KING OF SWORDS 10-147
Chapter: 10
“The moment the first prince of the world tore apart an angel, we must have known we were proper fucked.”
– Mars Pallatrix, Belligerent Knight
Kill Six Billion Demons
BREAKER OF INFINITIES
“The moment the first prince of the world tore apart an angel, we must have known we were proper fucked.”
– Mars Pallatrix, Belligerent Knight
Is angel armour to protect the angel, or everyone else? Solomon’s going to find out…
“and by my empty palm shall ye know me”
Can’t end the fight empty-handed, I assume
Not if you use my all time favorite palm technique:
“Monkey Steals Peaches”
Supposedly, if the blood loss doesn’t kill you, the pain alone will.
Are you a member of the Black Dragon Society?
*sharpens wit*
I am 100% here for Allison being the Speedwagon of this fight
Here’s hoping that White Chain doesn’t become the Zeppeli
Unless there’s some sort of difference between how liquid angels and igneous angels react to losing structural integrity in their shell. The other problem is that we haven’t seen any other angel’s shell become as damaged in battle as White Chain’s did and there’s a big difference between completely losing all integrity (Juggernaut Star’s previous humanoid shell was split clean in half) and just having a massive hole in the chest.
TL;DR: We don’t know if Juggernaut Star, an igneous angel, can perform the same controlled explosion and hiding trick if they got a massive hole blasted through the chest. Plus there are unknowns on whether there are any differences in how it works for various angel stages.
Oh man, I sure hope not the Zeppeli! I don’t think I could take a 10 minute monologue from the top half of White Chain, without the rest of her attached. I could barely take Zeppeli’s.
OOOOHHHH MY GAAAAAAD
SpeeedowagooO O OOO HN
Okay, now, who’s the oreo?
Okay, the smugness is a little TOO overbearing in that last panel there.
Smugolon Dave
Pride cometh… sometime or other, I forget.
I believe it’s “Pride cometh before doing something awesome”, right? Right. Definitely.
Pride comeths before the entrée but after the hors d’oeuvres. However, this can vary from universe to universe. One particular Earth maintains that the pride fork is placed left of the dinner plate, between the fish and salad forks. Also, it is proper to position the tines of the fork down when consuming your pride, and balance the handle between your thumb and index finger.
Most importantly: chew your pride slowly and thoughtfully. This is less a rule and more of a friendly suggestion.
Whatever your universe, it is wise to swallow your pride while it is still warm.
Was…was that banter from you Un-Fel?
Your change in name has indeed brought other changes with it.
I am not certain I take your meaning.
Though I have many faces, I must always be myself.
Pride cometh in June, I believe.
There are some who train to endure pain and make themselves stronger by punching stone until their hands are shriveled and black with scars. And yet, through untold millennia of smashing the stone shells of angels… David’s hand is as soft as a babe. Is this strength, immunity to suffering? Is it weakness? Or perhaps, beneath the veil, it is his hand which is the blackest and most shriveled of all…
Dunno, those hands look pretty black to me.
Solomon David the hipster. “It’s great that you know all the lyrics of 47 Empty Palms’ songs, but I was listening to them before they were cool.”
“Oh, you read Kill Six Billion Demons? What are the nine hundred and ninety nine thousand names of God?”
Nine Hundred Ninety-Nine Thousand Nine Hundred Ninety-Nine names of God
Take one down and pass it around,
Nine Hundred Ninety-Nine Thousand Nine Hundred Ninety-Nine names of God!
“I see you know empty palm. I know a little empty palm myself!”
“Do unto the others as the others unto you.”
But do it first, and harder.
Clearly White Chain’s mistake was in not using the forbidden 50th empty palm, “Empty Palm Shatters The Status Quo.”
Other forbidden techniques:
Empty Palm Strikes the Snooze Button
Empty Palm Chokes the Chicken
Empty Palm Facepalms Face
how about Empty Palm Milks the Serpent?
