Chapter 45: Abandoning Divine Power

Boom!

His aura suddenly churned.

Sixth Rank, Seventh Rank.

Sixth Rank, Seventh Rank.

The man’s aura oscillated wildly between these two levels, each time causing ripples in the surrounding space, faint cracks appearing and vanishing, issuing a teeth-grinding sound.

The fourteen Imperial experts were alarmed and uncertain.

They could certainly sense that some drastic change was happening on the opponent’s body.

But the problem was, no one dared to step forward easily; they had been beaten too badly just now.

To know, among them, just pick one out, placed in the Empire or even the entire continent, who wouldn’t make people tremble?

At least they were battle power that could stand on their own.

Yet now, fourteen people joined hands, giving their all, yet couldn’t even make the opponent move his body an inch.

This blow was too heavy!

“I’m such a fool, why worry so much?”

Suddenly, a Sixth Rank expert muttered, his voice hoarse, carrying a bloody smell, but light rekindled in his eyes.

“That opponent is a god. If he really wanted to kill us, we would have died a thousand times over long ago. He is simply not our match. Does he need to lure us forward with such tricks?”

Another person heard this, paused, then chuckled lowly.

“It’s true. Today, we are fighting a god! Even if we die in battle, we will surely be recorded in the Empire’s history books, and future history will have our names!”

The weapon in his hand hummed, and his Dou Qi reignited.

“Then what’s there to fear? Just fight!”

Boom!

Three Sixth Rank experts charged out first.

Eleven Royal Knights followed closely behind.

Even though each was wounded, armor shattered, aura weak, their eyes grew brighter, and blazing battle intent ignited!

Because their own faith had risen; they truly cast aside life and death, throwing their entire being into the battle!

At that moment, the crimson-haired man finally raised his eyes.

The look in his eyes changed.

No longer the absolute indifference of looking down on dust, but more vivid, becoming serious.

“Come.”

He spoke softly, slowly rose from his cross-legged position, and stepped out; the void trembled!

A dozen attacks struck simultaneously—blade light, spear gleam, hammer marks interweaving, tearing through the front.

The crimson-haired man raised a hand to meet them, no longer aloof but plain and unadorned, simply swinging a fist forward.

Thump!

A loud sound, like a heavenly drum being struck.

A shockwave swept in all directions, tearing large holes in the clouds above.

Over a dozen experts all retreated, arms trembling, tiger mouths cracked.

But the crimson-haired man also took half a step back.

Just that half step made all the Imperial experts’ eyes light up.

It can be shaken!

Truly unbelievable! The god was shaken, retreated!

“Kill!”

A great battle erupted; this time it was no longer one-sided, but extremely fierce.

The two sides fought from high altitude into the depths of the clouds, then fell all the way from the cloud depths to the ground.

Rumble!

In the mountains, some peaks were grazed by the dissipated energy, collapsing on the spot, and large swaths of forest turned to ash.

At the same time, the ground cracked, massive boulders rolled, energies interweaved and swept through, turning an area into a death zone in an instant.

Then, the battlefield was forcefully dragged back to the sky.

Over a dozen figures interweaved in the sky; their speed was so fast that ordinary people could not see at all, only streaks of light tearing through the air, followed by continuous loud noises.

Thump thump thump…

Space was vibrating, even being struck into small cracks from which terrible astral winds burst forth, enough to destroy everything, forcing both sides to dodge.

This was a great battle enough to destroy large areas!

What was even more shocking was that the Imperial experts actually held their ground.

Originally all were wounded, far from their peak condition, but now their combat power was stronger than before.

Because their faith reached its peak; they cast aside life and death, feared nothing, and their will to fight boiled.

Furthermore, the divine might that covered heaven and earth had receded; they were no longer suppressed, and could release all their power without reservation.

For a time, the two sides actually fought to a standstill.

However, the Imperial experts felt no relief in their hearts, because they saw clearly that the crimson-haired man was adapting!

His fighting style was strange.

At first, his movements still had a bit of uncoordination.

The existence that had long resided in the high heavens should have been using rules to constantly clash, but now he was truly using mortal flesh and blood to fight.

Now, with each collision, the man’s movements became smoother and more adept, and the lethality of every action was climbing at a speed that made people’s hair stand on end.

He was abandoning his identity as a god, relearning the fighting methods of humans.

