章 245: Book 7: Chapter 14 – Close Call
"Looks like this axe was the only treasure the Flame Tyrant was holding onto," Ace said with a hint of disappointment as he casually lifted the Demi-God-level Divine Armament.
"Only?" Amira rolled her eyes with a helpless shake of her head. "That's a genuine Divine Armament! Not including us in the Pavilion, the number of people on our Yulan Continent who have Divine Armaments of their own can be counted on two hands."
"Haha, that's true," Ace chuckled sheepishly before casually tossing it to Amira. "Here, you have it. You can give it to your parents or one of the saints of your family's Rohault Empire."
Most would stare wide-eyed at the casual way in which Ace treated the Divine Armament. As Amira said, on the continent, Divine Armaments were impossibly rare, with the only ones to possess one being the various deities. For one to be so casually given away was mind-blowing, to say the least. But one had to remember that the discovery of Concepts allowed Ace to have already created a Divine Armament of his own, despite him only being an expert at the seventh rank.
It wasn't just him and Amira either. All the senior members of the Pavilion now had one, as did Killian. As for the rest of their classmates, it was only a matter of time. In their eyes, offensive Divine Armaments – especially ones at the Demi-God level – weren't of much use or importance.
Hearing that, Amira didn't think much of it either. Like Ace, she didn't see a Divine Armament as that impressive. Plus, unlike the top powerhouses of the rising Gol Kingdom, those of her Rohault Empire weren't talented enough to comprehend 'Concepts' yet. As such, a Divine Armament like the "Bloodlust Battle Axe" would mean a lot more to the experts of her Empire.
"So what do you guys wanna do now?" Amira asked after storing away the axe. "Find another Prime Saint to continue training or head up to the next floor?"
"Let's head up to the next floor," Ace answered. "We already have the strength to protect ourselves in the face of any threat below the Deity level."
Like that, the trio headed straight to the centre of the second floor, no longer making any pit stops to continue their training.
Every once in a while, a group of Magma Demons would try and stop them, but with their current power, they were nothing more than a slight hindrance, easily dealt with or directly ignored, depending on their mood.
Eventually, they made it to the central region, and what they found when they arrived caught them by surprise.
Directly in the centre was a magical door that seemed to lead nowhere whilst closed. But surrounding that was what could only be described as a giant war zone. The ground, which should, by all intents and purposes, be filled with luscious green grass and large, sturdy, cloud-touching trees, was utterly baron and desolate.
And scattered on the ground were the remains of a mixture of hundreds of Magma Demons and dozens of human saints, some of whom Ace even recognised as members of the "New Yulan Empire". There were even the remains of nine Flame Tyrants.
It had to be understood that even with their incredible rate of improvement, if Ace and his group had come across so many Flame Tyrants at once, they would be forced to flee directly. After all, even without external treasures, each Flame Tyrant held the power of a prime saint.
Still, Ace and the others weren't focused on that. The moment they arrived, they hurriedly moved to make sure none of the deceased were the members of their group.
They knew that all of the members of their group had the ability to at least protect themselves on the second floor – including Linley and Bebe. Still, in such a large-scale battle like this, even experts like Kimika and Lazerim could end up falling, especially when surrounded by so many potential enemies.
Thankfully, none of their group was among the deceased. But there was a surprising face among the fallen.
"Isn't this that "War Saint" fellow," Ace asked as he studied the battered remains of Tulily curiously. "I didn't expect one of the prime saints to fall on the second floor."
Tulily's body was covered in burn marks, but the most grievous of the physical wounds were the blunt-force traumas that appeared to have deformed his body.
They weren't quite sure who or what did this, but they knew from their last major battle that it definitely wasn't the Magma Demons or Flame Tyrants.
"Me neither," Amira sighed. "But if I had to guess, I'd wager that these three Flame Tyrants were likely guarding a precious treasure, and after defeating them, all the experts broke out into a battle, trying to claim it for themselves."
"Makes sense," Ace nodded, agreeing with Amira's assessment before making his way to the exit. "Still, I'm just glad that it wasn't any of our friends that died."
"I wonder what treasure could've caused the death of so many experts," Amira wondered absentmindedly as she followed behind Ace and Leona.
"Who knows," Ace shrugged, not too bothered one way or the other, as he held the door to the next floor open for his partners. "I'm sure we'll find out sooner or later."
Amira was just about to respond, but after entering the next floor, she suddenly found herself a little distracted.
