by <unknown>
Austin?
Why is it you‽
How are you everywhere‽ You really know how to join in the fun!
However, Austin did not come over to watch a scene this time. After his Palace of Hidden Spells arrived, it created another rift, and a small spaceship flew out, landing on the dock.
Shua!
The door opened, and long, smooth legs appeared. Ames and Hila descended from the spaceship one after another.
Ames smiled and explained, “Just rushing would not have cut it, so I called Austin to help out.”
Han Xiao could not help but raise his head, and he saw that at the peak of the Palace of Hidden Spells, Austin sat there like a little kid, with two fingers pointing up and twiddling around, making a ridiculous greeting to Han Xiao.
“Show off,” Han Xiao grumbled.
After a quick greeting, Ames noticed Tolaen, and a smile appeared on her face.
“So, you wanted to challenge Floating Dragon?”
“Aren’t you asking the obvious?” Tolaen snorted.
Ames nodded before taking a step back, allowing Hila by her side to step out as she smiled. ” If you wish to spar with me, that’s fine, but you’ve got to win against my student first. She’s part of Floating Dragon.”
While Han Xiao’s avatar was present, Hila had not glanced at Han Xiao once after touching down. Her gaze was fixed on Tolaen with an indifferent expression.
“Her?”
Tolaen was surprised. He looked over her, remembered the previous material he had seen about Black Star Army, and snorted.
“I recognize her. She’s an officer under the Black Star Army. Just a mere Calamity Grade, are you sending her to die or to humiliate me?”
However, just as he spoke, the surging death energy burst out from Hila like a tsunami, exploding with intense energy fluctuations rising into the sky!
Boom!
Shockwaves spread, and the land around them cracked.
Everyone steadied themselves in a hurry and refocused their attention on Hila, who was cloaked in death energy. Fright and amazement filled everyone’s eyes.
This level of energy fluctuations… belonged to a new Beyond Grade A!
Chapter 1000. Goddess of Death |
“Beyond Grade A‽”
Tolaen’s expression warped with horror!
All newly born Beyond Grade As would have their records taken by the advanced civilizations, so he knew of all their abilities and weaknesses. However, Hila was not on the list, and thus, it totally disrupted his momentum!
Hila had just stepped into the Beyond Grade A realm and had only just displayed her skill for the first time in front of people, so no one had any information on her.
But today would be the day the Goddess of Death was truly born!
Nero’s figure jerked, and a look of happiness crossed his face.
“Sister Hila has broken into the Beyond Grade A realm!”
While they had not seen each other for years, Nero had always remembered how Hila had shown him grace by giving him the Death Spirit Mark[1]. Seeing that Hila had finally taken that last step, he felt happy for her and could not wait to share the news among the Black Star Army officers.
“She’s the Hila that you guys always mention?” Mia asked with a look of excitement while tugging on Nero’s sleeves.
Mia had joined the army after Hila left, but she always heard her name coming out from all the important officers, including Nero. In her mind, Hila appeared to be a mysterious character.
This was the so-called ‘No longer in the martial world, yet the martial world would ring of one’s tales forever’. Today, Mia finally got what she wished for, to see Hila in person. She was indeed as everyone described her.
Looking at the strong aura being released by her body, Mia was instantly won over. It was exactly in line with her imagination of how a strong female warrior should be.
In Han Xiao’s past life, Mia had been a follower of Hila’s, and now, meeting for the first time, it was just the same as before. She totally worshipped Hila.
Feeling Hila’s aura, a sense of relief surfaced in Han Xiao’s heart.
Finally, the Goddess of Death that I’m familiar with is back!
She indeed didn’t let me down!
Austin also froze for a moment before a genuine smile appeared on his face. He looked as though he was about to watch a good movie.
“The sixth Beyond Grade A of the Shattered Star Ring? Damn, this is going to be lively…”
While everyone was reeling in shock, Tolaen’s expression slowly changed to an ugly look.
The situation was somewhat beyond his expectations. He had thought that his opponent would be Ames, but suddenly, a new Beyond Grade A had popped out.
While Ames was a veteran Beyond Grade A and would be stronger, the material compiled about her had clearly explained her strengths and weaknesses. This was very important, and now that his opponent had been changed to an unknown Beyond Grade A, it was harder for him to deal with it.
He had seen Hila’s files before, but that was twenty years ago, and she had even undergone an evolution. It was unknown what new abilities she had developed.
“You…”
“Don’t waste my time. Fight or not?” Hila’s eyes were shining with an ominous red light, her aura suppressing everything around her.
She ignored everyone else around her and was only focused on her target. She had always been decisive in her matters and never liked to waste time spouting bullsh*t.
“Alright!” Tolaen’s personality meant that he would not think too much and quickly agreed.
Both were Beyond Grade As, so whether he won or not, it would still be a battle record for him.
At this moment, Han Xiao, who was standing by the side, indifferently spoke.
“If you want to fight, move further away from Planet Aquamarine. If even a single blade of grass on the planet gets destroyed because of your battle… you can forget about leaving today, Tolaen.”
“Humph, I wouldn’t dare.” Tolaen coldly snorted.
