1312 Life and death crisis: self-
destruction and spatial lock
Bai Zemin simply fixed his eyes on Akumi. His pupils continuously dilated and contracted as his focus grew steadily fiercer.
Akumi said he only had seven minutes to live at best, but these words might as well be a bait to lure the enemy. Besides, Bai Zemin had no plans to let Akumi fall to a Fifth Order Higher Existence.... Although he wasn't sure if he could kill him while he was still in the Sixth Order, Bai Zemin simply couldn't accept getting less powerful records than he deserved after such a dangerous and fierce battle.
Just then, Akumi's movements seemed to slow down before Bai Zemin's eyes. It was as if the basilisk whose back half had just been destroyed by the God & Demon Killing Tower had entered a quicksand swamp in which moving forward had become a great challenge for him.
What is this?
Bai Zemin felt perplexed at this strange feeling.
Although Akumi's overall battle power dropped by 20-30%, which meant that his speed was also lower, it shouldn't be up to this point, right?
Despite his doubts, however, Bai Zemin did not reject this feeling but tried to embrace it as tightly as he could while trying to clear his mind of any thoughts or feelings.
At a certain point, Bai Zemin's mind simply became free of worries and clear like a spring lake bathing under the morning dew. It was then that he finally understood why this feeling felt so familiar to him...
[You have entered the optimal state for combat against your enemies. Very few existences throughout the history of the Soul Record have ever achieved this].
[God of War's Will temporarily evolves to the next stage.]
[God of War's Will (Third Order passive skill) level 5 ---- > God of War's Will (Fourth Order passive skill) level 1]
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[God of War's Will ....]
[God of War's Partial Possession (Second activation): ... ]
[God of War's Temporary Possession (Third activation): All stats +5000 as long as the passive effect is active. Conditions for activation are unknown. The user's mind enters the best combat state called 'God Mode'].
_________
Akumi did not notice anything unusual except the change of color in Bai Zemin's eyes, as they went from being black as night to shining golden like the purest gold in the world.
When Bai Zemin activated Overlap Regenereation, the golden aura that covered his body caused even his almost completely white hair to take on a sort of golden tint on it. Adding this to his now golden eyes, he truly looked like the embodiment of a spirit god.
"[Petrifying Flame Claw!]"
A dark brown flame danced around Akumi's left claw and the surroundings distorted fiercely as he burned his Mana without holding anything back. His speed was so high that despite being so severely injured it only took a blink of an eye for him to arrive in front of Bai Zemin, furiously swinging his claw and leaving four thin but clear spatial cracks in the process.'Is he staying quiet?' Akumi was surprised as his claws descended on Bai Zemin's body unimpeded.
If this blow didn't kill him it would definitely leave him half dead considering that Bai Zemin was also seriously injured at this point!
But what happened next made Akumi's movements freeze for an instant.
To his utter disbelief, his flame-wrapped claws actually sliced through his enemy's body unimpeded; but what was truly terrifying was that Akumi felt as if he was slicing through the air instead of a solid body.
'Afterimage...? No!' Akumi suddenly noticed that, without knowing when, a huge amount of crystalline fog had covered a large area.
ραndαsΝοvεl.cοm The fog seemed to be composed of countless crystal particles that reflected light like beautiful floating diamonds in the middle of space. Moreover, Akumi's Domain lost a small part of its effectiveness as it began to clash fiercely against the fog as if refusing to allow its existence on the same ground.
There was only one thing that could cause a Domain to become unstable; another Domain!
"Freeze!"
A beautiful but cold as millennial ice voice sounded not far behind Akumi. Just as the latter wanted to turn around out of pure instinct to face the new enemy, the air in his blood and lungs suddenly began to freeze and his veins clogged with thin layers of white ice.
For 0.1 seconds, Akumi's movements completely stalled before he shattered all the ice inside his body by heating up his body temperature.
Screeee!
A phoenix cry resounded and a layer of pale blue light illuminated the area as Akumi's back was struck by an ice beam.
BANG!!!
Akumi's body was sent flying two hundred meters straight up and his back was covered by a thick layer of ice. Just as he regained his footing, a flash of golden light shone before his one intact eye before a huge surge of pain hit him directly.
ROAR!!!
Blood along with shattered bone fragments flew everywhere. At the same time, a thick gray and white colored matter shot out from his eye socket.
Akumi's half-shattered body recoiled fiercely and writhed. The pain of having lost his other eye, as well as the involuntary despair of being completely blinded, was too much to bear!
Enveloped by a thick layer of golden light, Bai Zemin seemed not to notice Shangguan Bing Xue's existence at all. His body leaned forward with the intention to continue attacking, as at this point it was clear to him that within the next 30 seconds he would be able to kill his opponent even though he would have to pay a certain price.
