Almond vanished from his place before the monstrous vines could get to him and appeared right beside Brian.
Brian turned his head, sweat oozing rapidly on his face as danger bells rang in his head.
Alas, Almond’s hand wreathed in bladed black exotic flames with colorful sparks chopped at him at a speed beyond his capacity. He barely enhanced his neck before he got hit.
*Crack…Chrash!*
Crashing into a statue, he was buried in rubble as dust blew up.
“Not dead, eh?”
Almond floated with the faintest of a smile as he sensed a surging aura amidst the unstable vitality of Brian.
‘It looks like he’ll finally show me something worth watching.’
*Blast!*
The rubble blasted up as Brian emerged, floating up with a blood-soaked neck and torso.
Almond’s chop almost beheaded Brian, and he incurred severe injuries, but from his surging aura, it was clear that Brian was using his Bloodline power and recovering fast. Discover exclusive content at My Virtual Library Empire
From Brian’s expression, it was clear that he hadn’t expected this result. The desperation has settled in, and thus, he wanted to settle this dispute as soon as possible by going all out.
The whip in his hand gleamed before it split into three. Moving his hand, all three whips blurred and crackled as exotically braided wooden spikes with yellow and dark green patterns shot at Almond.
‘Fast.’
The projectile’s speed exceeded 300,000 kilometers per second.
But all finger-sized spikes numbering over ten seemingly paused a meter away from Almond, as if stuck in space.
However, half a second later, Almond raised his eyebrows as his barrier began withering.
All ten spikes suddenly shot forward.
However, they were still trapped within his good old space-replacement zone that was infinitely improved now.
“Die!” Brian roared as he saw his attack nullified, but suddenly, the spikes received a boost as the fabric of the space-replacement zone began withering.
Brian’s eyes showed happiness as he was about to see Almond dead.
Alas, Almond vanished and appeared right behind Brian.
“Your attacks can never reach me. Haven’t you realized that by now? They are too weak to break my spatial-centric structures, and even if you break them, I still have enough time to take a nap and teleport away.”
“You damn space bastard!” Brian roared as he emptied his entire reserve of Prana and Bloodline Essence, conjuring a huge exotic flower a hundred meters big in the sky.
The exotic flower’s complexly woven petals opened before unleashing a rain of sparks over the arena.
“Let’s see how you survive this, trash.”
Brian spat with bloodshot eyes.
Almond narrowed his eyes, and in the next moment, his figure thinned and blurred.
The sparks brightened and suddenly exploded with strange gas of yellow and dark green color.
The ground and statues turned black and began withering rapidly, filling the atmosphere with strange particles.
Brian was unharmed and instead, enchanted his body turned slightly wooden and withery.
However, his expression was ugly as he looked at Almond. “What’s going on?!”
“Why isn’t anything happening to you?!”
Almond was there, visible to him. However, the particles or the effect of this strange, magical withering gas from the flower wasn’t working on Almond.
Almond shrugged and then held his sword facing Brian.
Brian gnashed his teeth and pointed his finger at Almond. The flower moved slightly and released sparks that condensed around Brian’s arm from elbow to wrist, creating a strange semi-biotic hand-gauntlet with a beastly mouth at his hand.
It glowed with eccentric patterns before Brian’s finger released a beam.
However, it passed through Almond and struck the arena’s border, causing the space to flicker.
‘The flower is conjured with multiple sets of moves geared to unleash, huh? I guess that’s another way of making abilities. Making something that can unleash different types of abilities.’
“Why?!” Brian roared, his fist clenched. “Why are my attacks not hitting you?!”
Almond laughed, but his sound came from above Brian as he didn’t want to make a gap, hence, he teleported his voice to another layer and made an exit to this dimension from above Brian.
“The first mistake you made was putting me in this separate dimension created by an artifact. You are bound in it, but I can shift. I am here at this location, but physically, I am in another parallel layer of space that I just had to access instead of creating it.”
“You or your attacks can never even come close to me, let alone touch me, and I can stay here forever because it’s not consuming any energy for me to be here.” Almond narrowed his eyes while smiling and added, “But you can try to brainstorm something. Take your time because I have an idea, and I want to work on that idea as soon as possible.”
“Thanks, though. This dimension is perfect. I can stay here undisturbed and finish making my ideal arsenal of power. And this flower is also nice. I’ll make good use of what I learned from its structure.”
Brian shouted angrily and released five orbs that exploded around Almond. The recovering arena ground was smothered to bits and withered again, but Almond remained uninjured, his eyes closed as he was already in meditation.
“Damn it! Damn it! I swear I will kill you!” Brian cursed and looked at his whip.
He clenched his fist as his energy churned.
In the next second, the whip shattered.
He then conjured a spike and pointed it at his forehead.
“Almond.”
Almond opened an eye because he had already seen Brian’s strange actions through his spatial vision.
Seeing Almond’s eyes open, Brian grinned like a maniacal beast.
“I never expected my journey in this grand academy would come to an end because of a newbie. Very well, but…”
*Swoosh!*
Brian pierced the spike into his forehead, his face still showing a crazed smile. “This is not over!”
“I, Brian Decair Wesmort from Wesmort Dynasty, will find you and kill you.”
‘So he is going to get soul revival, huh? Must have a good background.’
Almond picked his ear as he replied nonchalantly, his expression almost bordering on boredom. “Sure, but don’t go about finding me alone or you’ll die way more miserably next time.”
“Just…wait!”
At that, Brian died, and the dimension vanished as Almond and Brian appeared back on the battlefield.
Brian’s lifeless body fell to the ground, but Almond’s eyes flickered as he put it in his personal spatial storage.
‘You are my trophy now, so everything that belonged to you is mine, including your spirit.’
Almond grinned. ‘Better become a part of my next Spirit Wraith.’
He also took out the two storage rings Brian had and briefly glanced inside.
‘Arcane coins, gears, materials, herbs, and what’s that, an Artifact? Yeah, it looks like the one he used for the fight. Piker’s Arena. Nice, that looks like it’d be useful in some situations.’
Almond focused on the stronghold, and his eyes glinted.
He vanished from his spot and arrived beside Zek and Karven, who were facing a bunch of Crimson River faction members.
However, when they saw Almond, every single member’s face paled.
“Y-You…you killed Brian?” Harken stammered, his face aghast.
“Not really. He killed himself,” Almond blinked.
“…”
“…”