She was standing atop a giant magical lotus with her face veiled and wearing a beautiful layered white-blue dress.
Almond saw an ethereal image like a divine god with one thousand hands appearing behind her in the hyperplane.
Each hand had a distinct handsign and the statue had beautiful and aesthetic patterns of colors, mainly gold, light pink, red, and blue.
In just a second within the hyperplane, faster than light by over three times, Almond saw projectiles of fists zooming towards the incoming whale, which was coming with its full power.
The hands flashed like a fleeting dream, and that powerful Griminion Emperor was beaten to death with various fist-shaped holes in its body, each one having sparkling dust of varying color that rapidly ate the monster.
In just a second, the entire whale which was over fifty kilometers in size was gone.
Almond acquired its Spirit, but he wanted True Spirit by absorbing the body itself, which didn’t exist any longer. ‘It looks like Supreme Emperors will also collect the cores within Griminions. Sad.’
“What happened? Did you see it?” Admiral Rudra asked.
Almond smiled and knew he wanted to see it, so Almond sent what he saw within the perception level that Admiral Rudra could see.
“It’s over just like that?” Admiral Rudra was speechless.
Almond wryly chuckled and nodded, “Even for me, I’d need three solid executions to kill a Griminion Emperor like that while that Supreme Emperor killed it easily with low consumption. Well, as expected of Supreme Emperors.”
[Announcement to all! The Quest of Ending Tide has begun, and the leaderboard has opened up! Kill, kill, kill, and gain rewards if you are in the leaderboard!]
A mysterious voice echoed, reaching into everyone while a big leaderboard opened up in the sky’s ceiling, flat, sparkling, and clear with golden letters on a black background.
[Ending Tide Leaderboard]
1. Veshuvia, the Lotus Carnage Empress.
2. —
3. —
…
100. —
“Eh? Is the title given by Grimworld itself?” Admiral Rudra raised his eyebrows.
“Probably,” Almond blinked and said, “or it recognizes the title that person is widely known as.”
“Do you think I can come into the leaderboard?” Admiral Rudra asked somberly.
“I would like to say yes, but no,” Almond weakly smiled. “There are already many late-stage Emperors and some mid-stage Emperors in the Hyper Speed 3 category, over two hundred, I suppose. Aside from those sixteen Supreme Emperors taking sixteen spots, the rest will be filled by those two hundred.”
Admiral Rudra laughed, “Indeed. Well, I don’t need to overwork, and I’ll put some attention on observing the stronger ones.”
“Yep.”
“But you must get a spot in there, boy. It would be a shame not to see the head of the House of Regalon on that board, haha.”
“I agree with that,” Almond grinned and turned to the river. “Ashkar and Sylvia are here, and you should also keep it in moderation until Lily wakes up.”
“I’ll go station myself ahead, though my Spatial Eye: Cautious Vision would be observing here and would alert me when either of your vitalities goes below 20%.”
Admiral Rudra smiled and nodded, “Don’t worry, we’ll be fine, and you stay careful.”
Almond nodded and vanished, teleporting himself into the Hyper Speed 3 area near the place where Simon floated with two other late-stage Immortal Emperors.
The trio turned to him upon sensing a presence.
Simon blinked and asked, “Almond? What are you doing here?”
“Did I not tell you I can constantly fight in Hyper Speed 3, like twenty-four hours straight?” Almond smiled.
“You did not tell me that,” Simon said with his expression at a loss. “The hell, really? Even we late-stage Immortals don’t do that.”
“That’s crap. You will run out of Soul energy, so you won’t get refined Prana anymore. That would reduce your combat power significantly even if you stay in combat and use wild Prana, which won’t circulate within your Arcane Board, making most of your powerful abilities unusable, not to mention the mental strain that would accumulate,” a gray-haired middle-aged man beside Simon said with a sharp snort. “Kid, Simon told me about you, and we saw your power, but don’t bite more than you can chew.”
Almond chuckled and said in a modest tone, though his words didn’t sound modest at all, “To be honest, my record is forty-eight hours without running out of refined Prana, given that I am constantly facing a lot of enemies.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
At that point, even Simon felt that Almond was blowing hot air.
