The elephant-like beast and the robot-bodied existence turned around at the same time. They both looked at Akumi for a couple of seconds before the elephant-like beast broke the silence.
"Captain, Sun's and my records will soon be erased from our souls by the Soul Record. I think we both agree in letting you absorb us."
Although Sun, the robot, said nothing, it nodded to express its agreement with the words spoken by its companion.
However, to both of their surprise, Akumi shook his head and said indifferently, "You two are not my prey."
Prey?
The elephant-like beast and the robot exchanged glances feeling extremely perplexed.
For prey to exist, a hunter was needed, right? But Bai Zemin had already been killed by them; they even received the notification from the Soul Record appropriately.
"Team Captain, aren't you mistaken? We-"
BOOM!!!
Sun's words died in its mouth when suddenly its metal alloy body was hit by a strong spurt of hot blood.
The yellow light in its robotic eyes flickered as if it couldn't believe what was happening, as out of the corner of its eye it saw the lifeless body of its comrade being pierced from side to side by a bronze spear.
"How can this be possible..." Sun muttered and its whole body trembled as in front of it appeared someone who shouldn't be there.
Holding a slightly crippled ancient bronze spear with both hands, a handsome human male robed in red waved his arms, causing the elephant-like beast's body to disappear.
"Bai Zemin!"
How could this brat still be alive? Sun couldn't understand it!
Unfortunately for the dumbfounded and incredulous robot, Bai Zemin had not the slightest intention of explaining what was happening as he immediately backed away while waving his hands ahead.
"Blood Chains!"
All of a sudden four spatial fissures appeared on Sun's sides, and before the robot could react, four thick red chains shot out from inside each fissure.
The blood chains coiled like snakes around Sun's limbs, and then began to pull in opposite directions as if they wanted to drag the robot's body toward the four different space crevices. "Damn it! What the hell is going on!"
Sun fought with everything it had and the blood chains immediately began to break. However, to its surprise and horror, the blood chains didn't take too long to repair, and although the damage exceeded the regeneration it still took a bit of time for it to completely break free.
SWOOSH!!!
Suddenly, a huge mass of multicolored energy approached from the distance, illuminating the dark outer space brightly.
Bai Zemin quickly rushed back while forming a huge cocoon of blood around him, enveloping himself without leaving even a trace of his vital signs out."(Mana Shield!]" Sun roared furiously.
Its metal body glowed and a four-meter diameter sphere extended from the small jewel on its chest outward just a flicker before the energy beam engulfed the entire area.
In the distance, Akumi carefully watched the reddish-yellow energy beam for a moment before looking off into the distance. Almost as if he could see the space battleship 500 kilometers away, he muttered under his breath, "I see... If that warship was found on that planet called Earth then it makes sense that all those guys would fight to take over that little Lower World."
The Sky Destroyer was such a powerful battleship that even a Fifth Order Higher Existence would normally die if it received a full power shot. However, this was no simple task as the speed at which Higher Existences could move was simply too high to handle not to mention that the ship would immediately lose all of its battle power after expending all its energy in a single blast.
Approximately twenty to thirty seconds later, the energy beam slowly became thinner, and not long after that it became a small insignificant line and disappeared completely.
Swoosh!
Suddenly, a small object shot out from where Sun was previously standing and flew in a hurry towards Akumi.
"Where are you going!"
From the blood cocoon, hundreds of chains of all sizes glowed and shot out towards that small white-colored object with blue veins. Although the speed of the unknown object was quite fast, for some reason it simply couldn't do anything in the face of the blood chains that surrounded it.
The blood cocoon slowly opened and without injury at all Bai Zemin emerged from inside it. He watched with cold eyes as the blood chains dragged the palm-sized white object in his direction.
"Let go of me!"
Bai Zemin narrowed his eyes as a somewhat childish voice rang in his head.
He caught the white object tightly, and after a few seconds, he couldn't help but be surprised in his heart.
