Book 19, Metamorphosis – Chapter 10, The Final, Supreme Technique!
“Crackle...”
A black aura surrounded and swirled around the body of the Redcliff Lord. His shoulders began to bulge more and more extravagantly, until with a ‘crunch’ sound, two black, knife-like shoulder blades spread out like a pair of black wings that folded against each other. It was like a black cape was hanging from the Redcliff Lord’s back.
From the forehead of the Redcliff Lord emerged a pair of sharp black horns as well.
The Redcliff Lord’s entire body was now pitch black, and he stared at Linley with those violet pupils.
“Those vertical violet pupils looked different from an ordinary person’s. I should’ve guessed long ago.” Linley, seeing the Redcliff Lord before him, mused to himself. This Redcliff Lord was actually able to transform. Naturally, his power had increased as well. Linley felt some pressure now as well. Would he be able to win this battle?
Linley wasn’t completely certain.
All he could do was to sigh to himself that not a single person capable of becoming a Lord of Tartarus could be underestimated.
“Linley!” The Redcliff Lord stared at Linley with his violet eyes, smirking. “No matter what the results are, I will forever remember you!” As soon as the words fell, the Redcliff Lord’s knife-like blade wings suddenly trembled, and the surrounding area was instantly formed into a bizarre, double-ringed gravitational field.
“Swoosh!”
Moving like a flying bird, the Redcliff Lord gracefully glided at high speed forward.
“His speed did indeed increase slightly. However, it’s far from being enough.” Linley didn’t back down in the slightest. He, too, transformed into an arcing blur, his translucent Mirage sword mercilessly piercing towards the Redcliff Lord’s skull. This stab caused a hole to be torn through space.
The Redcliff Lord thrust out his arm.
“Clang!”
That black knife, flowing with an earthen yellow knife, collided with Linley’s ‘Mirage’.
“BOOM!”
The two were both knocked backwards by the collision once again but then the two instantly charged towards each other at high speed yet again. In terms of speed, Linley clearly held the advantage. The Redcliff Lord wouldn’t possibly be able to dodge every time. However, the strange gravitational field surrounding the Redcliff Lord caused it so that each time Linley’s sword drew near, it would be affected just slightly.
But that slight affect was enough to change the outcome.
“Swish!” An incredibly fast sword blow.
The Redcliff Lord was, after all, slightly slower. However, once the Mirage fell into the strange dual looped gravitational field, it couldn’t help but change direction slightly. The Redcliff Lord’s wings once more trembled, as though he was going to block once again.
“Hmph!” Linley instantly caused the divine power within Mirage to explode forth.
“Boom!”
Mirage stabbed directly into the Redcliff Lord’s left shoulder, sending fresh blood flying everywhere. After having landed this blow, Linley didn’t hesitate; he immediately retreated. And as he did, Linley once more relied on his speed to launch an attack. Although...in terms of material attacks, it could be said that by relying on his godspark weapon, Linley was able to fight to a standstill, Linley wasn’t able to take the counter-blows head on.
He had to rely on Mirage and his speed to repeatedly leave wounds behind on his enemy’s body.
As for the Redcliff Lord, even though he had transformed, he was still much slower. He could just barely protect his vitals and ensure that his head wasn’t struck, but he was unable to protect the other places on his body.
There, in midair, within an enormous gravitational sphere formed of earthen yellow light, their two figures clashed repeatedly, as fast as lightning. Linley’s invisible Mirage sword occasionally left behind wounds on the Redcliff Lord’s body. The Redcliff Lord appeared to be in rather bad shape, but he didn’t look the slightest bit discouraged, continuing to go all out against Linley.
As soon as Linley backed off, he might immediately receive a strong counterattack.
“This looks troublesome. It seems victory and defeat won’t be determined within in a short time frame.” Bebe said with a frown.
“It is a bit troublesome. Although the Redcliff Lord’s speed increased after transforming, Elder Linley clearly doesn’t dare to fight against him head on, and so not a single one of his attacks has landed on Elder Linley. But Elder Linley is able to wound him. Elder Linley clearly has the advantage.” A burly, green-robed man by Bebe’s said spoke out. The entire eastern wilderness held more than a hundred million people. Because the battle above was simply too absorbing, discussions once more rang out from below. Linley currently had the slight advantage, as the Redcliff Lord’s body continued to shed blood every so often.
