Chapter 151: Surpass Your Limits
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Bing Xue had nicely arranged the teams for each pyramid and their bosses according to what she learned about them and the challenges she wanted them to go through. For a Venerable and Martial Master such as herself, assembling teams and giving trials and challenges to her disciples was part of the whole joy of being a Murim Master.
From the very beginning, through her abilities and the information she got from Akhenaten, she knew that the person in this pyramid and their Mechanical God, were a perfect match against Mursha. The orc warrioress, who now had obtained a divine fire ability and was developing a hot-blooded fighting ability, needed to temper her wrath by fighting someone who wielded water.
And right now, Mursha confronted her: Hatshepsut, the spoiled young sister of the Pharaoh of the Empire of the Sun, pilot of Anuket, the Mechanical Goddess of the River Nile, naturally proficient with controlling waters and creating them.
And above all, her Golden Bloodline Ability, which had incredible affinity with Anuket’s Elemental and Divine Powers,
“I’ll make you pay for what you’ve done, you ugly alien!!!” she screamed. “I’ll drown you and your people!”
FLUOSH!
In that moment, Anuket’s Divine Powers surged as endless currents of water materialized from its body one after another. Mursha’s eyes widened as she saw dozens of thick currents of water gather together into an immense being.
“T-That’s…”
As she glanced at the scene, Hatshepsut’s Golden Bloodline Powers combined with Anuket, helping the Mechanical Goddess unleash its powers to a new level.
“{Golden Bloodline Ability}: {Hapi’s Divine Flood}!”
FLUOSH!
The water suddenly took the shape of an enormous god, someone between a woman and a man, the Ancient God of Nile’s Flood, Hapi. Known for bringing the floods to ancient Egypt and therefore fertile soil from the Nile itself.
He was known as a God of Agriculture as well, but above all, of a God of Floods and Life, the same as Anuket, the Goddess of the Nile itself.
Therefore, when both of these powers combined, an incredible synergy was formed!
RUMBLE!
A titan made of endlessly flowing water materialized, a walking ocean of its own; if they wished, the entire city of Giza would be flooded completely!
“So this is why she told me to be careful.”
Mursha smiled at the challenge, her entire body beginning to transform as she activated her Bloodfang Wolf’s Aura, unleashing her Spiritual Powers.
Red fur grew over her arms, legs, and around her chest and back, while her hair merged with her clothes made of giant wolf pelt.
Her eyes turned deep red, and her teeth became sharp canine fangs!
Her axe also grew larger, twice as big as before!
“Time to test how strong I have become…”
She stepped forward across the skies, resembling a blazing meteor, as she reached the titan made of water. Anuket merely opened its enormous hands made of water to reach Mursha.
As she rushed forward across the skies, the water reached her, attempting to catch and then simply drown her or crush her with enormous water pressure.
However…
“Tha ain’t happenin’!”
As she roared, the orc warrioress swung her axe upwards, unleashing a huge wave of pure crimson flames, and her aura emerged, slashing through the hand made of water.
SLAASH!
The sound of her attack slicing through the water echoed across the skies as the titanic hand quickly boiled up and exploded into vapor faster than it could regenerate!
BOOOM!
“Not bad…”
Hatshepsut seemed furious though, as she quickly continued manipulating the titan made of water as she tried to make her way to Giza.
“But is that enough to stop me!? I’ll drown that city of yours and everyone in there! This will be your end for daring to enrage a goddess of water such as myself!”
With a furious roar, Hatshepsut unleashed dozens of floods of water against Mursha; it was no simple water either, rapidly spiraling on itself, swirling angrily, and gathering large quantities of divine power.
Mursha had to rapidly swing her axe, slicing through the water as it came. She rapidly focused, letting her Ki, Spirit Energy, and Mana flow through her body rapidly.
And then.
BA DUM!
Her heart started beating faster as a fourth energy entered her body and started to rapidly enhance her physique and her senses.
The Primal Power that Fiery Hair gifted to her!
A combination of four different energies was harnessed as Mursha saw the incoming floods one by one with extreme accuracy.
“Concentrate…!”
BA DUM!
“You can do… this!”
She swung her axe, slicing through the incoming flooding and spiraling water rivers that came against her, which suddenly started shaping like snakes opening their jaws, sometimes crocodiles, or fish.
