Volume 3 - 194: When Darkness Prevails
Anyhow, right at this very moment, their time was up as the brilliant claw had finally descended upon them.
Boom! Bam~
As the golden beauty had literally moved in front of the claw attack in order to receive most of the damage and cover the open spots for her master, the claw made contact with her body, however, trying her best to not budge from her current location to the best of her abilities, she put all of her strength under her feet as if her feet were nailed right there.
Nonetheless, since the attack was too powerful for her to resist, her body began to move back while a trace of her feet resisting with all her might was drawn on the ground and it was getting bigger and bigger every second!
Simultaneously, right before the claw had made contact with them, since there was no longer any open spots that could come to injure him gravely anymore, Virus raised both of his scale-covered arms right in front of the incoming claw attack as he began to withstand it just like the golden beauty as the two started to be pushed back in a rather quick speed.
Still, if the strength of the ’Reverse Soaring Claw’ and the damage the two were receiving as a result of that were split into percentages, then the golden beauty would be receiving around ninety percent of the attack with her whole body alone while Virus would be receiving the remaining ten percent with his scaled arms.
Unfortunately, the attack seemed to be too powerful for the golden beauty’s body to handle as the more she was pushed back, the more her body began to crumble away.
First, both of her arms began to break down just like how glass shatters after taking a hard blow. So, starting from her fingers to her palms and then from there to the rest of her arms, they began to break and shatter into pieces.
However, this was not the end as very soon, both of her arms were going to disappear in a moment and if she didn’t do anything the very next instant, she was certain that the attack would arrive at her body!
And that might endanger her whole physique breaking down into many pieces with no part left intact... which was dangerous even for her!
Now, she had to make a very important decision as to with which part of her body she had to defend and which part of her body she should sacrifice in order to protect her own existence!
So with that, an instant later, after doing some simple calculations, she began moving a specific part of her body and right before the last remnants of her arms were entirely gone, raising one of her legs in front of her body, she began to resist the claw attack with her knee alone.
In the meantime, while the golden beauty continued defending the attack with her knee while leaning over toward his body, even though Virus had to tolerate only ten percent of the damage with his scaled arms, it still seemed to be way above the power and the durability of his ring as he even heard his scaled-claws crack the very next moment.
Crack~
But, since it was only ten percent of the claw’s strength, right after the sharp points of some of his fingers broke, the whole ten percent of the damage was spent at last as the claw attack finally dispersed and ended.
’Phew...’ Letting out a sigh of relief seeing the attack was finally over, wanting to check the current state of the tumbled golden beauty, Virus looked at her fallen body, however, seeing her condition, his whole body froze as his face turned extremely dark.
This was happening because right in front of him, he was witnessing only half of the golden beauty’s body left intact!
Both of her arms were completely long gone!
Even one of her legs was nowhere to be seen...
Though the heartbreaking thing was that it didn’t end there as starting from the place her leg had disappeared until her chest, only half of her chest and body had remained... while the other half was... nowhere to be seen!
And that’s why at this moment, Virus’ expression was extremely unsightly and dark like never before!
’Uh!’ Witnessing the golden beauty defend against his attack with her life, the guest elder was truly surprised, however, soon, that surprise vanished from his face as he began to laugh out loud, "Hahaha... what a stupid little young lady... to let go of her own life for you... still... she must’ve had a very hard armor to be able to have some part of her body remaining even after such a powerful attack... un, those broken armor-parts confirm my thought indeed."
He didn’t realize anything odd or wrong with the golden beauty’s body since the outward appearance of her body possessed both meat and skin just like a normal person’s.
So as a result of that, the external parts of her body were bleeding just like how a normal human being would bleed in this kind of situation and because of that, those blood had covered and concealed all of the mechanical parts of her body.
Moreover, the damaged parts of her body were now facing Virus.
If the guest elder had put a bit of attention and focus on her body, he might have figured that something was strange with her body, however, since all he cared about was Virus, he didn’t even bother to check the state of the dead girl’s corpse beside him.
