GDK 452: Demonic Blades
The azure staff materialized in Tiana’s hand and immediately, the element of water came to life in the region, which had just regained a presence of elements. The dry air was now filled with moisture, while the blanket of fog that lingered around Tiana grew thicker.
“Reynold, take care of those in the outermost perimeter. You two get close to retrieve the Origin Crystal. I will deploy magic from the sides to assist the two of you. Tiana bluntly elected herself to be the leader, as the staff in her hand began to rapidly absorb the rich element of water in the region.
“Let’s go!” shouted the old monster Stratholme in a low voice. A simple and unadorned longsword the width of about two fingers fell into his hand. Immediately after he spoke, he flew off a hundred meters away, charging straight towards the aliens, who were holding some sort of wicked ceremony.
Han Shuo was empty-handed. When he saw Stratholme suddenly on the move, Han Shuo reduced to a cloud of black light and followed tightly behind Stratholme. While in the air, Han Shuo’s ten fingernails started to grow rapidly. Within the blink of an eye, they were a meter long. His frightening fingernails twinkled with the incisive gloss of the edge of a knife.
‘Demonic Blades’ was a demonic art that could only be practiced by one who had reached the Carnal Realm, as the body of a demonic practitioner could only prompt the sudden growth of demonic claws within the realm. Naturally, those in the demonic sect would not simply call their own fingernails, however long they were, ‘claws’, therefore they were dubbed ‘Demonic Blades’.
After the meter-long fingernails were perfused with demonic yuan, the Demonic Blades truly resembled sharp blades, even somewhat sharper than some regular grade A weapons.
When Stratholme the old monster finally found the time to take a glance behind, he was shocked by the bizarre changed on Han Shuo’s two hands, wondering, is this kid even human? How are his nails sharper than the sharpest knives?
Buzz… Buzz…
The aliens in the midst of a procession immediately sensed some incoming danger. They let out an ear-piercing noise that resonated through the sky. For one who was no real expert like Han Shuo and the three, one such as Cecilia, that buzzing alone would cause their eardrums to rupture.
“I’ll go right and you take the left. Let’s move!” Stratholme the old monster shouted loudly. An unhealthy light grey appeared on his handsome face. Before Han Shuo could answer, the old monster’s speed multiplied abruptly, and he streaked across the surface of the vast lake in an instant, heading into the isle covered with aliens.
With one sweep of the longsword in Stratholme’s hand, colourless and formless fighting aura erupted like a volcano. The bodies of a dozen or more aliens closest to Stratholme exploded violently, shattering into pieces just three meters from him.
For swordsmen and knights, even though they possessed fighting aura, their fighting aura carried different colours. From the pale blue fighting aura of a swordsman apprentice to the gold fighting aura of a sacred swordmaster, they all varied in colours. Legend had it that only an expert who had broke through to divine swordmaster could possess colourless and formless fighting aura. This Stratholme before his eyes was evidently one of the said experts on the level of divine swordmaster.
If not for Han Shuo’s mighty consciousness, and his unwavering attention to Stratholme’s attack movements, he perhaps wouldn’t have had so easily noticed the intimidating colourless, formless fighting aura condensed in his longsword. Without any colour as indicators, the opponent would hardly be able to tell just how horrific the fighting aura was, and it would surely leave any opponent of his with a headache.
Absolutely marvelous! Indeed a true, out-and-out demigod expert! No wonder sacred swordmaster Karel and Dempus suffered such a crestfallen defeat. Han Shuo thought inwardly, having witnessed Stratholme’s attack.
Even while observing Stratholme, Han Shuo’s own movements weren’t slowing a tad. By the time Stratholme swept out his longsword, Han Shuo had landed in the middle of another side of the aliens. Hundreds of humanoids with green skin, python-like tails and one or two horns on their head, coldly fixed their green eyes on Han Shuo. A dozen or more of those aliens were already charging at him.
“Hmph, just in time to try my new demonic art Demonic Blades on you fools,” Han Shuo said to himself in a low voice, sneering. His two bladed hands moved succinctly in a criss-cross motion. Dazzling lights flashed one after another as Han Shuo made his way forward, laughing grimly.
The few aliens that had tried to approach him were now sliced into shreds, their bodies reduced to the fleshy equivalent of julienned vegetables. Some of those aliens even maintained running position, but their heads and half of their bodies would fall apart cleanly.