However, small wounds like these didn’t impact his strength much.
Who would win, and who would lose?
For now, it was hard to say.
“If things continue like this, how long will it take?” Quite a few people were puzzled.
What these spectators like to see were those true, all out, frontal assaults. Those sorts of battles might only last an instant, but generally speaking, life and death would be determined within a few blows. Those battles would cause the spectators to feel nervous and to feel their blood pumping.
But now...
Linley and the Redcliff Lord clearly weren’t fighting in such a way.
“Hey, that’s weird. It seems as though the Redcliff Lord is getting a bit faster.” Someone suddenly said.
“Right. He did speed up. It seems as though it no longer is so easy for Elder Linley to wound the Redcliff Lord.” Quite a few spectators slowly discovered this.
Bebe noticed this as well. He instantly grew nervous.
The spectators below were leisurely watching Linley and the Redcliff Lord battle, but they themselves didn’t dare to slacken off in the slightest. If they did, they might end up being killed in that instant.
“That sword is too bizarre.” The Redcliff Lord’s mind was constantly in a state of tension. The godspark sword, ‘Mirage’, would constantly stab towards him. If it wasn’t for the fact that he could rely on using gravity to change its direction and block it, Mirage would’ve pierced through his head long ago. All he could do was hold on...”
“Keep waiting, just keep waiting...in a bit, it’ll be time for you to be in trouble.” The Redcliff Lord mused to himself.
Linley had a bad feeling as well.
“His speed is continuously rising. Or, to be precise...the gravitational field around his body is transforming.” Linley discovered that the Redcliff Lord’s wings were filled with divine power, and were trembling at high speed, creating two surges of unique vibrations. These two unique vibrational surges were influencing each other.
This was causing the gravitational field to transform as well.
As time went on, the constant transformations caused by the two vibrations caused the ability of the gravitational field to resist Linley’s ‘Blackstone Space’ more and more effectively.
A Gravitational Space was actually created by relying on divine power transformed into gravitational power. If an opponent was also skilled in it, the opponent would be able to ablate its effects. Although the Redcliff Lord didn’t understand this ‘Blackstone Space’, while within it, he could sense and slowly adjust his own gravitational field, continuously perfecting it in its ability to deal with Linley’s Blackstone Space.
This made it so that as time went on, his speed became faster and faster!
“Linley, time for you to have a taste of what it feels like to be trampled!” The Redcliff Lord let out a furious howl. He transformed into a ray of black light, shooting towards Linley at high speed. Although his speed was currently still slower than Linley’s, the gap was low enough now that he could rely on his attack techniques to make up for it. The difference wasn’t as great as it had been previously.
Linley let out a calm laugh. “It is indeed time for things to come to an end.”
Linley charged forward to welcome him.
“Whooooosh.” The black knife struck directly at Linley’s head. Linley didn’t hesitate at all; Mirage pierced forward at high speed as well.
“Clang!”
In the instant when the black knife and Mirage clashed.
“Swoosh!” The Redcliff Lord’s wings trembled, and he suddenly increased in speed, and his right fist swung out towards Linley in a straight line. However, at the same instant of his attack, there was a bizarre, unique ripple.
‘Rumble’...
A spatial whirlpool suddenly seemed to form, with that fist being at the center of the whirlpool.
In an instant...
The space around the fist seemed to have been trapped and activated, and even the direction of gravity was twisted. Linley felt his own body be impacted as well.
“Eh? This punch!” Linley’s face changed dramatically.
The effect of this punch made Linley think of the ‘Abyssal Inn’. There, he had seen the Sovereign of Death use the Laws of Water to attack and achieve this effect. At that time, the Sovereign of Death had used a fishing line to distort space, capturing and binding that Seven Star Fiend level expert. And now, this punch of the Redcliff Lord had the same effect.
Linley wasn’t able to dodge in time at all!
“Whoosh!” Linley gritted his teeth, then swept out with his left arm, his draconic claw filling with divine earth power and smashing down like a mountain. Firmament Splitter!
“BANG!”
Linley just felt a bone-piercing pain in his left hand before he was knocked flying backwards.
