Shojo was many things but he was not stupid. Greedy, yes. Stupid, no.
If he had truly been stupid, even with the opportunity granted to him a thousand years ago, he would never have reached his current level.
The mont the Crimson Burial Ground scattered, Shojo turned and fled with no hesitation.
He did not count this as cowardice.
A coward fled from fights that carried danger. Shojo fled from fights that carried very unreasonable and unacceptable risk to its life, which was an entirely different calculation. There was no sha in the latter. Only the foolish confused bravery with the willingness to die for no gain.
In any case, retreating now was not the end of anything. The human youth was not going to suddenly disappear from the surface of the world.
It could always try again later.
However, this was exactly what Michael feared.
In a direct confrontation where he had his undead present, a single Legendary Stage creature was not sothing he needed to lose sleep over. The numbers were on his side and as long as he could deploy what he had, the equation was manageable.
But a creature that might choose to stay in the shadows over direct confrontation was a different problem entirely.
Michael was not his undead. He was only a Grand Stage awakener. Against a creature he feared was very close to being a demigod, one punch from Shojo would likely be enough to end his life.
This was why even before the Crimson Burial Ground had finished collapsing, Michael had already given the order for his undead to go all out.
He had no choice.
His territory sat at the forest's edge. He would never be fully at ease within it knowing that sothing of Shojo's caliber was likely eyeing him.
Until this creature was dead, Michael could not rest with genuine peace of mind.
A good enemy was a dead enemy. Michael was a devout believer of this.
Just as Shojo gathered itself to use its spatial prowess and put distance between itself and this situation, it felt the gaze of the Drakeblood lock onto it.
A claw attack ca imdiately after.
Shojo could see the Drakeblood's fire elental law threaded through it, the heat distorting the air around the extended claw as it crossed the distance.
A fire based law was not particularly surprising for anything related to dragon lineage. The blood of dragons ran hot and the affinities that erged from that lineage tended toward the destructive end of the elental spectrum.
What was more hateful was that this Drakeblood's physical strength was just as much of a threat as its law.
Shojo moved to avoid it and felt a spike of anger move through it at the sa ti.
It had not even breathed the open air for a tenth of a second before an attack ca.
Shojo could imdiately tell it was being given no room at all.
The anger settled quickly into sothing colder.
Though Shojo felt a pang of regret over letting its greed cloud its judgnt, and was paying for that now, it was not going to let these people gain an easy advantage over it.
As for teleporting away, Shojo was well aware that beings at the Legendary Stage were capable in spatial matters in ways that those at the Grand Stage simply could not compete with.
At the Legendary Stage, limiting an opponent's ability to teleport was a genuine and commonly employed capability. A careless teleport against the wrong opponent at this level, say against a true spatial master, could result in the attempt being intercepted and the one teleporting being brought back directly into the battle. Of course opponents of that level were rare. Most tis it would simply result in a failed teleportation attempt.
Shojo deflected the Drakeblood's claw attack with enough force to send a shockwave rippling outward through the surrounding trees,
sending many of them flying.
After successfully defending itself, Shojo imdiately turned to run when all of a sudden its vision changed.
The surroundings were no longer the forest.
Below was a world of black water. Above and around, there was
nothing but grey darkness. One could still see, but only within a
limited range.
Shojo imdiately understood what had happened. It had fallen into
another's domain.
Knowing he could not follow the battle in real ti, Michael had left several instructions for his undead.
There were three steps to killing this opponent.
Step one had been cancelling the Crimson Burial Ground. That was
done.
Step two had been pressing the attack the mont they returned,
giving Shojo no breathing room.
Step three was this. The trap itself. A domain where Michael would stop at nothing to kill this monster deer.
"You dare try to actually kill ?!" Shojo roared in rage at the Drakeblood, yet the waves that ca from its scream did not target the Drake but headed in Michael's direction instead.
Michael was still trying his best to follow the fight when a deep sense of dread enveloped him. But just before anything could land, a glass-like mirror appeared in front of him and defended against the
attack.
"Shaless!" Michael snapped, the word coming out before he could
stop it.
On Shojo's end, the anger had not diminished. The two newly ascended undead had withdrawn back into the coffin space, but the other Legendary Stage undead from before remained, protecting the
human youth.
It was also the one who had trapped Shojo in this domain.
To get out of it he needed to either overco it from within with his
own domain or kill the domain owner. Neither of those was a realistic possibility. The forr was blocked because the undead Drakeblood gave him no ti. The latter was also unlikely, not only because of the Drakeblood but because the Legendary Stage undead protecting the youth was not weak either and could be counted as an equal to the
deer.
Seeing that he had the upper hand, Michael knew killing the deer in a short period of ti was not going to be straightforward.
He needed to give his side another edge, but though he could rely on his two other Legendary Stage undead, he did not want to risk it. Lily, for example, did not seem like a good addition to this particular fight, and if she were to take a concentrated attack from the deer it would be a significant loss.
Beginning, on the other hand, could put up a fight but needed to sustain several injuries first to get the necessary boost to beco genuinely useful. This was sothing Beginning had communicated
to him itself based on its brief observation of the deer.
Lily's situation was Michael's own assessnt.
With the mindset that it was better to try than not, Michael activated
a skill he had not used since gaining it from his Ascension.
[Class Skill]: Death's Ground {Perfect Mastery} [Description]: The user designates an area as consecrated ground.
The domain pulses with the authority of death itself, enforcing the
user's will upon all that stands within it. Undead under the user's command are recognized as extensions of that authority. The domain persists as long as the user maintains focus or remains within range. [Effect 1]: All undead within the domain receive 35% Durability, 25% Regeneration, and 20% to all attributes.
[Effect 2]: Fallen enemies within the domain have a chance to rise as
undead under the user's temporary command. [Effect 3]: The domain passively suppresses the combat ability of living enemies within range by 10%.
[Stat Buff]: Strength 10%, Constitution 25%, Agility 10%,
Intelligence 20%
[Range]: Scales with Intelligence. At perfect mastery, base range is
significantly expanded.
The mont Michael activated Death's Ground, a massive mana drain
hit him imdiately.
The initial draw was enormous, followed by a terrifying consumption rate to keep the skill active. But the effect was imdiate.
A domain spread outward from Michael in the form of a ghostly green
mist.
The spread only stopped at five thousand tres out, which was more than enough as Michael's two active undead were both well within range.
The undead Drakeblood reacted massively to the change.
It threw back its head and roared, the sound tearing through the grey
darkness of the undead demonic supernatural's domain. Then it turned back toward Shojo and the aggression behind its next strike was visibly stronger than everything that had co before it. Shojo felt the change imdiately and its expression shifted, though not very visible in its deer form.
Shojo's antlers blazed with a deep crimson light and blood like liquid
started to form around it in mid air before shaping itself into Spears
then following it were Compressed spheres that detonated on
contact.
The Drakeblood did not dodge and t all of it head on.
It drive itself forward and took the spears across its scaled body, letting the detonating spheres burst against its hide it pushed forward through the explosions.
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