Boom!
An Unlimited Predator Shield was swatted by an Attributed Water Hand, shattering the latter. Another shield took its place, drawing in more power unleashed by the Celestial Boar, now able to defend against the attack.
However, the remaining seven Attributed Water Hands rushed forth and attacked the Celestial Boar. A shield covered the latter when in response, the hands shrunk in size, clenched their fists, and unleashed a series of punches on the same spot.
Boom! Boom! Kaboom!
Every punch let out thunderous shockwaves as the Unlimited Predator Shield was destroyed. The Attributed Water hands shrunk further to sneak in through the hole and punched the Celestial Boar in the face.
One targeted its lower jaw and disoriented its senses for a moment. Recovering spontaneously, the Celestial Boar blasted forth spheres rich with Prana. They were Satellites created by combining Internal Inertial Gravity and Subtle Terrain Domination.
The sphere slammed into the Attributed Water Hand and broke free a portion, using which it retaliated upon the latter.
"A mineral state? That's your second step?" The Celestial Boar commented as it unleashed Counterbalance to target the Royal Zinger's face and continued to consume it, "That's useless against me. I have Subtle Terrain Domination..."
Before it could finish the sentence, the sphere that had stolen a portion of the Attributed Water collapsed, causing a flow in the air that merged into the hand.
"And I have Perfect Biome Domination." The Royal Zinger commented casually, "Your comment was meant to mean something?"
"You indeed know how to trigger me the best," The Celestial Boar let out a chuckle as it was punched on the head nonstop, causing a splatter, "Let me...finish talking...koff!"
The serpentine neck of the Royal Zinger coiled into a spring and curled upon the ivory sand, bracing itself for impact as it guarded its head against the effects of Unlimited Predator. Unlike the Celestial Boar, it didn't have a failsafe in the form of the Astral World.
If its head were to be chopped off, it could indeed regenerate it without losing its life. Only if both its head and Spirit Container were destroyed at the same time would it die. Currently, it didn't have the Life Stage stack, having fused it into a Transcendent body.
So, the Royal Zinger had to exercise caution, 'But things are going well.'
'I'm acclimating to the pain and am getting better at using my abilities.' The Royal Zinger thought as its eight Attributed Water Hands flailed around the place while shrinking and expanding their size to face the Celestial Boar's attacks.
"Goff!" The Celestial Boar grunted as an Attributed Water Hand punched it on the stomach, coursing enough shockwaves to faintly tremor the Astral World. 'Impossible!'
In response to the shockwave, the cracks in one of the damaged Astral Worlds progressed faintly, stunning the Celestial Boar. Only then did it notice the Royal Zinger's State of Unity seeping into its body, trying to consume the Astral World's influence and transform it into Attributed Water.
'His first step could face my Unlimited Predator but that was it. His second step can slightly interact with my Astral World.' At the thought, the Celestial Boar became nervous, 'Trying to buy time is my best approach to this situation. But I shouldn't allow Inala enough time to take the final two steps!'
The Celestial Boar spawned a series of Unlimited Predator Spears and threw them towards the Royal Zinger. As they were Satellites, they could absorb his Prana and move about on their own within his Spirit Weapon range.
Unlimited Predator-Counterbalance!
Two Spears closed in on the Royal Zinger when they were swatted to the side by Attributed Water Hands. The Spears sustained some damage from the impact when Counterbalance mended the damage and replenished their power.
The Spears absorbed the Prana emitted radially by the Celestial Boar through Unlimited Predator and flew towards the Royal Zinger.
Two Attributed Water Hands appeared before the Royal Zinger and began swatting the Spears to the side. However, Counterbalance continued to replenish them while the Celestial Boar continued to create more of their kind.
"Come on! For everything you claimed, you're still not strong enough!" The Celestial Boar taunted and hurled Unlimited Predator Spears at the Royal Zinger, forcing two more Attributed Water Hands to move into defence.
Four Attributed Water hands attacked the Celestial Boar, punching the heavy Unlimited Predator Shields the latter had erected in defence. There was a series of exchanges between the two, exchanging dozens of attacks every second. And whenever an opportunity arrived, an Attributed Water Hand would spontaneously punch the Celestial Boar's stomach.
Every time this happened, the five damaged Astral Worlds became more damaged. They were being selectively targeted, even though the Celestial Boar hid them in the stack.
Minor Treasure-Royal Stabiliser x10!
Even though the ability of Royal Split couldn't be unleashed through them as that would be blocked by the passive Unlimited Predator of Astral World, its power could be harnessed through the Royal Zinger's State of Unity to somewhat target specific Astral Worlds in the stack.
