Chapter 1961 - 1961. Insults

"Are you even taking this seriously?" The woman asked as a tinge of anger seeped into her voice and made the golden protection flash multiple times. "I've earned more titles than you can count, but my name has remained unchanged throughout history. I'm Jane, the rulers' voice, and I won't let a puny cultivator insult me."

The shield covering King Elbas' consciousness began to shatter, but all the orbs that still surrounded his figure fused with that golden halo to empower it. Jane's voice failed to affect his thoughts even during her angry outburst, but the sheer power revealed in that situation stated how strong she was.

"A true inscription master has to test every theory!" King Elbas proudly announced before focusing on the expert. "So, what about Divine Architect? Did Heaven and Earth deceive her as soon as she ascended in the Immortal Lands?"

King Elbas ended up being correct again, but that didn't feel too surprising for Jane. Divine Architect had ascended only some millennia before the expert. That time wasn't enough to make her disappear from the historical records, especially when Heaven and Earth had acknowledged her power.

Something else had to happen, and King Elbas guessed that the rulers had recruited her right away. His knowledge about Divine Architect mostly involved her fame as an inscription master. He couldn't learn much about her history even after seizing the historical records of the previous Royal Families.

Moreover, Divine Architect was a recluse, an outcast. She only cared about her creations, but the entire world still looked for her to commission specific inscribed items. King Elbas saw her as a unique artist while he was more practical in his approach to the inscription methods.

"She didn't hesitate to choose the whole truth of the world," Jane explained. "Her love for the inscription method is purer than your dedication, but that's also her limit. Heaven and Earth believed that you could have surpassed her peak with the right guidance, but alas."

"Why don't you bring her down here to test me?" King Elbas snorted. "Now that I think about it, why didn't you invite me right away?"

"Heaven and Earth wanted to test a different approach with you," Jane responded. "Needless to say, it failed."

"You are strangely secretive for someone willing to give so many answers," King Elbas commented. "What is it? Did the rulers hide some big secret in Divine Architect's existence?"

"I think it's time to put an end to the questions," Jane stated while placing a hand at the center of her chest. "You have learnt what you needed to learn."

"Did you hope to clean my existence through words?" King Elbas laughed, but he felt forced to concentrate when Jane shouted.

A high-pitched cry with the power to seep into the fabric of space and make the whole world tremble came out of Jane's mouth and crashed on King Elbas' consciousness. The latter had to retract his thoughts as soon as part of his golden shield started to shatter, and his inscribed items shot forward to defend him from the incoming soundwave.

The power carried by Jane's cry was immense. She would have shattered the very sky if her existence weren't part of Heaven and Earth's system. Still, that same connection allowed her attack to converge on King Elbas without losing energy.

A golden radiance filled the sky as countless inscribed items detonated once they touched the invisible soundwave. They couldn't do anything against an attack with power in the liquid stage. Everything crumbled before converging toward King Elbas to create a new shield.

King Elbas relied on the same technique deployed against the swarm of flying cockroaches. He used the power released by his destroyed inscribed items to create something stronger capable of defending him from the incoming threat.

The shield lasted long enough to make King Elba's teleport away from the zone affected by the soundwave. He reappeared high in the sky, among the storms, and he didn't hesitate to take out a golden vortex that sucked the chaotic laws in a large area.

Jane laughed when she saw her opponent running away, and her voice created multiple soundwaves that took the shape of currents. King Elbas found twenty different torrents of power converging toward his position, and he promptly threw the vortex toward them before detonating it.

Another golden halo filled the sky and gave time to King Elbas to escape. Jane seemed to have the upper hand in the battle, but the golden glow in her opponent's eyes began to worry her after he dealt with another soundwave. She had yet to touch him, and he wasn't even relying on his new power.

"Are you planning to run away forever?" Jane asked, and her angry remark created an invisible wall that seeped into the whiteness and flew toward King Elbas.

The wall was too vast to dodge, but King Elbas was done running away. He had gathered enough data about Jane's world. The jelly-like sphere appeared in his palm, and a small knife came out of its fabric.

The weapon appeared as the densest item in the world. King Elbas didn't hesitate to wield it before pointing it toward the incoming wall of sound.

The soundwave reached his position, but a hole appeared in its structure when it touched the knife's tip. King Elbas could pass inside it easily and gather even more data. His weapon shattered, but a new one came out from his jelly-like sphere.

King Elbas drew a short sword that carried dark-golden shades and slashed it toward Jane. The gesture didn't seem to generate any effect, but the cultivator suddenly saw a long wound opening on her torso.

The cut wasn't deep, and no blood came out of it, but Jane's eyes still widened in surprise. The attack didn't try to affect her flesh. King Elbas was aiming at her world, and he had almost succeeded in hurting it.

"I thought I asked for someone who wasn't a brute," King Elbas mocked. "You can use nice words, but your behavior isn't any different from my companions. I wonder why Heaven and Earth have even decided to add you to their collection."

Jane knew that King Elbas was taunting her. He needed to discover more of her power to improve his creations and build something capable of affecting her world, and she wasn't stupid enough to give him what he desired.

Jane resumed her offensive based on simple soundwaves, and King Elbas could only perform multiple escape maneuvers to dodge the incoming attacks. He had defenses that could stop those attacks, but they would consume too much power and a lot of his stash. He preferred to continue his studies and develop something that could kill her once and for all.

His opponent had long since understood his plan. Jane limited herself to increase the power of her voice and faint a few attacks in the hope of catching King Elbas unprepared, but she soon accepted that she had lost her chance to obtain those results. Her opponent now knew how to recognize her energy, so tricks wouldn't work.

Of course, Jane could still aim to exhaust King Elbas since his higher energy couldn't compare to her liquid stage "Breath", but the approach would require a long time, and her opponent could develop something capable of hurting her in that period.

Jane didn't change her battle tactic even if she knew about the drawbacks that it could cause, and King Elbas ended up acting before her. He seized a piece of the jelly-like sphere and threw it into the sky, where it expanded to gave birth to a separate dimension illuminated by his golden light. His opponent didn't stop her offensive at that sight, but she soon noticed that no word could escape her mouth there.

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Author's notes: I'm handling Demonic Sword now.. Don't worry, you'll get all the chapters.