“Can’t delay!”

A Sixth Rank expert growled.

But where could they choose not to delay?

The man was too strong!

Even discarding the rule suppression as a god, relying only on the power of this shell itself, he was still unbelievably strong.

After another great collision, the sea of clouds directly exploded, and both sides flew backward from each other.

Among the eleven Royal Knights, two more were knocked unconscious and taken away from the central battlefield, leaving only seven.

At this moment, the blood-haired man stood in the void, blood light flowing around him.

The aura inside him gradually stabilized, finally settling at the peak of the Sixth Rank, no longer surging toward the Seventh Rank, and no longer leaking any divine might.

In that instant, everyone felt a strange sensation.

This man seemed to have changed.

He was still powerful and dangerous, still making people tense.

But he was no longer as aloof as before, as if there was a thick barrier between him and the world.

He was more vivid, no longer a god, but more like a living person, more like a true creature existing in the world.

Both sides panted, not in a hurry to fight again.

The crimson-haired man lowered his head, looking at his own palm, his expression complex and unreadable, as if… he was disgusted, disgusted with his own life form as a god.

On the ground.

Celestia stood on a broken roof, her silver-white hair flying.

Divine power flowed autonomously around her, a faint golden light protecting her body, her eyes fixed on the depths of the sky.

As a Divine Chosen, from the moment the anomaly appeared in the deepest part of the blood cloud, she had sensed it.

The evil god descends.

Within her flowed the power of the Radiant God, making her sensitive to the opposing evil divine power.

But now, she was astonished and uncertain.

The man manifested by the evil god was actively suppressing, even trying to strip away his own divine power.

He wanted to downgrade, descend from god to human, disgusted with his own identity as a god!

“Why?”

Celestia murmured.

This went against all common sense she knew.

When gods descend to the mortal world, which one doesn’t want to project as much power and authority as possible to influence reality?

But that evil god was abandoning his divine power, as if seeing it as a shackle.

Even if it was only a manifestation of a part of his will, it should not be like this.

What exactly does He want to do?

On the other side, in the town.

Lovira’s face was not good.

The destructive fluctuations coming from the high sky made her mind uneasy.

But compared to the great battle in the sky, she was more anxious about another matter at this moment.

The boy had disappeared.

The younger brother who should have been lazily lounging in the courtyard had vanished at some point, and even the few small alarm magic spells she had set nearby were not triggered, as if he had disappeared into thin air.

Lovira’s heart felt a slight chill.

She was very clever, how could she not notice?

After the academy assessment, her younger brother had changed—silent and dangerous, sometimes even showing eyes that were unfamiliar to her.

How could she not suspect?

Only she didn’t dare think in the worst direction.

Because once she thought about it, she had to face a possibility.

Her younger brother might have already experienced many things when she didn’t know, and might even no longer be the original him.

How could she accept this?

How would she explain to their parents in the future?

Lovira suddenly clenched her fingers, suppressing this thought, not daring to think further.

Just at that moment.

Boom….

At the edge of the town, in a remote abandoned courtyard, a pillar of light suddenly shot into the sky!

That light was too strange.

It was clearly somewhat dark, as if from the deepest part of the starry sky, yet it radiated a life aura as vast as the extreme, like a river of life.

The pillar of light pierced through the clouds, straight into the sky.

The high-altitude battlefield, the ground town—everyone’s gaze was attracted to it in that instant.

Lovira’s heart leaped violently.

For some reason, she almost immediately confirmed that Evan was there!

She didn’t hesitate.

Several wind-element magic crystals around her lit up, enhancing herself, and her entire person turned into an afterimage, flying with full speed toward the direction where the light pillar rose.

At the same time, at the source of the light pillar, in the abandoned courtyard.

Lin Hong sat cross-legged on the ground, his whole body wrapped in light, his face full of astonishment.

“Not?”

He was a bit bewildered.

At this moment, he had already mostly merged with that drop of blood that came from himself.

That was his own blood.

If he spent time refining it, it could raise his strength by a large margin.

But he had an intuition that he couldn’t do that.

The use of this drop of blood was not for this, but to maximize his combat power in a short time.

And at the final moment, a problem unexpectedly arose.

The remaining small half of the drop of blood flew out of his body uncontrollably.

A faint dark light hovered in the air, trembling slightly, then shot into the sky!