Dimensional Keeper: All My Skills Are at Level 100 - Chapter 176

Chapter 176: An Eerie Voice
What if he could devour the remains of warriors—those who had once wielded powerful auras—and absorb their elemental mastery entirely?

Could he inherit their affinity, their comprehension, their very essence?

The thought alone was enough to send a shudder through him.

But—could he bring himself to do it?

To devour human corpses just for power?

His black flames did not discriminate.

They would consume everything—body, energy, soul.

Would he allow himself to cross that line?

For now, it was only a possibility. A thought lingering in the depths of his mind.

Only time would tell.

The Clash of Titans Begins

Veylin’s frown deepened, his eyes filled with suspicion. “Your Lightning Aura increased… just like that?!”

He found it hard to believe—Lightning Aura was notoriously difficult to enhance, requiring years of refinement, battles, and deep comprehension. He knew that very well.

And yet, Max had improved his in mere moments?

Something wasn’t right.

But Max simply shrugged, his expression unreadable.

“Let’s not waste time with superficial talk,” he said, flashing a grin filled with excitement.

His eyes glowed as he took a step forward, the weight of his aura pressing against the battlefield.

“Everyone here came to see a battle at the pinnacle level. Let’s give them what they want.”

Veylin narrowed his eyes before letting out a small, cold chuckle.

“As you wish.”

With a snap of his fingers, the lightning crawling across the stage surged backward, returning to his body in a violent, crackling tide.

ZZZZZRRRTT!

The raw electricity coiled around him, its blue and white arcs concentrating at different points, pulsing with intensity.

Then—

BOOM!

The lightning hardened, forming into a radiant armor of pure electric energy.

The armor wrapped around his form, covering his chest, shoulders, arms, and legs, glowing like molten thunder, each flicker of light radiating immense destructive force.

His eyes sparked with pure electricity, his spear humming with untamed power as he aimed it directly at Max.

“Let’s see if you can handle this.”

In the blink of an eye—

BOOM!

Veylin’s figure flashed with blue lightning, vanishing in an instant.

Before anyone could process his movement, he had already reappeared past Max, standing several meters away.

But something was wrong.

His expression—once filled with confidence and arrogance—was now twisted into shock and disbelief.

His hands trembled ever so slightly, his spear still buzzing with residual lightning energy, but his grip had visibly tightened.

For the first time in his battle with Max, a single, terrifying thought crept into his mind—

‘I… I might lose.’

His breath hitched, his fingers gripping his weapon so tightly that lightning cracked at his fingertips.

“How…?” His voice was barely above a whisper. “How is that even possible?”

—

A moment ago—

When Veylin had flashed past Max, his intention had been clear—

He hadn’t meant to pass him.

His true goal?

To drive his spear straight through Max’s heart.

With his speed, precision, and the sheer force behind his thrust, it should have been a direct kill.

But—

When his spear struck Max’s chest, something impossible happened.

His weapon bounced off.

As if it had hit an unbreakable wall.

At first, he thought Max had used some unknown defensive technique, some kind of external armor.

But then he realized—

It wasn’t armor.

It was Max’s skin.

The sheer durability of his body had deflected his strongest attack as if it were nothing.

And because of the immense momentum behind his movement, he had no control over his trajectory—he was forced past Max, unable to stop himself, appearing several meters ahead against his will.

This was meant to be one of his strongest attacks.

Even if Max had blocked it, he would have just laughed it away but the fact that his spear hit Max in the place where his heart should be but failed to pierce through his skin and instead bounced back shocked him to the core.

—

Back in the present—

Veylin’s fingers twitched, his mind still struggling to comprehend what had just happened.

“That’s not… that’s not normal.” He muttered, his voice hoarse. “What… are you?”

His heart pounded in his chest, for the first time in years feeling something foreign—

Genuine fear.

It wasn’t death that Veylin feared.

Dying was impossible in the Battle Realm.

No—what truly terrified him was the possibility of losing.

At this moment, the arrogance of a genius—the pride of being among the strongest—shattered like fragile glass.

The composure he had always carried as a prodigy—gone.

It was replaced by a feeling he had never experienced before.

A feeling that dug deep into his bones.

Despair.

For the first time in his life, his confidence was crumbling before his very eyes.

—

Ever since he was a child, he had been a prodigy.

A genius among geniuses.

Even his father, the Young Monarch, had acknowledged his talent, something very few could claim. His rise in power had always been unquestioned, unstoppable.

He had never doubted himself.

Never.

But now—now he was hesitating.

His own spear had failed him.

His most lethal strike had done nothing.

The very idea that he, Veylin, one of the most feared geniuses of his generation, could lose was tearing a storm through his heart.

—

‘Lose?’

Suddenly a whisper slithered into his mind.

A voice, eerie yet oddly familiar.

He had heard it many times but for some reasons he couldn’t pinpoint why did those words sounded so familiar.

‘You are going to lose? To a brat many years younger than you? A brat whose rank is only at the 7th level of Apprentice Rank?’

The words dripped with venom, but they resonated deep within him.

‘You, Veylin, are going to lose to someone like that?’

His fingers clenched tightly around his spear, his knuckles turning white.

His heart pounded, his breathing shallow.

And for the first time in his life…

Doubt crept into his soul.

‘You are pathetic.’

The eerie voice echoed within his mind, dripping with venom. It neither sympathized with him nor encouraged him but outright mocked his cowardice.