"She cut him." A Brimgan Royal gasped in surprise.
"Of course," A younger Brimgan Royal who wasn’t even a century old commented in pride, "Our Guardian is a Mystic Grade existence too. And clearly,"
"Her experience trumps the other side."
Splot!
Part of Root’s body on the left, from the shoulder to the hip, fell off and splashed into the water. Root landed on the water surface, his expression now fully serious as he glared at Ruvva, not treating her as a threat, "You are pretty strong, I’ll give you that."
"But that’s it." The severed body part was diced up by the air into a blood mist and got sucked into his mouth. Before the suction process was even completed, Root’s severed part had already regenerated. "You’re not equipped to face me."
"So, just scoot over to the side and don’t irritate me."
"Scoot...over?" Veins twitched all across her face as Ruvva reverted to human form and took a double-take on the latter, having heard the most absurd dialogue ever delivered to her, "Did you just tell me to scoot over?"
"Gosh!" Ruvva grumbled as she pointed at Root and beckoned the latter to attack her, "It’s always the Brimgan Empire’s policy to engage in dialogue first. However, for you, I’ll make an exception."
’It’s pulsing faster.’ Root thought distractedly as the flashes of brown in his eyes intensified, happening once every few minutes now. And every time it flashed, he was able to spot a brown stream heading into the Brimgan Empire, one that became more and more pronounced each time.
Similarly, at the same frequency, there were flashes of violet in Ruvva’s eyes. And every time it happened, she could see a violet stream branching off into two directions. First was to her stomach, and second was in the direction of the Dralh Sea.
’Something seems to be calling him to the Empire.’ Ruvva frowned, ’But what exactly is it? Nothing that could be the cause comes to my mind.’
Of course, there were so many secrets in the Brimgan Empire that she knew any of them could be the cause, if that were the case. Even Boul Brimgan wasn’t aware of every arrangement made at the Brimgan Empire, not to mention her.
However, she had zero intentions to allow Root’s entry into the Brimgan Empire. And as such, she assumed a stance, causing ripples to grow wider into the water under her feet.
Similarly, Root focused on the opponent before him, feeling strange. His urge to reach the other side of the brown stream grew stronger. There were pangs in his chest, of a sense of loss, of nostalgia, of a feeling wishing to be reunited.
It was strange, alien even, but he felt drawn to it, increasingly so with every passing minute, to the extent he felt he would go mad if he were to delay any further, ’I don’t understand what the heck is happening. However, I intend to find out.’
’And this annoying woman is stopping me from doing that.’ He stood still on the water, which behaved as a solid platform to hold him steady like an immobile raft.
In his Zinger World, he had changed his Natures by using up all the energy he had gathered along the trip till now. There was a total of ten Natures now—Perfect Biome Domination at the Gold Grade, Prana Stitch at the Gold Grade, and the remaining eight were Tangible Psychokinesis at the Silver Grade.
It was a safe option to play against his opponent. And the instant he was ready, he attacked. Water surged under his feet and pushed him towards Ruvva. At the same time, he jumped, crossing the 200-metre distance between the two in half a second.
A vapour cone formed towards the end of his path as he harnessed the turbulence, compressed it using Perfect Biome Domination, and directed it at Ruvva, intending to blast her into the Brimgan Sea.
He was mere metres away from Ruvva, his senses cranked to the limit. In that state, his eyes darted past Ruvva, to one of the Lotus Range’s peaks where a bunch of Brimgan Royals stood. A golden flash spread out from them as the centre and moved over the mountain range to take the shape of a wall. ’A wall?’
’Why are they doing that?’ He frowned, and then noticed Ruvva’s mild smirk, realisation a moment later, ’A Mystic Human has two transformations, right? Then...’
He hadn’t completed the thought as space expanded from before him, to slam into him with a force powerful enough to send him flying away.
Expert Gold Grade Pranic Beast—Empyrean Tusk!
From her human form, Ruvva transformed into a 1.6-kilometre-tall behemoth, the sheer space expansion of which pushed out the Brimgan Sea in all directions. A flood of water raced up the slopes of the Lotus Range and moved alongside the concave indentations of the wall erected by the Brimgan Royals to be redirected back into the Brimgan Sea.
Moving faster than the splash of water was Root, groaning as he had sustained some injuries from the impact. Of course, they had healed by the time he had travelled partway through the sky. "Dammit!"
He tilted his body slightly to glare at the Empyrean Tusk and unleashed eight strings of Prana that stitched themselves in the shape of a wing. They tilted slightly and curved his momentum, causing him to glide a U-turn and rush towards the Lotus Range instead.