“{Divine Bloodfang Axe Arts}: {Abyssal Crimson Fangs}”
SLASH! SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!
Each of her slashing attacks became a huge crimson fang, biting and cleaving through the floods of azure water as they came, making them erupt, explode, and splatter across the skies like rain.
SPLAAASH!
As she continued fighting, Anuket quickly conjured several floods of water—rivers that merged with one another and became even thicker, rushing down from above.
And the same happened from below as well, and then left and right. Each of these floods ended with ferocious snake heads.
“Don’t think I don’t have other abilities!” roared Hatshepsut.
“{Thousand River Snakes of Nile}!”
“Ah!”
Mursha quickly enhanced her body with her Divinity Aura and Spiritual Aura, rapidly strengthening her body, and then tried to take on the attacks as they came.
But it was futile!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
“Graaarrgghhh!”
Mursha screamed as the water spiraled around her body and shaped into countless jaws, trying to bite through her entire body, piercing through her defenses at the same time as drowning her.
Even as a goddess, filling her lungs with too much water and then losing the oxygen she needed to breathe was bound to kill her!
“Nnnggh?!”
She held up her breath as much as she could, but the water was alive; it was constantly trying to wrap around her stomach and her chest, forcing her to open her mouth.
It also tried to coil inside of her noses, ears, and even other orifices!
“Shit, this thing… too much!”
As Mursha struggled to even breathe and move, Hatshepsut laughed, smiling furiously at her.
“See?! This is it! This is what you get for destroying my fleet and daring to come at me like a beast! I am the UNTOUCHABLE princess of the Empire of the Sun!!!”
As she roared furiously with a vile smirk, the princess rapidly closed her fists, intensifying the power of the water around Mursha. The pressure became so enormous that it felt like Mursha was being crushed by tens of thousands of tons.
“Uuugghh?!”
She panicked; the flow of energies around her body halted, and she suddenly couldn’t hold back anymore, opening her mouth as water entered, trying to destroy her from the inside out.
“Y-You’re kidding me?!” she thought. “Am I really going to die right now? so easily?! After... After I avenged my family, after I finally saved Elios with Bing Xue…”
BA DUM!
“After I promised her I would help…”
BA DUM!
“And after I told her to leave this to me!?”
BA DUM!
“After I got so cocky and said I could do this on my own…”
BA DUM!
“Nnggh…! Come on…!”
Suddenly, as she was drowning and being crushed by the immense water pressure, Mursha started controlling her internal energies even faster than before.
BA DUM!
The Primal Power gathered within her heart only, pumping blood through her entire body at lightning speed with hundreds of heartbeats per second.
BA DUM! BA DUM! BA DUM! BA DUM!
Her green skin suddenly started growing red as her tattoos spread further through her body. Spiritual Energy, Mana, and Ki then went to her heart.
“Like this… Come on!”
And then the energies merged together, being refined by the Primal Power and becoming a single, crimson-red energy of divine power.
“I can… do this!”
As the refined energy continued flowing through her body, she noticed something!
Suddenly, two figures emerged from across the skies after seeing Mursha in danger.
A tall Native American woman with a muscular body and long black hair, covered in white tattoos shaped as totems, held a gigantic bone axe. Her aura transformed into that of many Totem Beasts.
A slender man wearing black clothes and holding two black knives, spinning across the skies like a tornado of darkness, attacked Hatshepsut with everything he had.
“What…?!”
Hatshepsut was shocked as she was suddenly attacked. A third of the Water Titan quickly collapsed as the tornado of shadows engulfed the water and sent it flying elsewhere!
BOOOM!
However, that wasn’t all. As the native American woman smiled, the beasts she summoned continued multiplying, turning into a stampede of animals that slashed, bit, and went through anything.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
“Hang in there, Murshaaa!”
It was two of Bing Xue’s disciples—people Mursha had little time to even know but that she realized were friends that would put their lives on the line to help her.
“Jackes…! Aiyana?!”
“Unnggh?! You pests!”
Hatshepsut furiously swung her countless water hands against them, pushing them away with the power of a small tsunami.
SPLAAASH!
Jackes and Aiyana were strong, but against someone like Hatshepsut, they had little power to go against. Endless water flooded it all, regenerated endlessly, and could also easily dampen most attacks.
However, even then, they quickly attacked back anyway! Jackes harnessed all the darkness and shadows he summoned into his body.
