Chapter 530: Desperate Escape

Round two: start!

The two combatants, Ferti’nier and Karlston, charged at each other without exchanging a word. Countless shadow figures burst forth and launched themselves at Karlston, yet the skeletal mage could control the density of the toxic fumes within his Territory.

He swiftly focused his fumes into an almost viscous state, dissolving any flame-clad shadow that leapt his way. As a result, his own Territory had shrunk significantly. What was once a two hundred meter diameter Territory was now merely ten meters wide.

This battle had only just started, but both sides roughly had an understanding of the other now. Simply put, Karlston’s Territory was a direct foil to Ferti’nier’s own.

Naturally, Ferti’nier’s real Territory was stronger than Karlston’s, but this wasn’t her body she was using. It was a temporary one handed over to her when Mo Ke fled to the abyss of his soul. That also meant that this body would eventually start to reject her.

While she had only been in control for a short duration, she was already starting to feel the strain on her control. Since taking over, she had been fighting non-stop. And even with all the souls she had devoured thus far, the fierce opposition Karlston put up had upped the rejection from this body a level.

At this rate, this wasn’t going to work, was what she quickly realised. However, Karlston’s Territory was too powerful for her to end the battle quickly. Situations like this where two Territories directly countered each other actually weren’t that rare. While there might be an endless variety of Territories in the world, there were still broad similarities that had counters to them.

Karlston was a skeletal mage that specialised in long range magic. Ferti’nier, on the other hand, performed well in both melee and long range. But because Karlston had strengthened his own Territory’s corrosive strength by tenfold when he shrunk it, even Ferti’nier wasn’t able to gain an advantage over him in close range. At the same time, her long range attacks were hampered by her current body.

Territory countered; magic restricted; Ferti’nier was beginning to find herself at a disadvantage.

Karlston, on the other hand, was very confident in his own strengths, especially in his condensed toxic Territory -even an ordinary demigod wouldn’t be able to get out of that unscathed, let alone this Fallen Angel who only had her strong Territory going for her. With his enemy’s weakness firmly in his grasp, he pressed ever forward, peppering her with his spells till she did not even have the chance to mount a counter-offensive.

(TL: I’ve decided. I’m capitalising Territory. Would make it easier to read, especially when I actually use the word territory to describe land…)

If there was a silver lining in this dire situation, it was that Ferti’nier still had the advantage of flight. She wasn’t afraid of him suddenly taking to the air, though dodging constantly wasn’t an option either.

There was no time for hesitation anymore. With her priorities sorted out, Ferti’nier summoned the Devil King Idol.

At the same time, Karlston fired off his third beam of toxic fumes, only to find that the skies above him had darkened all of the sudden. A gigantic golem was descending from the skies, and its target seemed to be him…

Thanks to Ferti’nier’s timely decision, the green beam ended up fizzling harmlessly against the Devil King Idol. Finally operated by an overlord, the Devil King Idol’s defenses had risen to that of a proper demigod. The greenish beam that had terrorised those before her now seemed more like a child’s water gun -harmless and ineffective.

Failing his special attack, Karlston hurriedly evaded the Devil King Idol’s attack. A deafening boom rocked the area. Just as the Devil King Idol touched down, it immediately leapt off the ground, causing a mini-earthquake.

While Karlston might have avoided being turned into a pancake, Ferti’nier had no intention of letting such a powerful foe off the hook so easily either. Driving the Devil King Idol relentlessly forward, she quickly sent another stomp his way. Caught off guard, the skeletal mage could only scramble once more to evade the attack.

Now that his strongest attack was ineffective, he was truly out of cards to play…

In order to live, he had no choice but to turn tail and run. As he did so, he cursed incoherently to himself. Ordinarily, this invasion of Sable Radiance should have been a done deal. The fact that someone as powerful as Ferti’nier even existed in such a backwater was a miracle in of itself. In fact, never in his wildest dreams would he have expected to bump into a Devil King Idol here, where the laws of the world weren’t even complete…

In order to speed up his escape, he extended his Territory to its fullest. Bearing no heed to the costs, he charged ahead in a straight line, all the while dissolving any creature in his way, Undead or otherwise.

