Mine was screaming and rolling about on the floor. The broken chain was slowly dissolving as he cried about on the ground.
‘Huh?’
‘Did that hurt him?’
‘O-Or is it a c-cheap trick to l-lure us in?’
‘Could be either one.’
‘Let’s not give him breathing room. Akkun, your biggest spells.’
I refused to fall for any stupid tactics of his. First, I activated Geo Crusher which summoned dark brown gemstones from underneath Mine and crush his body together. He didn’t try avoiding it, but that was good as it gave me time to activate my next spell.
This, in all honesty, was a bit overkill, but using wind magic and water magic, we forced a thunder storm. [Lightning Rod] caused all the lightning to come down to my finger tip and using [Lightning Magic] and my magic power at full force, I threw a pillar of lightning at Mine.
The sound of the mountain area being destroyed was overshadowed by the thunderous roar of the sound barrier being broken. My hairs stood on ends, but I wasn’t done. Before the lightning attack could finish, I summoned five clones of myself. One absorbed all the chaos energy Mine was clearly using to defend against the attacks, the others fired a barrage of random magical spells and even a [Dragon Elemental Breath].
Akkun dug deep and unlocked a section of [Dark Magic] forcibly with the help of the agent. [Taboo Magic]. With it, we begun a spell.
This attack was a bit complex as it wasn’t a spell one could simply use at a whim and honestly required loads of preparations. Well, even a half-finished product was good enough to be honest.
With the agent instructing us on where to lay out runes in the sky and what exact kind of runes, we went to work as fast as possible. I had about 60% of my mana left and this spell was going to burn through 50% of it in an instant.
Surprisingly, Greed was still under a barrage of attacks, crying. Maybe my attacks were proving effective for once. Hopefully this spell would actually do the trick.
Even with my processing speed and perspective, it took me about thirty seconds to set everything up. For your information, I process everything about fifty times faster than the average person. With my boost in Larm, that’s a hundred times faster and with agent acting, that’s at least 1000 times faster than the average person, yet the spell was so complex and requiring of detail it took me half a minute to complete.
In the end, a massive dark purple magic circle hung above Mine’s head.
Wasting no time, I inject most of my mana into the circle.
[Warning! You are using a spell from the Taboo Section of the Dark Arts]
[The Gods of the Underworlds will take notice of you]
‘Whatever? Why would I care about that now?’
I didn’t know what the hell this Taboo Section was. I mean, it’s the freaking Dark Arts. Isn’t that in itself taboo?
<<It is because this deals with permanent destruction or alteration of any form of soul be it that of a lower being or a higher being. Mortals are not allowed to know this spell exists>>
Ah… seriously? Then this skill is kind of dangerous… but it only takes half of my mana supply?
‘Hehehe… let’s see some stupid higher being come after me then.’
With that thought in mind, I activated the spell.
“Come, the great eraser! Destroyer of that which is real and unreal. He who slumbers in-between the conceptual planes waiting for an army of souls to feed. Your eternal anger knows no peace, neither does your hunger ever cease! [Taboo Magic: All-Life-Encompassing Doom Gate Vach-Viraj]!”
Beyond this, in all honesty, I couldn’t describe to you what I saw or felt.
There was a weird break in the sky, almost as if it were glass? An eye - cartoon-like and red – was looking down at the world? Once my eyes crossed paths with its, I turned away in an instant out of sheer instinct.
I didn’t see what happened beyond that. My head was down, facing the ground for a good part of the entire event.
Once that was done, I just had a feeling that everything was done. That, and the system confirming my victory.
[You have defeated ‘Unknown’]
[For adding an unregistered creature to the system logs, you have received an [Exp. Booster] for this one occasion]
[You have received 1.9 Gigant Experience points]
[You have levelled up]
[You have levelled up]
[You have levelled up]
[You have levelled up]
[You have levelled up]
[You have levelled up]
[You have levelled up]
[You have levelled up]
[You have levelled up]
[You have levelled up]
[You have levelled up]
[You have levelled up]
[You have levelled up]
[You have levelled up]
[You have levelled up]
[You have levelled up]
…
Well, that was a lot of level ups. I guess I’m now above level 100 officially. A few more levels to evolve, huh?
I looked at the location in which Mine was supposed to be. All I saw was his golden chain on the ground. However, contrary to earlier events, the chain was actually regenerating now.
Cautiously, I had one of the clones check out the chain. It seemed harmless enough as the clone held up the golden chain and presented it to me. I tried scanning it.
