Chapter 17

The bone general raised his sword up high and Aldrin sensed spirituality fluctuation along the sword, in a brief moment it descended with an unmatchable might slicing Aldrin in two halves while the remnant energy of the attack travelled forward creating a small gully along the earth.

Suddenly Aldrin’s figure turned into wisps of black smoke that floated away.

[Moonlit Escape: Teleport to any position within 20 yards, leaving a shadowy illusion (3/minute)]

This ability had saved his life more than a few times in the past two minutes, it’s been over three minutes since he began fighting the bone general, after it began using battle techniques it soon evolved to using energy attacks making it far more difficult for Aldrin to keep up and if it weren’t for the special effects of his equipment he would have died several times over after a few moments the bone general evolved into using even more devastating attacks, attacks that were amplified by spirituality, his moonlit escape could only be used thrice every minute but barely twenty seconds had passed and he had already used it twice after exhausting the uses of the previous minute.

The only saving grace was that making such attack needed the bone general to charge up for a second and before he could use it and he couldn’t use it consistently, always having a gap of a few seconds between each use but even that still put him at a severe disadvantage as the bone general would use several battle techniques and energy techniques when he wasn’t using the amplified attacks.

Appearing in the air behind the bone general he swung his sword downwards but with a spin the bone general parried the attack, he swung and thrust his sword at the same time creating a rapid flurry of attack that Aldrin was barely able to block, he then made a diagonal slash sending forward a sword energy which Aldrin dodged by moving to the side but that was not the end of it as the bone general brought his sword back upward in a smooth dynamic fashion sending forth another sword energy, in just a single second he sent forth several sword energy weaving a net of sword energy that left Aldrin without any place do dodge, Aldrin was tempted to teleport using moonlit escape but he decided against he could feel that the bone general wanted him to do just that before launching his amplified attack at a point where he could no longer evade it.

[“Night's Shield”: Absorbs 30% of incoming damage for 5 seconds (1/minute)]

A translucent dark energy shield appeared around Aldrin, with the shield absorbing 30% of the damage he began to swing his sword at the incoming sword energy trying to create a breakthrough in the sword net, he was successful but blood was dripping from the corner of his lips.

Immediately after he finished tackling the sword net he felt spirituality fluctuate along the sword of the bone general and his senses perked up, a second later the bone general swung his sword in a horizontal fashion slicing Aldrin in half again but the two halves just turned into shadowy wisps that dissipated a second later.

Aldrin went through his skills again trying to find if there was anything useful for him there but was slightly disappointed, he had nothing usable in combat. The bone General turned to face him standing about 20 yards away before dashing towards him again when suddenly Aldrin’s eyes suddenly landed on spirit suppression, of course while it wasn’t a combat type skill no one ever said it couldn’t be used in combat, when the bone general reached a distance of five yards he raised his sword high and Aldrin activated spirit suppression.

[Spirit Suppression {Spirit; Level 1}: Suppresses target(s) in a 5m radius via spiritual pressure, judgement based on difference in spirituality stats. Cost 20spirit per second. Pressure can be increased at an increase in spirit costs.]

Immediately a formless pressure descended on a range of 5m the bone general was stunned for a brief moment as the flames in its eyes sockets swivelled around as though in confusion but a second later it recovered from it stun but Aldrin was already swinging his sword to attack causing the bone general to move to defend instead, seeing that the bone general could still move effectively Aldrin directly increased the pressure by fivefold increasing the spirituality cost for maintaining the skill from 20spirit per second to 100.

The increase in pressure caused the bone general to become a bit sluggish but his spirituality was rapidly draining.

[Ding. You’ve levelled up to level 21]

[Your contracts have levelled up to level 2]

A notification resounded in his ears but he couldn’t bear to pay attention to it as he was now able to keep with the bone general who was being suppressed but that was just it, he was only able to keep up he neither able to turn the tables nor gain any advantages as they both clashed furiously.

