Pale yellow winds rampaged in the middle of a boundless white desert.
At the center of the tempest, a black-haired man shakily raised his hand to tightly clutch his chest as blood continued trickling from the edge of his lips. He stared intently with his blurred vision at the enemy before him.
He knew for a fact that the enemy had dug out a portion of his body in that enigmatic still world, but how was he supposed to accept something as ludicrous as that?
The Deviant Sovereign had probably been aiming for his entire heart, but its attack fell short due to his evasive maneuver, resulting in it only succeeding in taking half of it away. He looked unharmed on the surface, but losing half a heart nearly took away his consciousness.
Indestructible Body immediately activated, pushing his body into overdrive as it tried to heal the fatal injury.
Cough!
Roel’s body awakened with a violent cough. Under the channeling of his mana, the damaged heart first sharply contracted before swiftly establishing new connections with his arteries and veins, thus temporarily stabilizing his condition.
At the same time, the resumed flow of blood brought clarity back to his muddled mind.
He stared at the unbreached wind barrier and the lowered arm of the distant Deviant Sovereign with an inconceivable look on his face. He had just confirmed an unbelievable fact.
“That attack isn’t a spell at all…” Roel murmured.
Countless doubts surfaced in his mind, but that didn’t hinder his movements. After a brief pause caused by the excruciating pain, he quickly pulled himself together and retreated with the aid of the pale yellow wind while churning his mind for a solution.
All spells driven by mana were susceptible to Tempest Caller’s temporal erosion, especially a terrifying burst attack launched from a distance away. Attacks of such nature should have never reached him across the pale yellow wind barrier.
.
This was an objective fact of the world that even the Deviant Sovereign couldn’t alter.
Going down this route of reasoning, it meant that the Deviant Sovereign’s earlier attack wasn’t a mana spell. This left one possibility as to what the earlier attack was: a bloodline ability.
That realization alarmed Roel, as he knew that the situation was worse than he had expected. Thus, he decided to make an urgent retreat, only to see the Deviant Sovereign raising its hand as the world began slowing to a halt once more.
Shit!
Roel narrowed his golden eyes. He seemed to have felt a cold wind blowing past his neck, and the imminent threat of death caused chills to go down his spine. His numerous close shaves with death told him that it was no time to be freezing up, so without any hesitation, he launched a counterattack.
“Magma Core!”
With a roar, Roel’s body blazed up as huge puffs of ash and a fiery stream of lava exploded from him, looking almost like a giant flower. Ashes shrouded his silhouette, and a blinding light gushed forth with him at the center.
Boom!
A reverberation echoed as lava spurted into the sky before descending upon the two deviants like a massive fist. This attack was far stronger than the first one, forcing the Deviant Sovereign to change its target.
The Deviant Sovereign turned the hand that was previously aimed at Roel toward the sky, generating a massive all-consuming hole that shaved off the bulk of the lava fist’s power. Beneath it, the Origin Level 1 giant deviant also released a furious roar as it gathered its mana and hurled its fist toward the sky.
Boom!
The giant deviant shattered the already weakened lava fist, further breaking it down into a fire storm that scattered into the surroundings and melted the desert’s pristine white sand.
Despite having his attack neutralized, Roel heaved a sigh of relief.
He had always believed in making every move count in a battle, and that was the case here too. He knew that there had to be a limit to the Deviant Sovereign’s overwhelmingly powerful means. For instance, it was clear from how the latter had only managed to crush half of his heart that its attack had to be locked onto its target beforehand.
The giant deviant’s counterattack had caused thick ashes to envelop the surroundings, thus concealing Roel’s silhouette. On top of that, neither the Deviant Sovereign nor the giant deviant could carelessly chase after him lest they charge into his pale yellow wind barrier.
This was a good opportunity for Roel to make his escape.
He began running away as fast as he could from the Deviant Sovereign and the giant deviant. He tightly clenched his fists in hopes of keeping himself conscious, but his expression didn’t ease in the least. Thoughts of the earlier battle had left with him a feeling of incongruity.
For instance, the Origin Level 1 giant deviant would have been a troublesome foe by itself, but it had done nothing in the battle other than clearing away the lava and the ashes. This was weird.
The deviants aren’t so honorable as to want to fight me 1-on-1. Heck, even I wouldn’t have done the same. What could have stopped the giant deviant from making a move, then?
It is trying to protect the Deviant Sovereign? That can’t be. I have already destroyed the Deviant Sovereign’s body once. Besides, there’s no reason for the giant deviant to stay still just because it’s on the defensive. Could there be some other reason behind it standing its position?
Wait a moment… Standing its position?
Roel widened his eyes as realization suddenly struck him.
Before he could think deeper into the matter, he suddenly felt two heavy pressures crushing down on him from two different directions, flanking him. Following that, deviant silhouettes could be spotted all around the desert.
This is…!
Roel’s face turned pale as the worst possible scenario occurred to him. As if fulfilling his prophecy, the owners of the two heavy pressures appeared one after another.
One was a gray-skinned deviant with a neck two times longer than that of other deviants and a pair of giant wings on its back.
The other was an extremely well-built deviant wielding a massive blade in hand. Its arm was misshapen with numerous protruding tumors.
They were both Origin Level 1 Race Sovereigns.
Roel’s expression stiffened up. It belatedly struck him why he had been able to escape from the earlier battle so easily.
He had been able to get away so easily not because the Deviant Sovereign had underestimated him, but because he was already trapped. The earlier battle, in a way, was just a trap to buy time for the other two Race Sovereigns and the deviant army to get here.
The realization of that had Roel halting his footsteps. Looking at the two powerful foes standing before him while sensing the tremendous mana pulsation coming from behind, his heart sank in despair. He had never thought that the powerful Deviant Sovereign would mobilize everything at its disposal to deal with an Origin Level 2 transcendent like him.
“Three Race Sovereigns and over ten thousand elites…”
The Deviant Sovereign had practically diverted the bulk of its frontline fighting prowess here to deal with him, and the significance behind this move was clear.
Staring at the approaching enemies, Roel’s expression slowly calmed down as his golden eyes glowed with resolution. As if responding to his determination, the winged deviants roared, the soldiers tightened their grip on their weapons, and the priests raised their staves into the sky.
The atmosphere felt like a tense string that was ready to snap at any moment. A battle to determine Roel’s life or death was about to commence.
Meanwhile, a flickering light could be seen swiftly heading in the direction of the desert.