He knew not to lay hands on Han Xiao’s mother planet. If not, even if the other party shredded him to pieces, the Arcane Church would not make a sound.
…
Both sides reached a consensus, and everyone pulled away to a location further from Planet Aquamarine for their battlefield.
There was only Hila and Tolaen on the battlefield. Both faced each other, their auras rising rapidly.
Everyone’s eyes were focused on the two, holding their breath and watching the battle.
At the next moment, both of them moved!
Tolaen’s body swelled, and muscles bulged out as bone spurs emerged from his skin. A pair of curled devil horns grew on his head, and two pairs of bat wings spread out from behind. His back vertebrate also lengthened and divided into three jagged tails.
His entire being turned into a red creature resembling a demon. His muscles were bulging and knotted, covered with bone spurs. His skin was covered in mysterious lines, and it lent him a cruel visage.
“He’s a Pugilist?”
Seeing this, Ames raised her brow.
“Nope, a Mage.”
From a side sounded a voice. Han Xiao’s avatar had flown over, and he was reading out Tolaen’s information.
“He possesses a demon’s lineage, and this bloodline got elevated during this sublimation to Beyond Grade A. Just now, he utilized the True Liberation unique to the Demon Race. That red body is his true form and also the origin behind his nickname ‘Red Devil’. He’s a mage that leans toward transfiguration and melee battles, as his racial talents have brought him extraordinary resistance and extreme regeneration, a relatively rarer breed. His combat style should be a bit similar to Milizaus of the dynasty.”
“I see.” Ames nodded before turning and lightly smiling as she teased, “Long time no see. Are you still doing well?”
“Very.” Han Xiao nodded and joked, “Did you miss me?”
; “Why would I?” Ames laughed before turning back to look at the battlefield.
On the battlefield, Tolaen completed his transformation before charging forward aggressively, heading straight for Hila. At the same time, a cluster of dark blue mana poured out of him, turning into spells that buffed his body. He continued to grow, and at the same time, a colorful magic circuit appeared on his skin, raising his attributes.
He did not know what new abilities Hila had obtained, but her core power would not change. Based on the data twenty years ago, Hila was a mid-range combatant, with an Esper Ability that controlled a certain type of energy, so he chose to engage her in close combat.
The Demon Race’s True Liberation brought him strong resistance and regeneration, and various magic shields on his skin supported his flesh and muscles. If needed, he could even use it to support a long range spell artillery.
Ames’ power was focused around control and restraint, and she did not have high lethality. In his opinion, his combat style would restrain Ames, so his chances of winning would not have been low. Only because of this did Tolaen have the confidence to challenge Ames.
Seeing her opponent rush forward aggressively, Hila did not retreat, instead choosing to advance, wrapping her dark red death energy around her entire body and shooting forward like a comet.
Boom!
The sound of an impact echoed in everybody’s heads as they slammed into each other. A dark red shockwave exploded at their point of contact!
Just comparing strength, Tolaen, who was blessed with an amplification spell, had the absolute advantage, directly flinging Hila away.
However, instead of taking the chance to follow up, Tolaen suddenly froze, as though finding something strange.
Hila did not stop, stabilizing her body and shooting out rays of death energy from her finger to overwhelm Tolaen.
“Shield!” Tolaen woke up from his reverie, and his gestures rapidly changed as he covered himself in a mana shield shaped like a tortoise’s shell.
The countless death energy arrows hit the shield, collapsing every layer!
Bang bang bang!
Every shot that struck the shield would bring with it a mental shock, which was pressuring to every spectator on the scene. The mental shock did not require a medium and would sound in the minds of everybody near the source.
Hila’s death energy was equipped with multiple damage types and contained both physical and mental attributes. At her level, there was even true damage, so it was difficult to defend against.
Tolaen did not take the attacks passively, however. He continued to advance toward Hila while blocking. While Hila was good at mid-range attacks, she did not adopt any hit-and-run tactics but faced him in a frontal battle.
The figures of the two continuously collided with each other, flying out again and again, leaving behind hundreds of afterimages that were hard to tell apart.
Hila was always someone who gave her all in every battle, so the intensity of the battle gradually progressed beyond the scope of a spar.
Han Xiao was paying attention to the battle, but Nero suddenly flew toward him with Mia tagging along and asked with a voice full of concern, “Godfather, Sister Hila doesn’t look too good right now, does she?”
“You’re thinking too much,” Han Xiao said before chuckling.
“Isn’t it so? Sister Hila gets sent flying each time. Her melee battle abilities are below her opponent’s, but she does not engage in hit-and-run. Isn’t that a bit…”
Han Xiao smiled as he shook his head. “Carefully observe Tolaen’s body. He’s not doing as well as you think.”
Hearing this, Nero squinted. The speed of a Beyond Grade A was too fast to see clearly, and it took a while for him to notice the abnormal state of Tolaen.
Dark red death energy was coiled all over his body, full of corrosiveness, just like gangrene. It was constantly eroding his mana but could not be removed.
