Harem Sync: Divine Edition-Chapter 51: Haru vs Vorath

Vorath increased his strength even further, his ethereal muscles tensing.

Haru simply pushed the sword aside.

A simple, almost casual movement, and the colossal blade veered off course, passing Haru and plunging into the ground beside him, sinking half a meter into the earth.

This was shocking.

Kira’s eyes widened, just enough to process what she had seen. "The master has become absurdly strong..." She paid closer attention, focusing on his face. "What’s going on with that eye of his?"

Isabela, who was also observing, thought, remembering what Kaelthar had done before he died, the absurd power he demonstrated. "Gamers... are they all this strong?"

Vorath lifted the sword, pulling it from the ground, and slowly stepped back, taking three steps. It was a silent signal, *let’s begin properly*.

"You’re not going to use a sword?" she asked, looking Haru up and down, noticing that he had no weapon. "Well, I still haven’t found one that suits me..." Haru replied naturally.

"Hmmm... I understand." Vorath looked at his own sword with something akin to affection. "Choosing a sword requires wisdom and connection. You can’t force it."

Haru didn’t respond verbally, only nodded with mutual warrior respect.

Isabela took advantage of the moment and stood up, picked Kira up in her arms even though her whole body ached, and they ran towards where Aldric was still unconscious.

They picked up his body too, dragging Aldric with difficulty, and fled to a safe distance away from the combat area, hiding behind rock debris near the arena wall.

Haru took off his torn shirt, throwing it aside, leaving his torso exposed.

Vorath made his sword glow, dark energy enveloping the entire blade until it seemed made of solid shadow.

He advanced.

Strong. Ugly. Directly towards Haru.

He unleashed blows with everything he had, each movement of the colossal sword cutting through the air with a thunderous sound, a speed so absurd that to Isabela and Kira, watching from afar, each blow was just a beam, a blur they could barely follow with their eyes.

But to Haru, they were visible.

He dodged with foresight, tilting his body half a second before the blow landed, stepping to the side at the exact right time, lowering his head, letting the blade graze his hair.

An important detail: he only opened his right eye, the modified one. The left remained completely closed as if he didn’t need it.

"With this eye I can clearly see his intentions with every movement..." he thought, processing the flow of information that came, showing not only where Vorath was but where he would be half a second in the future.

Vorath grew stressed and furious as the sequence continued, fifteen blows, twenty, thirty, none landing.

And a crucial detail that Isabela noticed from afar: all of Haru’s dodges and all of Vorath’s attacks were performed in the same spot, a three-meter diameter circle that neither of them ever left.

Vorath was clearly agile for a creature of his size, and so was Haru, but the precision with which they controlled space was something else entirely.

Vorath finally changed the pattern, striking with his sword rising vertically from bottom to top, aiming to split Haru in two.

Haru dodged by jumping back, but where he landed the ground exploded, energy that Vorath had planted earlier detonating in a chain reaction.

He was forced to do backflips, dodging the chain reaction explosions that followed him, one, two, three, four... Explosions following his footsteps until they reached the border.

Haru climbed the wall using two vertical steps and propelled himself towards Vorath, his right fist descending.

Vorath dodged by tilting his body to the side, letting Haru pass right by.

Haru landed sliding, spun on his heels, and propelled himself again, passing Vorath who defended with his sword.

He did it again, passing the other side.

And again.

And again.

He passed Vorath several times at increasing speeds, each time faster, creating a circular pattern around him, until on the last time he came and delivered a direct punch to Vorath’s ethereal chest, launching him away.

Vorath fell rolling uncontrollably, but mid-roll he planted his sword in the ground and used it as an anchor, his body sliding crouched until he stopped completely.

Still crouching there, he stretched out his free hand and released a large sphere of dark energy the size of a person, launching it directly at Haru with projectile speed.

Haru stretched his right hand back, concentrated energy, and formed a small sphere of fire that grew slowly.

"Ignition... Fire Cannon!"

He threw it forward.

The ball grew larger as it flew, expanding from a fist to the size of a cart in two seconds, and collided with Vorath’s dark sphere in the middle of the arena.

There was a massive explosion.

Red fire mixed with dark energy detonated, a shockwave swept everything away, a crater opened at the point of impact.

A dense dust covered everything, impossible to see anything for a few seconds.

Isabela and Kira watched from afar, protecting Aldric from the shockwave, waiting for the dust to settle to see who was still standing.

Vorath gripped the sword with both hands, and the ethereal body around him shifted, its muscles visibly expanding, becoming denser and more defined, energy pulsed through them like blood in veins.

He lunged at Haru.

With a direct thrust, explosive speed, and fire erupting from behind his body like a rocket, further accelerating the movement.

Haru caught the thrust, his arms in front of his chest, but the impact was absurd; he was dragged in that position by Vorath, who continued to thrust relentlessly, Haru’s feet digging into the ground as he was pushed back in a straight line.

"Ahhhhh!"

