บท 687: Chapter 687
The black and purple dragon pulses with murderous Demonic Soul Energy, making the room twice as heavy as when the demon released its aura of intimidation, and its eyes lock onto Ember with genuine rage.
"You're an Overseer... We were wrong... The Divine Beasts that reincarnated to this new world for their cycle were not all killed off..."
Ember grins, showing his sharp teeth while responding.
"Yes... I stayed on my last world longer than expected. I wasn't able to ascend in my last life. I managed to make it to this world just in time. But—an Overseer? Don't group me in with those underachievers."
Ember's True Core pulses, sending waves of yellow divine light all over his body. Its unique ability is being manifested for the first time, and a bright yellow fire moves up from his chest into his throat and out his mouth in a blinding display of light before the purple dragon can even process the words he just spoke.
A pillar of bright yellow light, crackling with trace amounts of silver threads, hits the Demonic Dragon's left wing, searing right through with almost no resistance at all.
There have only been a few other instances when an ability like this was used in the past, one of them being when Ember displayed his Soul Energy's unique properties, dissolving a mountain within a dungeon.
His True Core's Divine Flames seem to have a similar property, dissolving through the Dragon's flesh like it's water dripping away.
The pillar of flames hits the back wall of the room, and a wretched dragon's pain-filled roar erupts from the demonic monster.
A moment of terror and realization courses through this beast as it was caught off guard, and the monster turns its head to see the edges of the hole where it was hit expand, dissolving its wing even more.
It lets out a wave of dense purple and yellow divine demonic soul energy from its mouth straight at the wound nonstop, surging high up in the air away from Ember while relentlessly attacking its own wing.
---
This collision makes the room fill with even more heavy aura, alerting both myself and the Demon that the battle between our bonded pairs has begun.
The Arch Demon before me doesn't even change its expression as the yellow and purple energy explodes above us; it still swings its sword to kill with no hesitation.
Now, with no incentive to find the Demon's stats, all I have to use my Foresight ability for now is to dodge and get a feel for my opponent's battle style.
I swing my blade upward and jump out of the way to do exactly that.
Red and purple aura collide as our swords meet, and we're both pushed back.
I follow the optimal path, and we collide five more times, blipping all over the room's floor, circling the silver pillar in the center of the room.
Two massive dragons clash in the sky a second time; however, an ominous dark purple Greater Form expands out from the Demonic Dragon in order to block the second pillar of Divine Fire without losing more flesh.
The circular wound in its wing hasn't been healed, but after excessive Demonic Soul Energy regeneration, the spreading dissolving properties finally stop once it doubled in size.
The activation of its Greater Demonic Form makes the Dragon over 150 meters long and creates a new heavy aura in the air.
Another seven exchanges go by between myself and the Demon, circling the pillar of silver light again.
I manage to get a far better feel for my foresight ability, as each dodge and block I act on leads to the next exchange, allowing me to pair up possibilities and dance around the battlefield, missing deadly blows by millimeters over and over again.
Both myself and the Demon know neither of us is using our full power.
However, the third collision in the sky above shifts the tune of this battle from warmup to death match immediately. A wave of Demonic Energy collides with Ember but is completely negated once he begins to expand with a yellow aura to match the purple dragon's size; I know this has to be his Astral Form.
The divine energy density in the room changes again as Ember doesn't stop growing once he's larger than his opponent.
Two monstrous dragon roars fill the air as the Demon before my eyes multiplies, and six of him surround me with swords swinging my way.
All of them feel extremely strong, filled to the brim with mana, demonic energy, and divine threads.
However, I can tell them apart by the sword they carry.
The Demon swaps between its body doubles as my eyes track it; but the Soul Sword in its hand can't be perfectly replicated.
My foresight still sees a path out, but it would result in losing a limb at the very least.
I'm going to activate my Astral Form, but I know it will trigger the Demon to unseal his bloodline on the spot, amping up this battle to its maximum intensity.
I close my eyes for a fraction of a second to prepare, but at the same time, I get a barrage of new notifications from my Rising Emperor's domain coming from outside...
---
Half a minute ago, all of the generals received notifications that they are now capable of pulling up to 2% of linked stats.
The bleak situation they were in moments ago has been flipped around once again.
Raven is the first to act on this opportunity, adding an additional 50 million stats to all of her base stats, doubling the power that her True Core can enhance in milliseconds, making the four incoming black spears far less intimidating.
