayed from the sentinel’s face as his mask shattered, revealing a bloodied, broken visage beneath. He gritted his teeth and twisted mid air.

“How… how dare you lay your hands on me!” he bellowed, his will bursting and spiraling around him in jagged force.

A mass of darkness shot out of his severed arm, forming into the sliver of a hand. His weapon whistled back toward him, snapping into his grip.

His burning eyes darted around the battlefield, searching desperately for Atticus.

“Where did you go!?” he snarled. “I’ll never let you escape!”

His arm blurred as he unleashed wild, frenzied attacks in every direction, each strike detonating the ground in violent explosions. But Atticus was nowhere to be found.

The sentinel’s eyes burned with hate as he wiped his face, his hand coming back wet and sticky.

His beautiful face was gone.

“You bastard… you bastard. I will make you pay for this,” he growled. “Even if it’s the last thing I do.”

A sharp creak echoed across the battlefield. The sentinel’s head snapped toward the sound, and froze.

The massive tree whose trunk reached for the heavens… was falling.

“Impossible!”

His gaze darted to its base, where he saw Atticus hovering beyond the collapsing trunk, katana out in a slashing motion. The long, clean line carved through the base was the only evidence of his movement.

The sentinel felt his pulse hammering.

He had cut it.

He had cut the tree.

And now… will was returning.

Atticus felt his will roar out of his body in an eruption of fire. The temperature spiked to unseen levels, a sharp hiss echoing as steam rose from his skin.

His will wrapped around him like liquid lava, releasing a pressure that flattened the surroundings.

They locked eyes.

“Burning Gaze.”

A wave of searing force slammed into the sentinel’s mind, his vision blurring violently.

He staggered back, clutching his head, trying to withstand the force hammering at his consciousness. When he finally forced his eyes open, his world was tilting.

“H-huh?”

It took him a moment to understand.

His head had been severed.

“T-the life weapon…” his fading gaze trembled, staring at the blade catching the sunlight. “It shouldn’t be anywhere near the middle planes…”