Chương 878: Chapter 877: Wings Out

Roar! The Voltwing roared, destroying a barrage of arrows Ignatius had attacked it with. As it did, the storm, like purple lightning, rushed out of its body before turning into a dozen larger-than-human lightning bolts and shot out in all directions. There are sixteen of them. Five attacked Ignatius; four came at me, and seven of them went to Harrods, August, Axseer, and other important people.

'You focus on the monster, let me handle the rest!' I said to Ignatius as fractals flashed before me. Immediately, seven fractals transformed into the seven cyan blades and shot toward the bolts of lightning, which were moving toward the others. Verdant Path is a powerful aura method. Falling Leaf may seem slow, like a leaf falling gently from the tree, but it is extremely fast. Many of its blades have already reached the large bolts; others will get them soon, well before they reach their target.

I turned to the four large lightning bolts in front of me that are as thick as my thighs. I gripped my sword tightly, and my strength increased. I am focusing on strength enhancement as the artifact's second power. I am not able to consolidate it yet, which is surprising, given that I consolidated dissolution within an hour in the battle, and it has now been six months. My blade reached the first arc and touched it. I felt its power, not just raw wild elemental lightning, but powerful Primal Resonance.

I am glad that I infused the power of the dissolution into the aura blades I had sent. They clashed for a fraction of a second before my sword tore through it. Making the structure collapse as it does. The monster attacks are powerful, and many consider them unstable due to their wild nature, but they are more stable than the spell. I first thought the power of artifact is a collapse, but no, it's a dissolution.

In a collapse, the structure falls apart as support fails, whereas in dissolution, it is taken apart piece by piece until nothing remains. If I use enough power, I could make the whole attack disappear as it happened in the vision, but I do not need to go that far. I just need to use enough power to cause the collapse. My blade ripped through the attack, collapsing it behind me before moving to the second one. Doing the same to that attack, then doing the same to the third and final one.

Each attack was collapsed; they did not get split into two and kept moving. This power is incredible, and I have become pretty good at using it. I looked at my aura blades and saw them tearing through the bolts, making relief appear on the faces of the targeted people, while Ignatius had finished dealing with it. His arrows clashed against the bolt, stopping before they reached him. Roar! The monster roared angrily once more and released even more bolts while it charged toward Ignatius.

'Let me handle the attacks, you focus monster,' I said to him, and once more, aura blades appeared in front of me and shot toward the beast's attacks, including those going at Ignatius. One of us needs to focus wholly on the monster. We cannot just defend against it; that will take too much time and tire us. Our goal is to kill it or at least injure it enough that it will retreat. It's the leader. If it retreats, the other monsters will retreat as well.

Ignatius attacked the Voltwing with his arrows, and they reached it, but were unable to connect. Thick lightning came out of it and destroyed the arrows. Still, they slowed down the monster, and Ignatius launched another barrage. His job is just that: deal with the monster. I will handle everything else. While I was dealing with the monster, the bear's beam had reached Tempest and sliced through part of his head, leaving a bloody mark across his neck.

I didn't do anything; I watched and kept supplying him with more and more aura. Even now, this is the correct course, as the reaction comes from his core and slowly spreads through his body. Now, it is even more important to let it do what it wants. Still, it will have to finish the battle quickly. I know, Tempest's limits. Even with my support of my aura, he is expending his strength fast to fight the bear. At every attack, he is asking for more and more aura to match the bear.

If he kept expending the power at such a fast rate. He won't be able to last much longer against the bear. I hope he knows what he is doing. I would have liked to finish the bear myself and use the rest of my power against the Voltwing. Speaking of which, I saw the chance and didn't hesitate to attack with aura blades in synch with Ignatius, but the monster reacted fast. It sent the bolts at our attacks before effortlessly dodging the rest of the attacks. It's not only powerful, but also very nimble.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Ignatius is very good at containing it. If it had not been, it would have killed hundreds of our people by now, and it still will, if we don't deal with it soon. I continued to defend against its attacks, and where there is a gap, I would launch the blades directly. As time passed, Voltwing intensified its attack, and so did we, but we made no progress.

Still, we kept attacking, as with the level of power we are playing with, a single well-placed shot would be more than enough to finish us or it. Others are doing well. Harrods and August are holding down the monsters they are fighting. Even injuring them, but these monsters have a high vitality. It is tough to kill them, unless they have the aura method. For a moment, my eyes shifted to Axseer. She is sending the bloody lightning bolts at the monsters.

The decision to give the artifact was wise; her staff is one we got in exchange for the necromancer's Lanternroot Staff. We debated a lot about who we should give the artifact to next; there were many people. Cardin, Zela, Jon, and the Governors, but after much reflection. After weighing the pros and cons, we have chosen Axseer for her potential and power. Right now, the attacks she is casting are at Lv. 40, and she is doing it at a pace that will make even Mages jealous.

Though it is not the most impressive reason for her power, it is a force she controls and has the lowest mortality rate among all brigades. One could see that she is an amazing leader. She would attack the monsters that pose the greatest danger to her men and kill them while leaving the rest for her men to deal with. She does it constantly, every second; this would overwhelm even a veteran with decades of experience, but she does it with ease. The intensity of the second section broke my thoughts.

I saw the claws of a bear ripping Tempest's back bloody; it's the worst injury he has received yet. If Tempest hadn't turned, the claws would have taken my legs. His legs and back are now filled with bloody injuries, and I could sense in his core the difficulty he is having harnessing power from it. He won't be able to fight the bear for much longer. Well, he has to survive the bear first. It's too close now and already moving both of its claws toward Tempest.