Empty Palm Makes the Bald Man Cry
34: Empty palm draws fanfiction.
Empty Palm meets Rosy Palm and Her Five Sisters in Stiff Competition
Empty palm needs a beer.
Reverse palm strikes the falm!
Solomon looking Lush
Ah, pride. One day the emperor is going to be too busy showboating against an opponent he really shouldn’t be showboating against. I am not sure that White Chain, wounded as she is, is that opponent, though.
She is no longer lnjured, in order to make the battle even slightly fair Solomon had her repaired. In addition she had at least a night to rest her spirit. Still I doubt she has any real chance
White Chain’s screws are loose. The repair job isn’t holding up to the punishment if you look at the 2nd to last panel.
As White Chain said a bunch of pages ago, ‘THIS. SHELL. IS. NOT. MY. BODY!’ Her physical true body is uninjured.
@ shanri and ds: On top of it being a rush job, it would appear that the two men were carpenters as someone noted a few pages ago rather than stonemasons who at least would have had a better idea of how to repair and use the right kind of nails.
Mirror mirror of this match,
How many hand can you catch?
It was once said that the only thing that can defeat an angel is another angel. It seems Solomon believes that it is the aeons’ weapons that would make that true, and decided to hedge his bets a touch. And he manages to put on a show while doing it!
He needs a teddy bear and a pillow to rest his head on in panel three. So relaxed.
Someone needs to ratchet up this boy’s tension a few notches.
I take solace in this fact: we know, as Al-ys-un and Cio know, but Solly Dave does NOT, that this is _an unpredictable angel._
Bhuddist Palm Falls from the Heavens… wait… no…
I Wonder How much xianxia abadon reqds.
Somebody’s poppin’ rivets…
I was just thinking… Those are clearly flathead screws, but the artisans from a few pages back were using hammers to drive them in?
Someone (with a really long name that I’m not gonna bother typing on iPad) said on that page that they are ring nails, apparently a type of nail used in carpentry that has ridges and could certainly be mistaken for screws.
That’d make sense, but the portrayed nails seem to have flat tips, so they’re still weird…
To the unguarded foot, a flathead screw is nearly indistinguishable from a Lego.
Drive it into philip’s head.
Women’s prison, folded head
Ollar animated.
Diamond-tipped and magnetised
Flat head, cross head, multi-sized
David’s screws get pulverised
I’m reminded of the story of Intra. I think an idiot’s blow may be what is called for.
MEDIOCRE, WHITE CHAIN
MEDIOCRE
Grab that beard grenade, White Chain!
But the only way White Chain stands a chance is if Solomon’s beard is not at 100% power. Unleashing it is suicide.
But wouldn’t it be the ultimate insult to Daddy Sol and his bigbeardonomics?
All Solomon actually wants is for someone to cover his shift as Demiurge. He is as much a prisoner of the law as anyone.
No, no he’s not. I mean, he is but not in the way you say. He is the epitome of pride because he believes himself humble. He is the epitome of want because he believes himself selfless. He is the epitome of falsehood because he believes himself the only one who’s fair and he has made himself the only judge of others’ worth.
Under that judgement none shall ever match him in fairness, selflessness and humility, none shall ever be worthy and thus he enslaves you like a father locks a child in a crib. Behold the weight he must carry and sing praise!
But if someone ever threatens to prove themselves his equal, oh yes, that’s when that mask will be off.
Well thought out and well spoken! He may have been dipping into his own supply so much over the countless centuries that he actually believes his own propaganda.
But even if he believes it, you’re right, it is a mask.
We all have need of personas, but pouring too much of yourself into just one can be dangerous.
One day, you can wake up and find that there’s nothing left inside the shell.
ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA
MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA
Immortal angel who fought since the dawn of time…
“Gee, you are pretty good a doing a thing you were doing longer than I existed…”
To be fair to Solstice Dan, even other angels have been impressed with White Chain’s abilities.
It’s not how long you’ve been doing it, it’s the heat of your flame. And angels burn cold.