[Error! Error!]
I grabbed the chain and looked at it quizzically.
‘What the heck is th-Ah!’
Again, I made the mistake of letting my guard down. The chain wrapped itself around my arm and sliced it off. My eyes widened in shock, but I couldn’t allow myself to be slowed down by such a thing.
[You just lost a limb]
[You have been affected with [Severe Blood Loss]]
[You have lost 100 health points]
My first reaction was to throw the golden chain away, but it wrapped around my leg and I could feel it squeezing my leg, probably going to destroy it as well.
[You have lost 90 health points]
‘Like hell I’d let you!’
I set my legs ablaze with [Fiery Kick] and tried to throw the chains off, but that failed. Even with [Iron Fortress] active and my [Devil Form] boosting my overall stats by five times, the golden chain easily destroyed my leg.
[You have lost another limb]
[Your status effect [Severe Blood Loss] has been intensified]
[You will lose blood twice as fast now]
[You have lost 210 health points]
[You have lost 199 health points]
‘You’d think [Severe Blood Loss] times two would actually cause more damage.’
‘That’s not important now!’
That was right! The golden chain had a mind of its own! This really was just like the Necromancer all over again. The golden chain was my true opponent here!
‘God, I’m starting to hate Soul Weapons more and more.’
Of course, my first thought was that there was no way this was a soul weapon, but with the way the chain was fighting by itself, it had to be a soul weapon. No two ways about it.
But that was a good thing. It simply meant another level up buffet. And since it’s an unknown, I can get the [Exp. Booster] so for sure, I will evolve after this.
‘Come to think of it, have we ever eaten a soul weapon before?’
‘I only remember destroying one.’
‘A-Ancient, s-sacred souls s-should be v-v-very valuable.’
‘Soul weapons aren’t even sold on the store, meaning they’re hard to come by. Guess we got quite the delicacy.’
On the same page, we all decided to take our anger for soul weapons out on this bastard. It jumped onto my other arm, but that was its mistake.
With [Slime Body], I tried to swallow the chain into my body, but the chain was smarter than I gave it credit for. The moment it sunk into my arm, it tried to pull out and so I acted fast. I caught the other end of the chain that hung out and started to eat it.
Soon, this devolved into a scene of me fighting a chain. If a passer-by saw me, they’d assumed I had gone mad and was trying to fight a chain, but I was practically fighting for my life here.
It was even worse when the bastard chose to attack me with Chaos Energy. I had [Energy Transcriber] activate, but the amount he was releasing was suddenly more intense than Daxia’s and the unique skill was having a bit of problem converting all of that into aura.
‘Oi! Let’s do that thing from before.’
‘Will it work? It’s not being controlled now, is it?’
‘Doesn’t matter! Just do it!’
Akira was ready to go. We tried using [Skill Alchemy] and [Weak Constitution]. Like Akira suggested, the skill was working and the chain split in two. One that was being sucked up into my arm and one that I was eating up front.
However, what we both didn’t expect was what happened next.
[The skill [Weak Constitution] has been synthesised with the skills [Iron Fortress] and [Dragon Scales] to create [Iron Dragon Constitution]]
‘Eh?’
In the end, the chain manipulated me into using this skill to simply strengthen it and continue on its assault.
‘Shitty bastard just rendered the combo useless.’
I quietly chose to simply fight against the golden chain, no skills involved. Just one on one, a battle to the death it would seem.
The golden chain was feisty and cruel. I believe, the most painful part about absorbing this thing was the thoughts that filled my head.
Power. Wealth. Fame. Need. Want. Deserve. Everything. Power. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Everything. Give. Bring. Power. Wealth. Gold. Fame. Power. Power. Power. Power. Power. Mine. Mine. Mine. Power. Everything. World. Everything. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.
The chain’s thoughts choked my head like this. It hurt. This was the one thing I hated most about people who knew I had telepathic abilities. They’d think so many things to hurt me, but this was different.
I couldn’t slow my perspective to take all of this one. Whatever perspective I was on, the thoughts would be on the same level.
A headache with no cure. A creeping sensation held onto me that if I swallowed this thing whole, the headache would only get worse.
Maybe… Just maybe… Consuming this thing would only be a bad idea in the long run?
No.
Now wasn’t the time for this.
It was either I ate this thing whole or it killed me.
Consume. Everything. Weak. Dies.
That’s right. If I consumed this and I died because of a stupid headache, that meant I was weak. I never deserved to live this long in the first place.
I am never going to feel weak again.
