Chương 763

While a yellow and white shockwave from the Lich's phylactery being destroyed ripples through a large portion of the world, even the Demonic Berserker turns its attention to it over ten thousand kilometers away. Raven takes advantage of this lapse in its attention and dives down straight toward the crimson monster's back. Her breathing stays consistent, and her mind stays solely on her Divine Core and Soul Energy.

That is because, in such a high-stakes scenario, her instincts will activate portions of the system to increase her power or reactivate her greater form if she feels in danger. The only way to ensure this doesn't happen is total concentration—thinking of nothing but soaring downward through stealth-infused space. No pressure from the hot red aura creeps into her mind, and even the suppressed Noble Vibrations from deep within the Berserker's body don't slow Raven's mind or movements like they did previously.

As she soars within striking distance, the monster still believes she is completely gone. The woman is like a ghost. Her theory is correct. It is a success. Though one problem remains. While in this state, she may not be detected, but she cannot land physical attacks. Now, she has a saturated True Core and a level over 20, 000, making her one of the strongest humans alive.

But to land an actual deadly hit on this being that is technically three World Classes above her, she'll need to use her borrowed stats and greater form to pull this off. From a calm state, flowing through an invisible pocket of reality, Raven counts down the milliseconds before impact and prepares to reactivate her system once the moment is right.

— Once less than 100 meters away, with the monster looking in the completely opposite direction, still focused on the blast of energy from the other King's demise, Raven commits and goes in for the kill. Behind her stealth veil, she reactivates her greater form and pulls a full 4% of all the stats available in the Rising Emperor's domain. Within her body, her True Core re-tethers to all of this power surging into her, and the two silver blades in her hands glow bright yellow.

Simultaneously, the immense heat and pressure from this strange red aura seep through her divine stealth veil, and her mind begins to feel like it's been lit on fire. All of her sensory alarms are blaring as it feels like her body is being melted. Though, she knows this is an illusion. The last time she felt similar, as soon as she flew away and deactivated her system skills, all of the pain and pressure disappeared.

She doesn't waver in her flight path and keeps her calm demeanor, but still registers the ear-piercing screech from the Berserker as it begins to turn its body toward her faster than she's flying in. In such a controlled and calculated state, Raven can perceive the world around her with great clarity. Especially behind her stealth veil. From decades of working for the Association and the members of the Order back on the human world, she has lived large portions of her life behind this barrier of space.

On spying missions to collect intel, to assassinate targets that plotted to gain too much power while not following the proper procedure, and even in her own free time, she could hide from the rulers of the human world without ever being sensed. Not only is it an incredible technique to have in fights, but an even better one to be an observer of reality around her. In the stealth dimension, there is a peaceful silence and a relaxing feeling that washes through her mind.

It allows her to see the world around her in very interesting ways—with far more focus and a level head. Now, with a saturated core, trillions of added base stat points, and the adrenaline from this sacred place being breached by the aura of an undefeated Demonic Beast that has been guarding the throne on this world for millennia, Raven's ability to perform only becomes more enhanced. In the past, small premonitions would appear to her like shadows in her peripherals while observing the world in her stealth mode.

They are merely projections of the mind, similar to a divine foresight skill, taking the data in her environment and showing multiple trajectories—how stepping out of her hidden dimension at certain times would affect reality. The shadows look like perfect mirrored images of her, jumping upward, down, and side to side. Some swing her blades, while others block, and some just lunge forward. She's never seen so many at once, and in such perfect clarity.

Then again, her mind and body have never been so powerful and pushed to such limits. The Berserker is still growing in size, and the pace at which it twists its body while swinging two massive crimson blades her way increases with every millisecond that passes. Imagery of its blades swinging in different directions streams through Raven's mind. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Many of them include versions of herself twisting away from the incoming attacks, or taking direct hits from one of the swords, only blocking with her crossed blades. Some reveal even more cracks in her already damaged blades, while many show her blood-bonded swords shattering. The ones where her blades shatter look as though she's using the blast to get herself a safer distance away, while preserving her blades is far more risky.

Though, some of the riskier preservation lines of probability show her being deflected downward and creating massive gashes through the Berserker's legs and lower abdomen. The closer she gets to the decision-making point, the more and more paths explode into her mind with possibilities. While she doesn't have much time to think, she does know that this kind of opportunity may not come up in the same way again.

The fractions of a second of distraction from Arie finishing his battle gave her the time necessary to get in this close. On top of that, her primary weapons can't take much more of a beating. Even in the best-case scenario that she makes it out of this exchange with her blades intact, they'll be able to handle one more exchange at most... Her instincts are still riding the wave of adrenaline, and the memories of her battle with the Rising Emperor still fuel her will.

She chooses the path that fits her mindset and greatest chance of victory—no matter the cost—living for the thrill of the fight. It is the riskiest path of them all, but the only one that ends in the Berserker's demise. Her eyes glow with resolve while she steps off the air, changing her flight trajectory to just be missed by 10 meters at most from the bottom sword the Berserker is swinging.

