Chapter 243: Wind Possession
Time marched on mercilessly. Priam fought on the razor-thin line between life and death, tempering the Divine Martial Art, Emperor’s Fists, through pain and exhaustion.
The puppet’s aura remained untouched after two hours of inhuman frenzy. Priam, on the other hand, could feel the crushing weight of exhaustion grinding down his muscles.
To make matters worse, Mirra’s Ether reserves had been completely depleted, forcing him to drain his own reserves to create the nature energy she used to heal him.
With every minute, the energy drain became more terrifying.
"Sky-Rending Wind!"
Priam combined the power of the winds with his fist and unleashed a brutal thrust. The compressed blade of air struck the beast’s chest, sending it flying backward while tearing open a horrifying fifteen-centimeter-deep wound.
However, not a single drop of blood spilled from the wound.
The puppet didn’t even flinch; its aura remained intact, and its movements continued to be terrifyingly precise. A blow like that could split a living being in half, but against that demonic carcass, it was nothing more than a scratch with no bones even showing.
Priam cursed. If the fight dragged on like this, the end would be tragic.
The demon rose from the ground and shot toward him like an out-of-control meteor.
With a primal roar, Priam burned his fifth Berserker Rune.
This time, however, he didn’t hold back the power to use it little by little—he released the entire surge of energy at once. His body exploded with a blinding and terrifying light.
"COME!"
His fist crossed the air cleanly and directly, colliding head-on with the aberration’s storm of fists.
*KBOOOOOOM!*
The collision generated a devastating shockwave. The demon was catapulted backward, smashing into the ground and skidding violently across the chamber.
Priam raised his head and let out a thunderous laugh that made the entire cavern tremble.
A wild, domineering energy radiated from his pores. In that moment of pure catharsis, he had finally achieved complete mastery of that Divine Martial Art.
"The feeling of evolving is incredible!"
He clenched his bloodied fists, feeling a torrent of power pulsing through his flesh. But the celebration didn’t last long.
The six-armed puppet rose once again, frighteningly unharmed.
Even after mastering both martial disciplines, Priam was far from guaranteed a victory.
If his energy were full, it would only be a matter of time before he crushed the creature. The problem was that he had barely 20% of his Ether left.
With no other choice, all that remained was to play his last and most dangerous cards.
Priam closed his eyes for a fraction of a second.
When he opened them again, a pale green glow flashed in his pupils, while blazing runes erupted across his skin.
He activated the Eyes of the Wind and Pyrix bloodlines to their maximum simultaneously, forcing his body and soul beyond any limit.
"Purgatory Prison!"
Becoming a thin mist propelled by the currents of air, Priam floated between the demon’s six arms, dodging by mere millimeters while tracing a sinister pattern through space.
Dozens of fire runes condensed in the surrounding air.
That was one of the most devastating fire Magic Arts he had recently acquired.
*WOOOOOSH!*
Finally, a colossal cage of hellfire rose from the ground, trapping the aberration inside.
As he sealed the spell, Priam turned deathly pale, staggering as he struggled to draw air into his lungs.
Purgatory Prison was a fixed structure; if he failed to trap the monster on the first attempt, the entire sacrifice would have been in vain. Pinning down such a fast target in close-quarters combat bordered on insanity.
For the first time, he used this Magic Art without any restraint, burning his own bloodline down to the marrow. The price came immediately: searing exhaustion and a crushing headache.
*CRASH! CRASH!*
Inside the cage, the demon blindly charged against the blazing bars with brutal force, unable to break through the chains of fire runes.
It slammed itself left and right, but the flames clung to its dead flesh, turning it into a true burning zombie.
Priam wiped away his cold sweat. The durability of that puppet was absurd. If even that magic couldn’t consume it, he would truly be doomed.
However, upon seeing the monster thrashing around aimlessly, Priam sighed in relief. Cornered, the corpse proved to have no real intelligence, moving solely on primitive instincts of aggression.
The prison trembled, and the cavern shook with the desperate impacts, but the Magic Art remained unshaken.
After some time...
The demon suddenly stopped.
It took a few steps backward, and the horn on its forehead lit up with a dazzling glow.
"!"
A devastating beam of light tore through Purgatory Prison and shot straight toward Priam’s chest.
