100X Returns System: I Dominate the Age of Gods-Chapter 219. Kevin’s Struggle

a few minutes earlier....

"I need to plant this array." Kevin told Andrea, who was looking grimly at the crashed figure in front of her. The blueprint of the formation still rested in his hands; the parchment was being handled by him like a precious gemstone.

Andrea nodded. "Be quick; we don’t have much time," she said with a grim expression.

Kevin looked at her with a strange expression. "Why are you panicking? The senior is literally beating the shit out of Bellial." he saaid pointing towards Bellial’s crashed figure.

Andrea turned to look at him grimly. "If only things were so simple," she said.

Kevin did not understand what she was trying to say; he looked at the sky and saw Astral Warden Inari descending from the sky. Her nine tails spread behind her like a fan of white flames as she pushed Bellial toward the ground.

"Look, she is right there."

Andrea looked up and spoke in a hurry.

"Kevin, you need to hurry up!!" she nudged him repeatedly before disappearing towards Inari’s figure.

Kevin, still unconvinced, created some distance and watched the interaction from afar. Soon the colors on his face disappeared as he saw Andrea attacking Inari, and in the next moment Inari’s figure shifted into demon lord Bellial’s.

"Oh no!!" Kevin realized the actual scenario and turned to sprint inside the premises in order to place the formation.

The moment he started running, the battlefield erupted around him. Demons poured through walls and burning pathways, their grotesque forms crawling over broken stone like swarms of insects; they had gained a renewed sense of motivation after witnessing that Bellial had just been fooling around with the enemies and was not actually defeated.

Meanwhile Kevin dodged the demons attacking him and trying to group against him swiftly and moved towards the barrier in a hurry.

On his shoes, several runes flared up, accelerating his pace and pushing his body forward like a launched arrow.

He dodged most of the demons that tried to stop him. Clawed hands swiped through empty air as he slipped past them; his body moved in sharp zigzag motions that left afterimages behind.

Soon he reached the opposite side of the premises, where General Marcus was single-handedly handling hundreds of demons while controlling the academy’s weapons, mainly chains of judgment, with some other commanders of the Celestial army.

Golden chains lashed through the air like living serpents, each swing crushed several demons at once that had earlier been chasing after Kevin.

Marcus floated slightly above the ground, his hands moving continuously as if conducting a deadly orchestra to which golden serpents danced on his commands.

As he saw Kevin running into the inner perimeter, Marcus assisted him and cleared a pathway. A massive chain slammed into the ground before Kevin, smashing a cluster of demons into pulp and opening a clear corridor.

Marcus had no idea where he was rushing to, but still, he decided to assist nonetheless. Kevin was an asset to the academy and the celestial army; they could never afford to lose him.

Kevin blazed through at full speed, and after a few seconds he finally reached the core section where the main formation of the academy was situated.

As soon as he arrived, a sight shocked him. Five academy professors are pouring dissolvents and energy-disrupting materials on the floor. The glowing rune lines on the ground were being smeared and damaged deliberately.

Kevin’s jaw tightened. "What the hell are you doing!!!"

The individuals halted what they were doing and turned to look at him; in that moment, Kevin saw it: blood-red eyes, not like a vampire but a demon.

Demonic energy flared around these professors; there was no need for them to say anything; it was clear what their purpose was and whose spies they were.

"Tsk, the principal should have done a thorough checkup!!!"

Kevin didn’t understand why they were not able to detect spies even after they checked for brain seeding. The realization annoyed Kevin more than he knew.

Meanwhile, the leader of the spies spoke to his aides. "You can calm down; it’s just Kevin. Even though his cultivation is strong, this fragile elf has no affinity; he just knows how to make runes, not fight."

Kevin, who heard this from a distance, raised his brows but did not add anything; he just waved his hands, and a light stone appeared in his hands.

He clenched the light stone and focused while his eyes closed.

The cultists standing in front of him wondered, "Boss, did he just freeze seeing death so close?"

The boss of these cultists did not reply. His eyes remained fixed on Kevin; suddenly he felt something strange. The silence around him became unsettled, and suddenly, the leader moved to attack Kevin, fearing what he was trying to cook up.

But suddenly a blinding flash of light stunned him as well as his minions behind him.

Boom!!

Light elemental energy exploded into the surroundings; the cult members braced themselves. Meanwhile, they saw their leader was flung back a few meters away.

As the smoke dispersed in front of their squinting eyes, a figure emerged.

Kevin’s shirtless form came into sight, and what they saw instilled horror into them.

"I-impossible!!!" one of them spoke.

Kevin’s whole upper torso was covered with runes, runes that were etched on him, on his limbs, chest, back, and neck. Each rune glowed fiercely, burning with concentrated light energy that flowed across his muscles like streams of molten gold.

For the enemies, it was unheard of. Carving runes on the body was abnormal in all senses; nobody had tried to do so, and nobody had the courage to play with death.

Except Kevin.

Kevin did not wait for any show; he quickly appeared in front of each cult member one by one and smashed!

His body moved like a blur.

He smashed heads like watermelons with his bare hands.

Bones cracked violently under his punches as the runes across his body pulsed brighter with each movement.

Light elemental energy moved around his whole body, elevating his combat abilities to a godly level.

One by one these spies lost their lives and were smashed into pulp under his punches.

A few moments passed as he made sure there was no one left in the perimeter.

A few seconds later Kevin deactivated the runes on his body and flopped to the ground exhausted. Smoke emerged from the deactivated runes that appeared like black tattoos on his body.

His muscles trembled uncontrollably as the surge of power faded away. With a moment’s wait, he vomited a mouthful of blood while his eyes released blood at the edge of his lashes; he desperately tried to catch a breath.

He collapsed near a wall and supported himself; clearly, the use of these runes had taken a toll on his body. His chest rose and fell violently while his lungs struggled to pull in air.

He desperately wanted to lose consciousness, but he could not afford to.

If he gave in now, Andrea might die, he told himself. Andrea’s earlier words about sacrificing herself rang in his mind, keeping him awake.

He took out a potion and chugged it down forcefully, at first a health potion, then a stamina potion, then mana recovery potions. He took every concoction he could that he thought would help him move.

The mixture of potions burned down his throat like fire. By the end of those few hellish minutes, he gained an extended period of consciousness that was traded for a piercing headache.

Still, he moved.

At first he replenished the still-running barrier array with new, stronger lightstones before he moved on to planting the array given by the Eternal Sovereign; this was the last hope in his mind that could turn the tables in this battle.

With great effort and with a bleeding mouth and eyes, Kevin moved and securely placed the array beside the main array.

A moment later he neatly placed the 10,000 light stones on the several nodes of the array.

Each stone clicked into its slot with a faint glow.

"Please work," Kevin muttered before resting a palm on one of the nodes and pushing mana in a pattern that would activate the formation.

Kevin’s mana depleted rapidly, yet he still held on until the array hummed and glowed, indicating activation. Light began to travel through the runic lines slowly like streams of a river.

Kevin smiled and took a few steps back before closing his eyes and letting himself collapse on the ground under the weight of gravity.

He was too exhausted and injured to even sit down or find a safe place to collapse.