Extraordinary Voyage-Chapter 859 - 737: Minor Surgery! Accelerated Aging!
The shadows of the entire forest transformed into the claws of a Banshee, and the sound of nails scratching glass filled the ears with a piercing screech.
The [Corrupt Odorous Crawler] glared fiercely at Aiven, who was surrounded by a sea of ghostly claws, as if regaining the confidence it had initially. The lips made of fly maggots squirmed as it spat out "venom":
"Kaka, I inherited most of the power and knowledge from an Upper-Rank Wizard of the 'Shadow School,' and with the help of divine power and long years, I ascended to Tier 4.
Machinations are just my hobby. In the Shadow Realm, this is my home turf. Even if faced with two or three Titled Knight Level foes simultaneously, I can still retreat unscathed. You think you can chase me into the Shadow Realm with just a juvenile Shadow Dragon? You're the one who's doomed!"
Sizzle—
Before the words had finished, the sound of ripping silk already echoed through the heavens and the earth.
A dazzling electric light burst forth from the pitch-black shadow curtain, easily tearing a large hole through the wave of spectral claws.
The witchcraft of the "Life Tree School" excels in transformation and creation, while the "Badge Knight" fully harnesses the extreme power of Thunderbolt!
With a hand on the sword hilt, Aiven stepped forward with electric light faintly flickering around him, his crisp black military uniform without even a crease, while Kaka had already retreated into his shadow once more.
A long blade, blindingly white all over and seemingly made of Sword Qi or electric light, circled around him like a swimming fish, cutting down the ghostly claws daring to approach.
Legend tells of the saber [Thunderous Dragon Roar: Sakanni], made of steel, dragon scales, and the Morning Star, capable of instantly killing ten thousand war elephants in one blow. Although Aiven might not yet reach that level, he still possesses the foundational capability of [Outdoors].
"One against three? You can't generalize about people; in a fit of extreme anger, I once punched through fifty meters of... cough."
With a slight cough, Aiven's counterattack arrived synchronously, black and red light flashed at his fingertips, shooting electrically towards the titled Crowned Demon on the opposite side.
[Witchcraft: Flesh and Blood Collapse]
This type of collective organism, although having stronger survival ability and can continually recover as long as a portion of the body remains, has lower resistance to this kind of witchcraft.
Aiven certainly couldn't instantly kill a Tier 4 Mage who could create myriad avatars, like a [Crawler]. But the longer the time dragged on, the more generations the opponent reproduced, and the more "ailing" it became, so Aiven wasn't anxious at all.
However, the Crowned Demon, who had entered its home turf and prepared to use its full strength to counter-kill Aiven, was not to be underestimated either.
Tene—
A twisting black rune circle, resembling both a snake and a worm, exploded around it.
[Solidification: Black Magic Aura]: Creates a temporary ritual altar effect, enhancing the power of Black Witchcraft and speeding up the recovery of magic power, making it particularly beloved by poor Black Wizards unable to afford expensive rituals.
At the same time, it followed up with [Witchcraft Shield: Shadow Cloak], suddenly seeming to drape the clawing black forest below it over its body, and the black and red beam disappeared without a trace once it was immersed in the dense shadows.
Then, it suddenly merged into the darkness below its body.
Shoo! Shoo! Shoo!...
The ever-present shadows in the Shadow Realm transformed in the blink of an eye into a swamp of constant writhing, thousands of enormous black tentacles sprouting hideous heads like giant worms, soaring up to weave a massive web sealing the sky and the earth.
They wriggled beneath Aiven's feet and above his head as if each tentacle had its own independent consciousness, somewhat akin to thousands of fly maggots completing their shadow transformation.
[Talent Magic: Scorpion Shadow Demon]
Equally adept at offense and defense, one move could annihilate a human legion.
"Stunned? Not just the fly maggot main body, I am immortal in the Shadow Realm! Ahahaha..."
The entire dark forest echoed with the maniacal laughter of the Crowned Demon.
"Not necessarily."
Surrounded at the center of the "Scorpion Basin," Aiven gradually opened up his mind and body, his human form rapidly dissipating, piercing through the insect web and ascending into the sky. Accompanied by rolling thunder, he transformed into a massive energy body of intangible and formless nature, obscuring half the sky.
[Badge Knight: Meteorological Spirit Form]
Even though the Shadow Elements in the Shadow Realm are extremely active, suppressing the activity of other magic elements,
as long as there is a physical environment similar to the Material World, or even in a completely Absolute Spirit environment, it doesn't hinder Aiven from initiating a massive thunderstorm through physical means.
Previously in the Material World, the Crowned Demon could always escape into the Shadow Realm upon a whim. Now, after displaying a form deeply fused with the Shadow Realm, where do you plan to escape?
In the position corresponding to the Material World, there are three hundred axemen already prepared.
'Since I've set the stage, it would be a pity not to charge forward with your cooperation.'
Giving no time for the Crowned Demon to react, in the blink of an eye.
Aiven leveraged minimal power like a lever, to pry open the massive energy mass, innumerable blue and white electric snakes coursed through the air, converging into a colossal spherical bolt of lightning descending.
BOOM—!!!
After half a minute, the dazzling flash finally faded.
The facts proved that unless one reached the level of the Black Sea Goddess Hipponeo, burned to ashes yet still undying, the so-called "immortal" is eternally relative.
