Chapter 889: Divine Provocation
When Arthur lifted his gaze from the dead shoebill, he noticed the odd look on Elaine’s face and immediately asked her about it.
"Elaine, you okay?"
"...huh? Ah, I’m fine," she answered.
But she was, in fact, NOT fine.
Arthur picked up on that right away, though he didn’t comment on it, remaining quiet for a moment before turning toward Crim.
"Hey, Crim. Mind stepping back for a bit? I don’t want my divinity hurting you."
The vampiress nodded without a word and moved back, while Yijun blinked in confusion, muttering, "Divinity?" as he looked to Crim for an explanation she didn’t give.
Arthur didn’t explain either, instead igniting his entire right arm with divinity, silver energy engulfing it like fire, its glow lighting up the surrounding area.
The brightness spiked for a moment before bursting into fragments of light that scattered across the land.
Seconds later, furious roars and shrill screeches echoed from every direction, and Crim turned to Arthur with a raised brow.
"What did you just do?"
"I provoked everything with divinity within a mile radius," Arthur replied, just as five different creatures appeared on the horizon, flying straight toward them.
"Even if the two of them combined their strength, they wouldn’t be able to handle even one of those things. They’re just Grandmasters, you know?"
Crim felt like Arthur was forgetting the power levels of the two teenagers with them, though that wasn’t the case at all.
Arthur lifted his gaze toward the approaching existences, noting that the one resembling a feathered dragon was far faster than the other four.
Without lifting a hand, he manipulated gravity to force the four behind it to the ground, then created a crushing force that pressed in on the creature from every direction, like an enormous hand seizing the 30-metre-long creature mid-air.
Its wings were crushed against its body, its scales fractured, and blood sprayed outward as he slammed it into the ground with overwhelming force.
He then dragged it across the terrain, pulling it closer, and then, looking straight into the fear-filled, agony-ridden eyes of the white-feathered creature, now soaked in its own blood, he spoke in a calm voice.
"If you manage to best her in single combat," he said, gesturing toward Elaine, "I’ll free you and heal your wounds. Fail, and your life is forfeit."
With those words, he released the creature from its gravitational confinement, but with its wing bones shattered, its scales split open, and the flesh beneath bleeding, it was in no condition to fight at anything close to its Inferior Epic Realm strength.
That was exactly what Arthur wanted. He’d injured it just enough for Elaine to be able to face it directly, and if she played her cards right, she could win.
Now, this creature, a Solar Divine-Dragon, had no real assurance that Arthur would keep his word.
Still, it understood that Arthur could kill it just as easily, and with no better option, it clung to desperation and hoped for survival.
It lunged at the lightly startled Elaine, groaning through the pain as it opened its mouth and unleashed a breath of white divine flames.
Elaine reacted quickly, raising a curved wall of darkness to deflect the attack, then extending her left hand to summon a spear as she dashed toward the wounded beast in front of her.
’Vital Enhancement!’
The stored energy within her Life Well was consumed to push her physical parameters to their maximum, her feet leaving deep imprints in the ground as she dashed to the side of the wounded dragon and swung her spear, coated in black energy, to strike its injured wing.
The dragon tried to dodge but failed, her spear connecting and carving a fresh line across its damaged side, while Elaine’s death energy seeped into it and dealt additional necrotic damage.
Roaring in response, it whipped its tail toward her, but she ducked beneath the spiked appendage and thrust her spear forward, aiming for the torn line along its flank.
It turned its body before she could land the hit, its right arm swinging toward her and forcing her to redirect her thrust into a side swing she used to block, then leap away to avoid the tail as it swept back again.
It opened its mouth and released another breath of flames toward the airborne Elaine, this time infusing the attack with its divinity.
Noticing the change, Elaine took a deep breath and loosened her conscious hold on her powers, anti-divinity rushing through her veins and into her weapon as she brought it down, releasing a projected cutting wave that split the flaming breath cleanly in two.
The wave continued on toward the dragon, and though it tried to evade, a sudden sense of lethargy washed over it and slowed its movements, causing the strike to land against its shoulder.
Elaine dropped to the ground in a crouch, then immediately launched herself upward like a coiled spring as she dashed toward the wounded dragon again.
’Death Ripple!’
The life energy she’d just absorbed from the solar dragon was converted into death-attributed power and infused into her spear, and without hesitation, she swung it multiple times, slashing four times horizontally, vertically, and diagonally from both sides.
