Chapter 851 'Efficiency' Incarnate!
As the glow of Aggrante pulsed from Grim's gauntlet and shot forward, the Unlimited finally saw the scene in front of him.
It unnerved him.
Never before had he ever seen the glaring might of Aggrante be deflected, split into several separate rays that went on a whirling craze in different directions, destroying the surrounding, pitiful undead as soon as they met the tip of a weapon.
Only the scimitar, which sped even more to then meet his finger, its origin seeming to be the clear, expansive space before Grim, was capable of this... and so much more.
For when it met Grim's index, it ignored the Granted Armament he was adorning and carved past it and then along his arm to pierce his shoulder as it went!
...!!!
The sudden surge in speed just now had thrown Grim off!
By the time he felt the grave sting from his arm and his shoulder, with the scimitar seeming to have fazed through his armor to get to his flesh, his enemy had already gone and revealed himself!
The dimpled undead man was bathed in a precious neon glow... but one different from the previous, subtle one he donned to prevent himself from flying off.
He emerged from the mouth of the bullfrog which had turned itself invisible, and guffawed.
"Hahahahahahahaha! I got you, didn't I?! You're done for!" he screamed.
Grim wore a dark face, traces of agony showing from his face, but he didn't give his opponent the pleasure of making it too obvious.
With a thought, he vanished from the tip of the white scimitar and appeared a distance away in the air.
The throbbing pain he felt only grew worse.
Blood was leaking furiously behind his armor, and the wound he had received seemed to start leaking a pungent sort of pus that mixed in with blood.
Grim frowned.
'What is that sword?' he wondered before looking where he had teleported from.
The undead man was looking in his direction with a grin.
His appearance had changed.
He was no longer wearing any sort of armament. His torso was bare, from his waist, what could be seen was a wispy haze of hazel that fed into the bullfrog below him, flapping its wings rapidly. A similarly colored hazel glow surrounded his body as well and looked to be reinforcing his flesh and bone where Grim had hit him.
Grim narrowed his eyes and grunted from the pain.
'I see. So he's a Peak Master Stage expert. Good to know,' he thought.
Peak Master Stage experts were capable of combining their bodies with the shape of their Genuine Incarnations. The result was a 1,000% boost to their overall capabilities both offensive and defensive.
'That explains the sudden speed just now,' Grim thought.
He felt his shoulder.
A large chunk of it all the way to his neck seemed to have been eaten up by a strange rot that left his flesh white with the odd pus. He could also feel himself get numb from the right side of his body.
A shuddering boom exploded in the distance, but by the time it sounded, the grinning undead was already upon Grim, his sword cutting down towards him with a vastly greater sense of fatality than before.
It was overbearing, especially for Grim who was not in the same calibre Stage-wise!
The Unlimited hastily cast his right arm forward to block while pumping a great surge of energy into his gauntlet. He then careened to the side as best as he could, but it only barely helped.
"YOU IDIOT! DON'T YOU LEARN?!" the undead man cried as his sword once again sliced through Grim's armor as if it didn't exist and severed his arm cleanly from the elbow!
The scimitar then carved a shallow length down his torso before Grim fully dodged the side and ignited mana which he directed to his feet, forcing him down towards the swarmed ocean!
The dimpled undead cried with glee.
"How are those wounds so far?! Half your body must have already been eaten away by now!" he screamed as with another boom, his lone, half-ghostly figure shot down to catch up easily!
"This sword was already one of a kind, but when I died, it remained bonded to me – a product of one of its amazing abilities! By sharing even death with its master, it grew stronger! Now it craves the flesh of anyone it sees and will stop at nothing to taste it! Not even your fancy armor can do anything about it!"
Another dreadful swipe came from the scimitar, backed by the fierce force of might behind the Master!
It was too quick to dodge without sacrificing something, and for Grim, losing an arm seemed to already be a large detriment to his balance, not to mention top the fact he was in mid-air.
It also didn't help that half of his face was full of rank puss mixed with blood. His flesh was rapidly getting eaten away!
