He had instantly been empowered from beginner Third Grade to peak Third Grade. Just a little more, and he would make it past the threshold of Fourth Grade and advance by an entire major grade.
However, such an increase in power came at a great cost!
After this possession was over, the troll commander’s soul would fall into a weakened state that would last for several years due to over-exhaustion of his soul origin. During that time, he would fall all the way to Second Grade and not be able to retain his former power.
In a troll empire where right was dictated by might, his authority and status would be greatly challenged.
However, for a troll that was about to lose in a challenge for glory, there was no price he wasn’t willing to pay!
After choosing to summon the god, the troll commander’s power had increased to a level where even Mary had to be extremely cautious. The blinding lightning crackling around the troll commander possessed traces of an unusual holy power. This power had the terrifying ability to destroy and exterminate all foreign energy.
Moreover, the possessed troll commander could guide this lightning power into his spear, javelins, and darts. They could strike with the power of the golden lightning every time he attacked.
They posed the greatest threat to Mary!
Mary still chose to circle around the troll commander in the same fashion as before, only attacking when she discovered a gap in the opponent’s defense. With her extraordinary Agility and the sharp Stinger in her hands, her instantaneous burst of offensive power was more than enough to penetrate the defenses of most opponents of the same grade.
Moreover, individuals like the troll commander, who fought without any armor or equipment, relied entirely on themselves. They counted on their tough skin, resilient lifeforce, and shocking regeneration to endure the enemy’s attacks.
As an adept, Mary had plenty of methods to make an opponent like this suffer.
Using your own physical body to endure spells and attacks from magical equipment was far too primitive and crude!
The golden lightning gave the troll commander some capacity to strike at a range, as well as the ability to unleash lightning at close to mid-range. However, these attacks were still insufficient to catch Mary, who roamed the battlefield like a phantom and freely left illusions and afterimages where she traveled.
However, the intensity of the battle increased by a hundred-fold!
At the very least, the troll commander now held the absolute majority of initiative in combat. The golden javelins shrouded in lightning would thunder deafeningly wherever they landed.
When they hit trees, the trees would erupt and fall apart.
When they struck the ground, the earth would crack, and a black crater would appear.
Even if he missed and the javelin simply landed in a clearing, there would be a deafening blast that reduced everything within a dozen meters into unrecognizable charcoal.
Mary’s crimson figure was forced to dodge and weave about in the air. She barely eluded the golden javelins, and still had to try her best to avoid the sparks of lightning that followed in their wake.
The golden lightning crackling on the wooden javelins had a very annoying splashing effect.
When the power on the javelins erupted, the golden lightning on the javelins rippled and splashed outwards like a splattering drop of water.
Mary might be able to dodge the javelins themselves, but she could not wholly avoid these bursts of lightning. Scorch marks quickly appeared on her slender body. Plenty of tiny holes had also been burned into the bat wings on her back, making for a pitiful sight.
It was evident that she was at a disadvantage now.
However, the zeal and determination of a hunter still gleamed in her crystal-clear crimson eyes. A hunter who knew her prey was well within grasp.
Seeing their commander unleash devastating power and chasing the enemy around with explosive attacks made the blood of the troll warriors boil. Their morale was at a peak, and the spears in their hands slammed into the ground, over and over. It made a sound as if there was a loud, booming war drum beating over and over.
A vicious aura of danger and death rose into the air!
Yet, just as the trolls were at the height of their morale, the situation in battle suddenly changed. It was so quick that no one saw it coming.
A fierce howl of the winds rang out as a golden spear flew forward, drowning the crimson figure in a storm of lightning. The troll commander put on a vicious smile and reached for the next javelin, only to grab empty air.
The troll commander paused for a moment before looking down. It was only then that he realized, to his shock, that he had used up the entire row of javelins.
There were no more left!
While he was stunned at this realization, the lightning storm in the distance was suddenly dispelled. A slender figure smelling of blood and iron dashed from within the maelstrom and approached at blinding speed.
The troll commander laughed brazenly and kicked with his left foot. The spear had been stuck into the ground, kicked into his hand, and immediately stabbed towards the enemy’s stomach.
He ignored the enemy’s dagger heading straight for his heart.
Trading wound for wound and blood for blood was the troll’s most favored style of fighting!
Attack my heart? Then I’ll stab you through your stomach.
The trolls had shockingly resilient lifeforce anyway. They would survive even if their heart was cut in half. The troll commander made no effort to avoid the enemy’s attack. Instead, he retaliated with all he had.
Supposedly, at this moment, the enemy should have chosen to dodge. The troll commander could then take advantage of the opponent’s window of weakness as they switched from the offensive to the defensive to inflict damage.
Contrary to his expectation, the opponent continued to charge forward without any sign of fear.
A spear was undoubtedly superior to a dagger when it came to length alone.