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[HUNTER’S EYE: ACTIVATED]

◊ Target: Vorath 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

◊ Analyzing weaknesses...

◊ Primary: Hand gripping sword (energy flow point)

◊ Secondary: Without sword = 40% power reduction

◊ Critical: Skull (partially destroyed - structural weakness)

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Haru, who was being pressured until he hit the black wall with brutal force that cracked the surface, dodged the thrust at the last second, letting the blade pass and pierce the wall beside him, sinking half a meter into the solid shadow.

Vorath punched Haru in the face with his free hand.

One.

Two.

Three...

Haru held the third fist in mid-air with his left hand, gripping Vorath’s ethereal wrist, and with his right delivered a direct blow to his skull.

The impact launched Vorath backward with force. Flying until he hit the giant tree, the black trunk trembled from the impact, causing Vorath to drop his sword.

[Time stop: Activated]

Unexpectedly, Haru had already given him a final push, crossing the distance in two seconds, arriving and stomping his skull against the tree.

Half of Vorath’s skull simply vanished, black bone fragments falling to the ground, his head deformed with only half remaining.

Vorath didn’t get up again.

He remained there crouched on the ground, his back against the trunk, his ethereal body beginning to dissipate slowly. His sword, over 3 meters long, lay there beside him.

"If you get out of this alive, Haru Mizuki..." the multiple voices came out weak now, faltering, "...you can have my sword. Maybe it will do..."

"Hmm?" Haru stopped, looking at him confused.

"You said before that... you still haven’t found a sword that suits you..." Vorath tried to get up but his body wouldn’t obey anymore, he could only tilt his head slightly, looking at the fallen sword. "Maybe mine will do..."

Haru looked closely at Vorath, a powerful creature fallen, trying to get up but unable to, offering what he valued most even in defeat.

And he remembered.

He remembered himself dying. Several times against Cedrick.

There were times when he died and when he tried to get up he couldn’t, and Cedrick always asked the same thing:

"Why do you keep going? Why don’t you stop trying?"

And he always answered the same thing, even without a voice, only moving his lips:

"I can’t... I can’t stop trying..."

He looked at Vorath again, seeing his own reflection in that creature trying to get up even knowing he had already lost.

"So be it... with my sword..." Vorath murmured, his ethereal body almost completely dissipated.

Haru picked up Vorath’s sword from the ground. It was heavy, but he could carry it.

Vorath’s weapon automatically shrunk from three meters to two, adjusting to its new wielder, its blade still corroded and perforated but perfectly balanced.

He raised it with both hands and finished Vorath off in two.

A clean vertical cut that split what remained of his body.

The two halves fell to the sides and began to disintegrate into particles of black light that rose and dissipated into the air.

"Now... our part..." Haru heard whispers coming from his head, multiple voices of the spirits that inhabited him, anxious and hungry.

It was inside the tree, sword still in hand dripping residual energy from Vorath.

The cocoon... was large in size, made of intertwined roots, pulsing in a constant rhythm like a giant heart.

Something inside him knew what it was. Knowledge that didn’t come from him but from the spirits, their ancestral memory recognizing a source of pure power.

He reached the cocoon and with his sword split it in two with a horizontal cut. The roots opened, resisting a little before giving way, revealing an interior that shone intensely.

A luminous sphere inside, made of pure condensed energy that shone golden-yellow with sickly green tones pulsing at the core, floating in the center of the cocoon without touching anything.

The Core of the dungeon.

Haru reached out to her, extending his hand, and when his fingers touched the smooth surface, his right eye burned, gray veins spreading even further across his iris, descending down his cheek in shimmering patterns.

He felt hypnotized, an irresistible urge growing from somewhere primal within him.

He swallowed it.

He placed the sphere in his mouth and tried to swallow, but it was too large, barely fitting, forcing his jaw open beyond comfort.

Something inside began to pull, an invisible force from his stomach that gripped the sphere and forced it down his throat.

He was choking. The sphere tore at his throat as it descended, hurting, burning with an absurd heat that made it feel like he was swallowing live embers.

Haru felt pain exploding in waves, burning from his mouth to his chest; every inch the sphere descended was pure agony, until it finally reached his stomach where it settled, heating his entire body from the inside out to a temperature that should have killed him but only made him sweat in rivers.

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◊ WARNING: Excessive mana detected

[MANA CORE: ACTIVATED]

◊ Processing foreign energy sources...

◊ Integration: 15%... 30%... 45%...

◊ Body adapting to contain overflow...

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[DEVOURING COVENANT: ACTIVATED]

◊ Consuming Dungeon Core...

◊ Essence extraction: In progress

◊ Spiritual entities feeding...

◊ Integration successful

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[NEW QUEST UNLOCKED]

◊ Quest: Devouring Covenant - Path of Consumption

◊ Objective: Consume Dungeon Cores

◊ Progress: 1/100 Cores consumed

◊ Reward: ??? (Unlocks at completion)

◊ WARNING: Each Core consumed accelerates spiritual corruption...

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