The conquest of Keiros ended less than 24 hours after they arrived. They attacked fiercely and destroyed the Divine Academy, leaving no stone unturned.
The Super Awakened stored the corpses of those they’d killed, while the survivors were pushed into an artificial coma through River of Vigor. It cost a lot more advanced healing serum than Michael had hoped, but rescuing more than 1,000 Awakened was worth it. They resisted the power of Blood Incursion and deserved a chance to survive and an opportunity to reclaim freedom.
Once the Divine Academy was destroyed, Michael expected nothing else to happen. He was certain the battles of the day were over and that he and his people could leave. But that wasn’t the case.
A pair of Hyumans appeared out of nowhere. One of them was a mere Higher Lifeform, but she disappeared mere seconds after they emerged near Keiros. At least, she tried to escape with her Relic, augmenting her spatial-type Soultrait.
Slipstream might be a powerful teleportation Soultrait, but it was much more than that. At least once, it was upgraded to 9-Star. The Soultrait could control the spatial distortions in Michael’s range. The range depended on Michael’s mastery of the Laws of Space.
Even though Michael’s mastery of the Laws wasn’t great, it wasn’t bad either. In fact, Michael’s understanding of the Laws of Space was much more extensive than most other laws. Michael had been studying the limits of teleportation and the means to break through the concealed spatial distortions to avoid getting caught by means like the Floating Union’s spatial distortion devices.
His studies progressed quickly even though he hadn’t discovered anything new. But that wasn’t necessary. There was no need to learn new subjects related to space laws. Imprinting the old, known Laws of Space into his mind while also unraveling the layers of knowledge the Slipstream Symbol had imprinted into his mind was more than enough to locate foreign distortions in space and temporarily conceal further distortions of the same kind. This would have been difficult if the opposing force was a Divine Lifeform with a powerful teleportation Soultrait, but the High Awakened was probably equipped with a 6-Star Space Soultrait, which had to be boosted by a Relic to teleport a single Demi-God to Keiros.
Michael teleported the Super Awakened to the Nest with a wave of his hands and appeared behind the female High Awakened. The Demi-God spun around, unleashing a massive lightning bolt that would have burned Michael and the High Hyuman at once. If they remained at the same spot, that is.
Michael teleported further away, his attention lingering on the High Awakened. A simple use of Domination crushed the High Hyuman’s mental defense, creating a massive opening for Mind Watcher to acquire as much information as Michael needed.
He slit the High Hyuman’s throat after a quarter of a second and hurled her dying body toward the charging Demi-God. The Demi-God had short black hair and azure-blue eyes. He was tall and had a lean physique, and his energy system revealed a few more secrets. The Demi God’s energy paths were filled with lightning currents rather than the average energy, and his body was riddled with old scars. Some scars affected his energy system, but there were only a few of that kind.
The Demi-God unleashed a lightning bolt toward the High Hyuman, splattering her dying body in countless pieces, only to retain his momentum and appear before Michael a quarter of a second later. Michael studied the Demi God and frowned deeply.
‘I think I can handle him on my own.’ Michael commented when the God Curses were about to channel their Divinities through him.
He activated all Seals and initiated Curse Fusion. The serpent scale armor, alongside the serpent tail, grew out of his body. His eyes transformed into a pair of predatory eyes, his hair extended, and the right side of his body…died and corroded. If not for the Curse Fusion with Hel, River of Vigor would have activated, healing the dying right side of his body. However, the Death Authority, coursing through him, restrained Death to his right side.
His hands were about to transform into claws, but Michael prevented that step. He allowed the serpent scale armor to cover his hands and applied Greater Enhancement to his body.
Michael didn’t hesitate to use Foundation Break and Heavenly Beast Physique to amplify his physical prowess. Michael’s body creaked and cracked, trying to get used to the tremendous power surging through him, but it wasn’t like there was much time to adapt.
The Demi-God appeared before Michael, his hands clad in black lightning currents as he punched out. The Demi-God was much faster than expected, but Michael blocked the first punch nonetheless. He would have tried evading the attack, but the punch was too fast. Michael raised his arms to block the attack, only to realize the tremendous power of the Demi-God when the attack impacted him.
The punch was already enough to crush the serpent-scale armor, but the black lightning currents did additional damage. They swept inside Michael’s body, burning his skin, flesh, and energy vessels. Michael’s right arm was useless after the first attack, yet the Demi-God didn’t slow down. There was no way the Demi-God would give Michael an opportunity to regenerate. He unleashed a fury of punches in Michael’s chest, face, and left arm, ready to kill Michael after a few attacks.
Michael blocked all attacks. The first two punches were blocked with his body, whereas the remaining blows were blocked by the Imperial Barrier’s weakest form. The barrier absorbed the black lightning currents first as they impacted before the punch reached Michael. That, however, was more than fine. In fact, it was exactly what Michael needed to improve his serpent scale armor, his hand-eye coordination, and a few other factors that had been neglected in the last few years.
The corner of Michael’s lip curled upward.
“If you want to survive this, you have to show me more!” Michael teased the Demi-God, who continued bashing Michael with a series of dozens of attacks within a second. Michael blocked the attacks one by one. He wasn’t as fast as the Demi-God, but he had Seer with True Vision and could predict every attack a fraction of a second before it impacted. There was more to it, though. True Vision also saw how much energy and Divinity the Demi-God inserted into his attacks.
At first, Michael was certain the Demi-God would slowly increase the intensity of his attacks, but he didn’t even tap into his Divinity Seed when Michael started retaliating. Once Michael finished analyzing the attack pattern of the Demi-God and the force of his punches and black lightning currents, he could counter them easily with a slightly stronger form of Imperial Barrier.
The Soultrait didn’t drain any energy since Michael applied True Extraction with Insert on the Imperial Barrier, creating a self-repairing barrier, which absorbed the surrounding energy, including the black lightning currents.
A fraction of the lightning currents were absorbed and transformed into just enough energy to strengthen the Imperial Barrier and block incoming blows. That was perfect, but it was also why Michael was so confused.
“Why are you not using your Divinity? Wait…” Michael’s eyes widened.
“Did they actually deploy one of their weakest Demi Gods rather than someone who’s about to attain godhood?” He asked.
“Foolish!”
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