She grins, as the world around her feels like it's moving in slow motion.
With access to two borrowed skills, she lets self-regeneration continue keeping her wounds at bay and pulls Supreme Fire Summoning from the bank of usable skills that just popped up in her interface.
An overwhelming aura bursts out of her, and there is no need to run or attempt to turn invisible at all.
The incoming spears are so slow in her eyes that dodging all of them is a simple task.
Her entire greater battle form erupts in yellow flames, and she twists her body, sending waves of fire out from her silver swords to instantly take out two of the Demon's body doubles.
While kicking off the air again, she sends another two unfathomably fast and powerful waves of fire at the remaining two.
One of the doubles disappears in a poof of black smoke, but the remaining demon is hit across the chest, armor shattered, and a flaming divine energy gash rips into its chest, almost slicing through its divine core.
The first-class Demon coughs up blood, its eyes wide in shock, as it's sent hurtling down toward the desert floor fractions of a second after an attack it thought was going to be the deciding exchange—in its favor.
As Raven deactivates the fire summoning skill and focuses all of her remaining power on self-regeneration to completely heal the demonic wounds that were plaguing her body, she activates her divine stealth ability and disappears from the demon's senses.
She lunges forward in silence, aiming to end its life in the next exchange.
---
On the other side of the desert, Maria holds back two Demonic Flying daggers while a ball of dark matter comes flying toward her unguarded back.
The notifications that ring in her ears prompt a surge in power that lowers the temperature of the area of the battlefield by an absurd degree.
Her longsword is powered by a pulse from her core that turns the black daggers pushing against it to pure blue ice instantly, shattering to thousands of pieces in a single swing.
In the same movement, she twists her Ice Goddess form around and collides head-on with the energy ball, creating an explosion of ice and demonic energy that shakes her very being.
The vibrations travel through her blade, but her Soul Energy Core pulses again, and the excess energy channels the explosion upward to create a massive blue and purple pillar into the sky.
As her quick actions destroy the Demon's attacks and save her from injuries, Abby pulls a full 2% of stats as well.
She's headed straight toward the arrogant demon that believes this battle is already won.
The massive explosions in its peripherals already notify it that Maria is done for, and now the injured green-haired woman is plummeting toward her doom.
This is far from the truth, and it is only made known to the Demon once it releases another dark energy ball at Abby, and instead of finishing her off, the attack phases right through her Immortal Form.
The Demon's eyes widen at the odd phenomenon, but it doesn't have long at all to think as Abby creates six massive sharpened pillars of stone the Demon's way. They all collide with its chest, shattering its obsidian armor, sinking into its flesh, and sending it flying backward while Abby lands right where it was standing moments ago.
She turns to her side with a smirk when she sees a bright blue blur of light flash by and follows right beside Maria to end this battle as they truly have the upper hand.
Scared yells come from the Demon as it hits the desert floor a few hundred meters away.
"H-How? What is this? You were still holding back? But why? A third-class world has humans stronger than me, it shouldn't be possible—"
Its words trail off as it jumps into the air, trying to run away from the blue and green light following it.
However, a wave of royal blue ice magic catches up behind the Demon, colliding with its back and instantly making it harder to move its legs and arms, slowing its speed away from the duo.
Another barrage of spears comes flying toward its back, and the Demon doesn't even feel the impact as its body is being frozen and all of its nerve endings are destroyed.
The Demon's arms and legs are shattered off, and the last thing it feels is a sharp pain in its neck as it watches its own body be destroyed by a massive blue sword and its True Core shattered by a green-haired woman's daggers.
This is all the second-class Demon sees from a lower point of view while its head topples to the ground and shatters like glass; then everything goes dark.
Blue and green streaks continue upward into the sky after their kill, and the moment both of them realize their job is done, they deactivate their power-sharing buff to allow 4% more to be used by the Flame Emperor.
---
Simultaneously, Raven's invisible blades come back into reality, shimmering silver, to slice through the falling first-class Demon's body.
One blade goes straight through the open fiery wound in its chest, shattering its True Core, while the other blade slices through its neck.
This Demon is decapitated, and its body explodes from the released pressure of its core just a few hundred meters above the ground, creating an enormous crater, leveling the desert down to its bedrock for hundreds of kilometers in all directions.