“What a powerful punch.” Linley lowered his head to look at his fist. The draconic scales atop his fist were almost completely shattered. Fresh blood was leaking out, and the bones of his hand were faintly visible. Even when using ‘Firmament Splitter’, he had still fallen into such a state.
“I can’t use my fist to take his head on.” Linley immediately came to this conclusion. “I have to use my godspark weapon against his fist.”
“Haha...”
Wild laughter rang out. The Redcliff Lord stared at Linley with his violet eyes. His wings suddenly trembled, and he once more swooped forward. Linley’s ‘Mirage’ struck out as well, so fast as to cause even the Redcliff Lord’s laughter to come to a sudden halt. He immediately wanted to use his black knife to block it.
But Linley suddenly withdrew his sword.
“Rumble...”
The Redcliff Lord laughed coldly. The black fist covered by that flowing earthen yellow light once more struck out, causing that spatial whirlpool to form once more, distorting the nearby space and gravity. Linley could sense the power of that fist.
“Swish!”
Mirage came stabbing straight out.
“Hmph.” The Redcliff Lord was very confident. He didn’t dodge at all, allowing his right fist to smash straight against Mirage. But as Mirage drew close to the fist, it actually became uncontrollably affected by the spatial whirlpool and was attracted to it. The Redcliff Lord’s fist struck right against the flat of Mirage.
And then, it glided forwards, straight towards Linley’s head.
“BANG!”
Suddenly...
The downwards gravitational direction of the Blackstone Space changed into...a repulsive force!
The originally downwards gravitational pull suddenly disappeared, causing the Redcliff Lord to uncontrollably surge upwards. Right at this moment, the repulsive force swept outwards, causing the Redcliff Lord’s body to uncontrollably be pushed backwards.
“Swoosh!” Linley seized the opportunity to charge forward, sending Mirage out in a straight stab.
The sudden change of the gravitational direction caused the ‘upwards’ gravitational field the Redcliff Lord had previously created to be ineffective, and his speed once more slowed greatly. This, followed by the sudden attack by Linley’s sword...by the time the Redcliff Lord reacted, the sword had already appeared in front of his eyes.
“Not good!” The Redcliff Lord’s face changed dramatically, and he hurriedly retreated.
When impacted by the repulsive force, his retreating speed was still very fast.
Linley smirked. “GET OVER HERE!”
The gravitational pull once more changed! The repulsive force transformed into an attractive force, centered towards Linley!
The Redcliff Lord’s body couldn’t help but sway.
“Slash!” As he frantically dodged, Linley’s sword only managed to pierce through the Redcliff Lord’s chest.
“Impossible, impossible!!!” The Redcliff Lord frantically tried to resist the gravitational pull. He hurriedly retreated, staring towards Linley in disbelief. “Your Gravitational Space....how can it casually change directions? How can it...can it be?!” The Redcliff Lord suddenly thought of a person.
“Reisgem!” The Redcliff Lord stared at Linley in disbelief.
This sort of Gravitational Space which allowed for casual control of the direction of the gravity was the supreme technique of Reisgem. Even a supreme expert like the Redcliff Lord, when faced with this sort of constantly changing directional pull, would find it hard to control his movements perfectly.
Given this sort of situation, all he could do was struggle to preserve his own life.
“Swoosh!” Linley once more shot forward at high speed.
The Redcliff Lord immediately flew backwards, but the gravitational pull acting on his body once more changed directions, into an ‘upwards’ gravitational pull. Caught off-guard, the Redcliff Lord’s body couldn’t help but sway upwards. “Bastard, bastard...this is the innate supreme technique of Reisgem. How could someone else learn it? How?!” The Redcliff Lord still couldn’t believe it.
“Rumble...”
A strange, powerful ripple suddenly spread out.
“What?” The Redcliff Lord’s face suddenly changed.
Linley was currently staring at him, while an enormous Azure Dragon Phantom that was ten thousand meters long lay coiled behind Linley. The Azure Dragon Phantom was hovering behind Linley, staring emotionlessly at the Redcliff Lord. Suddenly, a unique sound began to echo in the Redcliff Lord’s mind...
Innate divine ability – Dragon Roar!
Linley’s final, supreme technique had finally been unleashed!