As explained by Tarosse, on every third floor, the purity of the elemental essence would see a large increase, but Amira wasn't expecting it to double directly. Still, although not by much, it was slightly inferior to that of the pocket dimension.
Still, what distracted her wasn't the elemental essence in the surrounding area, but the experts scattered around, more specifically, one of the experts making their way to one of the ten doors leading to the fourth floor.
Maria, the former Princess of Darkness, made it to the third floor a little over two months ago. Unfortunately, she, like many of the other tens of saints who had made it this far, was unable to defeat the Deathgod Golem on the fourth floor, which had the power of a top-tier expert mid-ranked saint. As such, she had been forced to return back to the third floor to continue her training.
Thankfully, the elemental essence here on the fourth floor was so incredibly dense. It had to be remembered that although she couldn't compare to the likes of Ace, Amira, and Wukong, Maria was still a genius among geniuses who had broken through to the saint rank in her 30s – without the help of experts like those in the Pavilion.
Since entering the Necropolis, not only had she managed to break through to the middle stages of the saint rank as a warrior, but she had also become an early-stage saint as a mage, and just moments before Amira had entered the third floor, her comprehension had just taken a step forward, giving her the confidence to have another go at the fourth floor.
But what she hadn't expected was that just as she was preparing to head back up to the fourth floor, a chilling killing intent had locked onto her.
Subconsciously turning around, she saw a familiar face, which caused her to hesitate on whether to head back up or turn around and confront the little princess of the Rohault Empire.
After her recent series of breakthroughs, Maria was feeling particularly confident in herself. Still, her confidence faltered slightly as she thought back to their last confrontation.
Although Maria won convincingly, it had to be remembered that not only was the Princess of Darkness over twice the age of her opponent and several realms above her. Plus, she hadn't won anywhere near as convincingly as she should have done, all things considered.
As much as she hated to admit it, she knew that of the two of them, Amira was, without doubt, far more talented.
Thinking to that point, Maria immediately understood that as much as she had improved over the last six months, Amira had likely improved significantly more. At that point, it became a question of whether Amira's improvements had allowed her to close the gap enough to surpass her or not.
As a saint-level expert, Maria's thought processing speed was impossibly fast. It had been a mere fraction of a second, but just as she was coming to a conclusion of her own, the decision had been made for her.
Maria's eyes suddenly constricted as she saw the next couple of figures enter the third floor.
Without another moment of hesitation, her body moved like a shadowy blur, quickly opening and entering the fourth floor.
The door had barely closed when an enormous, 100-meter-plus crescent-shaped sword-light slammed straight into the door.
"Wasn't that Maria?" Ace asked curiously as he saw one of the ten doors to the fourth floor slam shut.
"Yeah," Amira snorted, clearly displeased, as she glared at Ace. "Because of you, the little snake managed to get away just in time!"
"Me?" Ace asked, taken aback. "What did I do?"
"You came up!" Amira argued back unreasonably whilst pouting adorably. "If the "Son of Heaven" hadn't made an appearance so soon, she wouldn't have run so quickly!"
Ace knew better than to argue with Amira, especially when she got like this. As such, he quickly raised his arms in surrender in an attempt to appease her.
At the same time, the various saints were staring at the two newcomers in disbelief, more specifically at the caramel-skinned swordswoman.
The power of that last strike was faintly approaching that of a peak saint, and from the looks of it, it appeared to be nothing more than a last-minute casual attack.
Had it come from Ace, none of those present would've so much as bat an eyelid; after all, everyone was very much clear about Ace's heaven-defying ability, but for it to come from Amira… It looks like Amira's progress had been nothing short of miraculous.
On the other side of the door, Maria's back was pressed firmly against the door, her body drenched in sweat as she panted heavily.
Though it was a seemingly simple sequence of events, the stress of merely seeing Ace made her heart palpitate, but it was that seemingly casual slash of Amira that caused Maria to feel the threat of death.
"Amira…" Maria muttered in an unwilling daze. "She's actually surpassed me."
Although Amira had improved drastically over the last six months, she would have to use her ultimate technique to barely resist that last strike from Amira.
"I can't afford to run into either of them," Maria voiced as her body shuddered involuntarily before her eyes regained their cold focus as her eyes focused on the Deathgod Golem in the distance. "At least not until I meet up with my parents and the other members of my Cult of Darkness.
At that point, it won't matter how strong they've become; I refuse to believe that they'd be able to defeat all of us together!"
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