The moment Tiara used the Silvarean Tiger Soultrait, silver fur grew out of her body. Her hair shimmered vibrantly, and her eyes transformed, becoming much sharper than before with a tint of gold mixed into her tiger-like eyes.
A blueish spear danced around her as she manifested her Artifacts. It was a Spirit Weapon, which Michael specially crafted for Tiara in the Relic of Draka not too long ago. It enhanced Tiara's Agility drastically, further reinforcing her combat prowess.
Charging into the crowd of Kitsun, Tiara struck everyone in the first row with a Spirit Whip before she swiped the Spirit Spear across their necks. Her motion was simple but extremely fast. The velocity of her spear swipe couldn't be blocked as the Kitsun was momentarily stunned by the sudden mental attack.
Rendered incapable of blocking Tiara's attack, their throats ended up severed in an eerily simple manner. Fountains of blood spurted out of their throats, painting the old cobblestone pathway of the abandoned alley crimson.
The Kitsun in the second row and behind were shocked to see her. Their eyes widened and they instinctively wanted to retreat. However, all they could do was to move ahead. Their brethren from behind pushed them ahead, forcing the Kitsun at the front to face Tiara head-on.
Tiara moved quickly. The space around her was narrow, but she could make full use of every inch of it. The Spirit Spear thrust forward, piercing through the steel chestplate of the Kitsun in front of her before drilling deep into the Kitsun's chest. But instead of decelerating and being forced to put some effort into pulling the spear blade out of the Kitsun's chest, Tiara used her Inner Force Soultrait to naturally reverse the force of her spear thrust.
Instead of slowing down as the spear blade dug deeper into the enemy's chest, the Spirit Spear was pulled out naturally without the need to use additional force. It was time-saving as well and ensured that nobody could attack Tiara as she focused on other opponents.
Her Spirit Whips lashed out again, but she didn't strike one of the enemies close to her. Instead, her focus was on the weaker Kitsun Summons in the middle of the crowd. It was not difficult for her to perceive the strength of her opponents. Therefore her Spirit Whips struck the Tier-1 Summons, whose bodies tensed up and froze in their tracks as the mental attack impacted heavily.
Being pushed from behind, but unable to move further ahead, the Summons struck by the Spirit Whip couldn't even keep their body steady. The heavy impact of the Spirit Whip resulted in the Summons losing their balance. They fell down to the ground all while the Kitsun from behind were pushed further ahead.
The Kitsun on the ground were unable to get up because there was no more space above them. However, they weren't stomped upon either because the Kitsun's lower body was in a compressed gaseous form. Their lower bodies looked like black clouds that were interconnected with each other.
Earlier that day, Michael told Tiara and the rest that the Kitsun's cloud-like lower body was maintained by consuming energy and the surroundings' oxygen. This was something Tiara decided to use against them. The Kitsun were still in need of oxygen to survive.
The Kitsun lying on the ground regained their composure soon after they'd been struck by Tiara's Spirit Whip. But they were unable to get up due to the crowd above them, which resulted in the space between the Kitsun and the ground becoming a prison without oxygen.
'This girl is really cruel,' Michael thought as he watched Tiara's fight.
It had been quite a while since he arrived next to her, but the narrow alley didn't allow Michael and Tiara to fight side-by-side. They wielded spears and required some space to unleash the full power of their attacks. But that wasn't really a pressing issue. Tiara was doing an exceptional job, and Michael could release Glacicle Swords enhanced with Reinforced Sword Qi and Enhancement to blast large holes into the crowd of Kitsun, shredding their bodies cruelly.
It might be a little bit annoying to fight a flood of Kitsun in a dark, narrow alley because they could easily stall time and turn the fight into a battle of attrition. However, Michael and Tiara could easily rip through their enemies with the use of their Soultraits.
A single enhanced Qi Glacicle Sword was powerful enough to burst six to ten heads before the Kitsun could do anything against it. Meanwhile, Tiara's swift and nimble movements allowed her to reap a life every second.
But Michael felt that they were still a little bit too slow despite killing more than a hundred Kitsun in the first minute they'd arrived at the border settlement. They had been slow enough to allow the stronger guards and Awakened stationed in the settlement to gather and come up with a plan to eliminate the invaders after their stamina had been drained.