It would make sense for somebody as long lived and powerful as Solomon to also learn the martial art of the angels.
Also it will be super satisfying when Allison defeats him after he beat White Chain. Yeah, I don´t expect her to win this one.
First Allison has to realize the competition is only a formality and that the right of the conquering sovereign has no condition and no rules.
Did he learn it years ago, or did he learn yesterday, by watching the tournament? He’s certainly learnt how to dodge the big punch that comes after the hail of small blows. For a prideful man, Solomon is surprisingly observant.
A hail of blows and then a big punch is basically exactly what WC tried on Allison before pulling the bluff.
Also, a wise fighter always observes their enemy’s moves.
No fucking quite like a proper fucking.
No fucking quite like an improper fucking, either.
They both are unique in their propriety.
Also their fuckaciousness.
This is at least the third time a charging haymaker opener fails in this chapter (on Killboss and Eris Lo-Kai in Ally’s first fight).
The Rule of three makes me wonder if this is but a feint by White Chain to tempt Solomon into prideful posturing, and opening himself for a real attack.
Narratively speaking, that probably means someone’s going to fall for a bait-and-switch. And it ain’t White Chain.
“SHOCKING !”
– Jonson the Bug, DOROHEDORO !
*opens a box of gyoza*
Clatter!
One mistake Davey might have made here is that White Chain has several PhDs on what weakness Empty Palms has.
Open palm, pick up your bolts and screws.
White Chain knows you do not defeat David by killing him. You defeat David by revealing him for the coward he is.
I hope Soloman dies for his heinous crime.
He broke White Chain’s newly done nails !!
Slap him down babe! 🙂
I see what you did there, heh.
hey dude did you forget there is less melanin on the palm of a black man’s hand? mister david’s palms looking like the rest of his skin
Dave probably had special UV lights installed in the hand-grips of all his gym equipment, at preposterous expense, just to produce that exact effect. Heck, he might have put a second sun in the sky because he noticed tourists on Rayuba’s beaches were getting uneven tans. Pride and vanity are entangled.
“Here we witness a rare demonstration. The only of the Empty Palms techniques that is more widely practiced in humans than aeons due to certain physical limitations. It is said to include intense flexing and total mastery of melanin pigments.
Empty Palms Gain Godly Tan”
Well, some Sudanese tribes do dye their palms black for that overall statuesque look.
shout out to all three of you for giving flimsy excuses to this screw up
Yup – definitely a thing that should be fixed, no question. Important enough to go back and revise.
I mean, yeah, sure, yep.
Of course Solomon has mastered the fighting arts of angels.
White Chain, win or lose, you are the true boss here!
What’s even going to happen to Allison or Cio if White Chain wins? Where do they go? They’re certainly not getting Zaid back. If Solomon wins, which he’s going to, can they even leave?
That’s… a good question actually. It would be wiser to let them go (perhaps on the condition of never setting foot in Solomon’s empire again) since Allison could teleport out (though Solomon likely doesn’t know that, then again, it’s probably a basic ability of the keys, so, he could assume she can) and would fight her way out if she had to.
As spake the prophet: could someone please punch this meanie in his smug meanie stupidface?
Not sure whether Allison is talking about White Chain’s stance or Solomon’s stance here.
Solomon’s, definitely. No way Allison would be surprised by WC using Empty Palms stance, that’s like, the most expected thing that’ll happen during this.
I hate it when I break a nail while fighting.
Well, White Chain sure seems screwed…
Might say it’s time for her to bolt…
The cat toys with the mouse before biting its head off.
I’d tell WC to just kick him in the balls but that’s difficult with him wearing those robes. Too bad he isn’t wearing pants.
Solomon seems like someone who is both incredibly smooth and smug and has everything to back it up. He probably knows almost every kind of martial art in the multiverse too.
as a life long martial artist, i really wish people would say the names of the techniques they’re using when you fight them
One of White Chain’s arms is going to break later in the fight as Solomon David smashes into it. The resulting shards will leave a small cut on the prideful one, drawing a single drop of blood.
