Neo and his clones glitched before they appeared around Almond.
Kexell thought he only had to deal with the Golden Dragon Emperor now, but Zanathriel replaced Neo as their clash began.
Meanwhile, Almond’s sword clashed with Neo’s clone, and in just three seconds, he destroyed all of his clones before he began to suppress Neo.
‘It looks like you hid yourself well when we last met,’ Neo chuckled while feeling a bit pressured.
‘Your laugh is faltered. Focus on the battle or you’ll die.’
Neo’s eyes were somber as heaviness from the clashes with Almond seeped into him.
Changing the fighting styles, Neo conjured sleek pistoles and began shooting Almond while maintaining distance and focusing on shoot and evasion.
Almond instantly suffered two shots because the damn bullets were made of a special unique material made of Neo’s Variant Lightning and Metal, and destroyed his defense.
‘Fucker. So he did come up with something to deal with my Devouring Veil.’
Almond’s defense was not focused on blocking but on slowing down attacks coming at him with a sheet of space layer that constantly replaced around him, giving more space for the attacks to tread. Even though it gave him just 0.5 seconds due to the speed of those attacks, it was worth it because that time was enough for him to teleport away to dodge.
Zanathriel countered it by directly ‘killing’ the layers at once with his unique spear that complicated his power-build, while Neo also created some kind of electromagnetic unique metal bullets that rendered his space layers as a single one and instantly struck Almond.
But that wasn’t enough for Neo to turn the tides that Almond was treading.
‘This is bad. The formations and the absurd amount of those one-time use Mythical-rank items are lowering our numbers fast.’
Neo felt the situation getting out of control.
‘And what are those two strong presences?’
Almond’s eyes glinted as he saw Neo was unfocused and unleashed a full-powered attack of a Bending Virtual Edge, a sword strike that instantly slashed the target along with a fixed space around them.
Neo reacted as his figure pulsed and scattered, but not without harm as when he appeared ten meters away, his right arm was gone since it touched the sword slightly.
“I’m impressed with your power to neutralize my spatial arts like that,” Almond smiled. “But you are no match for my sword arts.”
“Maximum stats, impeccable skills, and this body being your clone…” Neo narrowed his eyes. “I thought you wouldn’t be that much of a threat at first, but a clone that reached an utter peak in stats so fast wasn’t something I expected. And I see you are using more of your hand now.”
“Same goes for you,” Almond said as he rewrote his body, healing the injuries.
Neo saw Almond’s recovery and his expression turned grimmer. That type of recovery was also something he didn’t expect.
He thought since it was just a clone, it would be easy to destroy it.
‘It looks like this is it. Time for Plan B.’
“I am going to give my all now. Hope you can still smile after that,” Neo discharged a pulse as his mini-domain shrank and bordered on his skin like a glowing, crackling film of light.
‘That…’ Almond saw it and felt a drive of Neo’s will. ‘What kind of Conceptual power is that?’
Neo’s stats were increasing as nano-metal particles charged with lightning covered him from head to toe while his two pistoles also upgraded and empowered.
But Almond could also feel Neo’s great consumption of energy, not just Mana, but also Stamina, and his Will.
‘It looks like he is indeed going all out.’
*Zoom!*
Neo instantly appeared behind Almond, shooting a rain of bullets like flickering stars as they spread out and exploded, turning the large area into a sizzling of dark blue and lightning crackles that zapped through nano-metal shards.
The Space was completely disrupted, and Neo had poured his entire willpower into locking it.
Almond frowned as he couldn’t teleport and Neo began launching unceasing attacks at him.
‘His speed caught up to mine in this state…’
Neo managed to dodge his sword instead of blocking it for the first time, but even though Neo powered up, both of them were still tied as they fiercely clashed.
However, the situation for others was different.
Many enemies were killed and Earth was actually winning.
‘I’ll destroy that artifact!’ Lily felt no need to hang around here and since Dragon Emperor was focused on activating the Artifact and attacking Kexell with Zanathriel, she decided to intervene!
