I Became A Thief Who Steals Overpowered Skills - Chapter 135

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 135. The Giant

A child of Prea.

Arsolder of Prea.

Whatever else one might say, he could claim to be the largest among all Rahelern Academy students.

Krash, standing across from Arsolder, was himself quite tall among his peers—yet still fell short by a full head.

“Ha ha, I like it. Everyone from Balheim overflows with confidence.”

Arsolder broke into a broad grin, amused by Krash’s earlier remark.

But even as he smiled, his eyes never ceased their appraisal.

Prea—the Battle Race, as they were called.

He sensed it instinctively.

That Krash was no simple opponent.

“But I’m not lacking in confidence either.”

He stripped away his tunic and cloak, laying bare muscular arms and intricate tattoos.

At the sight, Krash’s expression turned cold and unmoved.

“Then use everything you have.”

Krash had made his decision: he would crush Arsolder decisively today.

His current affiliation was, admittedly, with Sigrin’s faction.

But Arsolder’s nature ran free by birth.

No matter what group claimed him, he held the reins of his own life—or so he believed.

He was not bound by allegiance.

And what he revered could be distilled to a single thing.

The Way of Combat.

This alone was what Arsolder followed.

‘And this man is exactly the kind we need in the Starry Generation.’

Krash had always known they would have to clash.

Only by proving the Way of Combat that Arsolder worshipped would the giant become one of the members Krash needed for the Starry Generation.

“Everything I have.”

A deep, lingering smile settled at the corners of Arsolder’s mouth.

“Now that’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”

It was a smile that suited him well.

“Krash!”

In that moment, Krash heard someone calling his name.

It was Glen, Mary’s cousin, who had recovered from his injuries and could stand again.

Glen belonged to the Empire.

Of course, he knew well of Arsolder.

“Arsolder is truly formidable! Don’t let your guard down!”

Glen still remembered that day.

The day a child had come on the recommendation of Prea, the Battle Race, and asked to spare with the Empire’s finest knights.

The knights had gladly accepted, and the results had been devastating.

That day’s memory had vividly proven why Prea was called the Battle Race.

So Glen, still not fully healed, had warned Krash.

To never lower his guard.

‘Who’s warning whom, exactly.’

Krash waved his hand lightly as if to say there was nothing to worry about.

He had no intention of letting his guard down.

Against someone called the strongest in destructive power in the Starry Generation, letting his guard down?

Sorry, but he’d never had enough of what it took to afford a moment of carelessness in life.

For Krash, carelessness was a word that led directly to death.

“Begin!”

The referee student called out the start of the match.

A battle between a child of Prea, the Battle Race, and a direct lineage of Valheim.

Naturally, all the students watched the arena with eager anticipation when—

Boom!

A thunderous roar erupted alongside something that eyes couldn’t follow.

Dust rose violently, clouding the students’ vision.

Everyone’s eyes went wide as they tried to understand what had happened.

Crash!

But soon after, as if answering their confusion, the dust cleared in an instant.

At the center of where the dust had vanished.

Krash and Arsolder were locked in combat.

Arsolder’s primary weapon was nothing other than his body itself.

His fists, harder than stone, could actually warp a blade when they clashed against one.

The problem was the speed of those fists.

Arsolder’s punches, extending from his naturally oversized frame with a reach exceeding two meters, moved faster than the eye could track with dynamic visual acuity.

So those who had fought Arsolder all said the same thing.

That it felt like battling an Invasive Species rather than a man.

And now.

That Arsolder’s ferocious onslaught was being unleashed upon Krash.

Boom, crack, crack!

Each collision between the two sent forth an explosion of sound that made their previous skirmish seem like child’s play.

Each impact carried enough force to pulverize a human body.

Glen’s eyes widened.

Arsolder’s offensive had grown far more intense than before.

Surely no more than a year had passed.

Even then he’d been a monster—yet now he was incomparably stronger.

Each time Arsolder’s fist swung, the displaced air sent Glen’s hair whipping around his face.

Even at this distance, the sheer force was palpable.

If Glen had to take even one of those blows, he doubted he’d last a minute.

Even adopting a pure evasion strategy, dodging at this speed seemed questionable.

But what truly astonished Glen was something else entirely.

Before Arsolder’s extended fist.

Krash’s Lioneer filled the space and met each punch head-on.

Without a single misstep, he was catching every blow.

As if the opponent’s movements were perfectly visible to him.

Krash’s blade never failed to intercept Arsolder’s fists.

The flat of the sword caught each incoming strike at an angle, channeling all its force harmlessly away.

“What—what is that? Can he see all of it?”
“……He’s blocking it head-on?”

This impossible sight left all who witnessed it speechless with shock.

And the same held true for Arsolder, who thrust his fist forward.

Before his punch could reach its full power, Krash’s blade filled that space.

If it had happened once or twice, he might have called it coincidence.

But even now, as his relentless barrage poured forth, Krash was intercepting every attack in advance.

As if he could read exactly where each blow was meant to land.

‘The Blunt Sword Technique, was it?’

It was a sword art not many practitioners employed, but Arsolder knew of it well enough.

Yet Krash’s swordplay seemed to belong to a higher class altogether.

‘Where—’

Arsolder abruptly halted his extended fist.

Instead, his fist opened at once, obscuring Krash’s vision.

A feint, executed in an instant.

