Spellcasting
The inner disciple of Yingzi Sect pulled out a long Dao sword from his own shadow. As he brought it out, his shadow came with it, coating the blade as it grew darker, more tangible, and somewhat viscous... And as drops of the dark substances fell to the ground, they sizzled and emitted smoke.
The foreign cultivator lunged at Edrick, swinging his blade as its reach extended, forming some sort of liquid whip that ate through stone on contact. The scion evaded the attack, analysing his opponent even as the man continuously rushed to strike.
His motions were rather slow, but his weapon struck in wide arcs, sending acidic drops flying with every swing. Nonetheless, Anoteros evaded the attacks with ease.
“This cute little move of yours consumes quite a lot of your ki, doesn’t it? I would recommend that you at least land one attack before you can’t sustain this thing any longer”
“You dare continue to mock me?! I’ll send you straight to hell!”
Something happened to the disciple as his power flared up in intensity. He began moving and swinging faster at the young noble.
‘Ah, yes… I heard of this…’
Anoteros did not feel pressured. Even then, he simply kept evading as he took the time to learn first-hand about the ways of the cultivators of Journomanp. The main inner energy they were not able to eliminate from their bodies was naturally life force, but they did have a use for it. They had techniques to burn their own life force to increase their strength and power.
It was a rather bizarre thing to do, as consuming life force in this manner made it nearly impossible to recover it afterwards. For most, burning life force was a permanent action that would severely hurt their future cultivation endeavours. Yet, this nobody was burning his like crazy to deal with someone he considered a wretch.
…He was definitely a shining, filthy example of a problem plaguing cultivators from Journomanp. They were far too prideful and hot-headed for their own good. From what Edrick had heard, it was to the point of utter madness. Their anger could drive them to do the most foolish of things.
At the moment, Anoteros was getting to experience this quirk of theirs in full, as a mere, wet-behind-the-ears, Foundation Establishment Stage cultivator was burning through his own life force without regard to the consequences or the situation at hand.
“Shouldn’t you have already realised that you were far too slow to land a hit on me? Now is not too late to kiss my ring and worship my sceptre, you know?”
“Silence! How dare you look down on me?! Don’t you know who I am?!”
“...Am I supposed to know you or something? Are you a bigshot? Is your Pador a bigshot?”
“What the hell does ‘Pador’ mean?”
“Oh, I guess it didn’t cross our borders yet? And here I thought the terms had begun seeping down to the general population… It means ‘Papa’. I am asking if your father is famous or powerful”
“You really don’t know who I am? My father is an elder at Yingzi Sect, and he is quite high-ranked! He could very well ascend to be the grand-elder before he turns five hundred years old!”
Anoteros blinked a few times.
“Am I supposed to be impressed by that? What stage is your father in? Core Formation Stage?”
“N-No… He’s…”
“The stage below? Is he at least close to Core Formation? If not, I am sorry to break it to you, but he is either never becoming grand elder, or Yingzi Sect is a place for bums if they have such low standards for their greatest position after sect leader. Or is it reversed? Doesn’t matter either way. You would be better off getting on your knees right now and opening your mouth wide”
“What the hell is wrong with you, you filthy Samelinist?! I am a man. I’ll never get on my knees for another man!”
“That’s what they all say, and besides… The twinks and Foppoofs appreciators have a saying: ‘It isn’t Samelinism to dominate an effeminate man’... I personally don’t care what you think of me. I’ll bed anything that gets me excited down there”
“So, are you dropping down or not?”
The foreign cultivator laughed.
“You fool! While you were exposing your perverted nature, I activated an array I created with my strikes! Did you really think that I missed you?”
“You definitely missed me, and you were turning red from embarrassment about it”
“Shut up! I was creating an array! Now, you’re done for! You’ll be the one begging for mercy on your knees once-”
“Once… Once… Why the hell… Why the fuck is it not activating?”
The scion gave the shadow cultivator an unsettlingly calm smile.
“I don’t mean to spoil your moment or anything, but did you really believe that I wouldn’t notice what you were doing? First of all, you already know that I have a beast companion. Even if you were to catch me in your array, Ansbach would have ripped off your head immediately, and if I noticed what you were doing, why didn’t I stop you? Well, it is partly because I really don’t care, and also because I wanted to test something”
Anoteros pointed his index finger at the inner disciple.
What he had done was very simple: He had used his ability to manipulate ambient energy acquired from the Blutgar technique and bloodline and simply taken control of the energy around himself, completely preventing the array from working as intended. Those things nearly always required ambient energy to function. They were quite energy-hungry, so maintaining them from one’s inner reserve was simply not worth it.
Without crystals to fuel it, only ambient energy was left.
Ambient energy was ownerless, and without energy manipulators or mages, around… Anoteros was pretty much the only one who could exert direct authority over it.
“I suppose you weren’t too bad, considering that you barely qualify as a Foundation Establishment cultivator. You guys in Journomanp are definitely quite the strong folks. Whether as allies or adversaries, I think I’ll take a liking to you all”
“W-Wait! You can’t kill me, if you kill me-”
“I doubt anyone will cross the border to avenge you. Will they even know it was me?”
The colours drained from the foreign cultivator’s face.
“That’s what I thought… Don’t worry, though. Your fate won’t be a bad one”
“R-Really?”
“Of course. My second wife is an excellent cook. You and your friends will be made into a delicious dish”
“You damned maniac, I won’t go down without a fight!”
Anoteros cast another spell of the Magus-King.
He didn’t know which spells were innate to the Paraceratherium Magus species, and which were variants or creations of Daladerium, but regardless, he quite liked this one.
A blast of feral energies took form, striking the cultivator across his midsection, blowing him into two pieces and bursting through a wall before Edrick was able to dispel it.
‘Let’s not break this place too much, Labyrinth Palace likes it’
He chuckled lightly at the scene of carnage.
Wild Missile was indeed a very enjoyable spell to cast.