Chapter 3: The Battle Continues
Kazumi stood in place. The transformation of the White Bone in the distance was proceeding at an extremely fast speed, and it was already too late to interrupt. She turned and cut the threads connecting Takeru Kamikami’s back. This was also why her young girl had dared to let the other party get close to her before. With such a contingency plan, she wasn’t afraid of the other party making a move against her easily.
“You! Elemental ability fusion?”
She looked up at the man’s strong arm, which was constantly burning with black flames. A slender monster head drilled out from within the young girl and bit at the black flames.
The sudden move caught Satō Shin’ichi off guard. He subconsciously pulled his arm away to dodge, only to see the color of the flames return to their original crimson red under the monster’s absorption. Then, it was suppressed by his own powerful physical energy and quickly extinguished.
“Don’t worry, I won’t do these boring things before dealing with that guy. Our objective is the same, isn’t it?”
The young girl naturally knew that the man didn’t have any extra defenses against her. When there was a common enemy, Kazumi was willing to give him a certain degree of trust. After all, after interacting with him a few times, Kazumi had a slight grasp of his personality. He was truly a rare and easy-to-deceive subordinate. To Kazumi, he was the best person to exploit, with that naive sense of a fledgling hero emanating all over him.
“Ah, sorry.”
These words made Satō Shin’ichi feel a little embarrassed. It made him seem like he was judging a gentleman with a petty mind. He awkwardly scratched his head and uttered an apology.
A roar, mixed with terrifying death energy, erupted and interrupted their conversation. In an instant, Kazumi and Satō Shin’ichi’s eyes sharpened, and they both looked towards the White Bone, who had completed its transformation. It floated in mid-air, a dozen centimeters off the ground, surrounded by suffocating chaotic energy currents.
Its current form had completely changed. Takeru Kamikami’s elemental energy and death energy had merged, presenting a horrifying appearance. The originally jade-white skeleton had expanded from within its body, covering its bare skin. A black bone layer, like ink, wrapped around the original skeleton, its surface covered with dark red lines like blood vessels, slowly writhing as if alive. Seven sharp bone spurs extended outwards, each tip suspended with elemental crystals of different colors. A crown-like bone structure extended from behind its skull, with twelve bone spurs spread out radially, each end connected to a chain made of bones filled with elemental energy, swinging slowly in the air with a grating metallic sound.
At this moment, the White Bone was enveloped in incredibly strange elemental energy. The hexagonally embedded crystal in its chest condensed countless struggling soul projections, their distorted faces silently roaring under the ice. Three pairs of lightning-shaped bone wings extended from its back, constantly flashing with lightning. In each arc, faint phantom images of scorched skeletons could be seen. Most terrifying was the vortex-like black core in its chest, wrapped by seven dark golden ribs in a pagoda shape, with ancient runes of blood light. Painful human faces flashed on the surface of the core; the devoured souls were making their final struggles.
The White Bone slowly raised its arms. Its hands had a strange semi-transparent texture, with pale bone patterns faintly visible under the skin. Its left palm floated with dark red lava patterns, while its right hand was wrapped in a barely visible light cyan airflow.
“Not a perfect fusion…”
A voice even more bizarre than before came from the depths of its throat, as if another tone had been added to the original White Bone’s voice, making it sound chaotic and strange.
“But, it’s enough to deal with you!”
As soon as it finished speaking, the three pairs of lightning bone wings on its back suddenly unfurled to their limit, with several lightning serpents flickering between the bone wings. In the next instant, it appeared above the two, its arms crossed over its chest. The black flames and hurricane on its body fused head-on, transforming into a black-and-red tornado exceeding ten meters in diameter, carrying sharp bone spurs and…
“Watch out!”
The speed displayed by the White Bone at this moment was several times faster than before. Before Kazumi could even react, the attack had already arrived. However, Satō Shin’ichi’s reaction speed as a physical fighter was still very good. The moment the White Bone disappeared from its place, he had already moved. He grabbed Kazumi with his strong arm and, together with her, they dodged towards the distance. Even more so, just as the black-and-red tornado was about to engulf them, he heavily swung his stone hand, directly flinging Kazumi towards the distance.
The White Bone was indeed a formidable “General” who had fought his way out of the former organization. His rich combat experience was evident. Whether it was decisively choosing to fuse with the skeleton when he realized he couldn’t quickly defeat the two in front of him with his control over Takeru Kamikami, or the current magnificent tornado attack that made Kazumi’s previous “Ghost Gate” method of blocking attacks ineffective, he had almost found a way to break the stalemate within a few rounds.
On the other hand, the blond man, who was caught in the center of the tornado by the White Bone, was blocking the attack with his hands clasped, yet he was still being cut all over by the death energy-mixed gale. Kazumi, who had successfully landed, managed to squeeze out a sentence with some difficulty.
Not to mention that Kazumi now felt the death energy in the surrounding space starting to converge towards the White Bone’s location. He was trying to regain control of the death energy in this space!
And the attack on Satō Shin’ichi on the other side did not stop. The violent hurricane’s killing power was not high. Even when mixed with death energy, it could only barely break through Satō Shin’ichi’s incredibly tough skin. It was more like it was trying to suppress Satō Shin’ichi in place. Satō Shin’ichi also realized the opponent’s intention and straightened up with difficulty from the gale, trying to leave this place. However, a series of stone walls rising in front of him blocked Satō Shin’ichi’s escape route. The force of the tornado gradually weakened, and Satō Shin’ichi directly leaped up, stepping on the slowly rising square stone walls, trying to get over the obstacle set by the White Bone.
Moreover, a bone-chilling cold wind howled down, forcibly pushing Satō Shin’ichi, who had leaped into mid-air, back to the ground. Within the gaps of the striped stone walls, dark red energy instantly gathered. Violent flame energy erupted from the ground. Under the compression of the enclosed square stone walls, the air was instantly drawn out, turning into a natural steel furnace. In the center of this hellish furnace, Satō Shin’ichi’s figure flickered in and out of view amidst the flames.