Each strike released a projected wave of anti-divinity that raced toward the solar dragon, forcing it to answer with its own magic power and divinity as it swung its forelimbs to counter.
The magic-coated left claw blocked the slashes entirely, but the divinity-coated right claw not only failed to stop them, but it was torn through as the waves ripped across its cracked scales and scorched the flesh beneath.
Its eyes widened as it seemed to realise its divinity was weak against Elaine, but by then she’d already closed the distance and thrust her spear straight toward its right eye.
The dragon turned its head at the last moment, the spear tip tearing through the scales along its brow rather than completing the thrust.
Bright red blood spilt the instant her spear scraped its flesh, and Elaine’s Death’s Touch took effect, siphoning life force into her Life Well as she yanked the weapon free and slid back out of its reach.
The dragon roared and slammed its forelimb down, conjuring a four-ringed magic circle beneath its claw. However, barely a second after the circle appeared, the outermost ring flickered erratically and collapsed.
Even so, the spell still activated, condensed heat blasting outward in a short-range explosion that sent Elaine skidding back several metres. The shockwaves rippled outward in all directions, blasting a small crater in the earth.
She managed to keep her footing, boots carving grooves into the ground, her arms crossed before her chest to raise a quick magic shield that blocked most of the impact, leaving only a few faint burns behind.
Seeing how little damage she’d taken, the dragon’s brows creased as it roared again and engulfed its tail in white fire.
The tail swept toward Elaine, the magic circles around its limb flickering unstably, and in response, Elaine dashed forward, stabbing her spear into the ground and releasing a burst of magic power straight into the earth.
The ground exploded, chunks of earth coated in darkness blasting outward in nearly every direction, smashing into the sweeping tail and forcing it back.
But just as she did that, a magic circle appeared beside her, too fast for her to pull free her spear or gather any energy to block, and a beam of condensed light slammed into her right side, launching her into the air and back toward the ground.
Elaine’s body rolled across the earth, but she forced herself up immediately, ignoring the pain in her side as she charged forward while healing herself with energy drawn from her Life Well.
The energy she spent was replenished almost instantly as she closed the distance, her passive Drain Field forcing a constant trickle of life force out of the dragon with every step closer.
The dragon roared and conjured another magic circle above its head, sunlight compressing into a lance that trembled as the circle’s fourth ring flickered violently.
It shot toward the onrushing Elaine, and faced with it, Elaine didn’t evade but instead drew on energy from a source deeper than her Life Well, her own life force.
’Lifeburst Strike!’
She infused the death energy converted from her life force into her spear and hurled it at the incoming lance, staggering slightly from the sensation of weakness that came with the depletion of her vitality.
Her spear, however, stayed true to its path, punching straight through the Solar Lance and embedding itself in the raised right arm of the dragon that was summoning another magic circle behind it, releasing a burst of black light that ruptured the limb.
Bones cracked, and blood poured as the arm collapsed uselessly, the dragon screaming and staggering from the searing pain.
It swung wildly with its remaining claw, releasing divinity-infused slashes that forced Elaine to leap back.
Slamming the claw into the ground despite the strain, the dragon channelled more magic power and sent uneven pulses of energy through the earth, each stronger than the last.
Elaine’s pupils darted as she sought higher ground, sprinting up a nearby outcrop to avoid direct contact with the pulses.
The moment her feet touched down, the dragon opened its mouth and unleashed a giant white fireball, forcing Elaine to jump off onto the ground, staggering immediately as a pulse of magic hit her legs.
The dragon seized the opening, condensing its flames into fist-sized bolts of compressed fire and unleashing them in rapid succession, and though Elaine managed to dodge most, it wasn’t before she’d taken one to the shoulder and another to the thigh.
Pain coursed through her body, but she drained her stored life energy to heal the burns as best she could, rolling into a crouch before springing up, dashing to her left while conjuring a spear-shaped construct with magic.
The dragon raised its left limb and began casting, its open maw condensing energy for a breath, and in that instant, Elaine poured energy into her spear and unleashed another Lifeburst Strike, hurling it with all her strength.
Having seen the damage from the previous throw, the dragon couldn’t let this one land, but it wasn’t fast enough to fully dodge due to its wounds, so it turned its body to the side, causing Elaine’s spear to strike its broken wing pressed against its right side.