"Then this is why I couldn't feel any kind of life before!" He exclaimed in shock.
This was the first time Bai Zemin had run into such a strange living being!
"Sun is part of the Soul Crystal race. Soul Crystal don't have much combat power on their own but they can take over other bodies easily, thus gaining not only innate magic skills but they would also gain the skills of the occupied body." Akumi patiently explained as he watched Bai Zemin observing his trapped companion.
Soul Crystal? Body occupying and skill stealing?
To think that little crystal was actually that broken!
Even without high combat abilities, all those Soul Crystal had to do was wait and then take a dead body... If they were lucky they could even get a sickeningly powerful body, jumping straight through the dragon gate with a single move!
Bai Zemin suddenly smiled as he felt the fear transmitted from the crystal in his hand to his heart. He sneered, "What's wrong? I thought you guys weren't afraid of death? You even attacked me without caring about Soul Punishment."
"Bai Zemin, you motherfucker!" The little crystal, Sun, cursed angrily, "Who's afraid of dying? Definitely not me! But I refuse to die like this, I absolutely refuse! I clearly cut you into hundreds of pieces and your head was smashed! How the hell can you be alive and well?!"
"You want to know?" Bai Zemin's tone became chilling as he put all his strength into his fist and fiercely clenched, "You might as well die and turn into a confused ghost!"
Bang!!!
The small white crystal with blue veins exploded into pieces, and five orbs of energy shot out from inside it. The largest orb entered Bai Zemin's body while the other four of similar size flew in different directions before disappearing.
'Finally,' Bai Zemin sighed slightly relieved in his heart.
Three Higher Existences out, one left to go; the most difficult one.
The previous battle was really difficult as Bai Zemin could not expose all of his trump cards. After all, there was an even mightier enemy watcher waiting for his turn. Fortunately for him, the Illusion Domain released by Wu Yijun (with the support of Xia Ya) and the triple attack of the Sky Destroyer (greatly enhanced by the Wen twins' skills) were enough to support him tremendously.
In reality, Bai Zemin had barely received a few wounds in his battle against the two Higher Existences; wounds which thanks to his regenerative ability had already healed even when his vitality was damaged. It was just that the elephant-like beast and the robot were deceived by the Domain that Wu Yijun opened."Bing Xue, is everyone alright?" Bai Zemin watched the huge basilisk intently as it communicated with her.
Akumi did not intervene nor did he attack. He did not fear the power of the war battleship at all since even if he stood still his body would barely be slightly damaged at most, and any other Lower Existences were insignificant regardless of how many came.
A few seconds later, Shangguan Bing Xue's voice entered Bai Zemin's ears from the black ring on his right thumb.
"Yijun and Xia Ya are fine. Wen Yun and Wen Yan fainted, both overwhelmed by the gain of so many levels all of a sudden as well as high-quality records. Don't worry, though. Both twins have already been recovered by the Gundam soldiers and are resting in the Sky Destroyer."
Bai Zemin nodded and silently praised her for her cleverness.
Shangguan Bing Xue was careful with her words, and never at any time revealed the fact that she was not in a place other than the Sky Destroyer. This way, Akumi would mistakenly assume that everyone was on that warship and would probably not expect the presence of Hero City hidden several kilometers behind."Bing Xue, let Xia Ya help you now."
"I understand."
"So, do you want to get on with it now?" Bai Zemin faced the basilisk calmly. The golden radiance that enveloped him was gone since he needed to use Overlap Regeneration as little as possible.
Akumi gazed at him in silence for almost a full minute before slowly saying, "Actually, I can give you a few more minutes if you want. I can say that we came at a bad time, didn't we?" "I would have been grateful if you guys didn't come to begin with." Bai Zemin shook his head without saying much more.
