Ryu didn’t wait any longer. Without hesitation, his two Fifth Order corpse puppets surged forward, weaving in and out of each other as they crossed a hundred-meter gap in an instant.
Feeling a headache coming on, City Lord Loom could only do his best to cast a net with his qi, hoping to protect the Grand Hall from the impending battle.
Matheus calmly gazed at this attack. He felt a bit of praise toward Ryu for hiding the abilities of his corpse puppets so well, but that was about it. He had thought that Ryu was a novice, but it seemed that even that was putting it too nicely.
With a flash of his eye, the armored beast slammed its tail downward, causing a scene the ministers and elders watching could hardly believe.
Without so much as touching the armored beast, Ryu’s corpse puppets stumbled and fell. They tried to regain their balance, but a second tail slam ended whatever hope of that there was.
To an untrained eye, it seemed that there was nothing wrong with Ryu’s corpse control, but Matheus didn’t have an untrained eye. He could immediately sense that Ryu lacked experience.
When a human learned to walk or run, at a certain point in their lives it would become nothing more than a reflex. However, when you were a child, stumbling and falling over was a common occurrence. Unfortunately, Ryu was very clearly still at this stumbling stage.
His corpses appeared to have a steady gait and stride, but in Matheus’ eyes, they were all over the place, even a decently strong wind could blow them over.
A stifled laughter blew through the Grand Hall. It wasn’t malicious, but an unconscious reaction. How could one not laugh when in one moment, they were waiting in keen anticipation for a battle between two Thrones, and in the next moment, they were watching one stumble around like a bumbling fool?
Ryu’s expression didn’t change. It was just as expressionless as before, but Ailsa was laughing so hard on his shoulder that she nearly fell off a few times.
‘Haha! This is too much!’ One delicate hand draped over her toned belly, while the other formed a fist that repeatedly hit Ryu’s shoulder. She really couldn’t control herself.
Honestly, she couldn’t wait. One day, when Ryu reached a level so lofty that few dared to even meet his eye, she’d proudly tell them of the day he was so inept that his corpse puppet’s skirt and legs flipped up and over their heads.
Ryu’s gaze hardly shifted. His pupils were coldly analyzing the situation. Not only was [Third Perspective] activated to its utmost, [Focus] had already allowed him to slip into the first State of Meditation.
‘My control is too rigid. I’m using 700% more strength just to run than I should, if it wasn’t for the City Lord’s qi net, every step these two corpse puppets took would leave a massive imprint in the ground.’
Matheus wanted to speak, but Ryu corpse puppets had already begun to struggle to stand. Watching this scene, Ailsa burst into a greater fit of laughter.
Ryu had only trained for a little over a single month in controlling corpse puppets. But, his current abilities only allowed fluid movement from positions he was familiar with. Because his corpse puppets stumbled and fell, they had fallen into a random position he had yet to see As a result, their attempt to stand was akin to a newborn deer learning to walk for the first time.
In truth, with Ryu’s talent, a month should have been enough for him to be far more competent than he was currently. The issue was that his starting point was too high.
His first corpse puppets were of the Fourth Order, but he had hardly spent time learning to control them. Instead, he used simply commands for them…
To make a long story short, the more powerful a corpse puppet, the more difficult it was to finely control. Ryu was essentially trying to lift a weight far too heavy for himself, all while trying to raise and lower it at a steady, unhurried and controlled pace. Such a thing was impossible, even for him.
Eventually, Ryu’s two corpse puppets stood and ran forward once more.
This time, they leaped slightly into the air to avoid Matheus’ tail slam, but another was ready and waiting for them as soon as they landed.
Divine Vessel Realm experts should be able to fly… But Ryu couldn’t even control their gait properly, how would he fine tune the circulation of their qi to allow controlled flight?
To make matters worse, his connection with his corpse puppets was muddled. Because he had yet to comprehend a Death Inheritance, he was relying on Grave Qi to form a connection. But, it was common knowledge among Necromancers that a connection formed with the former was far better.
At some point, it became too difficult for many to watch on any longer. They felt too uncomfortable watching Ryu force his corpse puppets to stand again and again.
Hours ticked by and Matheus began to realize that Ryu wasn’t the type of person who cared for his face. Anyone else would have fled in embarrassment by now, he had even lost count of the number of times his little sister had heckled Ryu to give up and stop overestimating himself, but Ryu didn’t even bat an eye.
Still, Matheus could see it very clearly. Ryu never seemed to make the same mistake twice, and his control was becoming more and more refined with each passing moment.
By the fifth hour, Matheus could no longer make Ryu’s corpse puppets stumble with a mere tail slam, and could only engage directly. But when he did, he learned just how formidable and deep Ryu’s glaive comprehension was. If his walking could be compared to a newborn calf, the strikes of his glaive were so precise that even the City Lord felt a shiver down his spine.
He couldn’t understand just why this was. Could this Ryu really be more familiar with swinging a glaive than he was with walking and running? How could such a thing even be possible?
Still, the end result didn’t change. Though Ryu improved, his control was still too clumsy and unrefined. So, though his strikes were powerful, he couldn’t position his corpse puppets properly to allow himself to take advantage. This results in his corpse puppets being beaten away more times than he could consciously count.
“That’s enough…” Matheus said lightly after countless hours.
“Your Grave Qi has run out, there’s no point in continuing.”
This was yet another disadvantage of not comprehending a Death Inheritance. One advantage of corpse puppets was meant to be their near limitless stamina, yet Ryu could fight himself for longer than his corpse puppet could. Things weren’t meant to be this way.
Ryu nodded faintly and walked forward. Touching the shoulders of his two corpse puppets, they disappeared into his spatial ring, but his gait didn’t stop as he walked by Matheus. He had already exited the Grand Hall before Tae realized what was happening and subconsciously chased after him.
The City Lord wanted to stop his granddaughter, but she was already out of his grasp before he could react. Today’s matters had been too much of a blow to him.
“Thanks.”
These were the only words Ryu said from start to finish, but they resounded through the Grand Hall.
“Grandnephew… It seems your Granduncle has made a mistake.” The City Lord sighed before finally speaking these words.
Matheus shook his head. “Granduncle’s judgement wasn’t wrong. You saw for yourself that he too is a Throne.”
Erea snorted in disdain. “What kind of Throne can’t even put up a fight?”
“Learn to control your lips little girl. This isn’t a place you can speak.”
Seeing her grandfather’s glare, Erea shrunk back, but still harrumphed.
“You’re sure there aren’t some underlying… reasons for this?” The City Lord couldn’t help but imply that Ryu’s status was some sort of fluke. Even if he lost, he shouldn’t have lost so miserably.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Matheus said with a shrug. “He isn’t a Necromancer. Well… Not yet, anyway.”
Silence filled the Grand Hall.
Matheus hardly cared though, instead he was lamenting his cheap labor. He helped that man train for more than half a day, yet he didn’t even get Faith for it. It seemed the Heavens hadn’t recognized their battle, how lamentable.
