Rise Of The Infinite Sovereign-Chapter 368: Killing an Astral Beast

*Bam!*

The astral beam smashed into Ezra’s ice wall, pushing him backwards as it sought to engulf him whole.

Gritting his teeth, Ezra continuously reinforces the ice barrier but his energy reserves were quickly drying up.

’I may have underestimated it too much...!’ Ezra thought.

Perhaps distracting it on his lonesome wasn’t such a good idea.

’Zydrax, any ideas?!’

[I’m already on it] Zydrax hastily responded.

As seconds passed, under the constant bombardment of the astral beam, Ezra’s ice wall inevitably began to crack.

’Zydrax, could you hurry up a little!’

He was not responded to. As the ice wall cracked even further, Ezra saw a figure race towards the astral beast.

The head officer!

"Take this, you mangy beast!"

Changing stances, the head officer threw the spear in his grip, launching it towards the beast’s exposed head.

To concentrate its breath on Ezra, it had receded the poisonous fumes surrounding it, allowing the spear to dig right onto its left eye.

Kraaaa!

The astral beast screamed, moving his head every which way which in turn turned the beam away from Ezra as it flailed in anguish.

Nearby stargates were all destroyed and many evacuating spaceships were blown to bits.

Whilst many officers that had been floundering were engulfed and killed as well.

As for planet Cretin, a bright blue shield covered it on all sides, blocking the beam from penetrating.

All transit stations naturally had all sorts of defences in case of scavengers and astral beasts as well.

The head officer on the other hand was like a fish in water in such chaotic situations.

Not only did he dodge the beam easily, he continuously attacked at the astral beast with energy beams, making sure it felt the extra sting.

Taking the chance, Ezra bolted away from his position, eager to get out of the beam’s range. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm

Unfortunately for Ezra, the flailing beam collided with his flight path, and struck him a second time.

With the ice wall’s durability very low, it stopped the beam for only four seconds before shattering.

Instantly changing his flight path, Ezra sought to completely avoid the beam but was unsuccessful as it smashed into his legs and sent him tumbling across space before coming to a standstill.

’Shit!’

Ezra was outraged and frustrated.

That attack would cause him the loss of half of a minor cultivation level at the very least!

Rather regretting his decision, Ezra bolted, heading straight towards the beast with a neutral expression.

His decision to fight was not wrong; he just needed to produce a result that would prove as such.

And there could be no time better than now to do so.

With the beast flailing, he could deal substantial damage before it could regain its coordination.

Not only that. To begin calculating losses before the battle had even ended was a very stupid move.

Letting out a breath, Ezra kept his killing intent from surging as he activated at the highest level, erasing the presence of his life to render himself invisible and practically non-existent.

While the energy cost was exorbitant, it let him close in on the astral beast without anyone being none the wiser.

On the other hand, the astral beast finally calmed and ceased its astral breath.

Its remaining eye snapped towards the head officer, who was still stinging it with energy beams.

Enraged, the astral beast no longer flailed like a shrimp and instead swiftly closed in on the head officer.

Not giving the head officer time to maneuver, the beast slapped him away with its tail like a baseball and sent him flying straight back to cretin hub.

The astral beast then settled down, its eyes darting in every direction to find the first nuisance it sought to kill.

Upon not finding any trace of Ezra, the beast brought back focus to the planet in front of it.

Opening its mouth to spew another astral breath, something struck its second eye.

KRAAA!

Its scream was much louder than the first time and its regained calmness instantly vanished as it flailed madly, pain having engulfed its senses.

Sticking to the beast like a parasite, Ezra stabbed its eye a second time.

KRAA!

Prompting it to scream a third time.

Quickly, Ezra pulled out skyfall, now in twin swords form.

Engulfed in pain, fear creeped into its mind from its lack of eyes and the inability to sense the enemy at all.

It started releasing astral fumes all over its body to ward away the attacker, but Ezra had already moved a distance away.

With universe concealment cancelled, he was avoiding the beast’s senses and looking for a weak spot from afar.

Having lost both eyes on what should’ve been an easy hunt, the astral beast no longer had the confidence to continue and turned to flee.

Ezra’s eyes narrowed at the sight.

’No you don’t’

Instantly, he dives. Heading below the astral beast.

There were already many guides on how best to fight astral beasts ever since the astral war took place.

Whilst reading in the library, Zydrax had enlightened him on this part as he too had fought Astral beasts at least three dozen times.

[There are various types of astral beasts, but their most common weak point is their underbelly. If you can get to it, there’s no better place to strike]

He’d only observed to confirm if there were other alternatives and also recover his energy.

Stationing himself far below the astral beast’s underside obscured by the poisonous fumes, Ezra activated and created an energy barrier around his body.

While he normally shouldn’t have enough energy for such a stunt, his cultivation was rising in real time, increasing his energy capacity and recovery speed.

While surprising, it was not enough to cause Ezra to lose focus at all. At this stage, very few things could genuinely shock him.

Seeing as he was not doing anything remotely close to cultivating, Ezra just smiled, grasping the situation.

’It’s Zydrax’

There were few things that could match the utility of a reliable ally.

Ezra then placed the two halves of skyfall back together, but had the blades stay straight and not curve, making skyfall into a double sword rather than a double scythe.

With a smile on his face, Ezra shot straight up like a beacon of light, bee-lining for the beast’s belly.

Whilst leisurely escaping, the astral beast’s instincts suddenly rang loud, signalling imminent danger.

Unable to sense anything, it picked up the pace, flapping his tail hard.

But it was already too late.

Approaching with immense momentum, Ezra simply tilted to adjust his direction.

Closing in, Ezra sent out ice slashes with skyfall, freezing the astral fumes, allowing Ezra to simply break past it.

