Chapter 593: Skirmish 2

Eva's eyes sharpened as she noticed this, unhappy that the lack of energy was limiting her angels. However, she could not grant them her Bloodline Energy as that would drain her current form too quickly, and increasing the Worldly/Aetheric Energy by using by Aether Crystals was too much of a waste. 

Eva gazed at Hikari who was curiously watching the battle with Zaine at the main tower of the fort. She then sent a mental transmission to Hikari from where she sat, which surprised the White Dragonness out of her focus, but she immediately complied with her Big Sister's request. 

Hikari took out the Energy Converter and began using it in tandem with her Spirit to convert the ambient Worldly Energy upwards into Aetheric Energy. 

｢Energy Converter – Unique Item 

Rank: Divine 

Effects: 

Passive 1 – External Conversion: Convert ambient energies from one type to another with no penalties to quality and no wastage. Speed depends on Spirit. 

Passive 2 – Internal Conversion: Convert selected energies from one type to another with no penalties to quality and no wastage. Speed depends on Spirit. 

Active 1 – Instant Conversion: Convert all energy selected from one attribute to another instantly. Cooldown: 1 day. 

Active 2 – Self-Conversion: Convert energy within a target from one attribute to another instantly. Cooldown: 1 day. 

Description: This is the first tool the Refinement God ever made to support their unique Tradeskill and has an unparalleled history in the lineage of Tradeskills. Its value is immeasurable to all species.｣ 

With her current 510 points, she could cover over 5,100 kilometers worth of distance in all directions. At Rank 1, she had been able to cover 100 meter for every point in her Spirit stat, with the coverage drastically increased to 500 meters at Rank 2 and an entire kilometer for every point at Rank 3. 

However, that was not even including the special stat boost multiplication effect. At 500 points, Hikari had reached the precious 10th stat boost giving her a 10x boost to her stat, effectively making it 5100, something which should have been exclusive to World Bosses and other notable monsters. 

Then again, if she as a Dragon wouldn't classify, what would? 

However, this calculation was being done using stats alone and as had been explained before, Spirit was simply a sort of software that used hardware to work. 

The better the hardware, the better the software could run. 5,100 Kilometers would be the result for a 'normal' human, and that would already be pretty good. 

Comparing an effectively Divine Rank Dragon like Hikari to one, though, would be demeaning not only to her, but also to her race. 

The boost that came from her Divine State of Being was a factor of 1,000! 

This meant that Hikari could reach up to 5,100,000 kilometers! 

Frankly, despite sounding so big, it actually sounded more realistic than hearing Hikari could only reach 5100 Kilometers. Otherwise, what would be the big deal of having so much Spirit and being a Divine Dragon? 

Heck, Hikari could also convert upwards to Divine Energy and even collected Divine Energy from within the atmosphere to condense into Divine Crystals. 

After all, her Divine Source Origin allowed her to generate and store Divine Energy within herself to power up spells, skills, or the like to give them Divine Fuel. This would negate their cooldowns and allow them to show stronger misc effects. 

She could also expend it outwards to create Divine Crystals or imbue it into someone else, just like how the Origin Gods used the Source Origin to create Origin Energy to infuse into the universe. 

In essence, Hikari was like a nuclear reactor of energy right now. 

However, Eva did not want her to waste her internal energy on this fight. Divine Energy she may have, but Hikari could only produce it the same way everyone else produced energy or replenished their mana, by absorbing external energy and purifying it within. 

In the Inner Universe where there was 100% concentration of Divine Energy and even a strong amount of Origin Energy, Hikari had no problems and had even filled her tank. 

But it was best to save it for actually relevant situations. They were only on floor 14 out of 99. There was no way things would be easy like this for all the remaining floors, both Draco and Eva knew that. 

Hikari gathered all Worldly Energy within 5.1 million Kilometers with a simple 'grab' and brought them into the Converter to be slowly changed. Eva also said there was no need to use the active skill now because it might come in handy later. 

Unfortunately, the passives did not account for the State of Being of the user, only their Spirit. So the speed was based on Hikari's 510 points, which in itself was higher than what other dragons would have thanks to Eva influencing her stat distribution after her leveling up. 

So it was converting 5,100 kilometers of Worldly Energy to Aetheric per second of the 5,1 million, meaning she would need 1000 seconds to complete it. 

However, it didn't matter since the total scope of the current battlefield didn't surpass 300 kilometers. By the time Hikari had released her first batch of Aetheric Energy into the atmosphere, the entire battlefield could feel it. 

Most couldn't do anything with the new influx of energy, like the Sentinels or the humans, but for the Angels, Roma, Zaine, and Draco, it was like having their fuel swapped from standard to super-premium. 

Roma who had been going around on her broom casting curses into various Sentinels that the others were fighting, as well as releasing her Chaos Spirit and Cruel Beast upon them to assist suddenly shivered atop her broom and moaned. 