The aura alone coming off the blade burns through her stealth barrier, making the lower half of her greater energy form numb to her senses. Even so, just like fighting off the cold in their exchanges before it revealed this form, she relies on her instincts and the perceived flight path her momentum will bring her. In doing so, she's dodged one blade but is now headed upward in the direction of the second blade. Behind it is the Berserker's head.

Her direct path toward its core has been swayed, making it impossible to kill it now unless she does something even more drastic. All of her visions of her stealth shadows showed her blades being destroyed in order to damage this beast or get away, so there's no use in trying to protect them any further. She allows one of the blades to slip out from the stealth pocket, showing its bright yellow glow in all its glory.

Oddly, she siphons a large amount of the divine energy and soul energy inside it out, letting it flow back into her body before swinging it upward at an awkward angle to hit the bottom of the Berserker's second approaching sword. At such close range, and such an odd angle, with less than 20% of the full strength that it could have had, the sword shatters into pieces on impact, causing an explosion that halts the Berserker's downward movement of its sword.

In the same instance, she allows her full body to be revealed to the real world around her for another few milliseconds, taking advantage of that excess energy to blow herself downward with the blast—course-correcting toward her original target, leaving the two blades of the Berserker unable to defend at all. Every drop of energy she has left in her body now goes channeling into her remaining silver blade, held with both hands as it plunges deep into the chest of the crimson Berserker's massive form.

She loses all sense of feeling in her upper body as well now, as the hot burning sensations are so immense it feels as though she's plunging into a star. It gets hotter and hotter the deeper into the greater form she falls, but her mind and body are far past the point of being able to sense any changes. All she knows is the exact timing necessary to pull this attack off. Her glowing yellow blade collides head-on with the Berserker's divine core, but it doesn't shatter entirely.

Only a chink in its outer layer allows the tip of Raven's blade to enter. As a result of that impact, Raven's blade fractures even more, and the energy inside glows bright like its own divine core. Her eyes glow bright white, and her greater form moves in a rigid motion, like a mindless instinct-driven animal, using momentum to her advantage and the already damaged core to thrust the blade again until it pierces the core up to its hilt. Still, nothing happens.

The core doesn't fracture—only the sword within it cracks more as it's taking even more high pressure on it from all sides. Though, the Berserker does let out a screech, and this is when Raven's greater form disappears from its senses. While it feels counterintuitive again, Raven disables her greater form, deactivates all of her borrowed stats, and slips away into a stealth dimension created by the power of her True Core. Her momentum still moves forward, slipping right through the Berserker King's physical body.

However, she's let go of her sword. Inside the pocket of space that she travels through, Raven takes a deep gasp of breath as feeling in her body returns. With this breath, a euphoric surge of endorphins fill her mind as she's realized she really pulled it off. While the thrill of battle is satisfying, at the same time, her body gets struck with a wave of fatigue and feeling of energy loss.

That's because, in order to pull off this maneuver, Raven had to sacrifice about 10% of the threads filling her saturated Core. While not entirely possible by normal means, the blade she left behind in the Berserker's chest is a blood-bonded weapon, one she's used for many years, and while connected to her, it acts as a pseudo-core to hold some of her divine power. — Notifications ring in her inner ear as, behind her, a flash of yellow light so bright it completely covers the sky with its vibrance.

The Berserker's final screech is overpowered by the shockwave and horrific sounds of region-sized rocks being split and obliterated by the pressure released. The monster's red aura fluctuates in a frantic state, allowing waves of Noble Vibrations to come through and fight for dominance again. Body parts fly in the air, alongside the Demonic Beast's two blades.

While Raven may feel mentally and physically drained from sacrificing a portion of the divine threads she's been storing up for months, she can't help but grin—proud of herself for going in for the kill just like the Rising Emperor would. — As two enormous white and yellow blasts of energy light up the sky from the demise of the Kings, even on the other side of the planet, Abby feels the shockwaves and power released from these blows. She sends a wave of telepathy through their channel in a nonchalant tone.

"Good. I knew you two could handle it." Then she turns back to studying the Wyvern corpse before her. She's circled it a few times and ended up face-to-face with its skull. The black bones are perfectly intact, and she feels the Noble Vibrations coming off of them. However, in this strange new form she's been using ever since leaving the cultivation chamber on the moon, this healer is able to let these waves flow through her as if they're meaningless.

She even leans forward and presses a finger down onto the tip of that Wyvern's nose—staying unaffected by its radiation. Abby activates her Divine Grade Restore skill, along with her first-ranked-up buff, Area of Total Restoration. A ripple of her green-tinted soul energy flows from the tip of her finger into the Wyvern's bones, and an enormous one-kilometer-wide restoration circle full of runes forms under the skeleton resting on the desert floor.

The drop of soul energy pushed into the corpse flows through these ancient bones, making them glimmer white and green all over for a few seconds. The entire massive skeleton shakes, and a bright green glow from Abby's magic lights up the entire desert as 4% of her links of loyalty and the full power of her saturated True Core are being stimulated to complete a daunting task. Her eyes burn with curiosity as she keeps a finger touching the dead ancient creature's bones.

Though, they open wide with shock once she hears an unfamiliar deep telepathic voice enter her consciousness.