"Well, don't say that." Akumi chuckled and continued, "About an eighth of your hair has turned white and lifeless, so it's easy to tell that you hurt your soul in order to kill that Heaven's Army angel. In consideration and for both of us to shine brighter in the last moment of our lives, I will give you time to check your battle spoils; it shouldn't be small, don't you think?"
Bai Zemin narrowed his eyes and his mind raced as he pondered what his enemy might be up to.
The truth was that, in fact, just as the basilisk said, Bai Zemin obtained two treasure orbs and two skill scrolls as well as other items after killing those three Higher Existences. Although there were things that could not be used in battle such as broken robotic body parts or the damaged saw, Bai Zemin was sure that if he could take those things and use them in combat his chances of victory would be much higher.
However, was it really that easy? Was there really such a "kind" enemy that would let him get stronger just like that?
Was Akumi underestimating him? But that didn't seem to be the case either...
"This will probably be my last battle anyway, so I might as well enjoy it 200% don't you think?" Akumi said suddenly, practically as if knowing his opponent's thoughts.
'It's all or nothing!' Bai Zemin gritted his teeth and decided to bite the bullet.
He was forced to climb on the tiger's back anyway, and there was no way to get off. Besides, Bai Zemin was clear that with the way things stood, there was practically 0% chance of surviving today unless his opponent really underestimated him from the difference in levels and Orders between the two of them.
-Meanwhile, in Kram World.
Except for Lucifer and Eternal Phoenix who managed to see through Lilith's actions, the other Higher Existences had no idea what was going on.
Lucifer stared at Lilith in shock, but seeing the serious expression and lack of hesitation in her eyes, he finally understood that she wasn't fooling around. This was undoubtedly the first time in the history of creation that a Higher Existence chose to descend to be a little mortal of its own free will!
However, it was also understandable that such craziness had never happened before... After all, becoming a Higher Existence in less than a hundred years was something that only Lilith had achieved to date.
Lucifer looked at the surroundings and after a long consideration couldn't help but sigh bitterly.
"Looks like I ultimately lost this battle, uh..." he muttered to himself.^The other Leaders, as well as the different armies, looked at each other in satisfaction after seeing Lucifer's disturbed and defeated expression.
"For once in your life you are capable of reading the atmosphere," Long Tian laughed good-naturedly and said arrogantly, "I will admit that you are strong, Lucifer. As expected from someone as aged as you. But as the saying goes, two arms still can't beat four! Hand over the Firmament Fragments and we promise we'll leave without making any more trouble, we'll even leave that woman from another dimension alone as long as she doesn't do anything crazy."
As far as they were concerned, Lucifer would definitely force Lilith to hand over her Firmament Fragments. After all, if they didn't the Demonic Army really could be wiped out today! Lucifer looked at Lilith deeply before whispering something in Fire Sorrow's ears. Then, ignoring her confused expression, he closed his eyes and stood motionless for a long time.
Ten minutes later... Twenty minutes later... Thirty minutes...
When an hour passed, everyone looked at each other with doubtful expressions.
Did it take that long to detach from a Firmament Fragment? Even Long Tian didn't know about this since it was the Soul Record who took the Firmament Fragment of the Goddess of Reincarnation from him to give it to Lucifer based on the bet the two of them raised.
Just as everyone wondered what was going on, the sky rumbled overhead and a streak of blue lighting fell on Lilith.
"Blue color?"
"What's happening?"
"Is the Soul Record killing her? But she didn't attack a Lower Existence at all..."
It was fairly well known to all that there were different levels of Soul Punishments and these depended on how many Lower Existences a Higher Existence attacked. Each higher level meant a greater obliterating force, and it was said that at the highest level even an Eighth Order Leader would be completely erased in an instant.
But... all the colors were usually purple in different shades!
Blue? No one had ever seen anything like that and there were no records left from ancient times about it.
Lower Existence? Suddenly, Salazar's pupils contracted as he thought of something and yelled angrily, "Shit!!!! Stop her quickly... Get her out of that damn lightning! She's falling!!!"