'He would not be able to defend,' I thought, and I was about to summon fractals when I saw his head turning toward the bear and a ball of lightning appearing in front of him faster than I had ever seen him do before, and it was small, the size of a golf ball. It might be the size of a golf ball, but it contains massive energy. Far more than his first lightning ball. Not to mention the massive amount of aura he had been pulling from me. It is what, the intensity of the second section of thoughts about it.

The ball formed almost instantly and shot toward the bear, with the distance between them now barely half a meter. The ball of concentrated lightning infused with aura shot toward the bear, or rather, toward the crystal on its head, which lit amber, too shoot the beam. The bear had been constantly attacking with the beams. It had slowed down a little, not much, but a little.

It lit up with intensity, which shot the beam, but the concentrated ball of lightning had already reached the crystal, and I could see the panic in Bear's eyes. The ball hit the lightning crystal, and I expected an explosion of power and ready myself to summon the Bark Shield, but there was no explosion. Instead, it dulled the crystals to the palest I had ever seen. That seemed to trigger a backlash, as it had started to bleed from every orifice on its head. It's not easy to cause a backlash in monsters.

They have immense vitality, which could withstand every backlash, but this one seemed powerful enough to deeply affect it. Tempest seemed to understand that it would happen as it had moved his head behind the lightning ball. Now, it had opened its mouth widest I had ever seen, showing its large, sharp teeth. Tempts is not just a beast, but a monster after all, and a powerful one at that.

'He couldn't?' I thought, but the next moment, his large mouth bit across the thick neck of the bear. I could hear the loud crunching noise and the blood that seemed to pour out of his teeth and lips. It brought the bear out of the backlash, and it's struggled hard. I finally jumped from Tempest, but remained connected with the aura and fed it as he is demanding a lot of it. The bear struggled, and Tempest fell to the ground, but he did not let go of the bear. Even when the bear's claws begin to make a mess of him.

Making him unrecognizable from the blood and wounds. Seeing it, I nearly helped, but stopped myself; he needs to do it on his own. I could feel the intensity with which his core is pulsing; he is in the process of advancement. I cannot do anything to jeopardise it, no matter how bad it is. He got more and more injured, even his guts spilled out, but he didn't stop. He kept the neck in an iron hold of its mouth, drinking its blood.

Which is flooding into his body; I could feel the massive energy, but the core is quickly absorbing this enormous energy. Usually, it doesn't happen like this; it would kill a monster if they tried to do something like this. Though with advancement, many things are possible. Like every part of the body, it moves to digest it and send the energy to the core. The bear struggled hard, but Tempest didn't let go. Instead, he kept sending bolts of lightning at the bear.

Amazingly, the loss of blood and lightning attacks did not seem to affect him. The bear keeps struggling, turning Tempest into a bloody canvas. If I could not sense his vitality, I would have said he would die soon. His condition is very serious, but not to the level that he will die in a minute. Though it could happen if the bear kept injuring him as it did. Finally, after what seemed like forever, the bear had finally begun to show the signs of weakening.

It is still struggling intensely, but I can feel its weakness. Roar! I am not the only one. Voltwing turned toward me and roared loudly. The next moment, the arcs of purple lightning covered it densely before moving upward to form a column above it. It is massive, and the power had made all the hair on my body stand up.

'Lord Silver, be careful,' warned Ignatius as the monster shot the column of lightning toward me. He tried to stop it, but could not. I looked at it and released the breath before pushing aura into my sword. A layer of dissolution formed around it; it's not a common layer, it's very thick and robust. I call it Halo of Dissolution. The column, despite its size, was extremely fast and reached me in an instant. It was big from a distance, but even bigger in front of me.

Seeing it, it lit up a spark of fear in my heart, along with a lot of adrenaline-filled excitement. I gripped my blade tightly and swung it toward it, activating Tempest Razor, Sundering Blade, and Lash of Grace from a copied skill. A new cyan layer appeared. Filled with all my understanding of Falling Leaf. The blade clashed against the column, and I could feel the immense power of it. It is so much that any Lv. 40, without the aura method, could forget resisting it. Even those aura methods might not do it.

As my blade clashed, the lightning changed; it began to fall apart. Not by my power, but its own design, with lightning bolts begin to snake across my sword. I grinned as they touched the dissolution field and began to break apart. This separation weakened the column, and my blade started to tear through it. As it moved forward, its structure was destroyed; by the time it reached the end, there was nothing left of the column or the lightning.

"You will have to do better than that," I said to Voltwing, with a grin, but inside, I am shaking. The monster seemed to understand it and roared. Though a moment later, it turned to defend against the barrage of arrows from Ignatius. I turned to the Bear and saw it weakened further. More than I had thought. Enough, that Tempest will be able to handle it on its own.

"You don't need me anymore," I said. He didn't neigh; his tail had moved in affirmation.

"Good luck!" I wished and turned, deactivating the Parallel Thoughts, with relief. Now, I only have one target, the Voltwing. Dominion Surge burst from me, and I moved forward toward the Voltwing. Roar! It noticed, immediately, and it let out the most enormous roar I have ever heard from it. Containing so much Primal Resonance, it shook my mind. Dense lightning covered it, and I thought another attack was coming. Instead, they weaved into giant wings.

The wings flapped, and it shot into the air, looking more menacing and graceful at the same time.

'It had finally become serious,' I thought as my expression turned sombre.