When Aiven resumed his human form,
he witnessed the [Scorpion Shadow Demon] collapse, and the titled Crowned Demon, reverted to its flesh and blood body, lay shattered across kilometers.
But it didn't choose to reassemble into one, instead transforming into seven independent avatars, simultaneously opening seven black cavities.
"Just you wait, I'll be back... Pah, I'll kill you next time!"
Finally realizing the insurmountable gap between the two of them, a gap that even an Upper-Rank Wizard of the Shadow School couldn't bridge, the seven Crowned Demons threw down a harsh line in unison and disappeared into the cavities.
Although it might lose, it never considered that it could die.
Escaping might come at a heavy price, but as long as at least half of an avatar could escape, it wouldn't take long to regenerate into a new Tier 4 Named Demon—[Corrupt Odorous Crawler].
However, it failed to notice that after suffering this heavy blow and completing another round of widespread proliferation, the fly larvae's update level within its body had already exceeded 100% compared to before the battle.
Hoo!
Aiven, unperturbed, plucked seven or eight strands of hair and blew lightly.
The strands of hair floated, and before they hit the ground, all transformed into Shadow Dragon Dragon-men standing three meters tall, covered entirely in black scale armor, and possessing Tier 3 Senior level.
The "software" Aiven implanted into them was very simple, requiring no communication or thought, with combat instincts enhanced to the extreme, transforming them into the most powerful biological weapons, to fight until the end!
Now, with the witchcraft abilities of an Upper-Rank Wizard combined with the physical essence of a Tier 4 [Badge Knight], he could achieve far beyond what he could before breaking through.
Roar—!
The Shadow Dragon Dragon-men, eyes red with anger, roared and opened [black cavities] to dive in after them.
Soon, the Shadow Realm, the Shadow Realm Crack, and even the Material World, became the battlefield for an interdimensional battle between "Crowned Demons" and the Shadow Dragon Dragon-men.
Dragon Breath and Shadow Magic interwove; if these ten or so Tier 3 individuals gathered together, destroying a city in a short time would be a breeze.
With just a thought, Aiven himself also chased after an avatar, jumping out of the Shadow Realm and returning to the large gold mine located in the Elbert Mountain Range.
Watching the seemingly arrogant monster avatar responsible for drawing firepower in front of him, Aiven wasn't in a hurry to act. He even stopped Anita and the other two from approaching, because at this moment... the outcome was already decided!
On the other hand, the Crowned Demon, who was prepared to play around with them, was bewildered as it looked at the four people surrounding it:
"You all..."
But Aiven interrupted directly:
"Do not speak, you're already dead!"
While the Crowned Demon didn't understand what he meant, it still felt an intense sense of foreboding. Within Aiven's pitiful gaze, it hastily tried to sense the state of its other avatars.
Previously, the [Genetic Hounds] inserted location information into those five or six fly larvae but never emerged again. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺
Once truly inside the Crowned Demon, although there was no normal human circulatory system to swiftly migrate, it could still use the opportunity of the fly larvae's constant proliferation to launch a simultaneous attack on all individuals, stirring a revolutionary storm at the genetic level.
Therefore...
"What is happening? What have you done to me?!"
Soon, the Crowned Demon realized something was amiss and glared at Aiven, roaring angrily.
The Crowned Demon avatar, slightly smaller than an average human, should have been able to rapidly reproduce by consuming magic power, far more challenging to kill than a normal Extraordinary of the same tier. This was its strongest reliance.
But during the battle with the Shadow Dragon Dragon-men, the fly larvae dwindled, the avatar's form shrank, and in a short time, it began to be on the losing side against the Dragon-men.
Aiven looked it up and down, letting out a peculiar laugh:
"Hehehe, from now on, you're a complete man full of masculinity, not a single maggot left, no need to thank me."
The "spiral cone fly" has an extremely rapid metabolism, with an average lifespan of about 20 days. The Crowned Demon even often used them as weapons, consuming them rapidly, requiring constant renewal.
It's more accurate to say that the system they belong to was the [Corrupt Odorous Crawler], drawing a parallel to Jelos's "Theseus School" concept.
But now, they can no longer reproduce, as Aiven's Genetic Hounds had forcibly turned all the mother fly larvae into males, completely cutting off the possibility of this system's cycle.
Finally understanding what Aiven's words meant, the Crowned Demon trembled all over:... Is this even humanly possible?!!
This still wasn't the end.
"Activate [Aging Accelerator]!"
At the end of human chromosomes is a repetitive and non-coding section of DNA that "loses a segment" each time it replicates, known as "telomere".
Based on this theory, the "Derivative Enzyme Preparation" which can extend a regular human's natural lifespan by 30% is Sekhmet Biomedical Company's flagship product.
Under the guidance of the Delis Clan and with the assistance of the "Light of Alchemy," it has become a favorite among the upper echelons of several continental nations, also earning Galliot Duchy significant implicit influence.
It can extend, so naturally, it can also reduce, making the DNA that originally could replicate dozens of times only capable of doing so a few times.
And when a systemic group has no offspring, and the whole is rapidly aging, there can only be one outcome—extinction!
Aiven wasn't sure where the survival limit of this Tier 4 [Corrupt Odorous Crawler] lay; was it a third of its total, a fifth, or just a few fly larvae needed to reproduce again?
Then let the attack intensity overflow fully, eradicating all individual maggots at the same time!!!