From within that feint, Arsolder’s fist shot upward in a flash, aiming for Krash’s jaw.

A false attack meant to block the line of sight.

Crackle!

In that instant, a brief spark of lightning burst from Krash.

Clang!

And the Lioneer that extended forth once more intercepted Arsolder’s fist.

He had reacted with perfect precision even to the attack that obscured his vision.

This was beyond the realm of Dynamic Visual Acuity.

It was clear that Krash possessed the ability to respond with Conditioned Reflex to every attack directed at him.

‘If he keeps doing this, his nervous system will surely suffer considerable damage afterward.’

But Krash seemed utterly indifferent to any such concern.

‘And the strength to withstand my fists.’

Smoke drifted from Krash’s mouth.

Each time it did, Arsolder felt increasingly that Krash was handling his attacks with ease.

That Hellfire Heavenly Thunder Krash had displayed moments earlier.

Its destructive force had been so tremendous that even Arsolder had flinched.

And now Krash was unmistakably increasing his output in real time, surpassing that from before.

The sight of it was strange enough to unsettle even Arsolder.

‘All attacks aimed at me can be countered by sheer conditioned reflex, and his output might even exceed mine.’

A hollow smile crossed Arsolder’s lips.

What kind of monster was this?

In the same moment, his smile deepened into something fierce.

Because he was precisely such a monster, he’d waited to see this match through to the end.

‘Fighting freaks like that is when life feels most alive!’

If the other side fought like a monster, he would simply become one in turn.

Arsolder’s body began to swell, larger and larger.

Before his steadily expanding form, the spectators gradually felt something was wrong.

“Is Arsolder still getting bigger?”

A considerable number of those gathered here were second-year students.

Those who had never witnessed Arsolder’s secret technique looked bewildered.

The first-year students, meanwhile, all furrowed their brows at once.

Each of them had their own bitter memory of Arsolder’s technique.

Gigas.

A Gigantification skill Arsolder had contracted with a god to face Invasive Species far larger than himself.

Before that immensity, any opponent became infinitely weak and small.

“Hahahaha!”

Now fully enlarged, Arsolder laughed from a form that towered above the Training Ground’s rooftops.

“Excellent! Let’s keep going!”

Madman.

Krash watched Arsolder revel in the moment, his expression turning to one of disgust.

And then—like a meteor falling.

Arsolder’s barrage of punches commenced.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

The entire area erupted into chaos in an instant.

Fists larger than a man wielded a destructive force of an entirely different magnitude than before.

Caught in the barrage of blows raining down on the arena, spectators were swept up and sent tumbling through the air.

Screams echoed from all directions.

Within the haze of dust and smoke, Krash’s figure vanished from sight.

But Krash was undoubtedly moving ceaselessly within that dust cloud.

Arsolder felt no contact beneath his knuckles despite how relentlessly he was driving them forward.

“Hah, haha ha!”

In that moment, Arsolder began laughing like a madman.

Arsolder was no brute dealing out mindless blows.

He was clearly cutting off Krash’s avenues of escape while landing his strikes with precision.

His inborn battle instinct knew all too well how to drive an opponent into a corner.

Yet still—his knuckles found nothing.

Within the dust, Krash was dodging every single attack with perfect certainty.

“Then let me try this!”

In that instant, Arsolder slammed his relentless fists downward in a tremendous crash, launching himself skyward.

Above the shattered arena floor.

Arsolder’s enormous palms clapped together sharply.

In that moment, a second pair of arms sprouted from his flanks, ringed with golden circlets at his back.

“Not enough!”

But Arsolder did not stop there.

He clapped again, and yet another pair of arms burst forth.

Six arms stretched skyward, blotting out the heavens.

Gigantification.

Six-Armed Hand.

Like a god of heaven raining divine punishment upon mortals below.

Arsolder’s six arms came crashing down mercilessly.

Crash, crash, craaash!

All who beheld it stood with their mouths agape.

It was such an overwhelming sight that one could hardly believe a human was capable of such a thing.

Before that monster’s violence, a man seemed to be nothing more than an ant.

“Arsolder! What are you doing! Stop this at once!”

At that moment, a voice rang out from beyond the arena’s edge.

There, breathing heavily, came running a single figure.

Pele, the hero of the common people.

He’d hurried over the moment he heard that Arsolder had entered the competition.

The arena had descended into absolute chaos because of Arsolder.

Pele couldn’t tell who Arsolder’s opponent was.

But he knew one thing: if he didn’t stop this immediately, there would be hell to pay.

Pele drew his sword.

There was no stopping Arsolder when his eyes rolled back like that—not without force.

It was then that Pele had that thought.

A deafening boom tore through the dust—followed by a roar that shook the earth.

From within the cloud of dirt, a torrent of Black Flame erupted skyward, and one of Arsolder’s arms went flying.

Everyone’s jaw went slack at the sight.

To anyone watching, it looked like Krash was finished.

But that Black Flame rising from the dust—it was unmistakably Krash’s.

A wild, twitching smile spread across Arsolder’s face.

It was the smile of a madman.

But somewhere in that dust cloud was something even wilder than the grinning Arsolder.

Krash’s eyes, stained crimson within the haze, began to glow faintly.

“Yeah.”

Black Flame surged across his entire body as Krash exhaled a long plume of pale smoke.

“Charged.”

Time to fight.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————