Chapter 31: Battle of Overgod Power
The speed of the innate divine ability ‘Soul Annihilation’ was simply too fast. On the ground, the old, bald Elder Bro, with a cold expression, moved his lips slightly. A massive black serpent phantom appeared behind him. The black serpent had only a single vertical blood-red eye, which stared fixedly at Linley.
Elder Bro’s brow split open, and a transparent ray of light instantly shot across the sky, piercing through the ‘Blackstone Space’ and striking Linley directly. The speed was so great that Linley had no way to dodge.
The Ashcroft clan’s innate divine ability—Soul Annihilation!
“Elder Linley!” The surviving six-star Fiends of the Azure Dragon clan were stunned at the sight.
“Bastard.” The gaunt, green-browed man ground his teeth, his heart burning with rage as he stared at Linley. It was Linley who had just killed his brother. “Not getting to kill you myself is your good luck.”
In the distance, Emanuel saw this and his eyes lit up. “The Azure Dragon ring!”
Emanuel shot towards Linley at top speed.
Within Linley’s boundless spiritual sea, outside the soul ocean, a transparent, scale-like membrane enveloped everything. This membrane was the soul-protecting Overgod artifact. On this vast membrane, there was a small gap—a weakness.
On the surface of the soul ocean.
Beneath the seven-colored sword-shaped soul, Linley, clad in a pale green robe, stood. This was Linley’s ‘Wind-type divine clone’. During battle, Linley only brought one divine clone with him.
In the hand of the Wind-type divine clone was a single drop of azure liquid—a Water-type Overgod power.
“Let’s see if you can break through. If you do, I’ll have no choice but to use the Water-type Overgod power.” Linley had long prepared. He had placed a drop of Overgod power with his Wind-type divine clone, which was within the soul ocean, close to the soul itself.
If danger arose, the Wind-type divine clone could instantly activate this drop of Water-type Overgod power to protect the soul and counterattack.
“Pfft!”
The transparent ray shot forward with incredible speed, straight and unstoppable, like a needle tip stabbing fiercely into the transparent scale membrane. Its speed and ferocity were the most powerful attack Linley had ever faced.
“Bang!”
Like an egg striking a rock, the ray slammed into the scale membrane and shattered completely on impact.
“Huh, that was Soul Annihilation?” Linley was stunned. “It didn’t do any damage at all. Even Mosley’s simple soul attack earlier was more threatening than this innate ability.”
“This attack seems to have no spirit to it,” Linley mused.
Indeed, innate divine abilities were rigid, fixed attacks. For example, ‘God Devouring’ simply devoured divine sparks—success or failure was absolute. ‘Soul Annihilation’ was similarly unstoppable, using maximum force to break through all obstacles until the soul was destroyed.
The innate abilities of Dylin and Tarossa were powerful, but also rigid.
These innate abilities, once activated, consumed a massive amount of soul power. There was no way to reduce the consumption; they were very inflexible.
In soul attacks, flexibility wasn’t really important.
Because if an ordinary Highgod had a ‘soul-protecting divine artifact’, it protected all parts equally. For example, Bebe’s soul-protecting divine artifact had uniform defense everywhere, with no weak spots. So flexibility wasn’t the key.
Direct, forceful attacks were sufficient.
That was the nature of ‘Soul Annihilation’. Unfortunately for the attacker, Linley possessed a slightly damaged soul-protecting Overgod artifact. Apart from the gap, the defense of the other areas was the same as a normal soul-protecting Overgod artifact.
A Highgod trying to break through a soul-protecting Overgod artifact?
Dream on!
So this super-strong ‘Bro’ had completely failed.
In the vast sky, Linley stood at the center of the five-hundred-meter-diameter spherical earthen-yellow light shield. On the ground, the old, bald ‘Bro’ looked up at Linley, his originally cold and vicious expression gradually turning to shock.
“Swoosh!” Emanuel was flying towards Linley at top speed, secretly laughing. “Those idiots, killing Linley without knowing the spoils. How would they know that Linley has a soul-protecting Overgod artifact?”
Emanuel was extremely pleased.
“Linley, now that you’re dead, this thing is mine.” Emanuel was smug as he entered the ‘Blackstone Space’ area, then frowned. “Why hasn’t Linley’s Blackstone Space dissipated yet?”
When a person died, their space should also dissipate.
“Emanuel.” A cold voice rang out.
“Huh?” Emanuel was startled. What met his eyes were Linley’s dark golden pupils.
“What are you doing here? Trying to help me?” Linley stared at Emanuel, seeing his shocked expression, and sneered inwardly. “This Emanuel has never given up on my Azure Dragon ring.”
Emanuel snapped back to reality and forced a dry laugh. “Elder Linley is truly formidable. I, I saw you were in danger and wanted to help. But it seems you don’t need my help. I’ll go deal with someone else. Leave that old man down there to you. I’m sure Elder Linley can handle him easily.”
With that, Emanuel immediately retreated.
“Coward!”
“Hmph!” Linley sneered inwardly, then looked down at the bald old man who had just attacked him. “Handle him easily? Killing this old man won’t be that easy.” Linley felt the threat.
But Linley wasn’t afraid.
He now had three drops of Overgod power, and his Wind-type divine clone was in the soul ocean, ready to be used at any moment.
“Haha…”
An old laugh came from the bald old man below. His face was covered in wrinkles like earthworms. “Linley. It seems that when you killed Mosley and the other last time, you were hiding your strength. Admirable, admirable!”
Linley looked at the old man, recalling information from his memory.
