195 Determination (1/2)
The warmth that initially flowed from the [Fusion Seed] into his body had now rapidly heated up into a searing heat that actually burned his divine body, singing his bark and curling the tips of leaves around his form into blackened crisps.
Such was the overwhelming power bordering on self-harm that the [Fusion Seed] granted when not used as an explosive and utilized for its intended purpose - to plant and grow immense, exponentially increasing power that shone extremely powerful like a star before burning out, taking the user with it if he was not careful.
While he felt the heat gathering magical energy within himself, the Dark beast amalgamation landed its blow. The colossal hand slammed onto Li's comparatively miniscule figure, and the impact of the attack was immense, unlike anything that he had ever encountered in this realm of existence.
The impact loosed out a tremendous explosive sound as it made contact with the soil, and the mushy, dark beast waterlogged dirt shot dozens of meters upwards in towering geysers that outlined the handprint.
An immense shockwave surged out from the hand and, instead of gouging out a huge crater as it would have on solid earth, it instead had so much power that it made the soil undulate and cave outwards like liquid waves.
Wind blasted outwards from the point of impact, powerful winds that exceeded the gale force of any earthly hurricane, uprooting every single tree in eye sight and sending them hurtling away into the distance.
Quite literally, any mortal life Li was familiar with in this new world would have simply been eviscerated into a bloody stain from the mere shockwave of the attack.
Li felt damage. Relatively serious damage. He had tanked a full force attack from a level eighty boss, after all, and that, in terms of sheer force and damage, was quite equivalent to tanking an attack from a level 100+ player character.
But he no longer felt mortal conceptions of pain anymore.
He knew he took decent damage, that his life force was lowered, but nothing so trivial as pain limited him.
All around him, he could only see darkness. Squirming, fleshy darkness. He was inside the mouth of the palm, and its spine laced innards were all trying to crush him with intense grinding and cutting force. He could hear the screams and groans of all the individual life forces around him that comprised the amalgamation, all of them trying to desperately eliminate Li and the glowing light in his chest that it so despised.
But thankfully, the insides of the Dark beast were not as powerful as the entire creature itself, doing miniscule damage to Li.
Ugliness that would soon be wiped away.
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”Faye, can you release me?” said Launcelot as he squinted down, making out the bright, sun-like light emanating below that could only have come from Li.
He could shoulder the fall with a [Shield Block] that allowed him to negate the impact of any one attack, including a fall from this height, and from there, he could see what he could do.
Launcelot realized that Faye's hold around his arms were not loosening. He instinctively looked back to her, but the smog prevented him from seeing anything. Instead, he could only hear her voice.
”I cannot,” said Faye. ”If I do, you will go down there, and you will die.”
”No, Faye, you do not understand. I cannot run now, as I have done before. I have to do this. For too long, I have fled when there arose a problem that I could not overcome.” Launcelot recalled Azhar, how he had thoroughly beaten the ranger in their duel, but knew that now, the ranger had grown even stronger, taking that defeat to heart and improving himself.
In contrast, what had Launcelot done? He had trained himself, known himself to be strong, but whenever he was faced with a challenge truly great, truly beyond his capacity, he did not have the will to face it and overcome it.