However, just as his body shook as if he was about to disappear, Bai Zemin froze after taking a single step and could no longer continue.
Shangguan Bing Xue was also preparing to support him, defeating the powerful enemy together. But all these thoughts disappeared in a flash when she noticed the irregularity he had fallen into.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!....
Shangguan Bing Xue's pupils contracted to the size of a needle as under her trembling gaze the veins inside Bai Zemin's body began to explode one after another.
Starting from his arms and then his legs, Bai Zemin's blood flowed freely. He tried to use Blood Manipulation to stop the bleeding and repair his broken veins, but it was of no use.
"Zemin!"
Shangguan Bing Xue was now the Ice Goddess of this generation, so controlling her hot emotions and remaining indifferent and cold was as simple and natural as breathing for her. However, when she saw Bai Zemin fall into such a miserable condition her ice heart immediately exploded with concern and horror.
She rushed to support him and cried out his name in despair, but when she touched his body Shangguan Bing Xue's entire being froze.
How could this be possible.... How could this happen....
Thanks to Xia Ya's skill, Shangguan Bing Xue was linked to Bai Zemin's soul. When she touched him firsthand, she was able to "see" more clearly the condition his soul was in but what she "saw" chilled her blood.
Bai Zemin's soul was completely covered with tiny cracks adorning it in a frightening manner. What Shangguan Bing Xue was seeing at this point was not at all different from a crystal glass just two touches away from collapsing and exploding into hundreds of pieces.
"Hahahahahahaha!"
Akumi's laughter thundered through the space. His laughter contained a hint of mirth, anger, as well as pain and sorrow as what was left of his body involuntarily writhed in the face of the overwhelming pain.
"Although I don't know how it's possible that your stats suddenly shot up by over 10,000 points, it seems that this abrupt increase in power coupled with that strange skill of yours finally consumed all the time you should have left prematurely!" Akumi rejoiced and gloated.
That's right, he gloated!
Because if not for this unforeseen event, Akumi knew that his death at the hands of Bai Zemin and this woman who could even restrain him would be bound to come soon!
Even if Akumi didn't care about dying, deep inside he refused to die by the hands of a Lower Existence no matter how powerful the latter may be.... Because it would be too damned humiliating!
"I must admit that you, Bai Zemin, are the greatest anomaly that ever existed in the history; I will give you that! And you, little lass, to think that you would actually gain manipulation and creation abilities at the same time; were it not for this guy and if you were given a few more centuries you'd most likely become the mightiest entity under the stars!" Akumi's body began to blaze brightly as his aura grew crazily, "But that's all in the past... Because you two will die here, together!"
Akumi's aura became terrifying; so terrifying that it didn't take long for him to surpass the aura he could release at his best.
In response to this, his records began to fall even faster than before as the purple-colored lightning bolts falling from the sky became more intense and fierce as if they wanted to end his existence as soon as possible. However, in reaction to this Akumi simply laughed out loud.
Shangguan Bing Xue whose face was already covered with tears somehow knew that this was the end of her journey when Akumi's colossal aura pressed down on her small thin shoulders. She hugged Bai Zemin as if she wanted to melt into his body while tears fell disconsolately and murmured in his ear, "I really regret this... I am not willing!"
"Hahahahahaha! You're not willing? Hahaha!"
Akumi's cruel laughter continued to resound in the surroundings, suppressing the sobs of the beautiful freshly born Ice Goddess.
Suddenly, Shangguan Bing Xue's body became rigid just like Bai Zemin's. She used all her strength to try to move, but not only did she not succeed but to her horror she could not even move her mouth or her eyes; even her tears froze in their tracks.
In the distance, Wu Yijun's lovely face was devoid of blood as she stared at the huge magic screen in front of her before fainting. Despite having lost consciousness, however, extremely pitiful tears fell from the corners of her pretty eyes.
On the wall, Lu Cai and his teammates watched the scene in the distance with complicated expressions.
"He's going to self-destruct; even I would end up miserable if I got hit." Lu Cai smiled bitterly and sadly as he said, "That kind of aura is enough to freeze space to a certain extent... Unless one can shatter the space lock it is impossible to break free."
After a moment of silence, Lu Cai took a step forward and was about to leave the city despite knowing what this meant, however, he suddenly froze in his tracks. An expression of disbelief plastered his face as a horrible aura negated him from taking another step forward.
"Wh... What..."
Lu Cai glanced at his companions as he thought he was confused, but seeing the shocked expressions and pallid faces they all shared he realized he wasn't felling wrong.