Chapter 337: Scorching Battle, High-Energy Overload

“Clack, clack, clack, boom, boom, boom!”

The tide of battle had turned. Having invoked the inner potential of the Scales of God, Wood’s physical attributes had surged to the level of his agility—that of a high-ranking Grand Knight.

Wood seized Wang Yu by the ankle, his grip unyielding. With a fierce squeeze, his five fingers dug deep, crushing the bones of the lower leg until they groaned under the unbearable pressure. Flesh tore, and the bone buckled into a sickening, concave deformity.

Yet, Wood soon noted that Wang Yu, whose true strength was no more than that of a mid-ranking Grand Knight, possessed bones of unnatural hardness. No matter how much of his high-ranking power he channeled, he could not fully shatter the limb.

Without hesitation, Wood abandoned the attempt to cripple the leg. Instead, he swung his arm, repeatedly slamming Wang Yu’s lower leg against the hard earth.

The ground fractured, sending clouds of dust and stone shards billowing into the air with every impact. Faced with such overwhelming, all-encompassing physical dominance, Wang Yu seemed to have no effective way to break free.

“Ping! Crack—shatter!”

A strange sound of breaking objects echoed as Wang Yu collided with the ground. Wood grew wary but did not cease his assault; the Scales of God had a limited duration, and his best strategy was to use his crushing physical superiority to annihilate Wang Yu before he could mount a defense.

But he was soon forced to release his grip, for he saw the surface of Wang Yu’s alchemical alloy light armor being consumed by dark gray corrosion, which spread rapidly across his entire body.

A dim, hazy, earthy-yellow mist had appeared around Wang Yu. As the pungent odor reached Wood’s nostrils, a searing agony flared in his lungs. Experienced and sharp, he threw Wang Yu away without a second thought and retreated at top speed.

Taking a deep breath of air untainted by the brown haze, Wood suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood, dark to the point of blackness. Within the fluid, one could see countless tiny, pitch-black barbed spheres.

That single breath had nearly inflicted a grievous injury. Wood stared with a grim expression at Wang Yu, who had been tossed into the distance.

“Cursed Rot-Poison,” a toxin of terrifying corrosiveness, extracted from minerals unique to the Undead Plane. It slowly eroded inorganic matter, but upon contact with blood or bodily fluids, it would proliferate wildly, filling the victim’s veins with black, thorny spikes.

“The fool is courting death, releasing this stuff right around himself…”

Wood used his Battle Qi to isolate the affected areas within his body, forcing the contaminated blood out. That was only a small amount; Wang Yu’s massive, close-range exposure was practically suicide.

But Wood soon realized he was wrong. Wang Yu had adjusted his posture while still in the air. The ground, warped and reshaped by the Power of the Chariot, caught him steadily. He tore off the armor decayed by the poison, and hardened blood crawled over his skin, covering him entirely in a suit of crimson plate.

Wang Yu cast a look of slight regret at the yellow dust dissipating in the air. This incredibly destructive toxin lost its potency rapidly once detached from its carrier. Had he not been thrown, he would have utilized it further. As for the damage to himself? The Power of the Chariot would never give such toxins a chance.

“Boom!”

A deafening explosion drew a fraction of Wood’s attention. A glance toward the blast site made his brows knit; this mage was absurdly difficult to deal with. It was the first time he had seen Joey look so beleaguered while facing a spellcaster.

Avia crouched slightly, her palm pressed to the ground. Fiery red threads of mana spread across the earth, weaving into a complex, spiderweb-like formation. Above these lines hovered a multitude of blazing fireballs, radiating intense light and heat.

Joey gripped his daggers, his figure ghost-like, attempting to weave through the sea of fire to slit the girl’s throat. But Avia’s gaze, piercing through the Perfect Fractal Lens, tracked his every move with absolute precision. His vaunted art of concealment was as good as non-existent before her.

Joey attempted to force his way through the fireball formation using his high speed and ability to alter his body’s form, but Avia would never grant him such an opening. Those fiery threads of mana were designed specifically to target anyone attempting to traverse the sea of flames.