Thus, staring at that dark face of Virus, the guest elder began talking in a tone like it was a great pity how everything had progressed, "Aiii, having treasures like that space weapon of yours is truly a sin for a weak person such as you...sigh, just see what kind of disaster that treasure brought upon you... hmm, oh right, it doesn’t seem to be a space weapon... so it would be wrong to call it that... anyway, blame that ring of yours for this calamity that fell upon you two... sigh."
In the meantime, internally, although Virus was truly infuriated to no ends after witnessing the current condition of the golden beauty’s body, still, knowing nothing good would result from being purely enraged, with absolute control over his mind, very rationally, he deliberated to himself, ’I still underestimated the strength the most powerful elder would possess in the sect... according to the data I gathered considering the alchemy elder, the Sun elder, that elder Lil Belle killed the other night, and all of the other elders I had seen and analyzed... I picked the possibility that the strongest person would most likely be at most a single stage higher than that elder Lil Belle had murdered... however... I shouldn’t have chosen that possibility, I should’ve... Sigh, once again, because of the unknown variables that popped up due to insufficient data, my Lil Belle who’s currently one of my main last lines of defense was forced to this extent...’
As his contemplation reached this point, directing his gaze toward the elder who was still hovering in the sky, he uttered in a chilly tone that paradoxically couldn’t be calmer, "You shouldn’t have done that..."
Listening to his words, the guest elder was just about to smirk and mock his na?ve words, when abruptly, he felt like his whole being from the deepest part of his soul tremble as his eyes opened very widely like never before, ’Impossible... am I feeling afraid of him? Why? Uhh... That’s... that’s, that’s impossible!’ In absolute disbelief, he was thinking why his instincts were warning him so badly when just a moment later, he sensed a very dense bloody killing intent directed right at him.
Then, with beads of sweat displaying itself on his forehead, different notions began to pass through his mind, ’How... how could such a young man have such a dense killing intent... how can it be so dense and immense to the point of it being visible! No, no... how can a human being have such a killing intent to begin with... no, this is impossible! Just how many people do you need to slaughter in order to have this kind of... but... but... he’s clearly only a teenager! It can’t be! This must be an illusion!’
Afterward, finally forcing himself to take a deep breath, he continued, ’No... I should calm down... even if he has such a monstrous killing intent... so what? He’s still just a normal mortal without any kind of cultivation whatsoever in the end! Right!’ As he finally concluded his own thinking process, trying his best to ignore the killing intent, a wide grin sat on his face as he uttered with a harrumph, "I did it... so what? What can a simple mortal like you possibly do about it, huh? Hmph! Anyway... prepare to die now... tch, though I admit, you’re really talented in sending someone into a bad mood!" Uttering this, he was now ready to begin his next round of attack.
All along though, Virus’ sharp gaze didn’t leave the elder at all as he continued staring into the guest elder’s eyes with a dark expression so cold that anyone would tremble upon experiencing it slightly just once.
"How dare you look at me like that... you rascal!" As expected, the guest elder couldn’t stop himself from entering into a state of panic while looking at his gaze, however, seeing himself horrified at the sight of a mere junior also made him feel extremely humiliated inside and that made him very irritated and antagonized.
’Tch... this time, no one would be able to save your fragile mortal life.’ So, as this thought popped into his head, with obvious anger apparent in his tone, he began muttering his next attack technique, "Reverse Soaring..."
BANG~~~
However, before he could even finish, out of nowhere, something invisible seemed to hit him hard from above as he was flattened tens of meters under the ground the very next moment!
Right now, just a couple of steps in front of Virus’ cold face, a gigantic crater which was almost a hundred meters in depth, width, and length had shown itself!
historical
However, the shocking thing was that... there was nothing that had previously made contact with the ground or the guest elder himself!
The whole scene that had occurred was that one moment prior, there was nothing as the guest elder was hovering above the ground, ready to attack... however, dumbfoundingly, the very next moment, out of nowhere, a gigantic crater of tens of meters suddenly appeared on the ground a few steps in front of Virus who still wore that dark expression over his face as he muttered, "I told you you shouldn’t have done that."