906 Death Strand
Hell Ape, an Undead Sovereign beast of the Red Desert was annoyed. A pesky little bug dared to intrude into its territory and was heading straight toward it.
If it's a fellow Sovereign beast, living or Undead, it would at least understand. But this pest? Its only high level 9, no, it's just a mid level 9!
What galls!
Even though as an Undead, Hell Ape didn't have a proper mental faculty, its pride was so engraved that it became an instinct.
So, even after death, the proud Hell Ape was angry when its pride was hurt.
"Roar!" Slamming its chest, the giant creature kicked the ground and shot forward.
Despite its size rivaling a mountain, it moved faster than wind and appeared in front of the pest.
"Roar!" With another battle cry, it punched down.
Even before the ape's fist touched him, the ground under him cracked and a wide and huge crater was formed.
Due to the sheer pressure, the Undead man's skin tore apart. His plantae power activated on its own and healed his skin. The skin continued to break and his plantae power continued to heal. This formed a weird cycle where the two effectively canceled each other.
"Heh," the Undead man looked at the approaching fist and his lips curled up. Ten years of arduous practice was long ingrained deep in his bones and became an instinct of its own.
So, when the ape attacked, the man teleported above it. With a wave of his hand, dozens of lightning bolts and ice bullets shot the ape.
As an Undead, the ape wasn't very sophisticated in its battle style. Yet, a Sovereign was a Sovereign.
Even when the elemental attacks struck its body, they merely pierced its skin and failed to do any further damage.
On the other hand, the ape reacted quickly this time and slapped the man.
Without any time to teleport, the man was forced to use all his powers to defend himself.
But as that giant palm as big as his entire body approached, it was clear that his defenses wouldn't even put up a resistance in front of that power.
At that moment, a black strand in the man's body, the death strand shone and a small piece of it broke apart. This small piece melted and circulated throughout the man's body.
Suddenly, the aura of the man skyrocketed.
From mid level 9 all the way to peak of level 9. It tried to go further, into the Sovereign state, but for some reason, it was forcibly stalled by a power that appeared out of nowhere.
[Host, if it wasn't for this good system, you would've become a Sovereign in one path and would've been forced to abandon every other path.]
No reply came.
The Undead man only let out a roar of laughter as he felt tremendous power flow through his veins.
Eight peak level 9 powers flowed through him.
At that moment, he felt invincible.
"Haaaa!"
The man tapped his finger in the air. A translucent ripple spread out and the space around the Ape froze.
"Roar!" With a raging roar, the ape flexed its arms and was halfway through breaking the space freeze when its movements slowed down.
As if it wasn't enough, three spears lined up one after another, right above the ape's head.
A lightning spear. An ice spear. A telekinetic spear.
"Roar!"
With a fierce struggle, the ape broke both the space and time twists around it.
Right then, the man snapped his fingers, as he had always done when he was alive.
The lightning spear crashed into its thick head and made a small dent. Then came the ice spear which pierced the defense of the head but couldn't go any deeper.
The ape was both terrified and relieved when an invisible telekinetic spear pierced through that same injury and entered its head.
A second later, the ape's head burst apart and its huge body collapsed.
As it died, its Sovereign aura was extinguished and this was sensed by the Sovereign beasts around the Red Desert.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
The wind from all directions suddenly flowed towards the Undead man and dozens of Sovereign auras locked onto him.
The man's aura fell back to mid level 9 but he looked forward to fighting the Sovereign beasts. "Hahahahaha!"
A few minutes later, the Undead man fought against a dozen Sovereign beasts, living and Undead.
Originally, his aura was only mid level 9. But once he started fighting, the death strand broke down further and pushed him to peak level 9 once again.
And just like that, a peak level 9 bravely faced a dozen Sovereigns.
Ironically, even a dozen peak level 9 couldn't face a single Sovereign. But the reverse was happening here.
And not only was the peak level 9 facing the Sovereigns, but he was also winning.
Space and Time twisted. Ice and Lightning fell. Illusions were everywhere. Invisible attacks appeared without warning.
The man himself had a formidable body. And making matters worse, none of his injuries remained for more than a minute.
Even though they're all individually weak against any Sovereign, the seamless combination of these eight powers destroyed not one but twelve Sovereigns.
But the battle wasn't easy by any means.
Despite his insane Plantae powers, the Undead accumulated several serious injuries that would take hours even with his healing speed.
Not only that, the auras from this battle were so powerful that they spread far and wide and attracted hundreds of thousands of beasts, living and Undead, from all across the Mad Zone.
Looking at the blood-soaked man, some of them came forward to attack while most stepped backward.
"Hahahaha!" The Undead laughed and disappeared.
In the next two days, thirty Sovereigns died.
— — —
"Huff! Huff!"
In an underground cave, Sarah panted violently as she clutched her injured knees. Her lungs burned in pain and her entire body ached.
Next to her was Enigma who just collapsed onto the floor from extreme exhaustion.
"H-He…" Sarah breathed in sharply and asked. "Where is he?"
Enigma tried to stand up but the sharp pain in her back caused her to flinch. Turning her head slightly, she said. "He's somewhere near. I can tell."
'How can you tell his location?' Sarah didn't ask that question and Enigma didn't intend to answer even if asked.
The reason she could sense him was simple though. Enigma had traces of four slivers inside her. Varian had two slivers.
'She' could feel this and traveled to Solar System. Even though Enigma couldn't sense Varian as proficienctly as 'She' could, it wasn't a problem to guess his rough location.
But explaining this would lead to more questions which was the last thing Enigma wanted now.
"Rest an hour, we'll resume our search then," Sarah said and closed her eyes.
Forty minutes passed and Sarah had recovered almost 60% of her power when the cave began to shake.
"Huh?" Sarah flew out of the cave and looked around.
The cave, the mountain, no, the entire ground was shaking, as if an earthquake was occurring.
"He…" Enigma appeared beside her and pointed in a direction with a trembling finger.
"What?" Sarah spread out her light sense but couldn't find anyone.
Enigma took a deep breath and said in a serious tone.
"He's coming."
As her words fell, the sky suddenly turned dark and a figure appeared on the horizon. "Pure."