I will win this stupid chain fight.
I will prove, that I am strong.
Stronger.
I will get stronger.
Live.
That’s right! I will live. Even a scumbag like me has to live or else everything I’ve done is worthless.
With that final push from somewhere in the back of my head, my resolve was forever sealed. I would only continue to grow stronger rather than living life with the thought that another chance waited for me.
If I didn’t learn anything from my crappy life as a coward… a chicken, previously, then what was the point of reincarnating again and again?
In this life, now and till the end of time, I will continue to face life with a full resolve.
“You want to scrap you, stupid gold chain? Let’s go! I’ll show you that I’m no chicken!”
_____________________________
While Hinotori found herself in a pickle fighting with a golden chain up in the Wyvern Kaiser’s turf, Grimm was also in a pickle.
He saw himself as a careful person. Grimm Black, the merciless butcher they called him.
However, contrary to his nickname, Grimm’s method operandi was not quite as messy as the epithet played him out to be. The one thing he hated the most, was blood.
He couldn’t stand the smell. The silly colour. The taste was beyond awful and the fact that it was the one thing he required to live annoyed him even more.
But there was nothing to worry about. He had the Blood Crystal. It ensured that his body could go on for at least a year without blood before needing to be replaced.
That same Grimm, was drenched in blood and missing an arm from the elbow going. The overly meticulous Grimm who wouldn’t enter a fight or take a mission without knowing every single detail, chose to fight two Wyvern Kings, Imperial beasts with the ability to destroy whole human cities by himself.
One of the wyverns was dead on the ground with its head sliced off and several holes in its body. Clearly not done in a clean, safe manner. The sort of open wounds on the dead wyvern king were like those of a rabid beast.
The living wyvern king was in no position to boast about either. One wing had been ripped off and the other had ice spikes in it. Blood flowed out of it like a fountain and both of its horns were broken with one eye lost, but one thing was evident. And that was the fact that the wyvern king was clearly in a better shape than Grimm.
Grimm fell to the ground, exhausted after having to fight two wyvern kings. He had even crossed a personal line he swore to never cross no matter what.
‘Wh-when was it that I decided to break my own rule?’
He thought while looking to the sky lifelessly. For vampires, blood loss was one of the quickest ways to kill them. It was why they stocked up on as much blood as possible since they couldn’t regenerate with no blood around.
The wyvern king was trudging towards Grimm, but his thoughts trailed elsewhere.
His gaze eventually settled down on an unconscious Ulva. Her silver white hair was the result of her lamprey transformation activating, but even then, the Lamprey didn’t fight at all. She just laid flat in a pool of blood.
‘Uh, did I really act irrationally because of that brat?’
He wanted to chuckle, but couldn’t.
‘For a failed experiment… I practically sacrificed my life that I’ve valued for so long. And there were idiots who actually thought I could take on two kings without breaking a sweat.’
Grimm, was honestly too hard on himself when it came to strength. All his physical stats had been lowered by more than 50% under the sun without his mask, so it was no surprise that he lost to two kings.
In the night, it would have been an entirely different story.
‘And the boss seems busy since I got no reply from my earlier message.’
During his fight, Grimm recognised that he stood no chance against two wyvern kings and sent a request for help to Hinotori. He thought she didn’t receive it, but now even if she did, he could understand why she didn’t come to his aid.
It didn’t take a genius to understand that she was in a fight when the entire mountain was shaking from her display of intense magic power output.
‘I guess… this is it, Nyx. Please don’t die.’
He made his resolve as the battered wyvern king towered above him, glaring. The wyvern king was most likely trying to speak to him, but there was no way to understand a wyvern’s speech.
If he had to guess, the wyvern king was saying something along the likes of, ‘Do you have any last words?’
To that, he wanted to say “Fuck you”, but he wasn’t in the right physical condition.
The wyvern opened its mouth wide to burn him off and Grimm just closed his eyes in anticipation of his unfortunate and mundane death.
It never came. Rather, cold, carmine blood flooded his face and mouth. His body went to work quickly and tried to regenerate him, but that would take a while.
The wyvern king’s body dropped to his side lifelessly. Above the wyvern king with golden feathered wings and a sword in hand, floating like a Valkyrie come to take a damned soul to the gates of Valhalla, was his boss.
She looked down at him with an awkward expression like anger, tiredness and sadness. That wasn’t the weird part though.
There was something different about the Boss. Something fundamental, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Maybe it was because he was on the verge of losing his consciousness, but did she grow smaller?
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