The Zantur standing in front of the other Lords stared coldly at Taros as he manifested several glacier-blue icicles.
He released them without hesitation so as to weaken Taros and finish him off for good.
However, before the icicles could pass by Tac Lec, a blazing firewall shot out of the ground. The firewall was thick, and the flames were searing hot, melting the icicles near-instantly.
“What do you think you’re doing?!” The Zantur bellowed, only for Tac Lec to respond with a shrug.
“Don’t interfere in my fight, you bastard!” Tac Lec cursed before turning back to Taros.
Taros clutched the frozen skin on his chest tightly. He then issued a grunt before tearing out the frozen skin from his body.
Blood spilled to the ground, and shrieks of surprise echoed through the air, but Taros didn’t mind any of that. He retrieved a large chunk of the purple shimmering meat from his War Rune and devoured it at once.
Seconds later, his veins strained and his muscles tensed, while his bleeding stopped. Taros’ skin grew back within seconds, regenerating rapidly.
Afterward, he picked up his War Axe again, and slashed at his legs, which were still sealed in the concrete-like substance Tac Lec had created. His War Axes smashed down violently, destroying the concrete-like substance before cutting into his skin and flesh as well. Taros had used too much force to destroy the concrete-like substance.
He only grunted and pulled his War Axes out of his legs. Blood gushed out of the wounds but Taros didn’t wince. His body healed rapidly, turning the cumbersome wound into a faint scratch.
Fortunately, Taros’ healing speed wasn’t slower either. One more second, and he would have been faced with several elemental attacks impacting hard on his body, along with several other attacks.
Tac Lec attacked Taros, hoping that the other Lords wouldn’t intervene. But instead of listening to him, the dozen other Lords burst forward with great speed to mercilessly attack Taros from all sides.
“That doesn’t look good,” Masked Saber said calmly. 𝗇𝒪𝑣𝑒𝓵𝗇𝔢xt.𝐂𝒪𝓂
He turned to Michael, whose golden-glowing eyes flicked rapidly from the Lords to their subordinates. Michael was clearly trying to find out how strong everyone was and how great their teamwork was.
“Well…fuck it,” Michael cursed, retrieving Zark and the Typhern Leather Armor Set. He kept Eagle Eyes activated and followed up by using Enhancement on Zark three times in a row.
“Attack them from beneath. They’ll be focusing on Taros, so they won’t notice you guys,” Michael ordered before moving upward to reach a better position at a higher altitude.
The mountain range was steep, but it was still quite easy to walk around for someone at the 2nd Tier. Nonetheless, the higher altitude would give Michael several advantages – and the means to be seen easily, and distract the Lords to ensure that Tiara and Masked Saber could initiate a surprise attack.
Michael didn’t go too far. He found a good position, condensed an energy arrow, and aimed for a second or two. Then he released the energy arrow that pierced the head of a Destors Summon the following second.
The twang of his bow resounded in the surroundings, attracting the attention of some Awakened. However, before they could find Michael, a barrage of three energy arrows had found their designated targets.
‘Four down, many to go,’ Michael mused in his mind as he condensed a fifth energy arrow.
But before he could pull the bowstring back and get rid of the next victim, Michael’s eyes narrowed. He twisted his body and pulled his left leg back to spin his body to the side. The next instant, a barrage of glacier-blue icicles shot past his upper body and head.
If he hadn’t moved away in time, Michael’s head and upper body would have either gotten pierced by icicles or frozen upon the destruction of the glacier-blue icicles.
“Good thing I have Eagle Eyes,” Michael thought aloud, pulling the bowstring back, and releasing the arrow in the next instance.
He didn’t spend much time aiming precisely. Instead, Michael decided that he had attracted enough attention to release a barrage of arrows that would injure and annoy the Lords, and their subordinates.
Michael’s intervention in the battle was a little unexpected. He chose to support Taros in the fight against Tac Lec and the dozen Lords.
Why? It was pretty simple.
Michael could gain a lot by killing a dozen Lords and their subordinates. First of all, the energy influx of the Lords, Awakened, and Summons was pretty great. He was currently still a Lowest-stage Tier-2 Lord, but Michael could tell that his refinement degree was improving slowly.
Advancing to the next refinement stage was not easy after advancing to the 2nd Tier. The higher the Tier and refinement stage the more energy and time was required to progress. It was not something that could be taken lightly. After all, most Awakened, who survived the ordeals of the Origin Expanse for years were either stuck at the 2nd Tier or barely managed to advance to the Lowest-stage of Tier-3 – only to fail to progress any further.
But the energy influxes of his enemies were not something that could influence Michael enough to join a dangerous battle. His interest was more in the gains he could make by extracting the corpses of a dozen Lords, and their Awakened subordinates. Michael was bound to make huge gains if he waited patiently and struck at the right opportunity.