Suddenly he felt a spiritual energy pass through him with its origin from a certain position making him wonder what kind of monster had awakened again, he could barely handle one and now another was approaching. He needed to end this fast, while he was thinking of what to do he felt spiritual fluctuation along the blade of the bone general as he swung downward vertically, without any use of his moonlit escape he could only dodge physically by taking a leap to his side and landing with a roll narrowly escaping the attack that twisted space almost creating a spatial rip.

Over a few experience Aldrin had noticed something, the vertical attacks could be dodged since it was concentrated in a single position but the energy it contained was devastating while the horizontal attack couldn’t be dodged unless he teleported but it was less devastating, the trickiest were the diagonal attacks because one moment it looked like a vertical attack only a slight manipulation would turn it into a diagonal one and thus a wrong judgement would end with him being split in half.

…

The grandmaster crushed the skeleton army while scanning the surroundings with his spiritual perception, an ability that was awakened by zen users at the grandmaster level but there were a few exceptions where talented people were known to have awakened it at the master level. The spiritual perception allowed him to scan and gain information beyond what his eyes could see, it was basically an extra sensory perception, after a few minutes he caught wind of a battle taking place somewhere so he flew in that direction which he noted was towards the highest position in the demiplane.

Upon getting closer he discovered that there were two entities battling the skeleton army along the mountain slope what shocked him the most was that these two entities weren’t human but something he had no idea of, if not for the world energy being moved in their vicinity he wouldn’t have even noticed the battle but after getting there and scanning them with his spiritual perception all he sensed was a piece of rock and a wisp of wind but looking at them they possessed shapes and were even moving and capable of controlling world energy this left him quite perplexed he levitated higher into the air to have a sight of the battle going on but what he saw left him stunned, there was a human in armour fighting an undead.

From the aura and attacks he could sense that the undead possessed a strength that was bordering on the master rank but the attack it used next was capable of affecting space itself, that attack was not something a master could unleash, in fact not even a grandmaster could use such an attack, only a supreme master was capable of unleashing power that could affect space, he couldn’t comprehend how a master was capable of unleashing a supreme level attack but luckily the armoured human was able to dodge it, he was pretty certain that the human was Aldrin as despite looking at him he couldn’t sense his presence at all which confirmed his suspicions that Aldrin had a treasure that could conceal his presence but he was totally shocked about was how he could fight a monster such at that on an equal footing.

“Did he get all those artefacts from his clan or did he visit other places aside my Gryphon Clan.” The elder muttered to himself, he decided to wait out the fight and only interfere when the situation became dire.

…

Both Aldrin and the bone general noticed the arrival of the elder but didn’t bother about him as long as he didn’t interfere in the fight, the duo clashed swords a few more times with the bone general using a few energy attacks which Aldrin was able to handle a bit easier this time.

Suddenly the bone general pulled back putting some distance between them, its jaws chattered as though trying to say something, Aldrin was about to press his attack forward when suddenly he felt pulses of spirituality reach him, at first he was afraid of it being a spiritual attack and was about to pull back when a string of words appeared in his mind.

“You are strong and yet weak.”

“You are pathetic.”

“All weaklings must die.”

Several broken sentence appeared and his eyes narrowed behind his helmet, this was spiritual telepathy, a very complicated technique that required extremely fine control of spiritual energy, he even felt a greater chill wash over him, he couldn’t drag this battle out any longer, he had noticed it earlier but didn’t pay much attention to it.

The bone general was constantly evolving every minute, when they first started fighting it could only move and attack crudely but the next minute it was like a well-oiled engine moving in a refined manner and able to use sword skills, by the third minute it was able to use energy attacks and battle techniques, at the fourth minute it was able to use the spiritual energy amplified attack to deal devastating damage and its ability to manipulate the opponent and battlefield increased as it cooked up strategies. 

This was the fifth minute and it was now capable of even sending spiritual messages, obviously it would be now able to use even powerful battle skills, who knew what it would be able to do after six minutes or seven minutes but Aldrin didn’t want to find out, he had to make a final stand and end it all now.