The height and momentum allowed him to fly past the Lotus Range and directly land within the Brimgan Empire now that he had managed to turn around. Of course, his opponent had no intention to allow that.
’She’s annoying!’ He watched a sphere race up the Lotus Range and stop before a 2-Life Stage Brimgan who used a Spirit Weapon to launch Ruvva right at Root.
"Come!" Root bellowed as the sphere drew closer and transformed into an Empyrean Tusk once again.
Zinger World—Prana Stitch!
Prana Stitch—Accel Hurl!
Root stitched all eight strings of Prana into a single string and lashed it like a whip right after the space expansion impacted him. "Urgh!"
The string of Prana shot forth like a laser and barely managed to make contact with the Empyrean Tusk’s trunk before losing all momentum. The string was stretched taut for half a second before snapping.
Zinger World—Prana Stitch!
Prana rushed through the string of Prana and mended the snapped pieces for an instant before the string snapped into too many pieces. Thankfully, Root had endured through most of the space expansion. The remainder sent him flying away, but not as far as his opponent would like.
He was less than 600 metres away from the Empyrean Tusk, reeling in the air as Root condensed a wing to glide towards the other party. A space contraction followed suit as he lost his balance and was sucked towards the centre of the vortex, where Ruvva’s human form had appeared.
And moments before he could gather his bearings, when his orientation was in its worst position, Ruvva assumed Empyrean Tusk form once again.
"Argh!" A few droplets of blood dripped out of his arm as he grabbed the string of Prana he had created to latch onto the Empyrean Tusk. He was over 700 metres away this time. And immediately after, he was sucked towards the centre.
"The Quip Guardian is being beaten up." Many soldiers exclaimed excitedly and cheered. However, none of the Brimgan Royals mirrored their excitement. Instead, their expressions were grim.
"He’s adjusting to her space expansions." One of the Brimgan Royals commented as his Spirit Weapon braced a rough draft and splash from a sea of water rushing up the Lotus Range.
After five space expansions, Root was only pushed by 300 metres. His string of Prana was repaired faster this time, and his body too sustained fewer injuries.
Moreover, if one calculated the Prana expenditure, Root had probably wasted less than a hundred units of Prana. He was constantly sucking up whatever was severed from him, including the string of Prana that was diced up during the space expansion.
Burp!
After sucking in the air alongside the severed strings of Prana, Root burped out the gas and only digested the Prana parts. Thereby, he was hardly wasting any Prana.
Conversely, every space expansion consumed over a hundred units of Prana. Maintaining her Empyrean Tusk form consumed Prana too, as much as her transformation, every second.
Regular Empyrean Tusks had ginormous biomes supplying them with Prana every second. Even Resha, when he assumed Empyrean Tusk form, did so after filling his stomach biome with resources.
In Ruvva’s case, she not only didn’t have a biome to supply her with Prana, she didn’t have Internal Inertial Gravity either. Even though she had been steadily strengthening her body using both the Influenced Region of Golden Deity and the Mystic Human Stamp, she was still long off from reaching a state where her Empyrean Tusk form wouldn’t crumble under its own weight.
That meant, to maintain her form, she had to use psychokinesis to replicate the effects of Internal Inertial Gravity in her body. All this added to her consumption.
"You’re merely that, an annoyance!" Root shouted as he glided faster during a space contraction in an effort to grab Ruvva. His string of Prana shot forward and latched onto the latter’s arm. And then, he was blown off.
But this time, he was within 180 metres of the Empyrean Tusk, within arm’s reach. And hence, Root transformed.
Expert Mystic Grade Pranic Beast—Quip Guardian!
The Quip Guardian raised its arm and grabbed the trunk of the Empyrean Tusk to tug it. Perfect Biome Domination was applied through the palm and ground through the trunk, spewing out blood.
Without hesitation, Root sucked in all the blood, licking his lips as he reverted to human form at the same time as Ruvva. The space contraction was higher this time, using which, he landed within arm’s reach of the latter, a moment before she could fire off another transformation. "Too late."
"Yeah," Ruvva huffed, "for you, that is."
Before she finished her sentence, the Quip Guardian’s stomach burst, cracked through the space in the Spirit Container, and flooded his bloodstream. The blood seemed to have a mind of its own as it invaded Root’s organs and wrecked them one after another.
"You can eat well," Root collapsed, his head spinning as he couldn’t understand what hit him. He couldn’t resist as Ruvva grabbed him by the neck and commented coldly, "But you can’t eat everything."
"My blood is resistant to your digestive capabilities."