<strong>"Soul skill: Eyes of God"</strong>
<strong>"Soul skill: Rise of the Undead" </strong>
<strong>"Soul skill: Rain of Death"</strong>
Azzy unleashed the soul skills one after another as soon as he saw the horde of dragons and hounds coming towards him.
His eyes turned pitch black with no visible pupils.
Rank-5 Skeletal Hydra and Rank-6 Aurora (Skeletal snow wolf) of platinum grades were summoned behind him.
The black lotus, Ruby was carrying Azzy.
The black lightning wolf, Vajra, which is now a high-rank-6 celestial grade beast, was proudly raising its head as it stood ahead of everyone.
Finally, Azzy had a death scythe, which is almost twice the size of him, in his hands while his 100-meter surroundings are being melted because of black rain.
"Guys, leave none of them alive. No usage of soul skills on your own though."
With no one around to worry, he went all out against the beasts. As if Vajra was bloodthirsty, it went on a rampage without holding back, killing every hound by simply swatting its paws randomly or dashing and colliding head-on.
Meanwhile, Azzy flew up along with the dark cloud before killing each one with a slash that is still alive after being hit by the black rain.
A total of (75) rank-4; (16) rank-5; and (4) rank-6 beasts turned into corpses before disappearing into thin air without leaving any cores behind. Azzy also found that none of their skeletons are also added to his undead army.
By the time the rain stopped, only one dragon was seen alive, flapping its wings and staring at Azzy. It was a double-headed giant dragon with one head being black and the other head being red.
Azzy's summoning beasts on the ground are helpless against the monsters that can fly. So, they became spectators to the final battle between their master and the peak-rank-6 beast of platinum grade.
"Ruby, fly…" He ordered the black lotus. With four Protos spears hovering at his back, Azzy flew towards the dragon, which was constantly releasing a wisp of poisonous gas every time it exhales from its left mouth and a wisp of blue flames from its right mouth.
With no Rain of Death, the dragon was no longer afraid to get near to its enemy. It also flew towards Azzy.
When they were about only thirty meters away from each other, the dragon breathes out a ball of flames to incinerate its enemy. The flames were blue in color and the attack is naturally a lot stronger than a full-powered attack of a typical peak-rank-6 beast.
If it was before, Azzy would have been a little bit worried. But, now, it is of no concern. He calmly raised his free right arm and motioned it towards the incoming attack.
A Protos Spear cut through the air like lightning and precisely struck the blue fireball.
The Protos Spear disappeared right and corrupted it at a quickened pace. By the time the attack even crossed half of the distance between Azzy and the dragon, its flames were put out before turning black and disintegrating into nothing.
*Grrr*
It growled in response to its failure.
As the black dragon head is gathering its energy to unleash an acid blast, the beast flew towards Azzy for close combat.
Meanwhile, Azzy raised the death scythe above his head and poured soul energy into it.
To distract its attention, he sent one of the Protos Spears at the dragon.
The beast was alerted by the Protos Spear when it was just a few meters away from the target.
Since there's no way for it to dodge with such a huge body and close distance, the beast raised its claws.
The tough skin didn't save it. The Protos Spear pierced its limb and the energy invaded its body.
*Graaaa* Just as the dragon roared in pain and momentarily shifted its attention to the insides of its body so that it can expel the invading corruptive energy, Azzy made his move.
"Soul skill: Slice of Death"
Azzy swung the scythe with all of his strength, creating a giant arc of pitch-black energy, which cleanly sliced the double-headed dragon into two and kill it instantly.
"Oh, I guess I underestimated far too much." Azzy was visibly surprised at the result.
Observing the one-sided bloody massacre, a trace of surprise appeared on Amerys as he thought, "A descendant of death clan with three Arcana, eh. The descendant of Arthur Pendragon and the descendant of Azrael Garcia are at the same place? Now, this gets even more interesting…"
Azzy landed on the ground as the two caves appeared out of thin air, once again to indicate that he had passed the first phase of the trial.
