Chapter 238 — The Last Survivors

With two sharp cracks, both arcs vanished into nothing, and the magic reaction that had been utterly concealed until then finally ceased to hide itself. Amid a powerful surge of energy, Heddy saw a radiant figure suddenly emerge above the open ground at the front of the semicircular hall. It was a creature with a faintly human outline, its whole body shrouded in brilliant thunder and lightning; some violent energy formed its shell and its inner organs, while plates of armor inscribed all over with arcane runes hovered unsupported against the creature's body, like the runic shackles on an elemental being summoned into the mortal world—some incomprehensible means sustaining the form of this "mana humanoid."

The creature had simply materialized out of thin air, and the powerful energy spilling from its body even distorted the air around it with heat. The creature was plainly full of rage and hostility; those two lightning bolts had been its work, and now that it had shown its form it immediately began brewing a fresh assault: two bright spheres of ball lightning rapidly gathered at either side of its body!

"Ancestor, look out!" Heddy instantly cast the strongest mana shield she could muster at her current level over Gao Yang, then at once began chanting every incantation she knew to bolster spell resistance. From that incredible creature she sensed magic that could only be called terrifying, and before such magic she had no idea how much her spells could accomplish.

The soldiers behind Gao Yang, meanwhile, recovered from their brief shock. The uncanny creature was indeed chilling, but the conditioned reflexes of long training made these elite soldiers raise their weapons without thinking. The next second, a dozen searing rays blasted into the bizarre creature wreathed in lightning.

The creature had probably not expected a counterattack to come so quickly, and to come as one vast, unbroken barrage of magic at that. Caught off guard, it was struck again and again, and the ball lightning gathering at its sides vanished with two sharp pops. Yet searing rays of only the second rank clearly could not deal fatal damage to this powerful mana creature that might have lived for centuries; ripples spread across the surface of the body formed of arcane energy, dissolving every attack, and then new spheres of lightning began gathering at its sides once more.

But Gao Yang had already shaken off the numbness left in his body by the lightning's strike on his longsword during that brief opening. Before the new attack came, he had already raised his blade, his body blurring into a continuous trail of afterimages as he charged at high speed, and all those afterimages converged the next second before the mana creature. A sheen of magic rippled over the surface of the Pioneer's sword, and the blade came down hard on the largest silver-white armor plate on the enemy's body.

At the final moment, this powerful mana creature conjured an exceptionally sturdy shield. Though Gao Yang's attack shattered his opponent's shield, it did not cleave that armor plate clean through; he merely sent the mana creature flying bodily, and it left a long scorched streak across the ground trailing a string of lightning. Before it could rise, Gao Yang had already charged in again.

In wretched haste the mana creature conjured a crossed pillar of ice to block the keen blade in Gao Yang's hand, and the next second, a cry of amazement from within its body brought Gao Yang's motion to an abrupt halt.

The mana creature exclaimed in disbelief: "You're real?!"