The two massive Demonic Sand Worms dive down toward me, and my fists glow with bright white light.
Behind their heads, zigzag patterns of flashing green mana and divine energy fill the sky as Ava slams the worm that followed her down to the ground while coming back to throw off the course of the worms heading my way.
The stats she's pulling from my many worlds are steadily rising as her avatar acclimates to the new power.
This is clear to see because instead of just changing the worm's general direction by a few meters like her first hits, they get pushed around helplessly, slamming into the sloped side of the mountain while screeching as they don't understand where or how they've been hit.
Their ether defenses block the physical damage, but Ava is moving too fast for them to see.
This disorientation gives me enough time to land two punches filled with condensed mental ether into one of the worms and use the force of the blowback of the automatic defenses to send me flying into the side of the other worm to land my first mental ether-infused kick.
While I'm sent flying again, I feel Ava pull even more power, creating a dense gravitational field around her, and channeling it all into her Soul Weapon to strike it across the side of the head as it tries to get up and strike us down the middle.
While I land on the ground with sharp ether pains all over my body, my eyes widen at the sight of Ava's hammer's impact.
Her ether imbued into the strike is quite basic, not greater than the amount she used in sparring with me.
However, the surrounding glow of dense green power is so great, it blows all of the dark black and purple demonic energy shielding away from the worm's tough hide, and the brutal impact force of this blow tears the entire worm out from the ground.
Hundreds of meters of black stone fly into the air along with the worm's entire body, and deep green cracks in its avatar vibrate outward from where it was hit. The raw force of this attack is too overwhelming for mere automatic ether defenses to fully contain.Nôv(el)B\\jnn
On top of this development, the two Sand Worms I've struck with more high-powered mental attacks try to screech, but their minds give out before either of them can let out their entire cries.
Their heads go limp, twitching and shaking the ground, unable to even support their battle instincts.
In seconds, they've been overpowered.
Even though victory seems imminent, I don't hesitate to go back in with just as much vigor as my first strike.
The knocked-out head of the sand worm slowly slides down the mountain's side while I ether step on top of it and continue pummeling away at its thick hide.
The first two dozen punches are filled with mental attacks to make sure it's not waking up any time soon, and the next two dozen are to break through its automatic defenses.
There is some blowback at first, sending more sharp pains through my arms, but after a portion of its avatar is shattered, I'm tearing through its inner flesh and aiming straight for its divine core.
Violent waves of demonic energy and divine energy surge out from its body, but my purple barrier makes it feel like a warm breeze while I shatter its core.
I only have to keep my barrier open for a fraction of a second for all of its energy to flow in; I don't even stop what I'm doing, repeating the same ruthless process with the second downed sandworm, shattering its core and absorbing its power.
While I jump out from the second worm and look up toward the top of the peak, I watch Ava zipping through the sky, slowly shattering the avatar of the final worm.
It puts up a far greater and primal fight, as its mind is still intact while Ava battles it to the death.
Imbuing mana and divine energy into my strikes gives me even more damage than Ava's hits, shattering their Avatars in half from the pure raw force; but I'm not able to maintain these attacks for long. Doing so mid-battle, and having to adapt to the influx of threads from opening my barrier leaves me open to more attacks.
I stick with the basic Ether infused attacks for now.
A bright [203] shines on my hand as I've collected another 34 Second-Class Demonic Sand Worm worlds with nearly identical pasts.
I can piece the memories of these sand worms together and find that many of them are watched by demons, waiting for large-scale battles to break out on small planets with high demonic energy signatures.
Second-Class worlds of this size are not great places to nurture demons, but usually, there are monsters that show dominance over their worlds given enough time. Green rifts are placed before their planet's strongest warriors, and they're all brought here to guard this mountain.
None of the sand worms are more than 1,000 years old. They must not have lifespans that last very long. Some are even younger than 200 years. The churn rate on these guardian beasts must be fairly quick.
Every new world I gain, hundreds of thousands of demonic beasts have their systems mutated, converting their stored demonic energy into an equivalent level, even granting some of them new skills and mana-based buffs and forms they've never had before.
I, however, have not received any unique benefits like this yet. Though, that does not mean I haven't gained significant strength.
I have over 10,000 Low-Quality Ether now, a hot green True Core, a saturated Demon Lord's Core, and now enough strength to withstand the pressure outside for a few seconds at a time if need be.
–
As we approach the middle portion of the mountain, I sporadically open up my barrier to send out long-range pulses of perception.
The demonic orcs and cyclopes that roam the walkways spiraling up to the top of the peak walk about in far more order. I hope that I can gain more insightful details of their existence and system interfaces than the mindless worms.
They give off far stronger ether signatures too, and some of their palms have more than just one planet on them.
Ava floats down from the sky after killing a final stray sandworm and makes a comment as we step onto a ledge of flat ground.
"We've entered the middle zone of the Central Peak. I received an Avatar Notification of our entry."
Once these words leave her lips, many of the nearby marching orcs and cyclopes turn our way as they've received notifications of illegal entry into their zone.
While processing the information from the last pulse of perception, I find that not all of these guards are solely demonic beasts...
Some of them come back with levels and mana-based skills, a few of them with levels even higher than my own, putting a smile on my face as I reply.
"Well, get ready for another fight... maybe you'll reap some rewards this time as well. Kill a few orcs, and you'll rank up."
In the back of my mind, I still try to process the Noble Guardian's levels at the top of the mountain, but it wears thick black armor, and its avatar gives off extremely strange blocked readings. I can scan many of the Lords circling the peaks with ease, but my inspect and appraisal skills are useless when I try to examine the Guardian.
It is hard to tell if it is just that we are too far away, and the divine energy in the air is too thick for me to send a proper scan out that far, or possibly our strength gap is really that wide.
The latter may be the case. I come to this conclusion because the only reading I can get a decent feel for is its Ether stores, and it has a similar overwhelming bright white intensity as the Wyvern at the base of this mountain.