853 Infinite Divine Soldier (Part 2)
'This is strange.' Brangara thought as he moved to the side, watching the Infinite Divine Soldier cut his hand off. He leapt a little, turned his body dense, and kicked the Infinite Divine Soldier in the chest, sending it skidding back.
Right as he had done so, a powerful field of gravity slammed into him and forced him onto the ground where Barla had appeared and punched him. She was still charging up an Astral Puncture. She had three shots remaining with her current reserves, so she had to make them count.
And currently, at the 7-Life Stage, the Astral World had lost the passive shielding from Unlimited Predator. Therefore, both Royal Split and Astral Puncture could turn the tide in their favour. They need to play to their strength and achieve it.
Brangara raised his arms and guarded against the attack to skid away. Internal Inertial Gravity protected his body while Subtle Terrain Domination controlled the air to shield against Barla's attacks and the ivory sand to guard against Resha's attacks
'This is pretty strange!' Brangara uttered as Barla kicked him in the face, sending him reeling dozens of metres away. Using the momentum behind the attack, he kicked forward and rushed out, intending to move beyond the range of Infinite Divine Soldier.
But before he could flee, the Infinite Divine Soldier had flickered before him, blocking his path of escape. Resha's External Inertial Gravity locked onto him the instant he stopped, weighing him down, and turning him slower than before. 'This is too strange!'
Upon sensing a spike in the Prana accumulated by Barla, he reacted and moved behind the Infinite Divine Soldier. His body spun as Eddy Blades revved around him like a propeller, rampantly cutting through everything.
'Tch!' Barla had to stop her attack and focus on evasion, as she was the target of the Eddy Blades.
They continued to spin as Brangara turned them into Satellites and infused enough Prana in them to spin for a dozen seconds. Using that chance, he began to regenerate the severed arm while evading bone mist geysers and streams of bone tailing him.
'This is the third time I'm feeling this.' Goosebumps formed on his skin as the pores across his body seemed to open. He began to sweat profusely while his heart rate continued to accelerate. He was actually getting overwhelmed by his opponents. However, he was in a trance, 'This is the third time. It's like a rite of passage for every evolution I experience.'
Death!
The first time it happened was at the Varahan Enclave where he was an Empyrean Boar. When he was captured by the Mammoth Clan and was brought to the then Mammoth Clan Chief, Undrakha, Brangara felt death for the first time.
No, the sense of death he felt didn't originate from Undrakha, but rather from the entity who paraded around as a friend of the Mammoth Clan—the Mystic Empyrean Tentacle, Renduldu. That was his first encounter with death.
His second encounter happened during the Second Major Disaster as the Empyrean Boar King, when he had to face the Royal Zinger. He truly was pushed to the extreme. And if he hadn't planned for the evolution of his children from Tribesmen to Clansmen, using which he evolved, he would have died there.
And now, even as the Celestial Boar, an existence that could currently go against Gold Grade Transcendents, he was feeling the sensation of death approaching. In each encounter, he was a different Pranic Beast.
But strangely, he welcomed it. After all, it was only now he started to become desperate, which was great, for that allowed him to truly harness every ounce of power that remained in him. 'I feel...alive. A single mistake and Barla will destroy an Astral World. I don't have the leeway to commit a blunder anymore.'
"Strange, isn't it?" Brangara uttered as he tanked another punch to the face. His severed arm had yet to heal. He was in human form. Most of his body was still a charred mess. And his Pranic Beast forms had yet to recover enough to be used.
He truly was at his most vulnerable.
"Are you rambling at your end?" Resha grunted and swung a bone hammer that he had condensed, slamming into Brangara's shoulder to dent it. He spun his body and roared, using Yennda's bone spears to hack repeatedly into the target.
Barla had the strongest offensive. But she didn't have any Nature left for defence. So, when she attacked Brangara, the latter retaliated.
Tangible Nature—Bloody Affection!
Astral World had first fused with this Tangible Nature and moved towards the thigh while leaving behind a sphere of blood containing a dense presence of Astral World. Hence, Astral Puncture struck an empty stomach.
This manoeuvre wasn't anything special. Resha was performing a high-level application of the same by staying in his biomes, which was why irrespective of how much he was attacked by Brangara, he never died, for his actual body was safe.
Everyone at the scene was capable of achieving something like this. Heck, Inala had done dozens of such manoeuvres to fool others. However, it was an oversight, for Brangara had never done that, as he never needed to hide Astral World.
Now, as Barla's attack struck, the Vara Sumatra Gold stabbed Barla in the chest and absorbed her Spirit Container into it.
Blessed Inheritance!
The Vara Sumatra Gold absorbed Barla's Spirit Container and selectively retained Astral Chart, including all the contents filling it. Through the Spirit Weapon, the power of Unlimited Predator spread rampantly.
As her Spirit Container was targeted first, when the entirety of her focus was on using Astral Puncture, Barla was helpless as she was devoured from the inside. Her body shrivelled up as the body of an unfamiliar man appeared beside her.
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As her Spirit Container was targeted first, when the entirety of her focus was on using Astral Puncture, Barla was helpless as she was devoured from the inside. Her body shrivelled up as the body of an unfamiliar man appeared beside her.
It was the human form of the Tangible Nature of Decaleech whose body Brangara had inhabited.
'Shit!' Resha was incensed at his carelessness, 'Dammit!'
Astral Puncture was so powerful that even his Spectral Eyes Minor Treasure was blinded by the ability. In comparison, the Vara Sumatra Gold was invisible, like a tiny rock in space moving before the sun. Hence, he failed to detect it.
The Infinite Divine Soldier reacted promptly and stabbed the unfamiliar man, severing his head instantly. However, another unfamiliar man appeared next to it.
Brangara had simply fused with another Tangible Nature he had taken out of Gracious Inheritor. His expression was neither content nor confident. He was still in an extremely precarious state.
However, he wanted to buy as much time as possible by taking advantage of his reserve of Tangible Natures. After all, devouring Barla granted him the necessary energy to regain his strength. Astral World digested all the content spontaneously, created a new stack of healthy bodies, and began building his eighth body, 'Once this finishes, I'll regain my passive unlimited Predator.'
"You're not killing me before that!" He roared as the trio of Resha, Boul Brimgan, and Yahard Tusk began to kill his bodies nonstop. It was a race for time.
This is embarassing...