Ferti’nier continued hounding the fleeing mage. Now that she was the one in the driver seat, the Devil King Idol was at full power, countless purple arcane markings crawled across its otherwise pitch black exterior.

The appearance of these arcane markings immediately turned the otherwise lumbering golem into an agile killing machine. Compared to that third-rate trash when Mo Ke piloted it, this Devil King Idol was practically an olympic gold medalist!

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The Devil King Idol sprinted at full speed, each step accompanied by a thunderous boom. Wherever it stepped, the ground would rend asunder, massive rocks were strewn in all directions, crushing any unfortunate low level Undead it came into contact with… and these were just unintentional attacks!

With the Devil King Idol’s unexpected appearance and Karlston’s subsequent fleeing, the battlefield was up for grabs once more. While Karlston’s interference had caused quite a stir initially, look at him now… forced to flee like a whipped dog.

Whether by sheer coincidence or divine providence, Mo Ke was stabbed by Nicole right before this crucial fight. Had it not been for that traumatic event causing him to flee into the depths of his mind, this battle would not have proceeded so smoothly. Had this been Mo Ke who was fighting Karlston right now, he would have probably died already. Even if he had handed off control of his body to Ferti’nier, his conscious state would have caused a high level of rejection for Ferti’nier.

In other words, the fact that Karlston had to flee like a mouse from a cat, that was all thanks to Mo Ke being a shut-in!

Pressured to the utmost, Karlston did not even have the presence of mind to choose a direction to flee in. He merely ran forward, as far away as he could from Ferti’nier. With his mind dead set on escape, his speed was nothing to scoff at. Even with Ferti’nier piloting the golem at full speed, it was unlikely she would catch him in the short term…

Each time she tried to attack him, he would nimbly dip out of the way as if he was the mole in the whack-a-mole machine.

Just like that, the game of cat-and-mouse continued till, finally, the Devil King Idol expanded over half of its energy, at which point a turning point occurred…

In his single-minded desire to escape, he had unknowingly fled to an artificially depressed, circular clearing. Just from the surroundings, one could tell that there used to be a volcano here, it was just flattened for some reason or another.

However, all that wasn’t important to Karlston. All he knew was that if he did not run faster, that giant monster behind him would flatten him into a pancake. Yet when he stepped into the clearing, he felt a certain object in his robe react. The more he got closer to the center of this clearing, the more the object in his robes heated up, even rumbling at the end.

Fully occupied with fleeing for his life, he had no time to spare for such nonsense right now. Still, the constant stirring might prove to be a hindrance in the future… Not wasting any time at all, he reached into his pocket and retrieved a white orb the size of a baby’s fist. He immediately thought of tossing the annoying object, but the moment that thought crossed his mind, he remembered the mission given to him…

When this orb heated up, that meant that the dimensional link was near… those were the instructions given to him by a certain personage. Once the rumbling got to the point where it was at its highest, all he had to do was toss the orb at the center of the dimensional link, following which the orb would automatically explode, opening up a rift in the dimensions for a minute…

However, by the time he recalled the full instructions given to him, it was too late. He was now at the center of the dimensional link, orb still clutched in his bony-white fingers. A blinding light flooded the surrounding area. Soon after, a massive pillar of fire pierced the heavens from where Karlston stood. Naturally, he was reduced to cinders in the high heat…

Ferti’nier was still chasing Karlston at this point. This enemy of hers had proven a formidable one, and there was no way this she-devil would allow him to recover, now that she had him on the run. She was starting to feel the rejection from Mo Ke’s body grow stronger by the second. At this point, even she couldn’t tell how long she would be able to stay in charge. All she hoped was that she could sweep away all the obstacles before Mo Ke awakened. The other Undead overlords did not matter -only Karlston had to die now!

Yet at the same time when that fiery pillar burnt Karlston to cinders, it also affected Ferti’nier who was in the vicinity. Constantly battered by the resulting dimensional energies, even the Devil King Idol, with its Demigod-tier defenses, was starting to overheat. Not only that, there was now what looked like a black hole standing before her…