During the Bloodbath Valley, the Azure Dragon clan had provided detailed introductions to some particularly dangerous figures from the eight great clans. Those dangerous figures were far beyond ordinary Seven Star Fiends, considered trump cards of their clans!
This old man was one of them.
Linley didn’t know that, due to his previous achievements, his own information had also been circulated among the clans, and he was now on the dangerous figures list.
“If I’m not mistaken, you should be Elder Bro of the Ashcroft clan,” Linley said loudly, looking down from the center of the massive light shield.
“Correct.”
Bro grinned, but with his wrinkled face, the grin only made him look more ferocious. “To resist my innate ability, your soul defense is truly strong. Deliberately faking a weakness, huh? Admirable.”
His hoarse voice echoed through the sky.
“But today, I want to see how your physical defense compares to your genius elder ‘Blue’!” The bald old man’s body began to hiss as dense black scales emerged. A sinister, slender snake tail extended from the base of his spine…
The Ashcroft clan, descended from the super divine beast ‘Nether Serpent’ of the Infernal Realm.
Their strength was comparable to the Azure Dragon clan.
“Linley!” A furious roar tore through the air as a pale white blur shot towards Linley.
Linley turned his head and saw, within the blurry white figure, the gaunt, green-browed man with a ferocious expression. He charged straight into the ‘Blackstone Space’ area. Linley instantly changed the direction of gravity.
Gravity downward!
The gaunt, green-browed man struggled to resist falling, but his speed was greatly reduced.
Just then, a shout rang out: “Hales! Leave Linley to me. Go kill the other one!”
The gaunt, green-browed man turned to look at the already serpent-transformed Bro and said hatefully, “Fine, Elder Bro. Linley is yours. You must kill him to avenge my brother!”
“Don’t worry.” Bro was full of confidence.
The gaunt, green-browed man ‘Hales’ shot a hateful glance at Linley, snorted coldly, and turned to charge at Emanuel in the distance. Emanuel had been watching the show, especially happy when he saw ‘Hales’ also going after Linley.
But then, thanks to that bald old man’s words, Hales came for him instead.
“Damn it,” Emanuel cursed under his breath, but he had no choice but to face Hales.
Linley looked ahead at the ‘monster’ outside the ‘Blackstone Space’. Elder Bro’s body was covered in fine black Nether Serpent scales, except for his chest, which had patches of purple scales.
His slender snake tail flicked slightly, and a vertical red eye had split open on his brow.
“So this is the Nether Serpent clan’s transformation?” Linley was secretly shocked.
In truth, Linley’s draconic transformation was even more extreme than Bro’s. The jagged spikes protruding from his back, elbows, and knees made Linley look like a humanoid weapon.
Monster versus monster!
“Linley, you’re dead today, no doubt about it,” Elder Bro said hoarsely. “But I want to see how long you can hold out!”
“Bro, you’re dead today too. And I want to see how long you can hold out!” Linley replied coldly. He had already planned to rely on physical combat first. If that didn’t work… he wouldn’t hesitate to use a drop of Overgod power to kill Bro.
An expert like this was worth consuming a drop of Overgod power.
“Boom!” Elder Bro suddenly lunged, charging directly into the ‘Blackstone Space’ area, his speed sharply reduced.
“In the Blackstone Space, you’re at a big disadvantage,” Linley said, charging towards Elder Bro.
But then…
Linley was shocked to see that Elder Bro’s entire body twisted and slid like a snake. Even in the Blackstone Space, though his speed wasn’t great, he was incredibly slippery.
“How is this possible?” Linley was astonished.
This was the first person who was so minimally affected by the Blackstone Space.
“Haha…” Bro laughed maniacally. Suddenly, a black shadow shot through the air, arriving right in front of Linley. Startled, Linley reflexively struck out with his palm, infused with the ‘Speed Essence’, slamming it towards the black shadow!
Their terrifying forces collided.
“Crack!”
The sharp sound caused space itself to tremble and crack. Spatial ripples spread outward, and Linley was sent flying backward. His already draconified right hand trembled uncontrollably, the palm throbbing with piercing pain.
“Your physical strength is indeed impressive,” Bro sneered.
“What are you so smug about?” Linley gritted his teeth. “In my Blackstone Space, even if you’re not greatly affected, it’s still something.”
Linley shot forward like lightning, and Bro didn’t back down, meeting him head-on.
“Soul Chaos!” Linley instantly channeled soul power through the Blackstone to affect Bro, while simultaneously launching a relentless barrage of punches—
Though Bro could resist the Soul Chaos, it still distracted him.
“Smack!” “Boom!” “Thud!”
Linley’s fists, legs, and dragon tail struck Bro repeatedly.
“Huh?” Linley noticed with surprise that Bro’s body was very slippery. Only about half the force of his attacks actually landed solidly. Bro flipped away, then hovered in midair, laughing in fury. “You’re indeed formidable in soul attacks.”
“But…”
Bro’s body began to elongate, becoming soft and boneless like a snake. His tail also grew longer. The originally normal-sized serpent-transformed Bro was now dozens of meters long.
“Haha…” Suddenly, a wild laugh rang out from afar. A terrifying power surged forth. Even Linley and Bro, locked in combat, couldn’t help but turn to look—
“Trying to kill me? Dream on!”
Emanuel was enveloped in azure light, radiating an awe-inspiring aura. The green-browed man ‘Hales’ was already dead, his shattered body fallen to the ground.
“Emanuel used Overgod power?” Linley was shocked.
“Overgod power?” Bro’s face changed drastically.
Because the one using Overgod power was on the enemy’s side!