Chapter 417 (1/2)
Crunch, creak, crush—
The bones forming a tight sphere continued to compress into something even smaller. As the power behind the compression grew and as the size of the bone mass shrunk unnaturally, the impact force crushing down on Tyrant increased.
Of course, Su-hyeun didn’t expect this much of an attack to cause any lasting damage to his opponent.
Wu-dududuk—
Bang—!
An arm crushed all the bones in its way and broke through the surface. Once an arm was freed, the rest didn’t prove to be difficult to free. Tyrant easily shattered the bones tightening around him and escaped completely.
Dribble…
Drip, drip…
Black blood leaked from his body and dripped on the ground. Su-hyeun stared at that wretched figure and thought to himself, “It’s a miracle that he’s not dead yet.”
Many bloody holes had opened up in the Predator’s body, including not just on various vital points but even on one side of his head, which was completely gone now.
Since the sharp bone pile wrapped around him and started crushing him, such a state shouldn’t be all that surprising to see. If such a thing happened to a regular person, they would’ve already ended up as unrecognizable fine meat paste.
Of course, Tyrant was not something that could be compared to a regular person. He was a Predator ranked among One Hundred Evils, after all.
“Even then, his defensive capability is surprisingly weak,” Su-hyeun thought.
Su-hyeun hadn’t even attacked directly. He merely utilized his Necromancer trait to forcibly pry away Tyrant’s control over the skeletons and then, when the Predator had let his guard down, made his throne move. He then injected some of his magical energy and prana to enhance the hardness of the bones. Finally, he proceeded to crush the target using the hardened bones. That was all.
“Or maybe I’ve become stronger than I thought?”
It was hard to determine if this was the reason, at least not right now. Besides, the ability that best represented Tyrant hadn’t entered the picture yet.
Hiss, sizzle…
All those large bloody holes in Tyrant’s body began to close up. The wounds healed at a visible pace; even his complexion, pale as a sheet of paper after all the blood loss, quickly regained its original color.
Extremely high-speed regeneration—that was basically Tyrant’s godly authority.
“You shouldn’t expect me to die just because you managed to open up a few holes in me,” Tyrant said, deeply confident of his own ability. Perhaps that was the reason why he didn’t display any signs of getting flustered about the current situation. “Even I don’t know how I can actually die, after all. My physical body is built in such a way that even if I want to die, it won’t. It’s basically the same as true immortality, the one you people often talk about.”
Riiip—
The Predator suddenly ripped his own limb off while saying that. Despite having ripped off his own arm, Tyrant didn’t even bat an eyelid.
He definitely didn’t hesitate to hurt himself, but Su-hyeun couldn’t tell whether that was because he couldn’t feel pain or he simply didn’t fear it.
“If you really wish to kill me—no wait—if you wish to inflict even a single proper wound on my body, you better be prepared to chop me apart into hundreds of thousands of pieces. If you do that, then who knows? I might really end up with a wound after I finish regenerating.”
Step—
Tyrant stepped forward while speaking up.
Before him, though, were countless skeletons lining up. Spears, blades, and even pointy bone pieces in their hands, plus their sharp and glowing eyes all aimed for the Predator’s direction.
“So, he stole my command over them, is that it…?”
Although Tyrant spoke in a relaxed tone, inwardly, he was quite surprised by this turn of events.
Controlling the dead wasn’t Tyrant’s specialty, true, but even then, he didn’t think there would be a human capable of commanding these many skeletons with ease.
“I see that you’re no ordinary Necromancer, then.”
As they were all skeletons, Tyrant’s virus wouldn’t work anymore. Controlling viruses was an ability that only affected the living, after all.
Since that was the case…
“Just disappear, then.”
Gu-wuuuung—
Tyrant slammed his palm on the ground. At the same time, the land below began quaking ominously.
Gu-gugugu…
Crack, split, craaaack—
The ground split apart, and the terrain separated. All those countless skeleton soldiers helplessly tumbled below the chasm.
Su-hyeun leaped high in the air and watched this event unfold. Luslec’s information turned out to be true, after all.
“Close-quarter hand-to-hand combat, incredible regenerative power, and virus manipulation were supposed to be this Predator’s specialty, right?”
For sure, Tyrant’s physical strength was indeed something else. Splitting the ground apart by simply standing still and slapping it with one hand meant that his power must be extraordinary.
If speed was to be added to such power, then just one strike would be enough to easily destroy a single city.
“Well, in that case, why don’t we find out how long you can keep regenerating?”
Tap—
Su-hyeun landed back on the ground and, while wielding his sword, began to leisurely walk over to Tyrant.
Tyrant also unhurriedly approached Su-hyeun, and so, when they got within 10 steps of each other…
Pa-aht—
Paht—!
In the blink of an eye, their figures seemed to have vanished.
Claaaaang—!
Kwa-woooooo—!
The ground deeply caved in as thunderous noises boomed throughout the surroundings.
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Clang—!
Riiip, craaaack—!
The defensive walls tens of meters tall that surrounded the city were crumbling down. Even if they were several meters thick, crafted with special alloys, and treated with magical defensive means, in the end, they were all useless.
The walls were ripped apart like pieces of paper and crumbled to bits after losing their balance. Among the falling debris, Tyrant was forcing his half-crushed body back up.
Swhooooosh—
POW—!
Just as the Predator stood back up, a long spear suddenly flew straight into his head and stabbed him. The flames burning on the spear quickly set Tyrant on fire, scorching him pitch-black.
Ruuumble—
Fwhooooosh—!
With Tyrant in the center, purple-colored flames rapidly spread out. In the meantime, he yanked the spear that was stabbing him in the head and threw it right back where it came from.
Whooooosh—!
Bang—!
The spear tore through the air and returned to Su-hyeun’s grip. While holding the spear, Su-hyeun stared at Tyrant down below on the ground.
Wiggle, wriggle—
Buzzz, hiss…
Tyrant’s body was in complete tatters. He got chopped up and punched by Su-hyeun’s sword strikes and fists, causing him to fly away and crash into the defensive wall of the city. Even then, he remained undaunted as he stood back up. Su-hyeun threw the spear right back at the Predator.
Not just the spear but all of Su-hyeun’s attacks so far had landed on the Predator’s vital parts. Despite all that, Tyrant continued to regenerate just fine.
“But the rate of his regeneration has slowed down, thanks to my Flame.”
The divine Flame had the side effect of suppressing the opponent’s ability to regenerate. However, Tyrant still regenerated himself at a fairly quick rate despite being burned by the divine Flame.
This had been going on for one hour already.