But not wanting to pry nor to say anything offensive, Simon chuckled and said, “Fine, do whatever you want here but be careful.”
“And don’t expect others to help. There won’t be time for others to pay attention to others once the tide reaches here.”
The third late-stage Emperor was a middle-aged woman with a busty figure, wearing a noble, ladylike dress colored orange with shining crystal embroidery pulsing with magic.
“Of course, I’m aware,” Almond smiled, his eyes sharp and his aura fluid and stable yet increasing in intensity. “But if you need any help, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“I’ll be going now, stationing myself just ten kilometers ahead from here.”
After saying that Almond didn’t give them a chance to reply and teleported ten kilometers ahead.
Although other Immortal Emperors saw him, they didn’t bother to say anything. Everyone was responsible for their own lives.
Meanwhile Almond entered pure meditation, emptying his mind and calming his soul, bringing himself to his most optimum condition.
Roughly twenty minutes later, a huge wave of the cosmic river arrived, bringing with it hundreds of thousands of Griminions, and this was just the start.
There were over a thousand Griminion Emperors right off the bat, as the aura they radiated caused the atmosphere to shake.
But the Immortal Emperors and a single Immortal remained firm, their auras surging wildly.
Almond opened his eyes, and his hand shook, trembling even. Not due to fear, but the opposite of it.
‘Fuck it.’
His full armament adorned over his body, sleek regal, dark gold, and patterned with blackness and sparkling golden design.
In his hand, a sword appeared of utter goldness that hid myriad of colors in its light, the ultimate weapon Almond wielded that he constantly refined and improved with Immmortal Emperor monsters’ true spirits and his arsenal of powers—Lonveril, the Golden Void Blade.
‘Lock in,’ Almond’s eyes flickered as the wave arrived like a bundle of light, literally, as it was moving at the speed of light.
The only way to observe it was to have Hyper Speed 1 or higher.
Without further ado, Almond made his move instantly after the wave threw out the tide of monsters onto the land.
Large lights and projectiles shot into the wave from Supreme Emperors as they parted it from their respective locations across 10,000 kilometers of the entrance.
Almond saw the tide of Griminion Emperors while everyone saw a rain of golden blades forming into a giant mouth with Almond in the middle as this attack was made from refined Harrowing Edged Stream energy, his pure offense-type Prime energy.
It tore through a Griminion Emperor before entirely devouring it in an instant, which caused Almond’s aura to surge monstrously as he used the Spirit Drape of that Griminion Emperor right away!
His attack became ten times bigger, covering a hundred kilometers of the sky. It shredded apart twelve Griminion Emperors in an instant before vanishing as Almond floated in the empty sky, his eyes closed, a stream of black and gold sparks whirling around him.
The Immortal Emperors sensed his aura and felt pure terror, while Supreme Emperors inadvertently took a glance at him, thinking, who was this powerhouse radiating the intensity of an aura clearly surpassing late-stage Immortal Emperors? And when they saw it was an Immortal, they almost felt like it was an illusion, but it wasn’t.
Simon quickly used an artifact to scan Almond before his eyes widened. “Fuck me.”
Prana Sea: 18,400
Soul Sea: 18,400
Stats:
— Body Constitution: 17,380
— Mental Constitution: 18,242
— Soul Constitution: 18,898
— Arcane Constitution: 16689
Almond felt his body straining, but he was no longer a human.
He was a Regalon!
He was THE Regalon!
Almond’s body flickered and turned into a sparkling stream while others couldn’t continue to pay attention to him as everyone activated various artifacts, formations, and abilities, killing Griminions.
But it wasn’t long before they saw it.
A golden blade so terrifying, becoming larger or smaller at whim, moving within the hyper Plane at the absolute peak of Hyper Speed 3.
Whatever Griminion Emperor it sliced was instantly absorbed.
Heading to a herd of Griminion Emperors, the blade expanded into thousands of smaller blades, shredding everything and also devouring it.
‘More!’ Almond struck down Griminion Emperors without holding back, killing them instantly for one minute while the Spirit Drape remained active and exhausted all of his energies before retreating.
Total kill count in one minute: 473 Griminion Emperors.
Rank in the leaderboard: 12th.