CHAPTER 851: THEM OR YOU

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The lightning-infused spears hammered against the pagoda formation. The once-impenetrable ward flickered under the assault, and with a series of sizzling cracks, it shattered completely.

In that instant, all the spears condensed by the Eightfold Spear Barrage rained down. For a moment, it looked as if Marquis Chix was caught in an inescapable storm of divine punishment.

Unfortunately, it was only an illusion.

When the electrical energy dissipated, Chix was standing in the same spot, completely unscathed. There wasn’t even a single tear in his leather armor.

"You are clever," he said. "To have found the elemental powers that counter our Death-Soul race so quickly. But it is not enough."

Orion didn’t speak. He reached into the void and seized one of the spears. In his perception, the spear had pierced Chix’s body, yet there was not a single drop of blood on it.

Seeing this, a grim look flashed in Orion’s eyes. His plan to summon the Ghost Dragon had failed. No blood meant no medium for the sacrifice. Blood was both the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of the Ghost Dragon summoning skill.

"Were you hoping to see if we Death-Souls bleed?" Chix taunted, his voice dripping with amusement. "Sorry, but I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. Or perhaps you wanted our blood to fuel some forbidden art? That, I’m afraid, is impossible. Hehehe..."

This time, Chix’s laughter was unrestrained. He had guessed Orion’s intention. The Death-Soul race had survived in a multitude of worlds for a reason; they had long ago evolved past such fatal weaknesses.

As it stood, Orion’s only counters were fire and lightning, but neither of those powers could be formed into a single, decisive finishing blow.

For a moment, Orion felt a pang of disappointment. For this duel, he had transferred his true body’s most powerful gear—the trident Flame of Will, the Titan Emblem, and the Abyssal Devil Shield—to this mirrored avatar. He hadn’t expected that his conventional methods would feel so powerless against a peak-tier Archlord.

"ROAR!"

Orion bellowed and unleashed his Titan Form. To hold back any longer against such a powerful opponent would be to underestimate him—an act of digging one’s own grave. Rampant power surged through his body. He activated his awakened skill, Battle Craving, and his combat senses sharpened, his will to fight soaring. Only in this state did he feel he stood a chance against Chix.

"My turn," Chix’s voice turned sinister. He was also annoyed that his repeated ambushes had failed to eliminate Orion.

He raised his scythe, and a beam of black light shot from its blade into the dark tooth floating high above. The spinning tooth stopped, and the golden runes upon it began to flash. In an instant, the single black tooth divided into four identical, massive fangs.

"I can use formations too, you know. Hehehe!" Chix swung his scythe, and the four black teeth descended. They swelled to the size of small mountains, lunging at Orion from four different directions.

The battle had once again reached a fever pitch.

Meanwhile, if Orion was on the fifth underground level of the six-tiered dueling grounds, then Leonidas was on the sixth and lowest floor.

At this moment, Leonidas’s Void Dragon avatar was flickering violently amidst a continuous spatial collapse. He looked even more wretched than when his previous dragon avatar had self-destructed.

This was a soul bombardment.

Leonidas’s opponent was a Soul-Devouring Reaper. Its belly was a repository for countless souls, which it was now releasing in a constant stream. The souls exploded, one after another, in a horrifying feast of spiritual energy, attempting to directly annihilate the Void Dragon’s own soul.

The power of countless souls detonating at once was terrifying. Space itself was beginning to fracture under the strain. It was a good thing Leonidas’s avatar was a Void Dragon; for any other, the outcome would have been grim.

"Apologies, but our duel requires no crude violence," the opponent cackled, its voice a mad shriek. "Let us swim in the ocean of souls together, find oblivion in the explosions, and decide the victor amidst the collapse of space! Kehehehe..."

Leonidas’s opponent was a madman. The Soul-Devouring Reaper’s entire power lay in the souls it had collected. To detonate them was an extreme, self-harming tactic.

If Leonidas could endure until all the souls were gone, he would undoubtedly be the victor. If he couldn’t last until that final moment, victory would belong to the Reaper.

"Damn it... damn it... damn it..." Leonidas cursed from the epicenter of the soul explosions, his dragon eyes wide with fury. He swung his claws and wings, constantly trying to mend the collapsing space around him.

The Void Dragon’s abilities were potent. Beyond devouring, locking, and displacing space, it could also find stable nodes within the chaotic void to anchor itself. But the process was difficult, especially when space was collapsing continuously. Any node he found was unstable and could be annihilated in an instant. To survive this soul storm, he had to find new anchor points faster than space could fall apart around him.

Otherwise, he would either be annihilated in the void’s collapse, or worse, be eternally banished. Neither outcome was one Leonidas could accept.

On the fourth underground level, Alexander’s avatar faced a Steel-Soul Spirit of the Death-Soul race.

The Steel-Soul Spirit was a bizarre existence, a fusion of an undead and a rare metal. It possessed both an incredibly hard body and an unyielding soul. It was, in a word, an unsolvable enigma of a creature.

However, the avatar it faced was an enigma in its own right. It was a sword, and nothing more. A sword of unparalleled sharpness.

The battle was a strange chase, a single iron ball pursuing a spirit sword, constantly colliding, constantly grinding each other down.

"Not bad," a strange voice echoed through the arena. "To be able to move so freely under the suppression of my gravity field. It is a shame such a rare spirit sword must be broken here today."

"This sword is indestructible. Sooner or later, it will cut you down," Alexander’s cold voice rang out. The spirit sword was being suppressed by the iron ball, but in another sense, wasn’t the iron ball merely a whetstone for the sword?

"Then let us see if you cut me down first, or if I melt you down."

With a roar of heat, the flying iron ball suddenly glowed fiery red. Licks of flame erupted from its surface, clinging to the spirit sword. Alexander’s sword sizzled under the intense heat, as if it itself had been set ablaze.