Han Xiao patted Nero’s shoulder as he explained, “The time at which they entered the Beyond Grade A realm only differs by a few years. To a Beyond Grade A, such a short amount of time is negligible in terms of their improvements, so their actual combat ability should be in the same tier… Don’t look at me. I’m an exception. And within this tier, Hila’s Esper Ability has an absolute advantage.”
He was not even the least bit concerned about Hila. Among those spectating, only he knew… just how perversely strong the Beyond Grade A Hila was!
Controlling death itself, this was an Esper Ability that was part of the Super High Risk Esper Abilities!
He knew full well that after arriving at the Beyond Grade A realm, Hila’s Esper Ability would undergo a qualitative change.
The intelligence regarding Hila’s abilities in his past life was overflowing, and it was all teased out using players who threw their lives away.
Firstly, upon reaching the Beyond Grade A realm, Hila had obtained an exclusive passive ability. Every time her death energy struck her target, a stack of a special status, [Death’s Erosion], would be added to them.
[Death’s Erosion] had a total of fifteen stacks, and the first stack would reduce all enemy recovery skills by twenty percent and defense by fifteen percent.
Reaching the fifth stack would result in a forty percent decrease in their recovery ability, a twenty-five percent decrease in their defense, and the random elimination of a buff every ten seconds.
The tenth stack would result in a sixty percent decrease in their recovery ability, a thirty-five percent decrease in their defense, a ten percent decrease to all attributes, the random elimination of buffs, and the collapse of their cells, reducing their HP by 0.8% every twenty seconds.
At the fifteenth stack, an eighty percent decrease in their recovery ability, a forty-five percent decrease in their defense, a twenty percent decrease to all attributes, the elimination of all buffs, and a loss of one percent of their HP every twelve seconds.
And when all fifteen stacks were placed, Hila could release a special skill without any prerequisites—she could completely detonate all [Death’s Erosion] stacks on the enemy and immediately make a death judgment!
The conditions for death judgment were harsh, and generally, they could not be applied to targets that exceeded their level. However, even if the judgment failed, it would still have an effect where it would directly shave off twenty to thirty percent of the enemy’s total HP and reduce their max HP by eight to twelve HP.
After detonation, Hila could immediately apply a new round of [Death’s Erosion] after a short cooldown, which was extremely scary.
If the enemy wished to stop the stacking of [Death’s Erosion] marks, then they had to disperse the death energy settled in their body. If they did not have similar skills, then they had to rely on their own resistance.
The duration of [Death’s Erosion] depended on the resistance of the target. The higher the number of stacks, the longer the retention time would be. The first layer usually lasted for only three seconds, but at the third layer, it would last for eight seconds. Furthermore, forcefully resisting would only allow the layers to drop down one by one instead of them completely disappearing, making it extremely hard to completely get rid of.
In addition to this core skill, Hila’s death ability had also obtained the passive property of ‘Vampiric’, which could turn ten to twenty percent of the damage she dealt to a vital target into her own HP. Group battles against her would be tough, as the more enemies she had, the faster she would regain her HP.
In addition, every time her death energy hit a target, there would be three seconds of aftereffects, which would hit her enemies with fifty to seventy percent of her base damage.
Lastly, after Hila was promoted, she had also developed a special ability that was useless against the players yet lethal threat to any others.
That was to use her death ability to deprive the cell vitality of a living person, reducing their upper limit of cell divisions, causing them to lose their life force!
Because of this ability, the vast majority of Beyond Grade As in the universe treated her like a viper, not willing to fight with her.
If you hit me, I’ll lose one second of my life, literally. Who would dare spar with you‽
However, other than Han Xiao, no one in the universe knew of this point.
Even Tolaen, who was sparring against Hila, was clueless.
Boom boom boom!
The fighting was getting more intense, and the surging mana waves and death energy collided again and again, exploding against each other in a burst of energy.
Tolaen might initially just have wanted to spar, but against the strong attacks of Hila, he could no longer keep his aces hidden and continued to raise his strength. Now, the situation was no longer under his control, almost shifting to a life and death battle.
If an onlooker did not know that both of them had met for the first time, they would probably think that the two had some deep hatred, where one could not live if the other was alive.
Crazy woman!
Tolaen was furious, to the point that his attacks got wilder and fiercer.
Even though his magic shield could ward off most attacks, his body would still be occasionally hit. As the [Death’s Erosion] stacks grew, he began to discover something weird.
Not only were his recovery abilities restrained, but the effect of the amplification spell applied to him seemed to be getting weaker, and his body seemed to be unable to bear the magic energy used for transformation.
Moreover, since he had stacked up more than ten stacks, he discovered that his cells were continuously being destroyed, his injuries rapidly increasing. He could barely maintain his current state with his suppressed regeneration.
Her Esper Ability is too strong! Tolaen’s heart sank.
While he had also dealt Hila some injuries, they seemed to recover in the blink of an eye, and it was him that seemed to be getting worse because of the death energy raging in his body!
This newly emerged Beyond Grade A had such a high combat capability!
In that case…
Tolaen’s eyes grew cold, and mana condensed in his hands. This was followed by a mass of blood pouring out of his fingertips, and they mixed, turning into a strange purple blood flame.