Chapter 2319: Arad’s Hibernation XXXI

As everyone charged at Arad at blinding speed, he didn’t even move a single muscle, standing there in the middle, towering over them like a titan. The paladin he had just smacked tried to shout at them, but not a single breath came out of her crushed lungs.

All forty paladins went all out, and not a single one of them dared conserve their energy; they didn’t even care about hitting each other and just came up with their strongest attacks. The nuns were the same; they, who were taking on the role of healers, had even summoned divine light to burn Arad down.

Even Akasha was panicking, lifting both of her hands up as fast as she could to cast her elemental expansion before it was too late. Ginger was the only one lagging behind, and not because she was slow, but because she didn’t know why everyone was panicking like this. This is supposed to be a fragment of Arad’s blood, a mere tiny part of his power that might even lack his cognitive power.

But that was exactly where she was wrong. It didn’t matter how weakened or crippled Arad was. A monster was still a monster, and everyone else here knew that underestimating him only meant a swift death.

****

As everyone got close enough to Arad to directly attack him, his body seemed to shimmer for a fraction of a second, before fifty flying blood slashes burst out of his skin, flying toward everyone.

The blood slashes were so thin that they were almost invisible when looked at from the front, but had a crescent shape to them, and carried just a tiny fraction of Arad’s blood, but had a lot of power.

The paladins were knocked back as the blood slashes hit their blades and armor, while the nuns got gravely injured in the blink of an eye, and their magic easily shattered as they were sent flying.

Everything happened in a fraction of a second. And when that happened, Ginger finally started to realize just how bad the situation was. If they don’t take this fight seriously and go all out, Arad is going to wipe them all out.

Arad then moved, and he was fast, agile like an ape, and moved in an inhuman way. He first jumped forward, landed on his hands, and pushed himself through the flying Paladins and falling nuns in a fraction of a second, like a chimp swinging through tree branches, and finally landed face to face with Akasha.

She was in the middle of casting her elemental expansion, and the Accursed Spirit who didn’t join the first assault was already moving to attack Arad, but she was too slow. But Arad wasn’t going to let her approach, so he used as little of his blood magic as he could, and instead of a full-on attack at her, he simply controlled the blood vessels in her eyes, making them pop and blinding her.

Akasha had already noticed him and decided to abort her elemental expansion cast to defend herself, but her entire body felt heavy and slow. For a moment, she just thought it was because they were already moving at extreme speed, but soon realized that she was literally slower than she should be. The reason was Arad, as he had now focused his blood magic on her body to pin her down.

His massive fist was already flying toward her face, so she swung both of her arms up and punched it upward with both hands, and immediately swung her open palm at his torso, unleashing a powerful blood slash.

Arad’s body flew back at blinding speed, was severed cleanly in half, and then hit the wall. This incarnation was indeed weaker than his true self, but it still gave them all a scare. To think he would be able to fend off so many paladins at once, disable the Accursed Spirit, and even reach Akasha in such a short time.

"Finally, he’s down." Ginger clapped her hands and instantly healed everyone in the blink of an eye, even the paladin who had all of her organs messed up. But at that moment, two voices screamed. They were Akasha and the paladin. "He is coming back!"

The two severed halves of Arad’s avatar loudly clicked together, and his entire body boiled with blood magic.

"Pin him down no matter what!" Akasha shouted and started trying to cast her elemental expansion again as everyone rushed to slow Arad down this time, even Ginger. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

One of the paladins reached Arad first, and her hands were tightly gripping the hilt of her great sword as she swung with full force, aiming at Arad’s hips, since he was so massive. Her blade burned with bright golden divine magic and flashed with light as she swung it. With a flash, everything burst apart, and the entire room shook.

But in the next fraction of a second, as the divine magic faded, Arad was towering over her, unharmed and unscathed. She didn’t even have time to consider whether he dodged the attack or if she just didn’t use enough power to scratch him before he kicked her in the face, sending her flying to the other side of the room.

But after her, who was the fastest of the paladins, Arad found himself between ten paladins and Ginger. All of them swung at him simultaneously, each aiming at a different part of his body and trying to block all of his escape paths.

Even the nuns had their massive arrays and divine barriers forming to trap him. Even if the paladin’s attacks looked inescapable, they were certain Arad would just find a way, so they had to trap him.

Arad knew that with how much blood magic he had now, if they all hit him at once, they’d erase him from existence and win this fight, since he didn’t have any resistance to divine magic while fully built from blood magic.

So, Arad didn’t try to fight back, and instead used his own body to his advantage. He lifted his hand, grabbed himself by the head, right below the chin, and violently snapped his forearm forward, ripping his own head and spine out like a toothpick and hurling them forward with a single motion.

The paladins, Ginger, and the nuns all gasped, unable to fathom what they had just witness As Arad’s head with the spine still attacked flew past them, heading straight toward Akasha.

When the head and spine flew right past Akasha’s head, it was as if time had stopped. Her elemental expansion had activated and was in the process of growing larger at blinding speed, but Arad’s eyes moved fast in his severed head, staring at her with malevolent red eyes.

Blood magic exploded like flames from Arad’s spine, and in a fraction of a second, his entire body started regenerating at a speed unheard of before. But... he wasn’t limited to the form the AGENT gave him; instead, the spine grew even bigger, the ribs were larger, and a pair of wings formed out of the coagulated blood.