As Joey stepped forward, his body twisted and shrank, allowing him to navigate the gaps between the fireballs with the same agility as Wood. However, his movement disturbed the mana flowing through the threads.

Like prey stepping into a spider’s web, the moment Joey touched a thread, the entire network vibrated. The threads relayed the disturbance to the Perfect Fractal Lens, which analyzed the data in an instant and instructed Avia on how to adjust the fireballs.

It was the optimal solution, a total orchestration. It was simple enough for Joey to pass one fireball, but as he delved deeper, the number of fireballs reacting to his presence grew. He was facing the entire web, not individual entities.

Joey’s speed was immense; he had covered half the distance to the girl in a few quick steps. But suddenly, he found himself surrounded by fireballs converging from all directions. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to flee.

Avia clenched her fist, and the mana surged. The fireballs surrounding Joey detonated simultaneously. The deafening roar that had caught Wood’s attention was born of that brilliant, scorching light.

A figure burst from the flames—it was Joey. The bandage-like wrappings on his body were riddled with holes scorched by the fire, and sparks only extinguished once he came to a halt.

A wall of fire encircled the girl, preventing Joey from launching a desperate attack after escaping the explosion. Joey was not known for his defense; he dared not recklessly charge through the wall of flames.

“Switch.”

With a silent, tacit understanding, Joey and Wood exchanged glances, each reading the other’s intent.

Swap opponents. Wood would break through the defenses of this clearly extraordinary mage and execute her, while Joey would merely need to stall the knight, Wang Yu.

They sprinted toward each other’s positions without hesitation, but clearly, neither Wang Yu nor Avia intended to grant them that opportunity.

A translucent, invisible blade materialized out of thin air, stabbing into the void to block Joey’s path. It was so fast that Joey barely reacted, nearly colliding with it head-on.

Super-Magic: Phantom Blade. A preliminary application of super-magic; while not overwhelmingly powerful, its unique effect allowed for the creation of solid, durable blades within the range of her mana influence, with strength determined by the amount of mana injected.

Avia watched Joey coldly, her fingers flicking in the air. A multitude of illusory blades began to manifest around him, making it impossible for him to reach Wood. Come and go as he pleased? Such a luxury did not exist.

Joey halted, changing his grip on his daggers. He slashed through the air in rapid, intersecting arcs, shattering the phantom blades into fragments of base mana. Deadly flames ignited in his eyes, and the next moment, he drove his daggers deep into his own left shoulder.

“Snap, bang!”

As the second clash between Avia and Joey erupted, Wang Yu and Wood locked horns once more. Wood stared intently at Wang Yu, who was charging at high speed.

The daggers were back in their sheaths, replaced by a heavy, broad-bladed shortsword—a weapon thick and sturdy, meant to harness the full strength of Wood’s Scales of God state.

Wang Yu swallowed a potion, and the continuous effect began to bleed from his pores, increasing his speed and leaving a faint red trail behind him. Simultaneously, the Perfect Fractal Lens helped him activate the buff spells the girl had cast on him earlier.

Gales roared; the Ankles of the Hurricane cut through wind resistance while providing an extra boost. With the dual enhancement of potion and spell, Wang Yu’s raw movement speed finally matched Wood’s.

As he closed in, Wang Yu threw a punch, while the Power of the Chariot simultaneously drove several shards of meteorite iron to strike from different angles.

“Clang! Ding-ding-ding! Crack, squelch!”

Yet, Wang Yu’s speed only matched Wood’s in movement; in close-quarters combat, he was at an immediate, absolute disadvantage.

Wood’s blade moved in a series of complex, rhythmic patterns, colliding with every shard of meteorite iron and knocking them aside.

Then, ignoring the fist Wang Yu aimed at his neck, Wood merely shifted his body slightly, taking the blow on his shoulder with a dull thud. His sword followed the trajectory of the deflected shards, slicing into Wang Yu’s side.

The terrifying force easily breached the blood-armor and the invisible barrier Avia had set, carving through flesh and muscle until it was halted by a rib, preventing it from cleaving Wang Yu in two.

“Bang!”

A horrific wound, yet not a single drop of blood flowed from Wang Yu’s body. Wood froze for a split second, stunned to see Wang Yu immediately move to his next action as if nothing had happened.