The scimitar whistling as it approached his neck for a definite blow also didn't bode well.
However...
"Aggrante."
An instant later, a brilliant glow emerged.
However, it didn't come from anywhere near Grim.
It came from behind the undead Master!
...!
"What?!" the dimpled man screamed in surprise.
Because he was so eager to cut down Grim with his scimitar, he didn't manage to find the room to dodge. The bright mix of Null Life Essence and Mana didn't afford him the chance with its great speed either!
Thus...
"ARRGHHH!"
The beam smashed into the undead man, and the force behind it caused him to crash into Grim and the two began plummeting to the ocean with a nitrous light carrying them!
The scimitar spun from the undead man's hand!
The Singlefold Aggrante couldn't be defended against effectively by a Genuine Incarnation, but the undead man survived the short-lived blast by guarding with the majority of his Aura belatedly!
He gnashed his teeth as his back sizzled, its form now that of an indented, charred spot on his back.
What had happened?
Where had that attack come from?
Grim wore a delighted grin as they fell, plastered against each other.
His half-eaten face looked terrifying, especially when he answered the undead man's questions... and in the dark sort of way.
"You're smart. Almost had me fooled there," he said. "But you lost when you allowed me to see that you're just a Form User with an absurdly powerful sword. I would have thrown caution to the wind otherwise!"
The undead man scowled heavily.
"You speak about my loss when I cannot die! When you are falling with me?! When your body is almost gone?!" he screamed.
Grim's grin grew wider.
"Yes," he said to all, and he wrapped his arm tight around his opponent.
Behind the dimpled man, Grim's severed arm could be seen, falling along with them also.
The index to its hand was pointing out after having loosened an Aggrante from the surge of energy Grim had infused into his gauntlet moments before.
And now...
Furious volumes of white fur poured out of the gaps within the armor, and in the next moment, a smaller version of Avhanar the Voracious emerged cast a shadow, and the two and greedily devoured them both.
"NO!" the undead man screamed as he felt the enclosure of darkness drown him and Grim.
Sharp teeth closed around the two.
The large head of Avhanar stood in the air, a hundred meters away from the sea.
A micro-moment later, the armless figure of Grim appeared on top of its head. He gave a deep sigh and sat on the head which began to rise into the sky.
His face was almost completely eaten away at this point.
However...
"Granted Restoration."
A glowing white pulse flashed over Grim and his armor, and his skin, and flesh was swiftly restored, his arm behind the limo gauntlet was regenerated by the time the flash of light was gone.
The Granted Armament of the Unlimited had several universal properties, such as allowing the user to know the mechanics of the armor from the moment they wore it, the ability to restore itself by using Null Life Essence reserves, and specialized skills like Aggrante, Limited Granted Warp, Granted Restoration and several others.
Grim hadn't used Granted Restoration immediately after taking damage because unlike most of the armor skills, Granted Restoration had a cooldown of ten minutes. The cooldown seemed to be because the armor applied an advanced healing mechanism that dealt with types of injury the same way and with the same cost.
"Urgh. It ended up becoming a struggle between saving energy from the armor and not revealing too much about my Hidden Class, huh? Off to a not-so-good start," Grim shook his head.
An important detail about his powers that his opponent had learned about too late, was that in addition to having complete control of the armor and its energies despite not being able to sense Null Life Essence, Grim also had complete control over his body, even severed portions.
Because of the vast amounts of stamina and endurance he gained when devouring enemies, Grim's detached body parts could still act vivaciously, as long he commanded to. This included having them temporarily adopt the Avhanar transformation as well.
The Unlimited suddenly turned his head up to the left and swiped with the gleaming claws from two of his fingers.
Immediately, a clean spray of blood dyed the skies, and a large, amphibian body with bat wings was revealed, cleaved into three!
"Damn undead frog," Grim grumbled while looking hatefully at its incapacitated figure. "Not so hard to find when you're not relying on your fellow mates, huh?"
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