*Howl!*
Lily’s form was utterly unique in the movement with four different extensions on her body as she streaked like a shadow towards Golden Dragon Emperor.
She had dark gray withering wings belonging to Roc of Withered Wind.
Two additional arms made of Gloombound Earth, belonging to the Golem of Gloombound Earth.
Lupine of Darkened Flame acted alongside Lily individually while the Whale of Curseweaved Water coated Lily and also acted as an orb for the additional Gloombound Earth’s arms to throw at enemies.
Golden Dragon Emperor sensed intent on him and directly targeted Lily with a snort. ‘Another Darkness Master? Humph.’
Before she could reach him, golden chains manifested around her, intending to bind her.
A golden dragon claw was also manifesting, intending to finish her off right after she was bound. However, what he expected didn’t happen.
The golden chains shattered the moment they touched Lily. Instead, Lily swiped her daggers and vanished, before instantly appearing behind the Dragon Emperor as two slits appeared at his throat.
Her debuffs instantly struck him as he felt weakness, but they were cleansed soon due to Artifact’s power that passively applied to him.
The Dragon Emperor wasn’t expecting Lily to nullify his skill like, especially since it was against Darkness master.
Dumbfounded and panicked, he turned into his dragon form before Lily could initiate another attack.
‘Her attacks are sharp! How did they break through my scaled defense?’
“You’re dead,” Lily’s eyes flickered as a dark cloud above the Dragon Emperor unleashed a howl, from which a giant wolf descended.
Lupine of Darkened Flame was strongest since it was directly complemented by her Darkness and Blood, and she had upgraded that wolf with her skills!
A dreadful swipe of its claw shredded the Dragon Emperor, who quickly swiped its tail at him as a counterattack, but the wolf vanished like a shadow.
Meanwhile, Lily’s attack that focused on the Mala of Beads…connected.
*Shatter*
The four beads shattered out of twelve, but that was enough.
*Roar!*
Kexell roared as a dreadful pulse released from him, indicating a lift of his curse power from the suppression.
With bloodshot eyes, Kexell targetted the Dragon Emperor as a huge draconic skull manifested above the golden dragon before turning into a demonic stream that drilled into it.
“You shall die!”
Zanathriel frowned and unleashed his full-powered attack to finish off Kexell given this was a great chance for it.
His spear drilled into Kexell’s head and exploded it into a blood gore.
Zanathriel felt something and found his forehead marked by a draconic skull mark as well.
Instantly, he felt his vitality reducing.
“I AM UNDYING!”
Kexell’s new head emerged as darkness whipped around him. Ignoring Zanathriel, he streaked and bit down on the Golden Dragon Emperor’s neck while digging its claw into his body.
*Chreeek!*
Tearing a chunk of flesh, Kexell ate it.
Zanathrial frowned. ‘That fucker directly destroyed my Endess Death by overpowering it.’
He now realized why Neo wanted to deal with the dragon first.
Spotting Lily as a blueprint for this situation, Zanathriel launched his attack while using a skill.
Lily sensed black spots forming around herself along with intent and saw strange snakes manifested around her to bind her.
‘Arcane Champion? So what?!’
Lily’s fighting spirit didn’t wane in the slightest and her will rose like an inferno as she vanished from her spot while those snakes were shattered upon touching her.
Appearing beside Zanathriel, she used her Weapon Art, Dance of the Gloomy Reaper.
A fiery clash of daggers clashing against spears occurred.
Her blood-empowered attack and life-stealing power actually kept up with Endless Death that was reducing her vitality!
Zanathriel wasn’t expecting another combat freak like Lily and that too someone who had life-stealing power!
‘Her will is strong. It’s resisting my Endless Death…’
‘Come on, Neo! Hurry up!’
Meanwhile, Neo in his full-powered state was attacking Almond still.
‘It looks like we win this,’ Almond sharply grinned.
‘Is that so?’
Neo only uttered a single sentence in response, and it was utterly calm as if everything was going according to his plan.
Hearing that, a bad feeling welled up in Almond that coincided with a huge amount of energy concentrated at a single point, causing his expression to change drastically.
‘NO!’