While sitting in meditation alongside Lily and waiting for the Hollow Deifiler to come, Almond was creating a simple ability to temporarily strengthen his foundation.
‘Hmmm, it looks like there’s only one way to do that. I’ll need to sacrifice a Griminion Emperor’s spirit and specifically use its data to supplement my foundation.’
Almond was going to steal a Hollow Defiler’s stats using his Unbound Blade by cutting off its stats and attributes and absorbing it into him.
But since Hollow Defilers had tremendous stats and overwhelming power surpassing the ceiling of the second layer of Grimword, the moment he harvested the stats and power, he would have to bear crazy existential pressure, and his foundation would be strained to the extreme.
By exerting himself in that state to make a devastating fatal attack, he would instantly die.
But there was a chance he could die before properly executing his attack, and to also make sure Lily lasted long enough to release her attack, he needed to make an ability to keep them lasting for a second or two to allow them to make a proper execution.
Even if they die after that, it’d be fine since they’d be able to revive once.
Six minutes later, Almond was done creating the ability.
‘Yep. ‘This should work.’
“Almond, will you use your Touch of Void?” Lily asked,”
“No,” Almond shook his head. “Best not use it now or anytime soon actually.”
Touch of Void was an innate talent Almond acquired after opening his 2nd Geno Gate.
The 2nd Geno Gate opening was a main requirement to break through to Immortal rank. Opening the 2nd Geno Gate meant a surge of raw potential energy that would develop and manifest an innate talent for individuals.
Almond had developed Touch of Void, and he didn’t know why something so dangerous awakened in him, but he had a nagging feeling it was related to Omega of the Horizon he saw the first time.
He knew something akin to a seed that was impossible for him to detect, but his gut feeling and his instincts made him feel there was ‘something’.
And that thing moved after the 2nd Geno Gate opened and began its process through his body to develop the talent.
Almond had tried to use Touch of Void once, just for a brief moment, and the feeling he got from it terrified him.
Lily didn’t know much about it except for Almond’s words that it was too powerful to be handled by him for now.
“Your Blood Reckoning is working well though,” Almond chuckled. “It’s perfect for you.”
“Yeah. It’s flexible,” Lily smiled.
Lily awakened an innate talent called Blood Reckoning after opening her 2nd Geno Gate.
It was a simple and versatile innate talent. The more blood she loses and the more blood she bleeds off her targets, she would get stacks of Blood Reckoning, a resonance of blood within her producing potent and flexible power.
By consuming stacks of Blood Reckoning, she can do three things.
1. Empower any of the abilities or moves she makes by 10% per stack.
2. Purify and recover from injuries within her instantly by consuming stacks depending on the harshness of the injury.
3. Elevate her physical stats by 5% per stack.
The total stacks she could keep were 20, and they were easy to replenish. In terms of utility, this Innate Talent was most powerful and used constantly during fights.
“So how is your new Ability Tree?”
“Come into my mindscape. Let me show you, and we can also brainstorm.”
Almond did that as they arrived in Lily’s mindscape, where she used her second Ability Tree.
“It’s called Axiom of Hollow Splendor. For now, I can forcefully create a ‘weak’ mark on a target with the probability increasing significantly the more debuffs I give to the target. And upon hitting that ‘weak’ mark, the damage increases a lot, like the highest increase I got was 167%, but I could feel my will draining a bit.”
“Yeah, to forcefully create a ‘weak’ mark, this Ability Tree is heavily leaning towards concept-intent-based power. It’s interesting, and from the name of this Ability Tree, I can see you have some imaginative ways to explore this.”
Lily chuckled and said, “Yep. I’ll tell you my findings, so let’s brainstorm.”
“We have less than eight minutes, but yeah, I already got some ideas, so let’s do it.”
Eight minutes passed by soon, and both of them were snapped out by a harrowing pulse of aura raging out of the river.
The other powerhouses were long ready and waiting.
‘Activate!’
‘Contain them first, and then contest!’
‘I am going in for one! Support, make your move, and buff me!’
‘Team B! Initiate your defensive stance formation and don’t die!’
‘Almond!’
‘I am going,’ Almond’s eyes glinted as his aura burst, and he went full power directly, fully activating his Reglon Spirit Armament and using Spirit Drape of the strongest Griminion Emperor’s spirit he had in his possession.
His Unbound Eyes quickly scanned the creepy humanoid creature as he went Hyper Speed 3 into the third formation and saw a slim, fifteen-meter-tall creepy humanoid with six wings that only had bones and not the actual wings, but had a wing-like aura spreading to make them look like wings.
The Hollow Defilers had large eyes, a fixed open mouth, two meters of unevenly growing horns, and looked more like some kind of chaotic puppets than intelligent beings. Even the Griminions looked more alive than they did.
But there was no denying their horrifying power as Almond acquired the data that made his eyes utterly cold and focused.
[Hollow Defiler]
Lifeform Rank: Special
Ability Power: ???
Corrupted Prana: 32,442
Stats
— Body: 20,000 + 17,490
— Mental (Corrupted): ~
— Soul (Corrupted): ~
— Arcane (Corrupted): ~
They indeed made a mistake in sensing body aura, but I guess they knew that, hence the preparation. Still, it’s a lot…’
However, Almond had no time to hesitate and unleashed his Unbound Blade.
An ethereal blade streaked past obstacles and vertically struck the Hollow Defiler as Almond exerted his will to make it as effective as possible.
Meanwhile, the Hollow Defiler had an energy orb condensing in front of his mouth, intending to release a powerful energy blast of pure destruction.
But Almond’s Unbound Blade instantly reduced its potency by more than half, as well as all other parameters.
Meanwhile, Almond, who floated a hundred meters across the Hollow Defiler, burst out with an insane amount of power, involuntarily screaming as a wildly surging dark gold aura flickering with black and purple raged around him.
His body became ten meters tall, alongside his Regalon Spirit Armament and Lonveril the Golden Void Blade, as they were a part of his bloodline and could be flexible in terms of size.
The ability worked as Almond was stabilized, but it was only for a brief time, so Almond made a move without hesitation.
Hollow Defiler’s head turned upward as it screamed due to getting weakened, and in the next moment Almond was right in front of its face, his golden sword flashing like a bright star exploding into a supernova.
Atomic Annihilation Slash, his strongest move to date!
For a second, a huge tear spread across space, breaking the fabric of the second layer, but as Grimworld was actively keeping it safe, it was healed instantly.
As for the Hollow Defiler?
It vanished out of existence with Almond’s attack.
But so did Almond.
He instantly died after executing the attack, but instead of reviving, something strange happened.
A giant omega appeared in the darkest horizon one could imagine, and a voice whispered out of it towards Almond.
“You’re here earlier than I expected, but I am not complaining, buddy. Now, let’s have an important talk.”