"Take A"

  "Stop ag tough, watch me smash you into a fool!"

  The Emerald Wolf Spirit howled low, and the five evil spirits covered in a wicked shell instantly erupted. They turned into shadows, disappearing from sight, only to unch a swift attack from all dires toward Li Aozi and Alexia.

  "S."

  Alexia raised her hand, sweeping it across in front of her. The evil spirits hidden in the shadows were immediately exposed. She struck out with both fists, fiercely hitting the four-armed Snail Man charging at her.

  "Damn it!"

  The four-armed Snail Man was horrified, hastily raising its arms to blo front of it, but its strength was nowhere near Alexia's.

  Thud—

  Alexia's fists forcibly broke the Snail Man's four folded arms. Her unwaveriermination was like the bzing sun as her fists plunged into it, burning aing the Snail Man as if it were spring snow.

  She pulled with all her might, and the once-aggressive Snail Man immediately let out a wail, with bck smoke rising from its body. Soon after, its upper half was violently torn in two by Alexia's strength, melting and burning away on her metal gaus.

  Despite this, the Snail Man still didn't die. This spirit's life force was extraordinarily tenacious, and it struggled to crawl back to the grand duke's feet with the st bit of its snail shell. Duke Gamos lowered his hand, releasing a irit from his body for the Snail Man to e, slowly rest it.

  pared to Alexia's brutal efficy, Li Aozi's methods were more dazzling and shog.

  Boom!

  Li Aozi lifted his long bde, and the vengeful spirit warrior behind him did the same. The overwhelming killing i alpable; just approag him was enough to send a shiver down your spine.

  The Emerald Wolf Spirit and the White-Robed Spirit Wife exged a gnce, seeing their thoughts reflected in each other's eyes:

  They both realized that everything about them had beehrough.

  'Feint and probe, force him to attack.'

  'Just what I wanted.'

  The two evil spirits unicated silently, ung an attack together. The Emerald Wolf Spirit shot out a pressed spiritual energy orb, while the Spirit Wife sshed out a crest-shaped dark wave with a human spine fan.

  【Soul-Imprinted Sword Saint?War Ghost】—Stag

  【Gravity?tact】—Stag

  "Dual Unity—Ghost Fang Ssh!"

  The vengeful spirit behind Li Aozi instantly swung its bde, a terrifying purple fme sweeping horizontally forward. The two spirits retreated, but they quickly realized it was too te to avoid it.

  After the vengeful spirit warrior sshed, Li Aozi also stepped forward leisurely, raising his crystallized greatsword.

  Gravity Drive!

  His acceleration instantly increased to 120G, with a speed of 1,176 meters per sed, causing a terrifying soni. As the two evil spirits were still retreating mid-air, Li Aozi's bde had already sliced past them.

  g—

  His figure moved like lightning, despite wearing the incredibly heavy va armor, his speed exceeded the reas of the eye and nervous system. The bde danced like a rider without a mount or a butterfly flitting through a flowerbed. In a split sed, purple ssh marks appeared on both the Emerald Wolf Spirit and the Spirit Wife.

  "Ugh—damn it, Fetus Ghost, Thunder Spirit, get moving!"

  The Emerald Wolf Spirit's eyes darted around, pretending to be severely injured, and urgently shouted to the rear:

  "Do something, you two idiots!"

  "Shut up!"

  The Thunder Spirit, a creature between a lion and a deer, was different from these spirits born of rese in life. Its demeanor was clearly more noble. As a spirit born of nature, it was a maion of the Blue Star's ecological will, disdainful of standing with the nearby evil spirits. It opes mouth, spiritual energy swirling, gathering into a brilliant purple lightning ball.

  "Hmph!"

  The Thunder Spirit growled lowly, and the dazzling ball of lightning instantly flew toward Li Aozi, f him to pull back as he tinuously sshed at the two evil spirits.

  No matter how much Li Aozi maneuvered mid-air to create distahe lightning ball stayed locked onto him.

  "Soul Mark Trag—this guy's a bit tough."

  Seeing the lightning ball about to catch up with him, Li Aozi suddenly turned around and nded, stomping on the ground.

  Boom!

  【Armor of the Mountains】

  【Gravity】

  He once again harhe power of the earth, f a crude ro under gravitational trol, crashing into the lightning ball.

  Crackle—

  The intense heat melted a portion of the ro, shattering part of it, but it didn't matter. Instead, Li Aozi used gravity to hurl it toward the grand duke's body ohrone!

  Guh!

  The Fetus Ghost instantly shifted forms, blog in front of the grand duke. It swung its umbilical cord, shattering the ro intments. Only some tiny bits of rock, amid the dust, nded on Duke Gamos's face.

  Tap, tap, tap...

  The rocks rolled off the grand duke's face, getting caught in the wrinkles and age spots on his skin. No one could kly how that felt, but judging by Duke Gamos's rea, it was clearly unpleasant.

  Duke Gamos raised his head, for the first time, surveying the battlefield directly.

  He saw the melted and trampled marble, treated like dirt by these two seemingly youier individuals.

  He saw their youthful bodies, gradually stepping into the same painful domain as his own, even growing stroo kill him—especially that woman from the old era.

  He saw the Omega Energy, which had long been reduced to street tricks, now being transformed into tless possibilities in the hands of the new geion. Just like the young people themselves, it was vibrant, full of potential.

  He saw those who should have perished with the old world, now filled with resolve, growing stronger as they fought.

  These things, he once had them too. He should have had su era.

  But all this power had bee a curse.

  Duke Gamos's heart shifted suddenly.

