bookbashuk Chapter 820 - 752: Chance Encounter with Audric (Part 2)
Chapter 820 - 752: Chance Encounter with Audric (Part 2)
"Interesting."
He whispered softly.
The dragon claw began to exert force, pressing downward.
The giant let out a roar, veins bulging on its arms, desperately lifting upwards.
The two giant figures were locked in a stalemate in the night sky.
The hands of the Giant Divine Soldier clasped tightly with the dragon claw that reached out from the golden rift, deadlocked in mid-air.
The two terrifying forces squeezed against each other, causing the air to tremble.
The ground beneath the Giant Divine Soldier continually collapsed, while the dragon claw also trembled slightly, both sides exerting all their strength.
Audric hovered in the air, his brows slightly furrowed.
He didn’t expect this Black Sail’s Earth Element Mage could summon such a thing.
A giant statue over three hundred meters tall, its strength able to contend with his Golden Dragon Bloodline.
Even though he had only summoned a dragon claw and not the complete true form of the Dragon Bloodline, it was enough to surprise him.
"This person..." His expression grew more serious, his gaze falling on the figure surrounded by yellow sand in the distance.
Duke did not respond.
His Spiritual Power was running wildly, maintaining the Giant Divine Soldier while lifting his left hand, five fingers forming a grasp.
Not far away, a hundred-meter-high hill trembled violently, then rose from the ground.
Moving the mountain.
Audric’s pupils slightly contracted.
"My lord, be careful!" Two students from Scarlet Rose beside him cried out in alarm.
They were two Level 2 Mages, a man and a woman, both elites of this batch of Scarlet Rose.
They acted simultaneously; one conjured a golden energy barrier, while the other summoned a giant flame shield to block the falling trajectory of the hill.
Boom——!!
The hill smashed into the barrier and shield.
The barrier lasted less than a breath before shattering with a loud crash.
The flame shield held on for a moment longer, then exploded into a shower of sparks.
The two coughed up blood as they flew backward, hitting the ground heavily, unable to get up again.
The hill continued falling, pressing down toward Audric’s head.
Audric snorted coldly.
He withdrew the dragon claw that was locked with the Giant Divine Soldier, and the golden rift instantly closed.
Audric’s figure shot up from the ground, heading toward the falling hill.
In mid-air, he raised his right hand, forming a grasp with his five fingers.
The golden rift behind him suddenly expanded, and the massive dragon claw covered in golden scales reached out again, this time with all five claws open, fiercely supporting the bottom of the hill.
Boom——!!!
At the moment of collision between the hill and the dragon claw, a terrifying shockwave spread outwards, sending stones and shattered wood flying everywhere.
Audric’s figure slightly sank in the air, with ripples forming in the air beneath his feet.
His brows furrowed deeper.
This mountain... was much heavier than he had imagined.
Not an ordinary rock mountain, but one fortified by that Earth Element Mage using some Secret Technique.
The mountain’s interior was filled with dense Earth Element Energy, its density far exceeding normal, its weight at least doubled.
The five fingers of the dragon claw were deeply embedded in the mountain, the golden scales rubbing against the rock, creating a harsh screeching sound.
Sweat beaded on Audric’s forehead, and the arm reaching through the rift trembled slightly.
The two injured students lay on the ground, watching this scene with wide eyes, full of shock.
They had never seen Audric struggle like this; this inheritor of the Golden Dragon Bloodline was always known to crush his enemies effortlessly.
"My lord..."
"That mountain... is too heavy..."
Audric gritted his teeth, the five fingers of the dragon claw clenching tighter, a golden radiance surging madly from beneath the scales.
His Bloodline Power was driven to the extreme, the veins on that arm bulged, and muscles twitched violently beneath the skin.
The descending momentum of the hill was finally halted.
It hung in mid-air, held aloft by the massive dragon claw, less than a hundred meters from the ground.
Golden light and earthy energy clashed on the mountain’s surface, emitting deep booms.
Suddenly, the oppressive weight disappeared.