Other than that, a dozen Lords were bound to have collected more loot from the Lord Rift than the five Lords he’d killed before. Why wouldn’t he join Taros to tackle and defeat a dozen powerful Lords if he could make huge gains in return? Michael entered the Lord Rift solely to become stronger and make as many gains as possible, after all!
Taros and Tac Lec noticed the appearance of another unknown variable. But while a scary, devilish smile blossomed on Taros’ beast-like face, Tac Lec only shook his head.
‘It’s you again?’ He could only think, conjuring several dragon heads which he threw at Taros.
Even though Tac Lec wanted to fight Taros alone, he knew that he couldn’t back out now. The dozen Lords would rat him out the moment he stepped back from the battlefield.
That was a little annoying, but this didn’t mean that Tac Lec would hesitate to give his all fighting Taros.
‘Maybe he can deal with those bastards.’ Tac Lec thought, looking over to the dozen Lords, who were splitting up to face Taros and Michael.
‘Kill them so that I can annex their territory in the Zentika Empire!!’ Tac Lec shouted in his heart, glad that he didn’t fight Michael until the end before.
He knew how strong Michael was, and that he could have released even more power if he had been pushed a little bit further. That was also why Tac Lec wasn’t worried that Michael might die. On the contrary, Tac Lec was certain that Michael would easily defeat the annoying Lords of the Zentika Empire, creating a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for him after the Lord Rift closed.
He decided to focus on Taros, bombarding him with combined elemental attacks to slowly wear him down while the other Lords and their subordinates would ensure that Taros couldn’t move from the spot.
The dragon heads impacted heavily on Taros’ body. Or that was what was supposed to happen. Yet, instead of exploding on Taros’ body and causing heavy damage, Taros’ arms moved rapidly. He first kicked one of his opponents away before slicing through the dragon heads.
After the slice, he spun around his own axis, his War Axes acting as razor-sharp blades that cut through the bodies of everyone daring enough to approach him.
Only two Summons fell victim to his attack. In return, however, Taros was bombarded with mental attacks and a Soultrait that wore down his body, slowly tiring him out.
But Taros ignored the weariness that was beginning to creep up his spine slowly. He kicked his feet off the ground and burst forward. The ground beneath his feet crumbled due to the tremendous force Taros released with a single kick, and he crossed a distance of more than ten meters at once.
He appeared in front of a young Lionheart, who lifted his long shield with the aim to block Taros’ attacks.
However, Taros just scoffed. The muscles all over Taros’ arms bulged as he used every bit of strength inside his body to cross-slash at the Lionheart.
The War Axes’ blades began to glow faintly as origin energy was channeled into them, just to see an afterimage of the cross-slash in the air as the War Axes cleaved downward.
Following the afterimage of an ‘X’ lingering in the air, blood gushed in all directions, and body parts flung through the air.
Taros required a single slash to cut through the Lionheart’s long shield, armor, and body. He didn’t even seem exhausted.
On the contrary, Taros seemed to gain more energy and strength after killing the Lionheart. He twisted his entire body to gain momentum with his right arm, which he flung around while simultaneously twisting his body. The War Axe whizzed through the air and crashed down on the head of the Lionheart’s comrade, splitting his skull at once.
Taros’ movement speed seemed to gain a sudden boost due to the death of the other Lionheart, providing him the necessary speed and acceleration to evade more than a dozen glacier-blue icicles. Not even five minutes ago, Taros hadn’t been able to react fast enough to evade the icicles, but now he could easily follow their trajectory and evade them with great precision.
His movements were sharp, and his mind seemed to be working much faster than before.
Confidence and adrenaline surged through him as he retrieved one of his War Axes back into his War Rune to free one of his hands. The empty hand shot downward to pick up one of the dead bodies lying around.
The first thing Taros did was to block a few more icicles using the dead body as a meat shield. Then he looked around and threw the body across the battlefield like a rag.
The enemies using long-range attacks were quite bothersome. Fortunately, they had gathered in one place, which made it much easier for Taros to strike them all.
While Taros was dealing with the bombardment of Tac Lec’s elemental combo attacks, the barrages of the long-range combatants, and a few annoying Soultraits that influenced his mind and struck him heavily where he could defend himself the least, Michael didn’t have it much easier either.
A few arrows and icicles nearly struck him shortly after he joined the battle. The icicles were much faster than ordinary arrows, and even though their lethality was not that high, they could severely weaken the opponent as long as the target was struck.
Michael was subjected to constant barrages of icicles quite a lot. At one point, more than a hundred icicles poured down on him.
Even if he wanted to evade all of them, Michael knew that it was not feasible. He didn’t have the means to block a hundred icicles that shot through the air faster than most Tier-2 Lords could move.
Thus, Michael knew that he had to endure it all. But he was ready for it!