Chapter 163

Including the exact mechanics of their Innate Ancestor Techniques.

As the last wisp of withered-gray Beast Fire went into the demonic pattern in his right pupil, Soren laughed under his breath, one corner of his mouth curling.

[The Heavenly Feather Treasure Armor of the Kunpeng Beast Tribe was forged with Immemorial blood essence of the Kunpeng race worked into it during refinement.]

[Its structure is exceptionally durable and its defensive capability is supreme.]

[To break it, one must use a higher concentration of primal blood essence to disrupt its internal resonance. Exploiting the suppression between identical tribal bloodlines will sharply reduce the armor's effectiveness.]

[Master has refined the Origin blood essence of the Kunpeng Beast Tribe and therefore carries their Primal Origin Bloodline.]

[However, the volume Master refined was limited, and Master's body houses numerous other supreme bloodlines. It is no longer pure, and the suppressive effect may be weakened accordingly.]

[Master may compensate with the Heavenly Resentment Demonic Sword. The fineness of its point concentrates impact onto a single spot and multiplies penetration.]

That was the intelligence Soren had been handed.

And that was how Kain ended up with a blade through his heart.

Kain and Azel were both genuine Two-Turn Ancestors.

Soren's Hell Path Demonic Form could only drag baseline Upper-Tier Demon Ancestors into its hallucinatory world. Against a pair of Two-Turn Ancestors it would accomplish next to nothing.

If he wanted them permanently dead, he needed something with far more destructive weight.

He also had to account for their Ancestor Techniques and make sure neither could undo a killing blow.

Soren's own Innate Ancestor Technique worked by storing his tribulation lightning, compressing it, building it up.

Even after eating Kain's Beast Fire and the detonation that followed, all it had really done was keep his body intact.

More precisely, it shunted the destructive force into the space held inside the demonic pattern of his pupil.

That did raise the ceiling on the lightning he was carrying.

It didn't raise it far enough to vaporize two Two-Turn Ancestors in one stroke.

Losing this fight was not something Soren worried about.

Winning it quickly was another matter.

To end it here, he would have to put his best card face-up on the table.

Soren extended a palm into the empty air.

A dark imprint flashed across his skin.

A single black lotus unfolded above his hand, floating.

The World-Destroying Demonic Lotus.

Its petals burned with a silent flame, and dense waves of apocalyptic energy moved visibly through a structure that looked like cut glass.

The power in it was enough to end the sky and break the ground under it.

He had taken it while still a Lower-Tier Demon Emperor. He had never had a reason to use it.

By his reckoning back then, a Lower-Tier Demon Emperor's demonic energy would have been enough to detonate it and wipe out half a domain, vaporizing an Upper-Tier Emperor would have cost nothing.

But now. Now he was a Middle-Tier Demon Ancestor, and if he fed Ancestor-level demonic energy into the trigger, Kain and Azel would come apart like wet paper.

And his Innate Ancestor Technique could swallow the backlash, which meant he could stand at the center of the blast and walk out of it.

The lotus appearing in his hand put visible panic into both Beast Ancestors.

Far off at the edge of the barrier, it put the dragon siblings' hearts into their throats.

Holding the lotus in one hand, Soren raised the other and pointed at Azel.

"You. Your Innate Ancestor Technique, Temporal Reversion, can be used three times in a day at most, and the gap between uses can't be shorter than the time it takes an incense stick to burn."

"The one you just used took your last window away."

Azel's eyelids jumped and his chest closed up on him.

How does he know the mechanics of my technique down to the interval?

Soren sneered and moved the finger to Kain.

"You. Your Innate Ancestor Technique, Spatial Substitution, can be used repeatedly, but it has a hard range limit, can't swap you with a living thing, and the radius tops out at exactly one thousand meters."

"Which means."

"If I burn everything inside a thousand meters down to the atom, you die. It's arithmetic."

"And once this lotus goes off."

"Heh. There won't be a piece of either of you big enough for a crow to bother with."

Kain stood there with nothing to say. The silence stretched, and he still couldn't find a word.

Azel was no better. Cold sweat soaked through the back of his robe.

His eyes wouldn't leave the World-Destroying Demonic Lotus. His lips parted and pressed shut. He wanted to speak, stopped himself, and wanted to speak again.

The lotus burned with a black flame that made no sound, and the aura coming off it promised the end of everything within reach.

The space around it felt paralyzed, held down flat. Breathing was work.

Something devilish sat over the whole battlefield.

Both Beast Ancestors felt their scalps crawling.

If Soren threw that thing at them, they were dead. No version where they weren't.

"You madman. You absolute lunatic."

"I don't believe you have the nerve to set that off inside a sealed barrier."

"If you detonate it here, you go up with us."

"Regeneration or no regeneration, what happens if the blast takes your dantian? You'd be crippled for good."

Azel's eyes bulged as he glared. There was a shake in his voice he couldn't hide.

He was an Upper-Tier Ancestor and a Two-Turn one at that. But dead was dead, and everything he had would go into the void with him. Wealth, standing, strength, the Immemorial artifacts he had spent millennia collecting. Gone in a fraction of a second.

Soren didn't bother answering him.

The way the old monster was arguing made it easy to see what he believed.

Azel had decided Soren's Innate Ancestor Technique was a healing art and nothing more. Regrow a limb, close a wound, help an ally.

The truth was somewhat larger.

The Human Path Demonic Form went well past mending flesh.

So long as a single drop of blood essence survived, and his soul had that drop to anchor to, Soren could rebuild himself from it. Every time.