Chapter 324 Progress Before The Deadline (18)

Almond arrived before the Mad Nuts and waved his sword, unleashing blurring black slash-projectiles with golden patterns that began moving in a circular formation around, shredding all High-Mortal and Mortal-rank Griminions in a second.

“Stop fighting. It’s time to resume being my Prana Batteries. Recover your soul energies in meditation, now.”

Zek and Karven arrived beside Almond as they looked in the same direction—at incoming Brian and his group who had bare nefarious intents aimed at them.

“Looks like they aren’t going to care about decency anymore. He wants you dead,” Karven chuckled.

“What’s the plan?” Zek glanced at Almond.

Almond narrowed his eyes. “You two also need to go. I am sensing an unstable pulse from Brian, and he is fixated on me.”

“Yeah, no. We planned to go, anyway,” Karven rolled his eyes and went inside the hidden veil Almond created.

“Have fun,” Zek said with a chuckle and also left.

Almond then teleported the veil within the stronghold but still hidden as all Mad Nuts began meditating to recover the energy they used up, mainly soul energy.

On the other hand, Brian and his group arrived. Brain was flying towards him while other members of his group kept away and killed the Griminions coming their way.

Almond was simply floating as he had harvested physical stats from an Immortal King, making his Body Constitution reach 3228 ( 1000 + 500 + 1728 ).

No Griminion Beast came for him because he had erased himself from their visions and senses. Actually, he had erased himself from everyone’s visions and senses except for Brian and his party.

“Looks like you sent away your stupid faction members in case they get caught up, eh?” Brian narrowed his eyes. “So, are you ready to die?”

Almond’s expression was deadpan, “Do whatever you’re gonna do, and make sure you pull no punches.”

Brian’s jaw clenched as he pulled out a strange stone cube with eccentric carvings.

It shot a beam at Almond that he tried to block by creating spatial layers and making a veil with increased distance, but the beam ignored and passed through everything before hitting him.

In the next second, both Brian and Almond vanished.

Seeing them disappearing, Harken said with a cold glint in his eyes. “Let’s find the other newbies while Brian deals with Almond.”

“I’ll go look inside the Stronghold. We can’t attack anyone there, but we can pull them out somehow if they are there.”

Meanwhile, Almond found himself in an ancient-looking arena with eight warrior-like statues looking all the same but wielding different weapons and different poses in the surroundings.

The arena ground was big, approximately 500 meters in radius.

Almond and Brian were in the middle with 50 meters of distance between them.

“Welcome to the Piker’s Arena,” Brian grinned with a nasty glint in his eyes. “For your information, we are inside a separate dimension created by an artifact. And only one of us can leave.”

“Then please die, so you can stop wasting my time.” Almond parted his lips to show a deadbeat smile as he said, “Or you can make your life worthwhile by helping me improve in these final moments.”

Brian sneered. “You trash, you are going to die, but your guts still ain’t weakening. You know what is the most powerful effect of this artifact?”

“I don’t know, maybe the one who uses it can release stronger farts from their mouths like you?” Almond raised his eyebrows. Explore more stories with My Virtual Library Empire

“You…!” Brian’s forehead popped a vein. “Fine. I am not even going to kill you easily here. I’ll fucking torture you for a couple of hours so that Harken and others can find other little shits of your faction and deal with them.”

Right as he finished speaking, Almond felt weakening.

“You feel it now? That’s right. The holder of the artifact can seal 10% of Body and Mental stats from the opponent,” Brian grinned. “You were already weaker than me, but now you’re as good as dead.”

Brian took out his main weapon— a metallic wooden whip with eccentric dark green and yellow patterns. The whip also had tiny spikes all over it.

“Die!”

The whip suddenly blurred before ringing a huge blasting sound that produced rings towards Almond, a total of seven wide rings with dark green and yellow mixed energy patterns.

The ground of the arena darkened and withered as the rings passed, while a horrendous sound buzzed.

The only way to perceive this attack was with heightened perception as this attack’s speed was almost at the speed of light.

But to Almond, who could access Hyper Plane easily, especially with his increased Body constitution from both the buff and harvesting from Immortal King Griminion that allowed him to endure the pressure of Hyper Plane better, he had exactly 29 seconds to react and think about what to do against this incoming attack.

‘Looks like it was true when he said he was going to torture me,’ Almond thought and sighed. ‘But attacks of this level…This idiot is looking down on me too much.’

But he couldn’t blame Brian for that. Unlike him, Brian couldn’t see through his body, aura, and other things to see his stats.

The only instance he felt Almond making a move was when Almond locked him in space briefly, but that was also weak for Brian as he freed himself in a timely manner and saved him.

But how could he know that in less than two hours, Almond’s Arcane Constitution went from 228 to 2288?

Almond didn’t move from his spot and simply waved the hand that held the sword as it blurred and executed a sequence.

Right before the rings were a meter away from Almond, he released a black ring with sizzling golden patterns that clashed against incoming attack, shattering all seven rings in the process and going for Brian while cracking air and powdering the ground.

The difference was that Almond’s ring was also spinning.

Brian’s index finger pointed forward as a spiky dark green barrier that successfully blocked the attack.

However, Brian was shocked. ‘What the fuck? How could defending that attack drain 78,400 of my fucking Prana! That’s like fighting a fucking Immortal-rank powerhouse…’

‘That spatial lock wasn’t this strong. It can’t be. The intensity of this ability was different. It’s like he fucking increased his Arcane Constitution drastically!’

“What was that?! Were you hiding your true powers?!” Brian shouted.

Almond didn’t answer, but from his eyes, it was clear that he was busy cooking something.

Brian waited for a few seconds but didn’t get an answer and blew his top as he shouted and started swinging the whip over him, creating a vortex.

On the other hand, colorful crystal particles began conjuring around Almond that soon conjoined into a crystal throne.

Its chaotic coloring shifted with a thought, becoming black with dark gold aesthetic yet cool patterns, but anyone could tell that this throne wasn’t just for show.

Almond sat down on it as he watched Brian spin his whip. Two heavy swords manifested as Almond sacrificed some Immortal-rank Griminion spirits. One floated to his left and one to his right.

‘Connect.’

“Now, would you make your best moves possible for my improvement and delay your death as much as possible, or should I erase you right now?”

Brian already knew that he had to take this very seriously when he took on Almond’s attack.

And that’s what he did.

“Die!”

The vortex formed by spinning his ship suddenly burst out with monstrous vines that had creepy flowers attached, covering a large area as they shot toward Almond.

Almond’s eyes flickered as he analyzed the attack with his All-Seeing Eyes.

‘Interesting. A synthesis Summon-type similar to how my Spirit Wraiths work, but this one is a cruder concept.’