Eren had been focusing on Bloodhound. The wild instincts ravaging through his body, thanks to Curse Manifestation, didn’t affect him much. However, his Curse’s instincts were potent enough to influence his mind to a certain extent.
Eren gained tremendous strength, enough to fight on par with the Hyumans who’d practiced the Primordial Bloodline technique to the peak. Still, the downside was that his mind focused solely on his enemies as long as the strongest form of Curse Manifestation was unleashed.
He narrowly missed the moment Bloodhound decided to change his target to hunt down Michael. Even though Bloodhound would prefer to purify Michael and bring him to the Parliat, where his talent would be assessed and his starting position in the ranks of the Supreme Human Alliance determined, he didn’t have an issue killing Michael either.
It was better to kill a future enemy if he couldn’t salvage him anymore.
However, just as Bloodhound was about to cut Michael in half, he noticed that the young Cursed Child was nowhere to be seen. His head flicked left and right to find the Cursed Child, but Bloodhound couldn’t find him. He only sensed him as he released his energy explosively in all directions.
His head shot upward, and his eyes widened as something high in the sky attracted his attention. A humongous mass of energy assembled in a single point high above him.
“You shouldn’t have attacked my brother and my Curses, you motherfucker!” Michael bellowed, his voice traveling through the perimeters.
Suddenly, Michael appeared behind Bloodhound with a mass of congregated energy at his fingertip. The World Serpent had used its power to conceal Michael as he gathered the purified energy of 1,000 Superior Energy Stones and thousands of Common Energy Stones in a True Extraction Globe. It also concealed Michael’s use of Cosmic Stride, making it near impossible for Bloodhound to sense Michael as he appeared behind him. It reinforced the True Extraction Globe to ensure that it wouldn’t erupt before the time was ripe.
However, the World Serpent wasn’t the only creature helping Michael to beat the shit out of Bloodhound. The Curse coursing through Michael’s entire being supported him as well. It altered the True Extraction Globe and reinforced it before channeling its energy into it.
The golden globe shone brighter than ever. Several vein-like threads – black and golden – passed through the True Extraction Globe, further enhancing it in every possible way.
To Michael’s misery, Bloodhound spun around much faster than expected. Michael had witnessed the fight of the Divine Lifeforms, but it was something else to watch and be part of. He ended up underestimating Bloodhound, whose Sword Artifact glimmered dangerously in the morning sun.
However, before the Sword Artifact could reach him, the fabric of space around it tore open and swallowed its blade. Tentacles of darkness shot out of the torn fabric in space to coil around the Sword Artifact and swallow it whole. Bloodhound squinted in anger and was just about to destroy the darkness tentacles when a silver sheen coated them. Eren might not be fast enough to appear physically before Michael, but the time he had was just sufficient to manifest several serpents made from silver energy. They coiled around Bloodhound alongside the darkness tentacles and restrained Bloodhound for a quarter of a second.
That was all Michael needed to unleash the True Extraction Globe that had been manifested with the combined efforts of his Curses.
They were just as enraged about Bloodhound’s actions as Michael. It was time to get revenge!
He released the True Extraction Globe and smashed it straight into Bloodhound’s face, then released the seals that had contained the globe’s power.
Michael used Cosmic Stride the moment he willed the seals to break open and appeared behind Eren. He had no idea how powerful the True Extraction Globe was going to be. However, Michael sensed the might that had been poured into it. After all, the World Serpent and his Curse had to channel their power through his body once to reach the True Extraction Globe.
As the True Extraction Globe exploded, everything was coated with vibrant gold. The explosion was eerily silent. It was almost as if nothing special happened. But that was only until the first spectators noticed that there were no sounds at all. There was nothing. Not a single noise of the howling wind, the rubble and debris being hurled through the surroundings, or the cacophony of nature’s chaos that had resounded through the surroundings even as the Divine Lifeforms fought.
There was nothing until a single scream echoed through the vicinity. Then, everything was silent once again.
The dazzling golden light that swept through the vicinity retracted not even ten seconds after it expanded explosively. It retracted, revealing the destruction caused by a fingertip-sized True Extraction Globe after an angry Curse and a killer World Serpent had amplified it.
Nothing was left behind. Everything that came in contact with the golden light was devoured. This included the grass blades that had once covered the ground, the oxygen in the air, and a ginormous mass of earth that fell victim to the exchange of the powerhouses. A piece of land the size of a town was no more.
The only thing that remained was Bloodhound.
His body was torn into shreds. He was still in one piece, which was surprising after the True Extraction Globe exploded in his face, but Michael was fairly sure that Bloodhound was on the verge of death.
Michael glanced at Eren, “Are you not going to finish him?”
Michael could barely stay conscious at this point. He was glad that Eren was there to kill Bloodhound, but the silver-haired man shook his head as a purple cocoon formed around Bloodhound. The threads of the cocoon emerged from an inconspicuous object, an Artifact, to be precise.
“I can’t kill Bloodhound, but he won’t be able to come back for a long time,” Eren said, keeping his attention on the tiny Artifact.
“Why can’t you kill him?” Michael didn’t understand.
“The Artifact that activated itself just now is a Divine Artifact of the Mythical grade. It’s a one-time-use item called Safe Return. Safe Return’s effects are triggered when the User is about to die. It grants Invulnerability for 10 seconds before bringing the User back to his home or the place he anchored instead.”
“So he is invulnerable right now and will be teleported…
somewhere…” Michael asked, a heavy sigh escaping his lips, “That’s shit.”
Eren nodded, “It’s surprising that Bloodhound has such an expensive item. He must have saved a long time for it. But then again, I doubt that he wanted to use it today, otherwise, he would have gone all-out against me.”
Michael elevated an eyebrow, “He didn’t go all out?”
“Neither did I.”
Michael’s eyes widened.
“You like this planet, don’t you?” Eren smirked at Michael.
“I guess?”
That’s why I didn’t go all out. Bloodhound knew that I wouldn’t go all out with so many innocent people around, and he didn’t go all out, either. He knows that I’m stronger than him and that it will be difficult for him to overpower me. I guess he wanted to take me by surprise earlier.
‘So they can annihilate planets. Great.’
Michael could only shrug. He figured that he wasn’t all that potent yet. The universe was full of monsters.
A loud crack resounded through the vicinity, and the Bloodhound, coated in a purple cocoon, disappeared.
“Good job. You are not half bad,” Eren said, but Michael could only sigh deeply.
“Yeah, I did a good job… attracting the Supreme Human Alliance’s attention. Yay.”
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