What would White Chain wish for, I wonder?
So there went my admittedly far-fetched theory about the nails. I got nothing now, hah.
I thought this entire thing was just a sham for Solomon’s amusement. I could be wrong but if he’s the bearer of the word Diamond, wouldn’t his skin be as hard as a diamond?
Hard. Brittle. Almost synonyms. Almost.
A fun fact – while diamonds cannot be cut by anything less than another diamond, they are able to be shattered.
I don’t think that the emperor’s skin is as hard as diamonds, though. That seems like a short-sightedly literal interpretation of him being the bearer of the word Diamond.
Ah – a revelation!
What is the difference between cutting and smashing? Nothing but the surface area that is doing the impacting.
Not a single fighter has managed to shed the emperor’s blood because they are as the cutting implement – a single edge. Even during the bonus round, when all of those foolhardy enough to attempt to attack him did so, they were merely a storm of cutting, as they were all working independently.
But many banding together – an army, or perhaps a revolution – would stand a better chance. If all of his subjects stood up, perhaps the emperor could slaughter them all. But then he would be an emperor without an empire – not worthy of consideration.
Perhaps not. Still, I see that as a possibility.
I think you’re right. And I think that’s what good ol’ Zoss was trying to teach Allison earlier. Allison couldn’t save White Chain by being a cutting implement that tried to strike preemptively. She must be the incinerating fires of revolution and break the wheel with it itself, its people. Alliances and strategies is part of that, but so is trusting in those she inspires.
She’s gotta trust in the profound idiocy she’s inspired in White Chain.
The brass of a man who styles on an angel with their own technique.
I suspect White Chain’s wish will be one of two possibilities –
1. fight Solomon David
2. Train her student in ki-rata or empty palms style
I literally felt pain from the smug.
David, your Exalted Dawn Caste is showing
I think he’s more Zenith. Like the Final Form of Panther.
Did he just learn White Chain’s technique by simply observing it for a few seconds?
I think he had a lot of time to master strange martial arts, and that he has a vested interest in not having a random little genius bystander witness and understand Ki Rata basics (or, worse, more).
Wouldn’t it be funny if White Chain reacted by using Ki Rata on Solomon David? After all, there’s still one other master of Ki Rata in Throne, so she could have learned it. Then there’s that angelic martial arts that mortals can’t learn because our soul flame is too weak, the one she used against Allicio…
Still, I wonder if White Chain doesn’t have something completely different planned. Sometning Salami Dave would never see coming?
She didn’t really use Krayu Mat that much against Alicio, just one move type and I doubt that’s the only move in the Krayu Mat set. Plus she ended up using one of the most powerful (if not THE most powerful) Palms move, Burning Finger(s), as a finisher rather than a Krayu Mat move.
Actually, is Burning Finger an Empty Palms move or is it Krayu Mat? Confused now.
Also, mortals with keys *can* learn the angels-only techniques, I think. So Solomon might still break out Burning Finger himself, even if it is part of Krayu Mat.
Definitely sure it’s part of the Empty Palms set, White Chain used it before on a rogue angel during Seeker of Thrones. Plus the fact that the introductory below comic text for Krayu Mat appeared on the same page that Vigilant Gaze commented on it and WC was doing what looked like a power up thing.
Anyways, Allison has the Key of Kings and her soul flame is still the warm black flame, so, I doubt that the keys are able to change the nature of the soul.
Solomon seems to imply that he is a master at Empty Palms, or at least skilled enough to be impressed by WC’s mastery of it, so, he could still very well use Burning Finger.
Empty Palm bitch slap that smug-ass, that’s what I’d like to see.
Multi-dimensional bitch slap like whappity-whappity-whappity whap a coupla hundred times.
Go White Chain go! My money’s on you even if it makes me a pauper.
“I do not fear the man that has knows one one thousand punches. I fear that man that practiced one punch a thousand times.