It wasn’t that the hill became lighter, but the continuous flow of Earth Element Energy from within the mountain abruptly ceased.
The hill instantly returned to its normal weight, still heavy but completely different from its previous state under magical reinforcement.
Audric staggered slightly from the sudden loss of balance, and the dragon claw instinctively pushed the hill aside.
Rumble——!!
The hill crashed onto an open space a hundred meters away, kicking up a storm of sand and stones.
The earth trembled violently, a deep fissure extending from the impact point.
Dust filled the sky, obscuring everything.
Audric floated in mid-air, and the dragon claw slowly withdrew from the rift, the golden light gradually fading.
His breathing was a bit short, and sweat trickled down his forehead onto his cheeks.
He turned his head to look at where Duke had been.
Only a patch of yellow sand being scattered by the wind remained, and two students lying on the ground groaning.
Duke was gone.
Audric narrowed his eyes, extending his perception outward.
Deep underground, a faint dark golden aura was frantically moving away.
But after a few moments, that aura suddenly split into dozens of strands, spreading in all directions, each with similar fluctuations.
His brows furrowed tightly.
Unable to pursue.
After Duke’s Elementalization and retreat underground, with the intention to escape, Audric had no way to capture him.
Audric remained silent for a few moments, then slowly descended.
He stood amidst the desolate ruins, gazing in the direction Duke had vanished, his eyes deep.
"Next time, I won’t let you escape so easily," he said softly.
The two students struggled to their feet, faces full of shame: "My lord, we..."
Audric did not look at them.
He merely raised a hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead, then turned and walked away.
"Let’s go."
Deep underground, the sand current that Duke had transformed into continued traveling for an hour until Audric’s aura could no longer be sensed, then gradually slowed.
He did not stop immediately but extended a strand of Spiritual Power backward to confirm there were no signs of pursuit before changing direction, moving diagonally upward.
Duke did not want to get entangled with Audric; he knew he couldn’t take him down quickly, and lingering would only cause trouble, so he had fled right away.
After traveling for about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, the rock layers ahead suddenly became loose.
The sand current slipped through the crevice, revealing a natural underground cave.
The cave wasn’t large, about ten square meters, surrounded by hard rock walls, with several cracks in the ceiling allowing a faint glimmer of light to peek through.
The ground was covered in fine sand and stones, and in the corner, a small puddle of underground water seeped from the rock fissures.
Duke coalesced his form from the sand current and landed on the ground.
He stood still, closing his eyes to sense the surroundings for a moment.
Thick rock layers surrounded the cave, devoid of any powerful life forms’ auras.
Above lay at least several hundred meters of rock and soil; even a Level 3 power, if not deliberately searching inch by inch, would find it hard to discover this place.
After resting for a while, he pushed himself up, took out several sets of Witch Arrays from his Space Ring, and began arranging them around the cave.
Once the Witch Arrays were set up, Duke finally relaxed and sat back down.
He took out those culture vials, lining them up in front of him.
This haul was even more bountiful than anticipated.
From the Strawberry Tribe, he obtained seven bottles of Level 1 Essence and one bottle of Level 2 Essence, which he had consumed entirely that evening.
And just now, Duke did a quick inventory of the other tribe.
Level 2 Essence, three bottles.
From those three Level 2 elders, each bottle’s concentration comparable to Elder Qingvine’s, with one even slightly stronger.
Level 1 Essence, forty-three bottles.
A total of forty-three bottles of Level 1 Essence and three bottles of Level 2 Essence.
Duke looked at the rows of culture vials emitting a verdant green glow before him, and remained silent for a few moments.
If he absorbed all these, including the ones he had already consumed, he wasn’t sure how much his Spiritual Power would increase.
Roughly estimated, each bottle of Level 1 Essence could increase his Spiritual Power by 0.5 to 0.8 points, so forty bottles would amount to twenty to thirty points.
But Duke knew well that this estimate was overly optimistic.
Generally, resources that enhance Spiritual Power have a consumption limit.