With his reflexes pushed to the limit, Priam threw his body to the side at the very last millisecond.
*BOOOOM!*
The beam tore through the air and collided with the wall at the back. That rock, which had proven completely unbreakable since the beginning of the trials, was pierced as if it were paper.
If Priam’s reflexes had been a fraction of a second slower, he would have taken the full hit. And if that had happened, he doubted there would be anything left of his body to tell the tale.
*BOOOOM!*
Another beam tore through space, and his expression changed drastically. That lightning attack wasn’t a one-time trump card; the puppet could fire it continuously and at an insane speed.
"You fucking cheating bastard!"
Blasts of pure light tore through the chamber without pause, forcing Priam to dodge frantically.
At that moment, the demon’s power had subtly risen beyond that of a ninth-level Arcanist Mage Master.
The God of Fists was truly a sadist for designing this trial.
If the challenger used any means to corner the puppet outside of a hand-to-hand duel... the trial’s hidden mechanic would activate: the demon would abandon the restriction of pure physical combat and start resorting to catastrophic-level energy blasts.
Priam could feel the promise of death radiating from every beam. One single mistake and his physical body would be pulverized.
Seeing the attacks getting faster and faster, and with no energy left to prolong that deadly dance, he gritted his teeth.
’I don’t have the energy to keep this up. I have to risk it now!’
*BOOOOM!*
Dodging another beam that smashed into the ground mere centimeters from his feet, Priam spread his arms wide and burned the Eyes of the Wind bloodline to its absolute limit.
He had already prepared this trump card as a last resort. Now, it was the only choice between victory and death.
"Wind Possession!"
Priam roared, and the pale green light in his eyes shone like two stars about to explode.
That was the ultimate signature move of the Eyes of the Wind race.
Although Priam had obtained this bloodline from a mediocre bastard on a mortal planet, the truth was that all three great races of the universe had been created by terrifying entities.
No bloodline was truly weak. The decline of many races was solely due to the loss of their Ancestral Arts over the millennia.
Priam, however, didn’t have that problem.
*BUZZ!*
The entire cavern trembled under an invisible pressure.
The electrical energy accumulating in the demon’s horn froze, refusing to fire.
At Priam’s command, Purgatory Prison began shrinking at a terrifying speed. The gigantic cage fiercely compressed around the six-armed giant’s body.
*BANG!*
Unable to fire the beams of light, the puppet was forced to channel all its strength into trying to hold back the blazing bars closing in around it.
Priam’s vision darkened, and waves of cold sweat drenched his face. Even so, he refused to give in.
Wind Possession was a peculiar and sublime technique: it allowed the wind element to fuse with other forms of energy, taking control of them in a bizarre way.
What Priam was doing was merging the essence of the wind with the flames of the prison, exponentially multiplying the fire’s power and density.
Maintaining that technique was torture. After all, the bloodline had been created by a being infinitely superior to a Sage, while Priam was only a Mage.
He was pushing his very existence far beyond its safe limits. He drained every last drop of his Ether to end the fight right there. It was all or nothing. If the compression failed, there would be only one desperate move left, one he wanted to avoid at all costs.
Priam gritted his teeth so hard it felt like his head was going to explode.
The flaming prison had shrunk to just over two meters, crushing the demon’s colossal body. Under the terrifying gravitational and thermal pressure, the puppet’s corpse began deforming grotesquely, with chunks of dead flesh being squeezed out through the gaps between the runes.
"DIE!"
Priam roared.
The demon couldn’t even roar; it was a silent and brutal contest of pure endurance.
Priam’s sweat dripped onto the pockmarked ground. His face was as pale as a corpse, and his breathing grew increasingly labored. He had reached absolute collapse.
But victory belongs to whoever can endure one second longer in the storm.
"FUCK!!"
**RUMBLE!**
Purgatory Prison compressed to its absolute limit and exploded from within.
But...
The enemy inside exploded as well.
The demon’s flesh and bones barely had time to be thrown outward before they were instantly reduced to dark ashes. A dense smell of burnt flesh filled the chamber.
With the end, the strength keeping Priam’s body standing collapsed. He fell heavily onto the stone floor and blacked out.