“{Abyssal Shadow Knight Sentinel}!”
His entire body absorbed the shadows, becoming a ten-meter-tall giant made of darkness and shadows that were encompassed together into the form of an ancient, armored knight with sharp red eyes.
His knives fused into a giant black sword as Jackes rushed forward, attacking Hatshepsut with everything he had, slicing through the river snakes one after another, trying to free Mursha!
“Mursha, hang in there! Don’t drown!” he said.
SLASH! SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!
However, as many as he cut, the river snakes would simply regenerate once more, wrapping around his giant body and beginning to quickly spread cracks through it!
“Ugh! Dammit!” Jackes screamed.
“Jackes!”
Aiyana screamed as the Ancient Beast Spirits within her many tattoos emerged. These spirits had no relation to Elios, as they were inborn from her own family’s totem guardians.
“{Divine Beast Totem Spirit Fusion}!”
Aiyan activated her special technique she had refined by fusing her Mana and her Ki together. As her entire body trembled, her tattoos materialized into giant body parts, transforming her into a humanoid female beast chimera.
Her arms were like those of a lizard, her legs like those of a lioness, her head like that of a deer with enormous antlers, her torso resembled a wolf’s body, she gained three snake-headed tails, and she had four wings, those of a crow and an eagle.
“{Chimera Totem Embodiment}!”
Becoming fifteen meters tall, Aiyana reached the endless water rivers and slashed them apart one after another. The snakes, which were made of this water, hissed in agony before disappearing one after another.
CLASH! CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!
As all of this happened, Mursha concentrated, closing her eyes and even ignoring how her lungs were full of water and about to burst.
Her heart continued beating despite all odds, enhanced solely by the abilities of her Primal Power, all while constantly refining her other three energies together.
“Come on… concentrate…”
BA DUM!
“Reach the deepest of powers…”
BA DUM!
“You can breakthrough, Mursha!”
BA DUM!
And then, she heard something.
“I believe in you, my daughter.”
Perhaps it was an illusion, a livid dream, or whatever else, but Mursha heard her mother.
And then, the flame of her heart blazed through.
“All my powers so far were different; I couldn’t quite combine them together…”
Yet she realized something in that moment.
What was giving her so much power wasn’t just Primal Power.
But…
Hope!
“I have hope.”
Hope connects all people, all things, and all dreams!
Combining hope with everything else, Mursha created a proper fusion.
Countless winged wolves made of divine golden, red, orange, and black flames surged from her body.
FLUOSH!
The wolves opened their jaws as she swung her axe, devouring and splitting apart the water.
The structure that kept their atoms together was split apart too, and the water instantly…
BOOOM!
Evaporated.
“Wha…?!”
Hatshepsut glanced in utter disbelief as the bubble of water she had Mursha trapped in instantly exploded into vapor, disappearing.
“Thank you, Bing Xue.” Mursha smiled. “You were right! This is what I needed to reach a new level!”
RUMBLE!
With a single step into the skies, Mursha appeared in front of Hatshepsut, and the water titan wrapped around Anuket instantly evaporated.
POOOF!
Dissipating into nothing but vapor!
“How did you…?! HOW DID YOU DO THAT?!”
With a scream full of disbelief, Hatshepsut attacked Mursha with Anuket’s hands, which quickly gathered water and froze it into sharp claws.
“I don’t know what name I could even give it…”
FLUOSH!
Mursha’s Aura erupted as a giant winged wolf emerged, merging with her body and giving her both the wings of the phoenix and the fur and strength of the wolf.
FLASH!
She rushed forward, her wings giving her tremendous speed, and the frozen claws of Anuket...
There was no problem!
“{Divine Bloodfang Axe Arts}: {Abyssal Blood-Winged Wolf of Hope}”
“AWOOOOOO!”
Each of her cleaving attacks created the illusion of an enormous wolf made of blood, darkness, and fire, cutting through all things in front of her with its claws and fiery wings.
SLASH! SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!
“A-Ah…!”
Hatshepsut realized too late that her entire Mechanical Goddess and herself had been cut down to pieces.
“Eh?”
She saw her hands fall apart into pieces, and so did her fingers.
And then, a piece of her face...
Then the rest of her body collapsed at the same time as her Mechanical Goddess.
BOOOM!
Crumbling into the sands below, her plans to drown Giza were thwarted.
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