Currently, the Royal Zinger was simply firing the attack deeper into the stack, unable to target with precision due to a lack of expertise and knowledge.
The Celestial Boar had three perfectly intact Astral Worlds. One of them was the uppermost stack, revealed to the outside world. The remaining two were constantly being switched among the stack so that they could tank the effects of the Royal Zinger's attacks.
The Celestial Boar had to predict where the Royal Zinger's State of Unity would seep into the Astral World's stack and move the intact Astral World in its way. A miscalculation and the damaged ones would be more damaged.
A battle was being waged on three fronts currently. First, was the dome erected fully across their Spirit Weapon range. Both States of Unity were vying for dominance within the space they simultaneously enveloped. They were pretty evenly matched in this front.
Second was the Unlimited Predator Spears and Shields facing the Attributed Water Hands in a flurry of attacks. The Celestial Boar was steadily gaining the initiative as more and more Attributed Water Hands were being forced to go on the defensive.
Third was the internal attacks. Unlimited Predator seeped into the Royal Zinger's body, consuming it from within steadily. Droplets of sludge dripped onto the ivory sand, enriching it due to the sheer vitality present in the Royal Zinger's flesh.
If this were to be maintained for long, the region where the battle was taking place would
become a blessed land for life, brimming with vitality to the extent it would be perennially covered by vegetation, producing enough food to support an army of Gold Grade Pranic
Beasts.
On the third front, the Royal Zinger was actually winning, since it was damaging the Astral World faster. As it had morphed its body into an Attributed Water form, there wasn't much for Unlimited Predator to consume.
As a result, it could last longer. Overall, the second front decided the state of the battle. And hence, even though the Royal Zinger had an advantage initially, it was steadily losing the battle. 'Almost there!'
'I've almost acclimated to this.' Mentally, the Royal Zinger was already exhausted. However,
it couldn't give up at this point. It needed to reach the third step, which is where it could actually begin to deliver serious damage to the Astral World. 'A bit more, and I'll be able to handle entering the third step without collapsing mentally and physically.'
"Tch! Tch! Tch!" The Celestial Boar let out clicking sounds as slowly, its presence began to build up once again. "Did you seriously believe you could kill me? Maybe I've been the one overestimating you, Inala."
Prana spiked across the Celestial Boar's body and condensed in its Spirit Container, starting the process of creating the ninth body. A large mass of sludge entered its mouth as it consumed it with relish, "I see..."
As the sludge tricked into its stomach, the presence spiking out of the Celestial Boar intensified, "So that's how a Transcendent's body tastes. It's...how do I describe it? I might even be willing to avoid consuming Gannala if I could eat this forever. It's also..."
The ninth Spirit Container stabilised as immediately, the ninth body began to grow, quickly ageing in response. "At this rate, I'll quickly reach maturity."
"Too bad, Inala. The damage done by the rest won't matter much since I'll soon have four intact Astral Worlds." The Celestial Boar cackled.
'He's getting overconfident once again. Makes sense, since this is a level of power beyond
what anyone could ever hope to face.' The Royal Zinger thought and let out a smirk in response, 'I can relate, since I too am feeling the same.'
Externally, a large number of onlookers had gathered around the border of the Kalahatra Desert. The two-kilometre-tall wall erected by the roots of the Transcendent Eater was about to collapse when Blola died. However, before that could happen, bone mist gushed across it
and pervaded it in its entirety.
Pet worked overtime to convert it into a bone wall, fully reinforcing it by stabilising the original root structure using Empyrean Incubators. Released into these Empyrean Incubators were a type of Vipers, named the Root Vipers.
They had been created with the sole purpose of maintaining the roots of the Transcendent
Eater. They were geared with Natures to rebuild, stabilise, and maintain the roots, ensuring the wall blocking the Kalahatra Desert wouldn't collapse.
With them spreading throughout the wall, the roots continued to operate as usual. They sucked in the nutrients from the ground and maintained themselves similar to trees. This made the structure stable and long-lasting. By consuming the sap secreted by these roots, the Root Vipers survived, propagated, etc.
That was the internal mechanism to protect the wall.
Externally, Bone Vipers had been released to constantly mend the layer of bone on the wall.
Their food was delivered by the Root Vipers as the two races began to work in harmony to ensure the wall continued to stand.
Pet peeked out of the ivory sand and stared deeper into the Kalahatra Desert, watching two ginormous aurorae cover the entire region, 'This is getting out of hand.'
"They are continuing to power up!" Pet began to sweat, unable to even close in on the battle
location, "The sheer presence would explode my body."
A moment of silence later, Pet shivered, noticing one of the aurorae suddenly grow denser by thirty percent, "Is that...?"