Chapter 232: Immortal vine
"Shut up already, you could burst someone’s eardrums at this rate." Damon appeared, picking his ear with his pinkie.
He deliberately let the full weight of his Zeta+ rank ascension fall on the world, announcing his presence to the two. In a way, it was another way of saying; I am not to be trifled with.
And true to his thoughts, both had different thoughts. ’So this bastard is one of the two at the Zeta+ rank along with that demon.’ Ivis frowned in realization. ’And he seems to have a troublesome ability.’
’So this human is my target.’ Kaal thought. Even though the human was the other individual at the Zeta+ rank along side himself, Kaal wasn’t bothered about that. All that he cared about was that the human was his target.
"Alright, I’m here what are you going to do about it, you dared me, didn’t you?" Damon smirked, standing with his hands crossed.
"This bastard..." Ivis clenched his teeth.
"You, demon!" He turned to Kaal and called. Ever since Kaal ignored him during the banquet, Ivis had stopped dignifying Kaal with a name even in his thoughts. "I’ll forget about tagging you, all I need is your help to kill this arrogant human."
Meanwhile Damon’s eyes widened in faux surprise.
"Arrogant? Me? Please, I’ve been called many things, but not arrogant. I am the most humblest of beings." Damon humbly bowed.
"I do not need your help to tag my target, elf." Kaal refused after a while of deliberation. How would he look if he was teaming up with someone against another candidate. It would be like admitting that the person he was teaming up against, was stronger than he was.
"Fine, have it your way." Ivis didn’t press further. The earth violently caved in as he disappeared from his spot, lunging straight at Damon, his rapier piercing towards the unruly prince’s neck.
For a moment, it seemed like Damon was unable to respond to the elf prince’s speed as the rapier inches closer and closer to his throat.
But at the last second, Damon shifted his body to the side with maddening grace, letting the rapier bypass him entirely, along with Ivis himself.
Debris exploded into the air and a pressurized shockwave burst outwards from his person as Ivis came to a stop almost instantly, and twisted his body, his rapier falling towards Damon’s shoulder with chilling certainty.
Damon’s instincts flared, as his speed peaked to it’s physical limit. In the same heartbeat, Damon shifted to the side once more, his hand snaking it’s way through the elf prince’s openings, and palming towards his shoulder.
But Ivis was no novice, his body bent backwards, as his leg kicked towards Damon’s jaw. However, Ivis’ leg never reached Damon’s jaw as the unruly prince ducked down on all fours, and swept Ivis’ other leg off the ground, before delivering a brutal horseback kick to side of Ivis’ head, but the elven prince blocked with his forearm at the last moment.
In the next instant, the world blurred for Ivis as his body tore through the air from the force of the kick, before eventually skidding on the ground as his legs tore deep trenches into the earth.
"Wow, would you look at that, you’re stronger than I thought." A mocking voice came from behind Ivis.
Ivis’s face literally turned red in anger as he slowly straightened. His aura blasted out of his body like a tidal wave, twisting the very environment around him. The short exchange between he and Damon had been just sheer physicality. No aether was involved, talk less of techniques or abilities.
"Thanks but I’ll pass, hehe...." Damon giggled. But his giggle fizzled to a stop as all the blood in his body acted at once, freezing his body in its entirety.
’Fuck, over confidence got me trapped.’ Damon thought. Thankfully, his abilities were mentally activated. Just as kaal’s figure appeared next to him, his hand falling towards Damon’s shoulder, Damon slipped into the mirror dimension.
"That was a low ball, you know?" Damon looked towards Kaal after regaining full control of his body. The demon Prince was staring at the hand that passed through Damon as if he wasn’t there.
You’re tricky, human." Kaal muttered almost to himself.
"Let me see, how many times have I been called tricky?" Damon hummed with a hand on his cheek, but soon shook his head.
"It doesn’t matter anyway, what matters is that you are not tagging me, demon Prince." Damon said with a confident smile.
"I suppose." Kaal muttered with a calm expression. He had long deduced that. The moment Damon entered what Kaal would like to describe as a personal space, he lost control of the blood in Damon’s body.
Meaning, there was no way he could successfully get to Damon. But this encounter with Damon wasn’t all that bad. Yes, he would be losing one of his three strokes, but he noticed Damon had also already lost one.
Plus, he had glimpsed some insights on who was perhaps his greatest obstacle to winning the convergence.
"You, elf boy." Damon called out at Ivis. "Good luck on tagging the demon Prince here." he pointed at Kaal. He knew there was little to no chance of Ivis’ ever tagging Kaal. Besides, there was only about three to four minutes before the round ended.
"See you." he made a peace sign and disappeared, leaving the two to duke it out.
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Meanwhile, in another part of the pocket realm, the moment the second round began, the images of both her tagger and target appeared before Delilah.
She didn’t recognize her target, but she did recognize her tagger, very well in fact. And according to what she learned about him, there was little to no chance escape getting tagged.
So, before he could find her, she resolved to find her target first. Luckily for her, the tracker showed that her tagger was at least twenty something kilometers away from her current location.
But Delilah didn’t have a way to sense locations kilometers away, so she could only choose to go in an opposite direction from her approaching tagger, in hopes that she would meet her target first.
After deciding that, Delilah sped in that direction at full speed, taking full advantage of her new breakthrough to the Zeta- rank and aether reinforcement to reach speeds completely inaccessible to her before.
A full minute of sprinting later, Delilah sighted a figure in the distance. The moment she did, a small smile appeared on her face as she recognized the figure. He was her target.
"I’ve been waiting for you, human." the young merman said with a smile.
"You were waiting for me knowing I was coming to tag you? That doesn’t sound very sensible of you." Delilah laid out.
"You see, a human made me extremely angry in the last round." he muttered as a scythe appeared in his hand. "I’ve been wanting to carve out a human ever since."
Delilah’s bow also appeared in her hand. She had to finish this as fast as she could, her tagger was rapidly closing in.
Delilah drew her her bow string taut in the same instant the merman launched towards her.
Delilah shot five wooden arrows at the same time, each bridging the sound barrier with relative ease, but the merman blocked and parried each with his scythe.
Delilah however, did nothing else, and instead waited for him to reach her. She was absolutely confident in her new ability.
The moment the merman reached a meter away from Delilah, thick vines burst out from the ground at speeds he could barely comprehend. In an instant, the merman was captured and immobilized within those vines.
====Status====
Name: Delilah whetstone
Status: First princess of the Whetstone empire.
Rank : Zeta-
Strength : Zeta
Agility : Zeta
Stamina : Zera-
Intelligence : Delta-
Aether capacity : Zeta-
Luck : Delta
Charm : Alpha
Techniques : Stalker’s movement (Grandmaster), Bow art( Grandmaster), Aether reinforcement (Grandmaster), Air steps(Grandmaster)...
Unique physique: Nature Herald’s physique (Alpha rank.)
– Initial ability: Wood formation: [You can create wooden structures, from the smallest needle to the biggest tree, so much as you have enough aether.]
– Zeta ability: Immortal vines: [The immortal vines that existed since times immemorial are at your service.]
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That was Delilah’s new ability, and she was more than satisfied with it. Though she had been hoping for an ability that could enhance her archery skills, this one was even better.
After musing for a few seconds, she walked towards the bound merman and tapped his shoulder, before commanding the vines to fade away.
The vines punched back into the ground, taking the merman with them.
"What a coincidence, I got a somewhat strong person this time." A voice drifted towards Delilah from a few meters away.
Turning her head, she saw her tagger, Namor Stormborne.
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