Khnum's soul transfer to Angakok's body was much smoother than what Angakok was facing trying to take over Max's body.
His soul left his old body quite easily and the moment it entered Angakok's soulless body, immediately it was made the anchor and the vessel started to form around it.
It did not take Khnum much time at all to stop leaking soul energy, as the process of finding a new body was much smoother than he imagined.
Until the soul vessel was formed completely, he would not gain consciousness in Angakok's body, but at the rate the new soul vessel was forming around him, he knew it would not take much time at all.
He would soon have a new young body of a powerful tier8 god and the first thing he would do after obtaining it was to kill Angakok for good before he could complete his takeover of Max's body.
***********
( Meanwhile Max and Angakok )
Within the soul space, both Max and Angakok were extremely limited on the moves the two of them could perform.
Max, who had no idea about the actual mechanics of the place, was waiting for Angakok to make his move, as while he did not understand much, he understood that every second that Angakok lost inside the soul-space, his energy got lower and lower.
And it wasn't just Angakok that was getting weaker, it was also him getting stronger as he could feel his soul strengthening and growing in size with every bit of soul-force that leaked out of Angakok's body.
So it was clear to him that the longer this fight could be dragged the better it would be for him, which is why he activated his ultimate defensive move the
[ Buddha's Avatar ]
As encompassed in a golden Buddha's body he stood unmoving in front of his soul vessel, ready to defend it till his last breath.
Angakok used the attack [ Blood Tendrils ] to shoot a series of tendrils towards Max, however, while the attacks looked extremely powerful while leaving Angakok's hands, they lost close to 70% of their strength while approaching Max's form as they bounced off harmlessly against his golden form.
This was Max's natural soul's defence that was coming into play, as it was weakening the enemy soul within the body's attempts for a hostile takeover.
Not only was it pushing Angakok backwards and making it difficult for him to come closer to the vessel, it was also supporting Max's defence attempts.
Emboldened by this unexpected development, Max chuckled and felt a little better about his odds of stalling the shaman god as the soul defence gave him hope that he could hang-on for a while.
Unfortunately for him however, Angakok also realised that the longer he would wait, the bigger would be the disadvantage he was put in and hence he skipped the normal attacks all-together and went straight for using some of his biggest moves.
[ Divine Blood Mist ]
Angakok inhaled a deep breath and sprayed out a mouthful of blood from his mouth that dispersed into the air in the form of glowing red mist and travelled towards Max's golden form at a relatively slow pace.
Max used [ Wind Wall ] to try and block the mist from approaching his body, but the attack seemed to be unfazed by physical barriers.
His soul tried to reduce the potency of the move but all it could do was slow it's pace even further down, but even it could not reduce the attack's potency because of its nature.
When the attack finally hit Max's golden Buddha form, it began melting through it like it was made of butter as sizzling sounds like that of acid melting through metal could be heard throughout the soul space.
Angakok chuckled to see his move land, it was a move that was impossible to block and was sure to reduce any opponent it hit to ashes.
If Max evaded the move, it would have hit the soul vessel and eroded the container completely giving Angakok the chance to become the new root of the body, but since Max did not evade, Angakok was now able to kill his consciousness and take over the existing soul vessel without damaging it.
Either way it was a win for him and he was feeling quite good about it.
This attack was an early tier7 special attack and consumed a lot of his divine essence to be cast, putting a lot of strain on his soul.
Max, who realised that this attack was unstoppable did not hesitate at all and activated the skill move [ Constant Regeneration ] as he knew that it was his only hope at survival.
For the first time ever, his Golden Buddha form had been completely shattered as it's defences were torn apart by the blood mist.
In a desperate attempt, Max tried to use [ Blood Manipulation ] to try and see if he could divert the attack, but it failed as the mist in its microscopic form was charged with divine essence and was extremely difficult to take or control.
The mist did end up touching Max's skin, giving him the sensation of indescribable pain as his entire soul space began to tremble at the experience.
He felt like someone had just dropped extremely hot lava on his skin and it was melting straight through his skin, bones, muscles and blood.
This process was repeated throughout his body, covering every inch of his being.
However, while the experience was horrible for Max, it was even shocking for Angakok who watched with wide eyes as Max's body which was undeniably losing extreme amounts of HP every second was regenerating it all equally fast as the damage was healing at a rate visible to the naked eye!
A constant process of damage and healing started as Angakok seemed to age a thousand years just watching the process unfold.
" Impossible…. Not even Beniogre herself can heal at such a rapid pace…. No this can't be happening…. " Angakok murmured in disbelief as for the first time ever Max saw the shaman god in disarray and disbelief as his face turned into an ugly frown.
Max was hurting all over to the point where his mind was ready to blank, however, seeing that expression on Angakok's face made him forget about all the pain as he began laughing like a madman.
" HAHAHAHA ".
The sounds of Max's laughter reverberated throughout the soul space as Angakok's ugly purple soul visibly shrinked in size.
Having spent a long time inside Max's soul-space, without the support of Khnum's divine essence and against the unexpected resistance from Max's consciousness, Angakok was forced to use a big attack which used up a lot of his own divine essence which he was using to sustain his soul outside of a body.
As a result, the shaman god had regressed from his tier8 strength to tier7 and the clock was ticking rapidly for him now.
No longer could he casually use tier7 attacks as those would put even greater strain on his body, accelerating his soul force loss, but not using one would mean defeating Max would become next to impossible, risking his soul to perish and be absorbed as a whole by Max.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Angakok had a very difficult decision to make about the future course of this fight.