Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Chapter 1194: The One Left Standing (8)



<I'm not particularly fond of what's about to happen next.> Suzamete said with a grave look on her face.

Boron chuckled.

<I expect that means things are about to become more interesting. I can already see the potential for higher calibres of Divinity here. Especially with the trick that dark one is using. Clever. Very clever. Though, I can't quite understand how he is doing it.>

Suzamete had no response to give.

She couldn't be excited about any of this. The world was about to know might the likes of which it hadn't seen since the Second Grand War. No, this was worse, far worse.

All she could do was hope that the end arrived as quickly as possible.

***

Of the twenty-five Blessings Replicus had created, roughly ten had been specially made in preparation for his battle with Skullius. All had significance in boosting his chances - though, in all honesty, Replicus hadn't expected that Skullius would be a great challenge at all.

While hoisting the Fallen Reincarnator's Shadow upward, Replicus activated one of these special Blessings. The spear responded immediately, shining bright and giving Replicus access. (All the Blessings created did not reside in the user's body, but in the spear, after all). At the same time, Replicus activated [Null Extraction].

Because of his evolution into Tier 4, the skill now covered the entire world in its range, but of course, the Warmoth's Progeny's aim wasn't to absorb Null Life Essence.

No. His battle with Caxellac had taught him that there was more than one way to use this skill.

His senses travelled with [Null Extraction]'s expanding range, crossing the entirety of Emeradis, and reaching into Pelian in a blink before finally locating the Hybrid Luman who instantly seemed to realise what was happening.

'Got you!' Replicus thought and wore a wide grin.

Skullius, even while in his Hybrid Luman form had a reserve of Null Life Essence. It wasn't in the form of a core, but it could still be traced. Replicus had tracked it down with [Null Extraction] and employed the help of the evolved version of [Greatest Null Weaver] - [All Null Commander], to pinpoint its location.

Thus...

Replicus, while releasing a wall of Ju`wtte so powerful and wide that it resisted all the heavy orbs, the swords and the Stolen Angel, swung the Warmoth's Spine and...

"Full Spine."

At the words, the Warmoth's Spine wriggled like some diseased worm, expanded in girth and stretched in length!

Its fifteen meters of stature grew to no end as it took on what might have been the actual size of the original Colossus Warmoth's Spine. As Replicus swished it up, watching it coil upward like a gigantic serpent, or a ridiculous whip, he made it so that its length would be enough to reach Skullius from here!

SHIIIIIIING!

Another crazy slash parted the air, tore down his Ju`wtte and aimed right at his head in that moment!

However, some strange, unseen force took the blow in full, leaving Replicus completely unharmed!

Strange indeed.

The Progeny swung the Spine, and it was as though a cyclone had descended. The Spine swished in the form of a blur across everything that was in sight!

Feinheath sank several meters into the sea and all across its three nations, a dreadful wind stirred wild chaos!

The Spine, now featuring an unending number of vertebrae blades along its length bit at the air, tearing it apart, producing a thunder clap!

And indeed, it met a great number of infrastructures on its course towards Skullius in the nearly-impossible-to-discern speck of time it travelled. However, the inhabitants of these structures were none the wiser. Other than the terrifying turbulence the Spine caused, they were unharmed by the swing of the Spine which would have killed them all and their protectors before they even realised it.

This was, of course, because of the Blessing Replicus was using.

"All my attacks will only deal damage to Skullius," was its stipulation!

And sure enough...

Skullius' senses weren't advanced enough to discern the Spine's path in time.

It swiped from his right side before he could do anything about it!

POW!

The impact was horrendous!

The Crush and Shock damage released on contact would have razed and incinerated the entire region the village Skullius was in was located if not for the fact that Replicus limited the range of the damage to the Hybrid Luman!

The spine had smacked Skullius wayward brutally, BUT...

The Hybrid Luman and the hundreds of people who had been behind him... were unharmed.

A great shadow was under their feet which ensured that any attacks that didn't come from Skullius himself would not harm them!

"Heh!" Skullius scoffed at the Spine as it whipped back from where it had swept to after striking him, intent on lunging at him again.

He pointed at it and sent a series of slashes against it, but they all bounced off it inconsequentially.

"I see."

The Spine whipped about like a great snake and began attacking relentlessly, its coils and turns causing the air to crackle and shift in direction.

Skullius had been momentarily distracted, irritated even, by the swish of the Spine when a dire warning rang from one of his skills!

Before he could respond to the danger, however, his face was smothered by a large hand that grabbed onto it mercilessly, and slammed it hard into the ground!

The entire village exploded, the shockwave rolling outward to neighbouring settlements - however deserted they were.

Innumerable disembodied slashes attempted to mince Replicus the moment he came into contact with Skullius, but to no avail. They reduced the finer structures in the surroundings to dust, but they did nothing to the Progeny. He remained with his hand deep in the ground where it was pushing Skullius' face into.

Replicus had intended to crush Skullius' head and therefore confirm if he really was

impervious to all kinds of damage when his strange darkness skill was active, but suddenly,

the freakish output he had felt from the ungodly slashes many times now, exploded from the Hybrid Luman... and his entire arm was chopped into pieces - fingers and neatly cut slabs of flesh flying off into the air!

But Replicus kept Skullius pinned with another hand and infused a horrendous dosage of Ju'wtte into the Hybrid Luman!

Skullius lit up like a lantern and the surroundings turned dark!

Replicus saw Skullius' body start to emit copious amounts of smoke. He was taking damage!

This was it!

The bastard wasn't immune after all!

"Hey, sockethole!" Replicus suddenly heard from his right.

To his surprise, one of the commonfolk - a man - who had been with Skullius, was calling to

him with a wide grin.

He and several others were standing around Replicus, their faces sallow, and their hair oddly

turned black.

"I told you, didn't I?" the man sneered, "as long as the Prince is embraced by the dark, he will never know harm. But you, on the other hand..."

At once, the dark shadow that had been below Skullius expanded and drained the rest of the light from the entire village. Everything was devoured by it, assimilated.

Then, to Replicus' surprise, sets of great hands, some larger and some smaller, peeked from the great shadow, rising like stationery pillars into the air. They looked as though they hid their golden white radiance behind a dark, chitinous shell as dark as the shadow from which

they rose!

All of them made no offensive movement, but Replicus suddenly felt something skewer his flesh and fasten it to something hardly tangible. He looked and saw that it was a stitch. His shoulder had been sewn firmly to the fabric of space!

Another stitch appeared, and then another, and another, and before long, Replicus was

completely immobilised!

The common folk around him began chuckling menacingly, and Skullius' body, which had been drowned in the dirt, rose, a similar look of mirth over it.

His dark robes shed away and the darkness from his shadow began to feed into him like blood,

siphoned into his very veins.

"You are taking me too lightly, fake. I am not only the Greatest Antiphon of Malignance or the Infinite Sword God. No, your informant is outdated. I have risen above that prestige already!" he declared as his whole body, while exploding with Nitros, became clad in something more

sinister than a beautiful set of black robes.

"I am the Benevolent Melanoid Prince!"