"Stay vigilant, Azrael, this next phase will be your inner demons." The Reaper warned him as his host had chosen the left cave.
Azzy nodded and continued to walk. He entered the cave. The surroundings were changed to his home at Aclein city.
On a dining table, Affea, Oakley, and Avia were having lunch together. All of them were laughing happily.
"Aunt…" Azzy unknowingly called out her but there was no response from Affea.
He found himself to be in some type of spirit form. He walked towards them but no one would discover his presence.
"What kind of inner demon is this?" Azzy wonders as he too takes an empty seat.
It was then Avia opened her mouth, "Mom, the house is really peaceful these days. It's a good thing that Azrael had finally left. I use to be very uncomfortable with his presence."
Oakley nodded in agreement, "Yeah, it is. It used to be so chaotic during that devil spawn's stay. If only I never found Azrael on that night, we would have been living in so much peace. Because of him, we were found out, then, you got kidnapped, later, we were forced to go into hiding, your mother had even landed herself in danger. She would have been killed by the Royal Ancestor."
Azzy was taken aback by surprise. He never expected such words from his favorite grandpa's mouth.
As this statement didn't cause enough disturbances in Azzy's mind, Affea also pitched in her opinion, "If not for the fact that he's the user of Celestial Grade, who would bother to protect him. If we take care of him now, in the future, he will protect us from the Snieca kingdom.
We already know that he had the potential to even become a demigod. Once he reaches the Supreme Realm, who would dare to look at us in the eye?"
Azzy suddenly had a mental breakdown as those impacted him a lot. He and Affea are complete strangers more than 18 months ago. With their 8-9 months of disappearance, he lived with his foster family, for barely a year.
But, the connection he formed with Affea is something he can't explain in words. Their bond was so close that he wouldn't even mind calling her mother if the latter had no problem with it.
It is why it is so hard for Azzy to hear those words. Due to his unstable emotional state, the Protos energy that was sealed inside the gem on Vajra's forehead shot towards its owner like a beam and hit him.
Azzy started to get influenced by the Protos energy.
Thankfully, the Reaper is always there looking out for him.
The voice echoed in Azzy's head after the Protos energy was sent back, "Snap out of it, Azrael. She's an illusion. I already mentioned to you that these are your inner demons. Throw away those negative thoughts. It is the only way to win over your inner demons."
Only then did Azzy manage to come to his senses. Realization dawned upon him, "I guess I was always insecure about my position in grandpa's family."
"Despite being close with everyone, you have a suspicion about whether the love you are receiving is true or whether it was just out of material gains." The Reaper said to him. He added, "But then again, it's quite common. There's no such thing as pure love in the world that is timeless.
While I can't question a mother's love during the baby's time in her womb, I can surely say that as the child grows up, even the pure love from mother and father will slowly get contaminated because of the society around them, followed by their ambitions.
Everything will eventually disappear with time.
Instead of pondering on whether you are right or wrong, you should just accept the positive and negative, believing that they are common."
Azzy closed his eyes as he came to terms with himself, believing that while Affea and her family might have selfish thoughts, she still loves him regardless of her own son. That is an undeniable truth.
When he firmly believed it, everything around him disappeared.
But, unfortunately, the second phase hasn't cleared yet. Another inner demon was before him, now.
This time, he wasn't a bystander. He was standing before his girlfriend, except that the latter was linking her arms with some stranger. However, the man's face was all blurry. It's because Azzy had never imagined a specific person to steal her from him.
Claire looks the same as now but her words tell the timeline is different.
"You are too late, Rael. 27 years, I waited for you for more than two decades for your return but neither had you replied to any messages nor even given a clue on whether you are alive. I moved on…" Claire said to him.
The words hurt Azzy a lot but unlike earlier, he was a lot calmer. The blurry face of the man unknowingly helped him a lot.
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