The ringing in my ears is extremely loud, but my vision has returned, as my full power isn't fully concentrated on keeping my astral form at max capacity anymore.

  Now, a rge portion of my mind is occupied with using my self-regeneration to its maximum output while walking forward to the bck box that's fallen from the ceiling. Each step is painful, as my entire body is fatigued and filled with pins and needles that become sharp with every movement.

  Ember, walking forward in his human form, doesn't look like he's in much better shape than me.

  His face still exudes a confident and curious expression, but his body nguage shows that the ordeal took a lot out of him too.

  While I have an enormous amount of pure mana farmed from the artificial mountains still locked away in my storage in pure crystal form, ready to use for emergency hibernation if necessary, the boxes in front of me hold my full leftover attention.

  They glow with a dim white light that feels simir to divine energy, creating subtle gravity waves as it seeps out of the bck boxes that don't show any openings.

  As soon as Ember and I get up close enough to the prizes, the tops of the small boxes dissolve away, shining with a far stronger white glow inside.

  The box in front of me holds three items.

  The first that catches my eye is a jagged piece of bck metallic stone, but as it floats upward, pushed up by the white mist inside the box, it begins shimmering deep yellow and gives off the gravity signature of a true core.

  The red soul sword in my hand mentally tugs toward this object, but my gaze shifts to the other two that float upward in the white mist.

  One is barely visible, a small white orb, not bigger than a common marble, but it shines with the same odd divine light that this white box's inside does.

  The st item I see is about four times rger than the white marble, but it is simirly shaped; its color glows bright green, and I can see an immense amount of shimmering divine threads inside of it.

  As the green orb comes out of the white mist, the pressure it begins to exert on the room becomes greater and greater, and I even see green threads start to violently spin out from the orb as it begins to unravel itself.

  Without hesitating, I open an item storage portal and let the dangerous item fall inside.

  The two items that remain float upward completely out of the box, and the hunger from my sword grows as the chunk of bck and yellow metal comes closer.

  I move my bde forward to tap it against the raw material, and a [Consume] window shows up for me to accept on the spot.

  The originator rock melts to a yellow pure divine energy mixture instantly and is consumed by my bde.

  My gaze switches between the red sword, rippling with yellow light as it takes longer than usual to digest the mass it's eating, and the one remaining item in front of me.

  Ember's voice echoes in my ears.

  "That pill is made of Low-quality Divine Ether, and it's in a very pure form. I guess the difficulty of that trial worked out in our favor in the end. Eat it; it'll do much more than just heal you."

  I raise an eyebrow and turn my head to see Ember's box open as well, and in front of him, there's only a single item: a small white dragon's scale, glowing with the same odd white divine glow.

  His finger makes contact with the white, nearly translucent scale, and at the same time, he transforms his body into his hybrid dragon form. The scale starts to glow brighter white, and the excess energy around it starts to flow into Ember's body, making his bck scales, crimson eyes, and tail glow with a bright white light.

  The scale disappears once it looks as though it's been absorbed entirely, and all of the white light around Ember dissipates as well. I can't even tell if anything has changed, other than the pleasant expression on his face now and his apparent ck of fatigue.

  As he begins reverting back to his full human form, I notice a slight golden shimmer beneath some of Ember's scales, like their true color is peeking through for the first time.

  However, a headache pulls my vision away before I can observe any further, and I do as Ember instructed and drop the Low-quality Divine Ether pill into my mouth.

  It dissolves instantly, and tastes sweet like candy.

  The white glow spreads throughout my body quickly, feeling simir to when Abby uses her Restoration skill, but with a strange divine twist to it. It feels as though I'm just being healed back up to full health, but at the same time, an innate potential deep inside feels like it's being brought up to the surface, where I would usually have to dig far deeper to grasp.

  Just as soon as the warm feeling washes completely over me, it leaves just as fast, and the white glow completely disappears with the two bck boxes with it.

  All of my fatigue, ringing in my ears, and even the pins and needles all over my body have completely left me. Yet, I don't feel especially refreshed; I just feel normal...

  Two lines of text hover in front of my eyes, the first in yellow, and I feel my Soul Sword vibrate in my hands as the system text rings in my inner ear.

  [The Divine Emperor's Soul Sword Evolution Attribute has reached Lv. 1!]

  The second is in shimmering silver, above the arching doorway, in the ancient tower's voice that rings in my mind with even more crity than ever before.

  [Proceed to Trial 2: Mind]

  —

  Around the outside of the tower, the surges of links of loyalty surpassing 30 million increase the general's stats by an immense degree.

  It is much needed, as two new high-level yellow-cored generals come rocketing toward the crimson army from their rear. The only forces waiting strong enough to stop them are The Saint in his rge white pure Qi-infused Greater Form, and Arie now releasing one of his poisoned arrows toward one of them as they approach.