A wet line was drawn on the shaft that dripped below, and Roma's face became red. Luckily, no one was looking, so she used this powered-up Energy to begin casting Final Shot which was her most powerful skill. 

Yeah, she could use the system one which was instant cast, but its cooldown was terrible and its power was fixed at 1,000%. With her own manual cast, the minimum cast time might be 15 seconds, and depending on how much more time she added and the amount of energy she infused, the maximum cast time would be 60 seconds. 

Its power at the minimum was less than the system's version, but at the maximum, it was exponentially greater. Roma began charging up by wantonly absorbing the energy while chanting as her hair glowed with an eerie green color, whipping about like snakes. 

Eva, for that matter, did not do much but grunt when she felt the Aetheric Energy wash over her with such intensity. Unfortunately, neither she nor Draco had the means to absorb external energy to replenish Bloodline Energy. 

After all, Bloodline Energy was solely produced internally from their 'bloodline generators' and its quality was not something that any energy in boundless could yet match, even Origin. 

It was of a higher grade than all those energies, which was kinda obvious given the horrific things their bloodline could do with just 1 generator at full power, much less if all 100 were churning at full power mode, and not the current 'barest minimum' mode. 

Eva though, could use this energy to regenerate her mana faster, which was a technique the mage players of the previous timeline had discovered around the time they had reached Rank 5. 

However, there was no real need as thanks to her Angel's Determination, none of her skills consumed Mana or Stamina. There was only the strain to worry about, which both Eva and Draco could not negate, and neither could any system skill. 

As for why such a thing would exist, think of it like this. 

A construction worker who was made to do manual labor by lifting blocks and bags of cement all day would normally tire after carrying 30 back and forth in the span of 10 minutes, unable to continue without resting for a bit. 

One day, he would drink a shady drink from a Red Dragon wearing hipster clothes and wearing 10 chainz, suddenly granting him unlimited stamina. As such, he would be able to easily carry bags and bags of cement back and forth to the shock of his coworkers. 

However, after one hour, he would suddenly collapse to the floor in agony, not comprehending what was wrong with him since he still felt full of energy, not even breathing heavily. 

However, his body had failed and all his muscles had ripped apart because even though he he been unable to feel any exhaustion, that 'feeling of tiredness' was not weakness, but his body telling him the reasonable limits of his exertion. 

Muting it had not suddenly made his muscles impervious to the strain, only he himself had felt ignorant of his own condition. 

Within the game, this was less strict as Mana and Stamina were calculated with stats so having an infinite amount was not a problem if you used an average or moderate spells and skills repeatedly. 

However, could the terms 'average' and 'moderate' really be applied to Eva or Draco? Of course not! 

This idiot couple always used skills and spells that should be far above their paygrade. Like Eva using two Divine Passives of Element Regulation and Spacetime Regulation, or Draco using Subjective Magic's strongest spells like they were water. 

Whatever the case, Eva remained watching as her empowered angels were finally able to go all out. 

Camael first began by raising his greatsword up and slashing outward, creating a golden light that sliced through the right half of the Strength Sentinel he was fighting. Its innards flopped out to the side as it roared in fear and horror. 

It went mad and struck down at Camael with all its power and desperation, which was actually dangerous. Camael firmed his expression and raised his tower shield up, creating a golden barrier in front of it. 

When the punch collided with the shield, Camael was knocked down to the ground, but he retained his position, not being unsettled or harmed., Rather, he was continually knocked deeper into the heart as a crater formed beneath his feet. 

By the time the Strength Sentinel had exhausted the power of its retaliation, Camael was almost inconspicuous within the 10-kilometer crater he was punched into. If it wasn't for the golden light of his shield still shining under the fist of the sentinel, many would assume he had been crushed to paste. 

However, the fellow pushed back and knocked the fist of the Strength Sentinel away with his tower shield then jumped into the sky with a flap of his wings. He was a bit dusty due to the dirt that was blasted up, but he was otherwise hale and hearty. 

With another concentrated slash, he bisected the Strength Sentinel finally, killing it with surprising ease. 

Sarathiel had also been empowered by the Aetheric Energy, now able to move faster and manifest the energy of discipline. Her sword glowed with a scarlet color as she raised it up to the heavens and slashed downward. 

That instant, a crescent-like manifested that chased down the fleeing Agility Sentinel that desperately struggled to avoid it. However, this was a futile endeavor as the slash followed it wherever it went, eventually passing through its body. 

The Agility Sentinel froze where it stood, a red line appearing from its scalp that run all the way down to its non-existent groin. Eventually, both halves of its body split apart and fell to either side, causing a small quake as it landed. 

Sarathiel simply hmphed and turned away, proud of her good job. 

Jehoel was even faster than her in this regard. He wielded his flaming spear - which had exploded into a bonfire with the infusion of energy - and threw it forward with all his might. 

The lance actually tore through space itself as it rushed forward, leaving a small black hole where it was thrown and appearing out of another when was right before the chest of the Agility Sentinel he targeted. 