A dull thud could be heard as the spear pierced through Mary’s stomach and appeared behind her waist.
Even so, there was no fear or shock on Mary’s fierce face. In fact, she was still rushing forward with all her momentum.
Her bloody stomach quickly came into contact with the troll commander’s hands, still gripping his spear.
At this point, they could feel each other’s breath. Their eyes met.
The troll commander shivered in fright. For some reason, he felt an omen of death from the depths of his soul. He let out a savage roar, and the wild golden lightning flowed through the spear and surged into the enemy’s body with every intention of shredding her into pieces.
As the lightning surged forward, the commander shook his hands, trying to cast Mary away from his spear.
However, just as he tightened his muscles and prepared to use his strength, he felt a stinging pain from his heart. He had been struck there simultaneously from his chest and from his back.
Shadow Clone and Concentrated Strike!
Shadow Clone was a rune technique that Mary had mastered, while Concentrated Strike was a high-grade ability that Stinger possessed.
Mary used Concentrated Strike from the front, while her clone had also attacked with all its power from behind.
Apart from this, Mary had also used her authority as a blood master to draw upon the power of her subordinates to enhance her attack.
With her reckless, all-out attack, the troll commander’s heart was first pierced, before being shredded into pieces by the surge of blood energy that came after.
A muffled boom.
Two spouts of blood burst forth from the wounds on the troll commander’s chest and back. Mixed in the fountain of blood were shards of his heart and several twisted blood vessels.
As critically injured as he was, the troll commander was still alive. He let out a furious roar and unleashed countless terrifying lightning chains that crackled across the air.
Mary
cried out in surprise. Her body, still hanging from the spear, instantly turned into a mist of blood as she attempted to flee from the lightning storm.
Unfortunately, as fast as she was, she was still caught by the lightning for a passing second.
When the mist reformed into Mary a hundred meters away, she couldn’t help but stumble two steps before stabilizing herself.
The vampires frowned when they saw her appearance now. It was horrible!
Her pretty figure was almost entirely black, her skin having been scorched and burnt to char. The hole in her stomach was massive. Only some strands of flesh were still connected, and even her scorched, damaged spine could be seen.
The electricity had cooked all the flesh around the wound. Black smoke rose from Mary’s body. A suffocating, pungent smell of burnt flesh lingered in the air.
Everyone had fallen silent.
In that momentary exchange of attacks, the two peak Third Grade fighters had unleashed their most powerful attacks on each other. The damage inflicted was shocking as well!
The troll commander lifted his hand, gathered lightning, and pressed it against his chest.
As the lightning crackled and his flesh sizzled, he managed to seal the hole on his chest through cauterization, stopping the loss of more blood and energy. Meanwhile, he no longer had any spare power to deal with the wound on his back. He could only lean against his spear and look at the stumbling Mary. A cruel and savage expression appeared on his ugly, violet face.
“Ha…haha…ha,” He even stuttered and stopped when he laughed. “Trying to compete with us trolls in lifeforce! I…will make you die…as unbearably as possible. Even…without a heart, we can still live…rest for a few months, and…it will regrow. Look at you…half of your body is burned. How are…you supposed to live?”
However, the next moment, a shocking scene played out.
As a crimson halo rippled across the battlefield, a light popping sound came out of Mary’s burned, tattered body. The scorched skin cracked and peeled off, revealing the tender skin beneath, as well as the tissue and flesh that had yet to fully mend.
Mary, the vampire, was healing at a visible rate.
The troll commander was not just simply scared now. No, he simply could not believe his eyes!
How…how was this possible? Mary was quickly healing by absorbing the blood energy she had taken from the troll commander.
When she once again recovered her beautiful appearance, she opened her eyes.
“Such a babbling mouth! You can die now.”
Having said that, Mary lifted her hand at the troll commander. She cast both Boiling Blood and Reversed Bloodflow on the enemy.
Chapter 1171 - Power Crystal
The troll commander was dead!
He had died to his own blood.
Due to the over-exhaustion of his lightning powers, he had lost the blessing of the Feathered God. Meanwhile, the bloodline power that Mary had injected into his body with the previous attack was the true key to the Reversed Bloodflow in his body.
The trolls might be able to survive after losing their heart, but when a backflow of blood attacked the brain, even a troll as powerful as himself would die instantly. No troll could possibly survive two of their core organs being destroyed.
As for the mysterious will that had descended on the troll commander’s body? It dispersed silently without a chance to unleash its power due to the sudden death of its host.
In truth, Mary had overestimated the Feathered God.
Given the power demonstrated by the troll commander earlier, he had not completed a ‘god summoning’ at all. It was only the inferior ‘projection’ summoning. The Feathered God had responded to the troll commander’s prayer and projected a part of its power through the channel of faith onto him. In doing so, it had managed to complete a transfer of power.