  However, the greatest boost is noticed in Abby and Maria, as a fuming mad bronze-horned Demon with a True Core burning in its chest collides with both of them at extreme speeds.

  One of its shimmering bronze daggers phases right through Abby's Immortal Form, while the other is stopped by a massive blue Soul Energy Sword.

  There are two massive eruptions of energy that ripple through the desert, the first being the nearly equal exchange of the Demon's dagger and Maria's energy bdes, while the second is Abby flying around to the demon's back and stabbing through its armor with two daggers of her own.

  All three parties involved in the exchange are blown backward, and two gashes are visible on the Demon's side, but both the bck obsidian-colored armor and the Demon's flesh become covered in purple Demonic Soul Energy and heal back to perfect condition almost instantly.

  No one wastes any time getting back into the csh, but the Demon is now wary that Abby is hard to hit, and the Ice Goddess can match his overwhelming physical strength even with Demonic Soul Energy imbued in his strikes.

  Even though this Demon is at the lower tier range of a True Core's size, its seven-meter-tall natural stature and Demonic Strength are simir to a middle-level true core human, surpassing that of almost all order members other than the big three.

  Despite this, the absurd amount of mana and stats coursing through the two women's veins creates a sight unbelievable to the pride-filled Arch Demon's eyes.

  After ten exchanges pass, the two women keep getting slightly stronger somehow, and every time the demon thinks it's about to nd a hit, Maria's core pulses dark blue to let out an ominous pulse of energy to overpower it.

  Abby zips around the battlefield with superior speed and invulnerability, nding shot after shot on the Demon's unguarded blind spots while it's mid-csh with Maria.

  While after every collision the Demon heals, mental and physical fatigue will kick in eventually. With the links of loyalty only growing, the longer this battle rages on, the more of an advantage they'll have.

  The Demon figures this out very quickly as well, but its overall composure doesn't change. It even ughs, mocking the two of them even after being sent backward from Abby nding another two hits.

  "For humans, I have to give it to you, you really are strong. Especially on such a world with low-quality resources like this..."

  It heals its wounds back up and grips both its bronze daggers while its body becomes covered in Demonic Soul Energy.

  "I'll give you one st chance to submit. Lord Vermillion is a reasonable leader; he will spare your lives in exchange for bor. Not just on this world either; once we've taken over this pnet, the expansion will only continue."

  Maria's massive energy bde comes crashing down while Abby zips through the sky around it to send a dual attack.

  As they all csh again, and the Demon is pushed back with two dagger marks in its chest pte, Abby replies to its words.

  "One st chance? I don't think you know who you're up against here... you're not walking away from this battle alive, and neither is your Lord."

  Abby gnces toward the tower, but the Demon only bursts out into a monstrous demonic ugh.

  "You believe any mere human could kill a Demon with a noble bloodline flowing through their veins...?"

  It ughs louder and louder while all of its wounds and armor heal.

  "You truly believe our leader could be killed on this puny world? Allow me to demonstrate; as one of the Lord's underlings with just a fraction of its power. I'll unseal my bloodline to give you a taste of what fate this race is in for..."

  Its ughs cease, and the demon closes its eyes.

  There isn't even a fraction of a second of activation time before its eyes open again, and a pulse of grey energy erupts from its core.

  An eerie pressure fills the silver dome, and the gravity of the bronze-horned Demon's True Core increases many times over.

  It jumps off the air to move forward, and its speed is incomparable to what it was just seconds ago.

  It collides with Maria's bde that would push it back before and keep it occupied while Abby went in for the kill, but this time Maria can't follow through with her strike at all.

  She has to use her Soul Energy core to pulse with dark blue light multiple times in a row to keep her positioning while Abby goes in to attack.

  The sound of Abby's daggers cnging against the Demon's now impenetrable obsidian armor is matched with both Abby and Maria flung backward in a shockwave that erupts from the Demon as its core continues to grow stronger as its bloodline is fully unsealed.

  Its yell echoes out again in a confident, arrogant ugh while its physical body grows in size.

  "This is the power of a 2nd Css Demonic Bloodline. I could kill everyone in this desert before you take 10 breaths...And you still believe there is someone from this world that can stack up to our lord?"

  It ughs again while locking eyes with both of them, grinning, as its body grows rger and plumes of dark purple Demonic Soul Energy cover its massive form. The Demon's aura makes the air hot and heavy while it creates the manifestation of a massive dark bck and purple Demon the same size as Maria's Ice Goddess.

  It speeds forward with its enrged energy daggers ready to kill, now truly on the offensive.

  KaeNovels