Beyond it was the beast’s underside, and thankfully, it was unguarded just like he had speculated!

Without stopping, Ezra deactivates and strengthens his energy barrier.

The beast senses him, but before it could even process a reaction, Ezra pierced into its belly.

Tearing through extraordinarily hard flesh, Ezra dared not stop, else this would be his grave.

"AHH!"

KRAAAA!

While Ezra shouted for strength, the beast shrieked in pain.

And then...

SHA!

Ezra tore through its body and exited from its armoured back, uprooting a few scales as he did.

KRAAAA!

Still shrieking, the beast looked pitiful with its blood pouring out like water, but it was still a distance away from dying.

It hadn’t even lost control of its body.

"As I thought, that wasn’t enough to kill you" Ezra intoned while releasing steam from his body.

The beast’s blood was blocked by his barrier and dissipated into purple dust, looking similar to the fumes it’s kept spewing.

He wasn’t surprised, if astral beasts could be killed that easily, the astral war wouldn’t have been half as devastating as it was.

He expected himself to have run out of energy after such an attack, but Ezra found that he still had a lot to spare.

So, he decided not to hold himself back.

In the next instant, Ezra dives right back into the beast’s body through the hole he’d just created on its back, not giving the astral beast any chance to pull itself together.

Like a miner mining for gold, Ezra tore through the beast’s insides, creating new pathways before tearing another hole through its belly.

And again, and again, and again.

On the sixth attempt, Ezra takes advantage of its blind and lethargic state to go in through its mouth, before tearing straight through its body to exit from the tail.

Kraa...

Its last cry was so lame it was almost mute, having lost all its energy and lots of blood, the beast finally succumbed to its injuries.

Coming to a stop, Ezra’s chest heaved incessantly, utterly fatigued from the ordeal.

But the triumphant smile on his face did not cease.

While he aimed to wound the beast, he hadn’t expected that he would be able to actually kill it.

It seemed he had underestimated his own strength as well.

’No’ Ezra shook his head and got into a lotus position, sending skyfall back to his universe.

As he washed away his fatigue, he assessed his soul, gauging his cultivation level.

Sure enough, it was as he suspected.

More of his soul had been refined, meaning he had risen a whole rank during the battle, now a rank three transcendent.

Ezra nodded, having expected such.

’This was the reason I was able to kill it’

Had he been a rank two transcendent throughout, his energy would’ve ran out after the first strike through the astral beast’s belly.

Even if he had risen to rank three earlier, he might’ve not have had it so easy because his energy would run out, but because his breakthrough happened while he fought, he was able to tap into the excess energy provided.

Breaking through to rank three and killing an astral beast at the same time.

’Nice!’

While just a small milestone in the grand scheme of things, Ezra had made it necessary to congratulate himself and savour a sense of accomplishment before moving onto the next thing ever since his time as Kevin.

Not doing so sometimes led to diminished interest or conversely, could make such pleasures feel like a burden instead as every milestone was hard to achieve.

Moreover, as the one who bears all the risk and hard work, Ezra felt one owed it to himself to feel good at such moments.

Sigh

Ezra sighs, recalling the moments before his imprisonment in Arcadia, when he was obsessed with revenge.

At that time, he had not felt much pleasure from most of his accomplishment, only that they matched his expectations.

Ezra let out a breath of relief. He was different now, and everything else had changed as well.

Looking over the corpse of the astral beast, his smile resurfaced.

Just as astral were creatures of chaos, there was another reason why higher beings still hunt them down with fervour.

Their bodies were rare ingredients used to create top-class elixirs that helped cultivation while their bones could be grinded into dust to be mixed in ink to create magical arrays or made into high class weapons and many more functions.

The elixirs created had different effects, some directly increased one’s cultivation aptitude while others increased one’s cultivation speed up to ten times!

As such, they were highly sought after by all races, making astral beasts greatly coveted yet greatly feared at the same time.

It was no wonder Ezra couldn’t stop smiling.

’I wonder how many elixirs I can make from this’ he thought, moving closer to examine the corpse at close range.

’I can have weapons made out of those teeth’

This battle highlighted the issue of only having one weapon. If he had a spear, the battle would’ve been easier.

Speaking of spears, Ezra pulled out the head officer’s spear impaled into the beast’s left eye.

Not only did the spear blind it, because of its small size, the beast couldn’t remove it.

It was similar to having a needle stuck in the human eye.

That had to be excruciating.

Ezra almost felt bad for it.

Darting his head from side to side checking for onlookers, Ezra used and placed the spear into his universe.

What? He was taking his spoils of battle.

Besides, the head officer would definitely have a lot to spare.

Without warning, a spaceship jumped out of hyper drive to appear at his side.

Immediately, Ezra put his guard up, summoning skyfall into his hands.

As the glass hatch opened, a familiar face popped out.

"Head officer?"

Speak of the devil.

But unlike his previous boisterous figure, the head officer was wrapped in bandages all over.

His right arm was wrapped in bandages, as was his left leg all the way to his knee and his head.

A single strike from the astral beast had almost incapacitated him.

Nevertheless, the head officer maintained his upright posture.

"Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be resting with those kinds of injuries?"

"I had to see it for myself. I needed to make sure" said the head officer in a slow tone.

"See what?"

"That" he points to the corpse of the astral beast. "I knew you had killed it, but I couldn’t resist coming to see it up close"

His eyes were shining, but they didn’t have the light of greed in them. It felt more like genuine admiration.

Then, the head office turned to him, and bent his head.

"Thank you for protecting the cretin hub"

"I only did it for the money," Ezra replied.

"Even so," the head officer replied. "I must thank you"