After the reinforcement of the three neighboring Lords arrived, Michael began to use bits of his focus to store away the corpses of those he and his people had killed.
He couldn’t be sure how amiable the other Lords and their forces would be and if they would allow him to take away the prey that was rightfully his. Thus, Michael stored the corpses whenever he retracted the tendrils of Extraction that had anchored in the corpses of those he killed before.
Paving a way through the rows of enemies with Zira allowed him to store the corpses of the Guards and Awakened killed through Mika’s duplicated heirloom arrows as well.
Michael helped clean up the battlefield, which allowed Zira and the other Valyr to use more space to fight the Kitsun. The force of the Valyr Lordess was only a little bit over 1,000 Blaze Warriors and Awakened, but almost all of them were either at the Peak of the 2nd Tier or already at the 3rd Tier. Their combat prowess was several times higher than the Kitsun as well, granting them the power they required to fight up to five Kitsun simultaneously.
As for Zira, her combat prowess was even higher. She could be considered an Elite as her combat prowess was above average, even though her Soultrait was more of a burden than a useful utensil.
Watching Zira’s combat style demonstrated clearly that Michael relied too much on his Soultraits. He could be much stronger if he learned a proper martial arts technique and a movement technique. If learned to a high degree, the techniques could be adjusted to boost their potency with the use of his Soultraits. This would further elevate his combat prowess.
“Where is the Kitsun Lord?” Zira asked loudly, her grumbling voice traveling through the rows behind her.
The forces of the Valyr Lordess had caught up with Zira, and they fought violently, using unique movement techniques that left behind trails of fire to accelerate their movement speed.
None of the Valyr answered Zira. They were busy dealing with the Kitsun in front of them. The forces of the two other neighboring Lords were doing the same. However, they attacked from different sides to ensure that they had the Kitsun Lord surrounded.
Michael had been trying to use the Empress’ spatial affinity to warp behind a few Kitsun Awakened to kill them while the Valyr distracted them. Unfortunately, it seemed like the neighboring Lords used a device to block all spatial fluctuations to ensure that the Kitsun Lord couldn’t flee anymore.
Therefore, Michael was forced to stay near the frontlines where he would conjure enhanced Qi Blaze Swords to kill all Awakened in his sight. He would then use the remnants of energy left behind inside the Awakened corpses to store them away.
The Valyr, who had been fighting the Awakened only for Michael to steal their prey from right under their noses, could only glare daggers at Michael. They didn’t dare to say anything because their Lord’s daughter respected the unknown stranger.
But Zira’s respect was not the only reason why the Valyr decided to respect Michael. They had seen the mountains of corpses as they joined the battle and witnessed the tremendous power Michael’s attacks harbored. Even if some of them were confident at blocking one or two of them, they wouldn’t be proud of this achievement. After all, it was easy to tell that Michael was merely close to the Mid-rank of the 2nd Tier. Meanwhile, those who could block Michael’s attack were all at the 3rd Tier.
“Haro Ki is in the center. He is currently eradicating the forces of the…I think they were called Zynur,” Michael said, his eyes shimmering in a silverish-golden sheen.
Michael wanted to kill the Kitsun Lord, but he didn’t think that it was necessary to rush anything. Now that the reinforcement of the three neighboring Lords had arrived, Michael could move a little bit slower. He had been fighting for six hours against more than 20,000 Kitsun and killed thousands of them. Thus he decided to slow down a little and let the newcomers do some hard work too. Instead of rushing anything, Michael rather acted as a thief to kill all Awakened before anyone else could do so.
Killing all Awakened provided far more long-term benefits than rushing through the last forces of the Kitsun Lord just to struggle to kill the Kitsun Lord.
Haro Ki might as well struggle to fight against the forces of the neighboring Lords and tire out before Michael would deal the finishing blow.
“The Zynur are getting killed? These idiots! Have they already forgotten that the Kitsun Lord’s Soultrait is highly effective against them?!?” Zira cursed aloud.
She kicked the ground beneath her and propelled herself high into the air. Right after she reached the highest point in her jump, Zira looked around to pinpoint the location of the Kitsun Lord and the Zynur’s forces. And it did nto take her long to spot them on the other side of the battlefield.
The forces of the Zynur Lord could barely be seen. Everything was covered in a humongous cloud; the same cloud that formed the lower body of the Kitsun race. It was just that the humongous black cloud was…humongous.
It enveloped the majority of the Zynur Lord’s forces and continued to expand at the Kitsun Lord’s will. The black cloud devoured the oxygen and origin energy in its surroundings, restraining the use of Soultraits, the ability to breathe while being caught inside the smoke, and it grew increasingly more difficult for those trapped inside to see farther than three meters through the haze of the black cloud.