  Perhaps it was jealousy of the young, or rese at the unfairness of fate, or simply a being humiliated.

  He removed the respirator from his fad slowly stood up. The Snail Man was still greedily ing irits but was immediately reabsorbed by Duke Gamos.

  "Gamos, I'm not fully healed yet—"

  Before it could finish speaking, the grand duke raised his hand, casually pointiween its snail antennae.

  Squish!

  The Snail Man's body instantly exploded, dissolving into a torrent of spiritual energy that reversed bato Gamos. His body shook slightly, and snail-like antennae grew from his forehead.

  "Hey, Gamos—" The Fetus Ghost had just begun to speak when it was also grabbed by the grand duke, its umbilical cord torn away, ing around his arm. The pta at its head smmed heavily into the ground, dragging along like a meteor hammer, leaving a bck, filthy trail.

  "Gamos! Are you betraying us? We're the ones helping you!"

  The destru of the Fetus Ghost and Snail Mahe Spirit Wife deeply displeased:

  "If you don't uand the bigger picture—"

  Before she could finish speaking, Alexia punched her, causing the Spirit Wife to stagger bading right in front of the grand duke.

  Cp.

  A faint blue crack slowly opened in the grand duke's chest, and before the Spirit Wife could scream, she was swallowed by the grand duke in one "bite."

  The folding fao the ground as Alexia cautiously looked up, and Duke Gamos's figure suddenly burst forth. Even the shockwave from his movement was enough to send the immensely powerful Alexia flying to the ground.

  He took a rge step forward, moving silently, dragging his eerie steps as he pletely ighe rules of physics, rapidly skimming across the wall, directly poung on Emerald, who was battling Li Aozi.

  Thud——

  Even with all its deep schemes, Emerald was caught off guard this time. Its head was lifted high, grabbed by the grand duke, who swiftly and ly skihe wolf, draping the pelt over his shoulders, f a luxurious and savage cloak.

  Li Aozi stood face to face with Gamos, only half a meter apart. Whether it was the fmes on Li Aozi's body or the rotting stench of corpses on Gamos, they could clearly smell each other's presence.

  "You're not afraid of me."

  Gamos's voice was sickly, utterly g in strength, like an old man on his deathbed, yet each word he spoke rolled like thuhrough the Fme King's Hall. Fag him was, in itself, a terrifying experience.

  For the first time, fag Duke Gamos, Li Aozi uood the despair and fear felt by those crushed under his gravity.

  This was pletely different from fag Bio King Kong. The Abyss professor didn't know how to fight and wasn't a true powerhouse, just a pile of flesh built up by Omega Energy.

  But Duke Gamos—if Bio King Kong was a drop of water, then the duke was a flood, bringiru and disaster in an overwhelming torrent.

  Yet, pared to Li Aozi's feelings, the duke was even more surprised.

  "You're not afraid of me, and even your eyes are filled with eagerness."

  What kind of cept is this—like an ordinary person with bare hands seeing a high-speed train rushing toward them, not only without fear but with a burning desire to overturrain and smash it into scrap metal.

  Gamos was silent for a moment. He initially thought he had many thoughts, many words to mock this young man.

  'Overestimating yourself,' 'meaningless,' 'you'll eventually regret pursuing power'—he khose kinds of looks all too well.

  Before he had succumbed, step by step, to being a of the Frost-Pted, Gamos remembered he had once looked that way too.

  The young man before him, or that bride of the old era—her had any persoy with him.

  Reasonably, they shouldn't be fighting him, especially not against an enemy so powerful it was despairing.

  Whether it was the grand duke, the Frost-Pted, or any of the imperial powers.

  But now, he realized that those supposed taunts were actually proof of his own failure.

  These two young people weren't fighting for self-i but for their beliefs.

  In terms of power, he was overwhelmingly superior, but from the very beginning, Gamos knew he had already lost far too much.

  "...Fet it."

  Duke Gamos said nothing more.

  If you overlook the things he did and the historical role he pyed, he didn't really look like a vilin at all.

  Rather, he resembled a lifeless old man, devoid of any will to fight.

  "Thunder Spirit."

  Gamos waved his hand, and the Natural Beast Spirit immediately g to him, merging with his body. Brilliant purple lightnied, instantly tearing through the ceiling of the Fme King's Hall.

  Crackle!

  Amidst the red and bck clouds of camity, a bolt of lightning struck down, pierg through the roof of Surut Pad smming into Gamos.

  A vast cloud of dischargiricity instantly engulfed the entire Surut Pace. Seeing the dire situation, Xislong and the Bemudes soldiers on the periphery quickly retreated.

  Rumble, rumble, rumble——

  The ground trembled, buildings colpsed, and the Surut Pace, with its nearly thousand-year history, shook tinuously. The massive cloud of dischargiricity spread like malignant cer cells, swallowing tless soldiers alive. Amid the fshing lightning and thunder, a t, inhuman figure slowly unfurled six pairs of arms, desding upon the world like an Asura.

  The ferocious demon god's arrival sent the thunderclouds roiling in resporembling as they transmitted his will:

  "—Take A."

  'Take A' is a term rooted in a shamanic culture, ter evolving into a cultural tradition in northeast a.

  Though I'm not from the northeast, I've heard of the tales of the Horse Spirit. This intriguing folklore became the direspiration for the 【Shaman】 in this book.

  Shamanic culture, whether in Asia or across the world, has always bee, and no one say for sure where it inated. I think it might be the result of early humans' simple faith practices, where tribes relied on figures like shamans t them together.

  FAL