Just in terms of the level of power, ‘descent’ would undoubtedly transfer a more complete power. It would even bring along a portion of the god’s consciousness. However, ‘projection’ was only the transfer of power. There was no consciousness involved. Naturally, this meant that projection would not provide the believer with special divine abilities.
However, the Feathered God seemed to have developed an interest in this battle. It had silently watched Mary’s every action through the channels of faith.
After all, there were no vampires in Seawoods Plane!
Consequently, Mary’s ability to absorb blood and regenerate had piqued its interest.
It didn’t really care for the tiny amount of origin power it had lost due to the troll commander.
Now that Mary had won the challenge for glory, she had won everything that belonged to the opponent. When she dragged the troll commander’s bloody body and his heavy spear into the forest, the entire troll camp remained utterly silent.
All the troll warriors looked on in silence. They didn’t roar, and they didn’t flare up in anger. When they looked at Mary’s slender back, there was a trace of fear and respect in their eyes.
Troll Commander Ka’no could be considered one of the strongest troll warriors in Seawoods Plane. If even he could not defeat that terrifying vampire, who among the remaining warriors could defeat the invaders?
This challenge for glory instantly shattered the will and morale of the troll army.
Nightfall.
Daylight had yet to break, yet the troll army had retreated without a word.
They had brought along their infected companions. It was a tradition of the trolls that they would never easily abandon their companions.
Naturally, Mary couldn’t be happier to see this!
The trolls had not suffered enough from the plague. Perhaps they believed that the voodoo doctors in the capital could cure the plague or simply believed too strongly in their serpentine god.
Either way, they brought a group of troll warriors infected with a terrifying plague into the very heart of their empire. Mary and the others could not be happier to see this!
Mary sent out a group of blood servants to follow after the troll army, while she and her subordinates hid in the forest and examined the troll commander’s corpse.
With the trolls’ clumsy personalities and muscle-brains, they clearly didn’t realize that the corpse of the troll commander they had left behind wasn’t the only thing they had left for Mary. After all, the body itself contained traces of the Feathered God’s aura.
Even Mary had a hard time believing that the trolls had so quickly left such a precious spoil of war in her hands.
She and her most trusted subordinates found a well-hidden spot in the forest and drew a massive array around them. After two days and three nights, they finally managed to extract every last drop of blood from the troll commander’s body.
An adept of any other attribute would not have been able to accomplish such a feat. After two days and three nights, the body would already have rotted, and the blood would have curdled. All of the essence contained within the blood would also be gone.
However, all the adepts were vampires that excelled at blood magic. Preserving blood activity and ensuring the essence of its power wasn’t lost was child’s play to them.
After extracting all the blood, they naturally used the array to further draw out the remnants of the Feathered God’s power.
As the giant blob of blood above the array started to shrink in size, an unusual fragrance spread through the forest. The eyes of every vampire that smelled this turned red, and saliva trickled down their mouths.
Even the Second Grade vampires personally promoted by Mary behaved in this manner.
They looked upon the blood in the air as if they were looking upon their very life and future. Their greedy, thirsty, reckless gazes burned so furiously with desire it almost seemed like their gazes alone could burn everything to ashes.
They could sense that the blood contained not only incredibly pure blood essence but also a mysterious, indescribable energy. Any vampire here would be able to
accumulate enough energy to advance to Third Grade by devouring the blood.
Of course, as Mary’s direct subordinates, the still required Mary’s approval to be able to advance.
It wasn’t just the subordinates. Even Mary had to use most of her Spirit to suppress the instinct thrashing about in her heart when she stared at the blood. It was the only way she could stop herself from lunging forward and feasting.
However, though the blood could allow any First or Second Grade vampire to advance to Third Grade, it still could not help Mary advance from peak Third Grade to Fourth Grade. At the very best, it would widen and refine Mary’s reserve of blood energy, but it could not cause a qualitative change in her powers.
Of course, if all of the blood here was the blood of the Feathered God, there was a chance that it could propel Mary to Fourth Grade.
That was more than enough to demonstrate how difficult it was to advance from Third Grade to Fourth Grade!
It was important to note that in most planes, creatures below First Grade were considered mortals. Only beings above First Grade were supernatural beings. However, even among supernatural beings, Fourth Grade was a distinct threshold.
Third Grade could be considered the limit of supernatural creatures, while Fourth Grade was the start of ascension towards godhood.
In the World of Gods, every god started at the minimum of beginner Fifth Grade. Every creature of Fourth Grade was then known as a demi-god. Once you had advanced to Fourth Grade, half of your body and soul would have become divine.
Demi-gods of the World of Gods could potentially obtain an immortal soul if they were willing to compromise with the planar consciousness and offer up a portion of their souls.
Demi-gods with immortal souls hardly ever died.
Even if they were killed by enemies, their souls would reform under the blessing of the planar consciousness with the passage of time. They would then be reborn through a reincarnated body.
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