Even more aliens turned into severed limbs and corpses in a flash. Perhaps Han Shuo had waved his Demonic Blades too rapidly, or maybe the Demonic Blades themselves were excessively sharp, but there was not a single shriek from the aliens, not even an expression of pain on their faces.
As if an incorporeal incisive weapon was being unceasingly whirled around his body at such high speeds it was impossible to see, Han Shuo advanced towards the center of the isle and the aliens who were charging towards him from all around simply split into pieces. Not one of them could get anywhere closer than three meters to Han Shuo.
Lightning sacred magus Reynold who had just released large-scale lightning magic, ‘Omnipresent Lightning’, revealed a rather ugly expression. Under his voice he exclaimed, “What a terrifying young man. It’s no wonder Brettel City was left so brazen!”
Just then, a dense element of lightning converged from all around. The bright, clear sky turned into hundreds, maybe thousands of lightning bolts with the girth of an infant’s arm. Accompanied by the fierce rumbling of thunder, the lightning tangled in the air like dragons before striking the isle in the middle of the lake.
At long last, Han Shuo finally witnessed just the severity of a magical spell cast by a sacred grade magus!
Hundreds of thousands of lightning bolts struck down like a thunderstorm in the bright, clear sky. Jolts of lightning of differing diameters filled the sky. Although Reynold’s target was merely the isle in the middle of the lake, the coverage area of this ‘Omnipresent Lightning’ spell was clearly far wider.
As thunder and lightning bombarded the ground below, the deep blue lake transformed into an ocean of electrical sparks. The tranquility of the lake was completely disrupted by the rumbling. One after another, jets of water mixed with the power of lightning shot to the sky. The water pillars were extremely muddy, obviously expelled from the bottom of the lake by the thunder.
Strands of electric currents flooded the big lake. Fish and shrimp, which weren’t considered magical creatures, floated on the surface with their stomachs to the sky, dead beyond all doubt.
If the mere boundary was such a horrific sight already, then surely those aliens on the isle, the true targets, were suffering even more devastation. Heavy lightning struck the land, densely packed. Each and everyone of those aliens collapsed to the ground, letting off thick, black smoke.
Of the aliens with less than three horns on their heads, not one survived the attack of the lightning magic.
Those with three horns were trembling to insanity, and must have suffered rather extensive injuries. Only the four-horned aliens emerged unscathed. Each of them had their eyes locked firmly on Stratholme and Han Shuo, ready to gang up and attack.
The five-horned alien leaders had managed not only to deflect all lightning, but before the lightning even came close to them, they perished due to the energy they emitted, causing absolutely no harm. Of the four alien leaders, two remained in their posts to proceed with the ceremony, while the other two slowly rose up to the sky, and headed towards Stratholme and Han Shuo.
For Stratholme and Han Shuo, as the main assault forces, this kind of high-coverage lightning magic had hardly any adverse effects on them. They continued to charge towards the altar.
The aliens with one or two horns had had no chance of attacking Stratholme, and were massacred under the two’s attacks. And while those with three horns could, with a higher moving speed and better bodily defense, they were barely enough to resist the two for a while, yet unable to hinder the pace of the two as they charged ahead.
However, the four-horned aliens were flight-capable. Over a dozen of these aliens closed in on Stratholme and Han Shuo separately. Even with the incisive longsword and Demonic Blades wielded by Stratholme and Han Shuo respectively, they could only leave blood traces, and couldn’t behead the aliens effortlessly like before.
The four-horned aliens were, despite their strength, somewhat inferior to a sacred swordmaster, they weren’t much of a gap apart. Surrounded by threateningly powerful four-horned aliens, even Han Shuo and Stratholme held back.
But even more frightening was that two of the alien leaders with five horns were stepping down from the altar. Han Shuo had long appraised the strength of these two alien chiefs. Their cold green eyes lacked the emotion that any mortal being would display. Even as they approached, a kind of destructive aura wildly converging on their bodies.
“Elder Sister Tiana, can you do it now?” Stratholme the old monster yelled.
“Hang in there for two minutes. It will be ready very soon!” Tiana replied from a great distance.
Han Shuo felt the temperature was dropping rapidly in the area. The vast lake, which was still spurting a moment before, had actually turned into thick layer of ice at some point. Lightning still thrashed now and then, but surprisingly, were unable to break the thick layer of ice. The even more terrifying fact was that the surrounding temperature was ever falling. There seemed not to be a hint of warmth between heaven and earth, only a spine-chilling coldness.