The Agility Sentinel tried to catch the spear in its hands, but this was futile as the spear ignored all obstacles and punctured its heart. Rather, it made it look like the Agility Sentinel had stabbed itself with a spear, which was quite comical. 

However, what was not funny was how the explosive flames of the spear quickly spread throughout the body of the Agility Sentinel and set it aflame as it screamed with agony. 

It did not suffer long as it was quickly turned into a pile of ash on the ground. The spear rose up on its own and rushed back into the waiting arm of Jehoel who gazed at his vanquished foe's remains with disdain. 

Baraquiel was likely the one who most visibly benefited from the burst of energy. The lightning around him crackled and expanded to almost a hundred times its current size, then quickly condenses back into its original range. 

However, its density, concentration, and lethality were vastly different. From the previous yellow lightning, it had not become a light purple color. 

On the scale of lightning power, blue was the standard - which was what Zaine had access to - yellow was above that, then there was red, purple, and white. 

Now that Baraquiel had jumped over the infamous Blood Burning Lightning and had attained the dreaded Soul Extinguishing Lighting, his power had skyrocketed in a mere few seconds. 

The yellow lighting that dealt around 12,000 damage to the Endurance Sentinel per millisecond had now been upgraded to purple lighting that dealt 500,000 damage per the same unit of time. 

This meant that previously, Baraquiel dealt 12,000,000 damage per second - which put him on the level of Roma and Zaine in terms of damage dealing - but now did 500,000,000 damage per second. 

Against the 1 trillion HP of the Endurance Sentinel, it may not seem like much since it was only 0.05% of the total, but this was per second! 

In a total of 2000 seconds, he would be able to solo kill a whole Endurance Sentinel! 

However, such power came at a cost. Just like Draco, Baraquiel's output was draining energy like water. In terms of the current consumption by all the parties, Baraquiel accounted for almost 90% of it with his current flair. 

So obviously, it was not sustainable for the long term unless he was in a place like the Inner Universe where such energy was infinite. 

An obvious limitation was the fact that Hikari could not do this forever, not limited by fatigue or anything, but ambient Worldly Energy itself. She had drained 5.1 million kilometers, and it would take time for Worldly Energy to renew itself in that range. 

Since she was releasing 5,100 Aetheric Energy per second and there was no energy wastage or loss in the conversion, she would have only 1000 seconds to get it all out. 

After that, there would be no new Aetheric Energy, so everyone would have to rely on their own internal reserves, not even able to rely on Worldly Energy at that point. 

Pros and cons. 

Samael was the one most pleased by the increased quality of energy. He took a deep and satisfying breath, ignoring the horrified Strength Sentinel he had almost beheaded which was now rushing at him to smash him into paste. 

When next he opened his eyes, they glowed with a darker hue as the black fire that was only on his scythe grew to cover his whole body. He stretched his body and sighed with satisfaction. 

"With this much, I can finally do something significant." He muttered as the Strength Sentinel raised its huge leg to stomp him into dust. 

Samael smiled and spun his Scythe of Death in a clockwise motion, creating the image of a spinning fan of sorts before him. Instead of blowing air though, it blew blackish energy forward that covered the entire body of the Sentinel before him in a few seconds. 

This did not harm the behemoth and only shocked it. As such, it decided to carry on with its attack and ignore what he did. 

Well, it was a STRENGTH Sentinel, not an INTELLIGENCE Sentinel. You gotta cut it some slack, it was trying its best! 

Samael laughed and retracted his spinning scythe, then placed it behind him as he concentrated energy into his body by contracting like a spring. 

When the foot was about to come down on him fatally, he simply smirked and released his energy, bursting forward like a cheetah on sprint. He swung his scythe from top to bottom, cutting through the oncoming foot all the way through its knees, to its waist, then up through its left shoulder. 

Samael appeared right above the left shoulder he just cut through, having passed through the body of the Sentinel but had not a drop of blood on him. The Sentinel that he had cut through froze where it was, a look of shock on its face. 

Immediately, one whole side of its body slowly separated and fell to the side, causing the earth to shake heavily. Samael smiled and didn't stop there. With the remaining energy coalescing into the blade of his Scythe of Death, he swung once more and decapitated the Strength Sentinel with ease. 

Samael gazed at his scythe and caressed it gently, enjoying the feeling of having suitable power after so long in the darkness of Amaterasu's failure. 

The Endurance Sentinel that was still persisting under the power of Baraquiel was suddenly struck by a huge green beam that was fired from above. It was Roma who had unleashed her maximum power Final Shot buffed by Aetheric Energy! 

This beam lanced through the head of the Endurance Sentinel, dealing fatal damage on top. It right away took 100,000,000,000 HP from the Endurance Sentinel, which was about 10% of its HP in one go! 

With Baraquiel and the other angels coming to help clear this monster of HP, it was soon vanquished into dust. 

That left the group able to spectate Draco's own fight against two Strength Sentinels on his own.