When Wood tried to pull his blade out, it snagged; the Power of the Chariot and the blood had clamped down on the sword.

With a sudden burst of strength, Wood forced his way through the resistance, but the delay cost him a beat, and he was struck in the chest by Wang Yu’s elbow.

The blow, fueled by the momentum of his entire body, shattered the crimson armor on Wang Yu’s elbow and sent a jolt of pain through Wood’s chest. He retreated several steps, looking with confusion at the massive, gaping wound on Wang Yu’s torso.

The blood crawled and writhed; the shattered armor repaired itself at high speed, and the wound was soon hidden beneath a new layer of crimson plate. But before the repair was complete, Wood had seen the massive gash closing, with internal organs wriggling as something filled and stitched them together.

There was no time to ponder Wang Yu’s unnatural regenerative ability. Wood dove back into the fray.

Wood ignored Wang Yu’s attacks, relying on the formidable defense of the Scales of God to tank the blows while using his shortsword to breach Wang Yu’s defenses, tearing flesh, mincing organs, and snapping bones, creating one “fatal wound” after another.

But every time Wood succeeded in inflicting such horrific damage and was knocked back by Wang Yu, he would find that the man had forcibly “patched” himself together in a matter of seconds. In a minute of combat, Wang Yu had performed this feat a dozen times.

Wood was certain the damage wasn’t fully repaired—merely stitched together—but it was enough to sustain the fight. Wounds not subjected to further attack were soon fully mended by that absurdly powerful regeneration.

In their brief, intense exchanges, Wood had taken hits to various parts of his body, leaving him bruised and numb, yet Wang Yu, despite being repeatedly shredded, showed no signs of flagging.

If Wood were a true, veteran Grand Knight, he could have worn Wang Yu down until there was nothing left to patch. Unfortunately, he was not.

“I must end this before my inner potential fades. I cannot give him this chance.”

Thoughts raced. As he withdrew after another strike, Wood did not immediately engage the charging Wang Yu. Instead, he gathered his Battle Qi, pushing his explosive power to the limit. Against such a tenacious enemy, he had to change tactics.

Since the opponent excelled at attrition, he would aim for a one-hit kill. As for his own injuries, he could recover after the enemy was dead. With absolute focus, Wood shifted his grip on the shortsword from one hand to two, aiming squarely at the oncoming Wang Yu.

Unleashing his full strength in a sudden surge, he relied on physical attributes that far surpassed Wang Yu’s and a concentrated reservoir of battle aura to drive a terrifyingly powerful blade into his opponent’s abdomen, leaving Wang Yu no chance to parry; he intended to pierce straight through the torso and shatter the spine, convinced that such a wound would be beyond recovery.

In truth, he was right, for Wang Yu’s regenerative capacity was indeed sluggish when it came to mending bone, and thus, the very moment the blade bit into his flesh, Wang Yu detonated.

Boom!

A potent and unadulterated shockwave erupted at the point where steel met skin, surging forth from within Wang Yu’s body and channeling along the blade into Wood, the point-blank release tearing through his opponent’s resilient hide and muscle.

Wood was sent reeling uncontrollably, the immense force rattling the short sword from his grip, but Wang Yu pressed the advantage, slamming a fist directly into Wood’s chest.

Boom!

Another explosion, the shockwave shattering the space between them and mercilessly ravaging Wood’s body, for even the state of God’s Balance could not withstand such violent energy discharge at such close quarters.

Had Wang Yu shed his blood-armor at that moment, one would have seen the glowing veins tracing his entire frame, his circulatory system flooded with the high-energy blood capable of unleashing a Dragon’s Roar.

He had previously pondered how to amplify his destructive potential, concluding that he required a more efficient form of energy release—a way to vent his power in the swiftest, most savage manner possible.

The unique method he mastered was the Dragon’s Roar, converting his specialized blood into pure kinetic force.

What if, he had reasoned, he were to store a surplus of this high-energy blood in a reservoir and replace his ordinary blood with it when needed, allowing him to unleash such power with every movement?

The answer was a resounding yes, a state Wang Yu had come to call High-Energy Overload.