Raven reappears into reality but doesn't give back her stats just yet.
She swaps out the fire magic skill on her status for telepathy and stares toward the tower, zeroing in on the battle taking place and the third-class Demon that is about to explode.
As the strongest General outside the tower, she yells out orders through their links, appointing Lydia and Fisher as her commanders, and even giving Arie battle plans on how to best take care of this situation.
---
A chain reaction of orders is given and followed out, as Arie does exactly as told, appointing Monk as his second Commander.
All four commanders on the battlefield appoint every single member of the Crimson Army as Knights, giving the entire human race a massive boost in power that makes all of the Demons fighting shiver with fear.
Lydia and Fisher leave their formation at the front lines of the Crimson Army, as they aren't needed for protection anymore. They flash over to assist Arie by creating a massive mana and Divine Energy shield in front of him right after he releases an arrow at the monstrosity coming his way.
The corrupted third-class Demon is growing and shrinking in size, spewing Demonic and Divine Energy everywhere it looks, even killing over a dozen Demonic Knights and even a Demonic Commander that is too close by.
It screeches, moving in random directions, and seems as though it's lost all intelligence. The General has turned itself into a brainless Demonic Bomb to get its revenge by any means necessary.
Arie uses the maximum power he has available to him in a single shot, zeroing in on the center of the corrupted Demon's Core. On impact, the violent tendrils of dark black energy cease for a fraction of a second, as instead, they pour into the crack that Arie managed to make in its Divine Core.
Before anyone can blink, the detonation of this angered Demon kills another two dozen of the demonic Knights and three demonic commanders nearby.
It decimates the desert for over 20 kilometers in all directions. The only thing protecting the Crimson Army, the Saint, and even the demonic troops fighting the humans is the unbreakable barrier that Fisher and Lydia created using their enhanced orange cores with trace amounts of yellow threads.
The shock of this blast and massive increase in power from a majority of the troops on the battlefield now using the Rising Emperor's stats has put the Demonic army into chaos.
One of their generals just killed itself. The Saint clashes with the only remaining general left, holding it off using a massive white pure Qi form powered by a high-level Yellow Core.
Arie turns his attention to this last general, pulling back an arrow while Fisher and Lydia unsummon their defensive wall.
The three dozen elite troops in the Crimson Army all go on a rampage, borrowing supreme fire summoning as the most destructive skill at their fingertips. The result of this boost in stats and morale is horrendous for the Demonic forces.
The Red Core Demons needed to be handled by multiple army members before, and they were constantly being saved by Arie in the background.
Now, each of the elemental Elites with over a million base stats in each attribute slices through the Demonic Knights with ease, burning them to ash, killing with no remorse and even challenging some of the orange-cored demonic commanders that scramble to give orders to their knights.
Monk and the two orange cored followers of The Saint join in, targeting the few Demonic Commanders that remain.
From outnumbering the Crimson Army eight to one moments ago, the Demonic forces are cut in half in seconds, and it looks like their full extermination is near.
This all-out slaughter allows Arie to focus on aiming for the perfect shot, pulling back his Greater Form's bow many kilometers away with Luna's eyes guiding his shot.
The Saint also assists in moving the last remaining general into the perfect position, and Arie releases his black arrow to soar over the battlefield.
Fisher and Lydia speed through the masses, slashing through the final remaining Demonic commanders with ease while traveling beneath Arie's shot.
They yell out right before its collision with the general.
"Brace for another impact, this is it!" Putting up massive mana and divine energy defenses while the Saint jumps backward and the final arrow pierces the General's Divine Core.
A massive blast of purple, black, and yellow energy makes a seven-kilometer-wide crater in the desert floor again as this general is killed.
The entire Crimson Army takes this sound and vibration through the desert floor as a final war horn to tear through the remaining enemy troops, not leaving a single Demonic Knight behind.
--
Just seconds later, the entire desert below the Silver Dome goes quiet.
Every single Demon under the Vermillion Lord's control has been killed by the humans under the Flame Emperor's command.
The last remaining 4% of stats is relinquished by Raven, Arie, and their underlings, as their job is done, and this power is needed much more elsewhere...
All of the Generals' spectator feeds are cut off as well, and the 51,972,081 pairs of eyes from the growing links of loyalty around the world look at one remaining live feed.
–
It shows me pulling an additional 8% of stats while activating my Astral Form.
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Author's Note:
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