Michael didn't want to give the strongest Guards and Awakened a chance to strike them at a bad timing. He whistled twice and pulled back. Tiara's tiger ears flinched when she heard the whistling. She used Inner Force to pull most of the strength she was about to exert to attack into her legs. Tiara jumped back and appeared next to Michael with a trace of sadness spread all over her face.
Tiara didn't want to end the battle already. She wanted to strive forward and advance with the spear, just like a spearman was supposed to. The spear existed to advance, and not to retreat.
But Michael ignored her grumbling. He smiled gently at her while sending a telepathic note to the Elemental Empress, who moved in front of him.
"Don't hold back," Michael told the Elemental Empress before he released his Dome of Extraction to devour the origin energy in the surroundings.
In the next moment, he sent a wave of energy through the Elemental Empress' taming bond, filling her with the purified energy of a Tier-2 Lord.
The Elemental Empress' body flared up. A large blazing flame conjured in front of her, looking like the sun. Streaks of fire pushed out of the globe of fire as the Elemental Empress used her mental power to compress the flames. A tint of azure blue shone through the center of the blazing globe as the Elemental Empress conjured more flames to compress them within the globe.
The blazing globe was compressed, yet the raging flames expanded rapidly. In a matter of mere seconds, the globe of fire filled the entire path in front of Michael and the rest.
Then the blazing globe was unleashed upon the panicking Kitsun.
Despite being flames conjured by a Tierless being, the Elemental Empress was still…the Elemental Empress. Her main attribute was fire as well, indicating her great control and innate affinity toward fire.
Not even fire-attributed monsters at Tier-1 were likely to survive the Elemental Empress' flames without sustaining burn marks from her flames. But now that Michael had given the Elemental Empress his origin energy, the blazing flames were even stronger.
Screams of despair and unfathomable pain spread through the surroundings as the globe of fire paved its way through the dark alley that shone brightly as if it had been blessed by the sun.
The pungent smell of burned flesh and smoke filled the searing hot air in the alley. However, nobody said anything as they stared at the devastating sight in front of them. Michael had just transferred a little bit over half of the origin energy stored inside him to aid the Elemental Empress, but he never expected that this much energy would be enough to annihilate the crowd of Kitsun inside the alley in a single move.
Unable to evade the attack, the crowd of Kitsun had been forced to take the impact of the blazing globe of fire head-on. The Tier-1 Kitsun died on the spot, burning to cinder even before the globe passed by them. However, even the Tier-2 Summons were having a hard time. Their gaseous lower bodies evaporated into thin air, while their skin and big portions of their flesh were scorched and melting.
Losing their gaseous lower bodies meant that they had to recreate the black cloud of their lower body from scratch. That would usually take a day or two – or a few hours if one was proficient at controlling the power that allowed them to move around freely. But they didn't have hours. In fact, the Kitsun didn't even have minutes.
Seconds was all they received as a hail of Glacicles manifested and rained down within the searing hot alley. The alley was so hot that the cobblestone path had molten, yet the Glacicles were unaffected by the heat – even if it was just for a quarter of a second. Michael released them with a burst of energy before they could melt.
The Glacicles pierced into the half-burned bodies of the Tier-2 Kitsun, ending their miserable lives.
Michael didn't feel any mercy for the Kitsun. If not for being pressed on time, he would probably ignore the half-burned bodies of the Kitsun.
They would die with those burns sooner or later, either way. Unfortunately, he was running short on time and needed the energy influx he received from every kill. The energy influx and energy shares he obtained during the last 24 hours had been a lot more than he expected. The energy surging into his pillar of light was enough to refine his War Rune to a considerable degree.
If he continued to fight like this with his team, it would only be a matter of time before he reached the Mid-rank of the 2nd Tier.
He could catch up with the other participants of the Battle Exchange, fight for his own Flag War Token, and fight in the Interdimensional Flag War.
Of course, that was just a distant goal on Michael's list.
Obliterating the Kitsun Lord and all Kitsun in and near the Untamed Jungle was the highest priority for now.
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