Pinpointing the location of the Kitsun Lord was extremely difficult and time didn’t play in favor of the Kitsun Lord’s enemies. But they could at least roughly gauge his location. The Kitsun Lord was definitely somewhere in the middle of the humongous black cloud. After all, he could command the cloud to release back energy and oxygen to keep his energy storage replenished and his oxygen level at a comfortable level.
“We have to kill him before it’s too late! If we allow him to keep expanding his Cloud Domain we won’t be able to kill him this time either!!” Zira shouted.
Michael didn’t say anything. He rather listened to the other Valyr nearby, who murmured to himself, “Will we ever be able to kill this monster? How many comrades will his Cloud Domain kill before we can finally stop him!? Too many people died already…”
The Valyr seemed to be in a mid-life crisis as he saw the black cloud expanding on the horizon at the other side of the battlefield. His heart skipped a beat, and the same could be said about the other Valyr. Their fighting spirit and morale plummeted as they witnessed how rapidly the Cloud Domain expanded.
At first, Michael was a little confused. He couldn’t understand why everyone would be that worried about the black cloud. However, it quickly dawned upon him that the black cloud – the Kitsun Lord’s Cloud Domain – was a horrifying issue for people other than Michael.
If one couldn’t find and kill the Kitsun Lord in time, the black cloud would suffocate everybody slowly but surely. Even if one could find the Kitsun Lord, one wouldn’t be able to conjure anything from the surroundings that were sucked dry of energy. The black cloud would devour the conjured object’s energy before it could be used against the Kitsun Lord, either way.
Yet, the Kitsun Lord could control the black cloud at will. He could do as he pleased since he never encountered an enemy capable of destroying his Cloud Domain. It was the perfect tool against the masses of enemies that threatened him in the past and the present.
The Cloud Domain was the sole reason why the Kitsun Lord could expand his territory so quickly, and why he had never been defeated even though his subordinates and Awakened were ranked Inferior in terms of combat prowess.
Not even the races ranked Common, or Elite in terms of combat prowess could do anything against him.
That was the true extent of power; The power only he, the Kitsun Lord, possessed!!
“If you can promise to give me the corpse of the Kitsun Lord, and everyone I’ve killed on the battlefield, I can give you a helping hand,” Michael said while terminating his fusion with the Elemental Empress.
The mind-splitting headache had been too much to endure after several hours of being fused. Therefore, Michael and the Elemental Empress decided to end it. Slowly the Mythical Fire Armor Set detached from his body. It morphed back into the Elementa Empress’ shape right in front of him.
Observing how the fire coating Michael reshaped itself to turn into the Elemental Empress, Zira was momentarily stunned. She completely forgot about the Elemental Empress, and the original appearance of the unknown Lord, who had infiltrated the Kitsun Lord’s territory not even three days ago. ．𝚌ｏ𝚖
The Elemental Empress was exhausted, and her head slumped down on Michael’s shoulder where she decided to lean on for some time.
Michael was at least as exhausted as the Elemental Empress, but he couldn’t allow himself a break just yet. He had to continue even if it was not for much longer.
“His corpse? I don’t think my mother cares about his corpse. As long as we kill the Kitsun Lord with your help, we can even give you the bodies of the Kitsun we’ve killed. I don’t think the Zynur or Laprix care about the Kitsun’s bodies as long as Haro Ki dies a miserable death!” Zira rolled her eyes.
Wasn’t it obvious that the death of the Kitsun Lord was a thousandfold more important than some disgusting Kitsun corpses? The Valyr had no use for them. Their only use was their death. Unfortunately, the Cloud Domain was not that easy to bypass no matter how Inferior the Kitsun race’s combat prowess ought to be.
But Michael broke into a vibrant smile contrary to Zira’s expectations of seeing him argue.
“That’s a deal! Don’t disappoint me later,” Michael said, draining the energy within every Kitsun he had invaded with tendrils of Extraction.
From one moment to the next, Michael’s body began overflowing with energy.
Then he applied Enhancement on Extraction several times.
“I will give you guys only one opportunity. You better take it…cause I’m dead-tired already!”
**
[A/N: The author is back in the game. We are slowly nearing the end of the war against the treacherous Kitsun Lord. The arrival of the three Lords’ reinforcement changed the dynamic drastically. Will the Kitsun Lord struggle to fight, or will he succumb to the power of his enemies? How much stronger will Michael grow after the war?]
