Chapter 471

Chapter 471

The man doesn't get a chance to reply as I airstep toward the center of the city, activating my stealth skill and expanding my All-seeing Eye to find the closest dungeon to my location right now.

At my current speed, I'll get to the main hub in less than a few minutes, but the underground train ride to a nearby dungeon could be unpredictable, adding even a few more minutes to my travel time.

Crossing downtown and going into the underground dungeon hub may be faster, but it will also take a few minutes too many.

As I finish my scan of the city, I pinpoint one of the mana-shielded boxes containing a portal underground that connects to the main dungeon hub transport system. Seeing this, I make my decision to create a much faster route in.

I focus on the center of an empty alleyway in a residential area, and dive with a single outreached fist through the hard stone road.

It crumbles and disintegrates instantly beneath the pressure of my Qi and mana shielding, leaving a smooth circle in the ground leading deep into the city's lower levels.

I phase through the road and narrowly avoid important city infrastructure, but don't stop my momentum as I come in contact with one of the outer walls of a mana sheided protection barrier put in place to keep monsters out in case of breaks.

It buzzes loudly and releases a large amount of mana as I break through. It all happens so fast that I don't bother to wait and watch what happens after I dive through the blue floating dungeon portal before me.

Fractions of a second later, I'm flying out of the canyon in Sector 2, rocketing toward the spot in the sky I remember detecting the approaching Dark Guards.

As I airstep through the sky leaving a blue trail of extreme speed behind, I think to myself if they timed all this or if it was a coincidence that they attacked the only hour I was away from the city. All night I stayed up and watched the city, and in the morning I kept a keen eye out for any approaching guards.

Thinking about it more doesn't get me anywhere though, the good thing is I made it in time to stop them from approaching before they made it to the town.Updated from n0velbIn.(c)o/m

Less than 5kms away, I see them as clear as day; the sharp yellow-orange eyes of an enormous hawk-like bird, leaking orange energy behind it as it rides on a wave of invisible wind magic.

I catch a glimpse of the underside of its wing again, and confirm it says the number 6, but do a full inspect and appraisal to know without any doubt, this is another Dark Guard infected by the Curse of the Lich King.

___________

[Lv. 1377]

Active Items:

[NONE]

Active Skills:

[NONE]

Buffs:

[Curse of The Lich King]

___________

No items, no skills, and no other buffs show on its status, but I can feel that it's using wind magic.

However, it's being powered by the Soul Energy within it, just like the 7th guard I fought before. This proves my theory further that when an entity is infected by the Curse of the Lich King, every bit of their being is stripped away and granted new borrowed power to grow stronger under new rules.

Old elements of the user's past abilities can be manifested artificially by using Soul Energy as its power source.

It shifts from a bright blue with hardly a cloud in the sky, to a murderous shade of orange.

Hundreds of wind crescents appear from this air, coating in a dense orange layer of wind magic and plummet toward me at over 4 times the speed its previous attacks did.

My eyes sparkle with the flame of battle as I finally begin imbuing Qi into my footsteps and around my eyes to aid my vision for the first time during our exchange. My reflexes are enhanced, my visual perception of soul energy is awakened, and my movement speed increases for a whole different level.

I grip my daggers even tighter, and dance through the sky again.

The ringing sounds of Qi on Soul Energy clash through the sky at over 30 beats per second.

Plumes of white energy erupt from my daggers and orange mist fills the air, staining the sky with its coloring.

Midway through my routine, the hawk that set up this attack dive-bombs in at me to take advantage of the confusion it believes its caused.

The monster's sharp eyes begin to overflow with orange energy, and its hard beak sucks all of the protective Soul Energy around its body toward a main point, like sharpening and hardening its weapon to focus on a final attack.

I sense it coming from above me before it's even finished hardening its beak and whisper under my breath. "You really think I'd fall for something like this..."

Either I've gotten immensely stronger, or this dark guard is far too overconfident for its own good. The answer feels like it's obviously both.

Whatever the case may be, it's leaving itself wide open, so I'll prepare to strike once it comes within range.

The bird dive-bombs in, and its speed increases to impressive highs. At its perfect calculated angle, it drops through the storm of wind slashes and threads the needle perfectly on track to make contact with me in the center.

However, my own power is far from hitting its max, and I have plenty of tricks I haven't shown this opponent yet.

It falls into the sphere of wind, and has its beak pointed straight at what it thinks is my blind spot while I continue to fend off its normal attacks.

Once it's less than 10 meters away, and there is no way for it to change directions in time, or else it'll be torn apart by its own blades, I set up my own counterattack.

I activate my flash skill to its maximum potential, lighting up the entire ball of wind into a second sun in the sky. Then, separate into many different illusions using phantom step to disperse into many plausible directions within the slashes of wind.

Next, I activate stealth to disappear from its senses entirely and use my speed buffs to position myself in front of the diving bird's underbelly.

Last, I saturate my daggers with over half of the Qi in my core to release a devastating dual slash of energy on course to slice this enormous graceful bird into pieces.

"It's over..." Leaves my lips just a few milliseconds too soon.

The slashes of Qi are less than a meter away from slicing through the monster's heart and stomach, guaranteeing this victory for myself, however the second flash of light in the sky ruins all of my perfectly calculated plans.

Far away from our fight, over 500 meters above, an enormous release of mana and soul energy hits my senses the instant this lethal attack leaves my blades.

The black suit of armor that was waiting patiently in the sky explodes into pieces and a flash of silver light comes out of it.

It looks like liquid metal streaking toward us, and it's so fast, it makes my own Qi imbued footsteps look like I'm taking a leisurely stroll.

The silver streak of light cuts the distance in an instant and swerves in front of my dual slash.

All I can see in the blur of light is my blades of Qi being completely deflected and thrown off in another direction and a bold number [2] printed on the silver forearm of the figure that deflected them.