Chapter 558 The Forest Of Death (Part-2)
Azzy ducked in a timely manner. Three of them crashed into each other. The fourth one, a 10-meter-big giant seal, which leaped higher than them, also crashed onto the remaining three from above.
Azzy quickly dashed away and escaped from there as the four monsters fell to the ground.
He then raised his free left hand and performed a quick seal. "Sealing technique: Trap, level 2."
Energy chains erupted from the ground and captured all of them at the same time in the form of a dome. As Azzy made a fist, the chains started tightening. The giant seal's weight crushed the poor iguanas underneath it.
The giant seal let out a powerful roar and started raising its body with scarlet energy surrounding its body. Flames were erupting out of it, attacking the chains and the iguanas at the same time.
The chains no longer suppressed it but they were getting destroyed one after another. Because of the black rain, it was already feeling enormous pain. That pain increased its rage.
Azzy didn't plan on waiting for it to get free either. Pouring his soul energy into the death scythe, Azzy then slashed at the empty air while unleashing a soul skill.
"Soul skill: Slice of Death."
A huge arc of concentrated death energy was formed and made its way to the targets.
It cleanly sliced the giant seal monster into two and coincidentally cut off the heads of the two giant iguanas underneath it. Only one monster escaped with its life intact, although not for long.
After realizing that the enemy is not by means a prey but a predator, it scurried away while screaming in pain. As the black rain extended up to 500 meters, its slow speed (due to the damage inflicted by the giant seal) became its doom.
Before it crossed the range, it ended up a skeleton and fell to the ground. A spirit core was seen above its corpse. This scene further scared away the other iguana and they refused to approach any longer.
Meanwhile, three large spirit cores were seen floating in mid-air, one is of scarlet color and the two are of beige color, waiting for him to consume them and refine them into his soul energy, thereby increasing his soul power.
Azzy did exactly the same without any surprises. He walked to the spirit cores and absorbed the three of them in an instant and then, as he moved to the final one, the dark cloud above him also moved along.
The monsters standing outside the perimeter of the cloud witnessed that and they moved away further while growling at Azzy.
After absorbing the fourth one, Azzy then closed his eyes and communicated with the Reaper, "Chronos, lend me a hand please."
"Fine, you focus on the breakthrough to the 9th tier," replied the Reaper as he proceeded to refine the absorbed energy.
With his palm facing downwards, Azzy then unleashed one of his favorite soul skills, the Rise of the Undead.
He summoned Taslan, the undead spider; undead Claudius, the Supreme master of Barbara; Undead Ophanim, the Cardinal of the church; the three giant earth Iguanas and the Giant Flame Seal.
Except for Taslan, the others didn't have any soul skills. Hence, he used the technique that he failed to finish against Fenrir.
He merged all of the skeletons to form a single giant skeleton with the strength of a peak-rank-9 and has the skill set of Taslan. However, this technique also comes at a cost. Its soul power consumption was quite heavy.
For every second, the giant skeletal being will consume 10 million SP worth of soul energy. Hence, he had to keep using SP recovery cards to keep it in play.
Using the black rain as his protection and the giant skeletal being as his bodyguard, Azzy rushed into the forest.
After traveling for a couple of kilometers, Azzy found a rock. He sliced it and sat on the flat surface before closing his eyes.
"Wow, I never experienced natural energy this denser." Azzy couldn't help but exclaim inwardly, feeling like a kid who stepped into the world of arcade games.
He spread his senses to a couple of kilometers around him and started absorbing the natural energy while simultaneously feeding his bones and meridians.
Despite the fact that he was at the doorstep of the tier-9, Azzy could feel them getting stronger with each second.
Meanwhile, the scenery outside his body is something else.
The trees that once had been tall and proud were now withering away, their leaves turning brown and falling to the ground.
12 sq. km of area is nothing more than an ant when compared to the entire forest but in reality, it was enough big to even build a city.
And such a big area of forest is decaying and slowly turning into a wasteland as its natural energy was being absorbed into Azzy.
The ocean might rich in natural energy and there's a huge forest out there that has enormous amounts of natural energy too. They were automatically feeding the area to keep the vegetation alive.
However, Azzy's absorption appeared to be higher than the recovery rate. All of the recovered natural energy in his range was also going into him.
An hour passed away.
Azzy's bones were glowing inwardly and they are becoming so dense and hard that they crossed 20gms per cubic centimeter and are increasing further.
"More… I need more natural energy." Azzy was getting frustrated as he couldn't just break through. He decided to absorb every bit of natural energy particle present in the world if that will give him the breakthrough that he needed.
As Azzy continuously refined his meridians and the bones, all of a sudden, he heard the cracking sound in his wrist.
*Crack*
"Argh…" Azzy let out a painful scream. However, the pain didn't stop.
Followed by that, the cracks started to appear all over his body, even his skull wasn't spared. All the bones of his body were crushed into bits and Azzy lost his consciousness.
Everything was black around him, making him wonder for a moment whether he died or something.
It was then the Reaper's voice heard in the surroundings, "Congratulations, Azrael. You broke through. Your body is currently in the middle of a rebuilding phase."
"Will it take time?" asked Azzy. He was worried that he wouldn't make it on time to save the kids and had to resort to time travel once again.
To which, the Reaper responded with letting out a chuckle, "You have the true divine physique and you are worrying about the kids now? Forget about others and indulge yourself in joy."
"I will do that once I become a demigod and defeat the Fenrir," replied Azzy.
The Reaper then said, "You don't understand it. Anyways, once you regain your consciousness, everything will become clear."
A few hours later;
Azzy slowly opened his eyes. It was the time of the dawn and there was light around him. Meanwhile, he was floating in the sky and his eyes were glowing.
He couldn't help but look down at the island.
"What is this?"