Wise, indeed.
Is it just me or do you all hear the kettle whistling? I don’t remember putting tea on…
I can’t hear his voice, but I think he’s internally laughing at her. Very different than the earlier page when he was showing obvious fear of losing.
The hardest thing to hold in your palm is emptiness.
One of these fighters knew that at the start of the fight. Both will know it by the end.
Does White Chain still only need to draw one drop of blood, in order to win ?
He swings, and it is valid. they say “Now I am become death… Destroyer of worlds.” and in that moment they take on their celestial form, showing Allison what she must do to save her friend from destroying creation.
Woe that my dozing eyes open now to watch an angel fall. Law cannot fight against one who has seized law itself. To beat this conqueror, one must know what kingship is.
White Chain has precious little time to learn.
She has found the Will to die.
She has become one with YISUN.
I suspect that with big D’s final blow, White Chain will be shattered, and her form cast to the void, but I also think that a shard of her chassis will cut Solodaddy’s skin, thus giving her the posthumous victory.
I’m not sure he’ll be wounded.
But I believe his mastery of Open Palm, though obviously considerable, will prove insufficient to end her, and that he will have no choice but to resort to his Ki Rata.
“I’ts Paradise when you are a Master. But it is Hell when you have to face a Master of Masters…” – Au Vam
Who is what here though? That is the question.
I just realized something, and nobody else seems to have mentioned, Solomon’s halo that was present the previous page is missing. That may or may not be a significant detail. Of course, we could think of plausible in-universe reasons for it, so, I don’t think it’s neccesarily artist mistake, plus he doesn’t keep it up all the time anyway.
He might be redirecting his energies to resisting White Chain’s hits and to projecting the huge hand in his counterattack. He’s taking her seriously, I’d say
Please, please 3 x combo giant woman to win the match.
Solomon clearly pulled a Hisoka here.
“Oh so you were training for so many years to master this very hard technique? Neat. Now look at me doing it much better at my first try”.
Salami palm nae empty sees us – thum’s put a wee bitty key energy intae it.
Mighty honorsome thon Salami us’ arse.
Or it could just be his own atum energy channeled into his hand, seems no different from the way we’ve seen White Chain do things before.
I have a theory. Solomon doesn’t *need* to kill White Chain to meet his fate of defending his home or die trying, so he won’t be able to use Ki Rata to kill her, only win the match.
By the anime laws of martial arts, do we agree that a hugely powerful technique is to have a hugely unpractical drawback ( as the Ki-Ko-Ho in dragon ball does, for example, by draining the life out of the martial artist) ? If so, Ki-Rata must have at least one huge weakness as well, which may be why BeardDaddy Solomon is not using it, all the while showing off as smug (for example, a huge respawn time of the technique ? )
I think Ki Rata, the silent voice, may depend on “Non-Action”. Its a Taoist concept of action without forethought, passion, or willpower. If that without substance (e.g. concepts) may enter without space then actions without effects may occur without time.
Everyone who fought Solomon in the last match was dead already, it just hadn’t happened yet. But because White Chain is fighting to first blood (which she dosen’t have) Solomon can’t kill her with it, only ring out which he’s too proud to do.
Actually, they can ‘bleed’, as we saw in WoN 2-22, but whether it’s blood in the biological sense or some other fluid is unknown. However, that’s rather moot since damage to the shell doesn’t harm the true form and it looks like that the angel would have to take a hell of a beating to get there. Plus she’d be booted to the Void before that happened, which would certainly count as a ring out IMO.
Solomon David: A master of getting caught.
Empty Palm….. PETS THE CUTE DOG
Critiques of palm color representation aside, one must bow in respect for the awe-inspiring callback to White Chain’s first battle, and the deft, multilayered reversals of categories of righteous & wicked at play on this page. Well done!
Soon.
This is a smart blog. I mean it. You have so much knowledge about this issue, and so much passion. You also know how to make people rally behind it, obviously from the responses.