Arthur wasn't going to wait for the injured Vermillion Bird to counter-attack him. From the increasing intensity of the flames around it, he could tell that it was extremely angry and on the verge of exploding from rage.

Although they were only copies of the originals, they still held the pride of the real source and were naturally arrogant, they had the power to back it up so being injured by someone like Arthur, a stranger that no one knew, obviously infuriated it.

Arthur waved his hand and pointed at the Divine Beast, causing the countless sword materialized from the Death Formation to fly straight at the Vermillion Bird, not even letting it the time to react before they were before it.

The speed of the swords was even faster than their user, excluding that it was a formation, just the fact that this whole attack was only a wave of one of his strongest skills indicated its fearsomeness.

The first waves of the [Thousand Waves] are most definitely strong and not be underestimated, however, the real potential of the skill shows up at the last five waves.

Arthur only reached the fourth one yet the death formation was able to obstruct the view of the beasts and render the dragon's eye ability useless against Arthur.

However, the cost of the formation was not something to be laughed at, every second that it remained active, it consumed more than three million Mana. Fortunately, Arthur had a high recovery and a big pool of Mana, so he can sustain it for half a minute or so.

He had to take in mind the cost of the fifth wave because it's rather unlikely to be able to defeat one of the Divine Beast with only this formation.

Surprisingly, when the countless death swords hit the Vermillion Swords, they easily managed to penetrate its body but they caused no damage, much less killing the bird.

Arthur expected such a thing, he grabbed the air using his left and as if he was pulling a rope. All the swords that penetrated the bird started releasing an ominous grey fog, Arthur's action caused them to also emit a faint red light that flew straight to his hand.

The red light could barely be seen but since there were countless swords, the lights transformed into a red hurricane that rushed to Arthur, causing a visible change to his appearance.

Originally, he was still in the state of [Eternium], but since his chest was heavily injured, it returned to its normal appearance but after the dense red light entered his palm, the horrific wound started healing at mind-numbing speed.

No more blood could be seen flowing out from his wound, moreover, his Health Pool was recovering at a rapid pace, at such a speed, it'll only take him a few seconds to fully recover.

Nothing was easy in this word, this was a fight and not a friendly spar, the moment the red light was absorbed by Arthur, an ear-deafening roar was heard from behind.

He knew that the White Tiger was stunned no more, the Azure Dragon was also preparing its next attack. It glared at him with its jet black eyes as it opened its mouth at him, ready to pulverize him.

At first, Arthur wasn't too worried since he already predicted the time the tiger will be freed, however, when he saw the Azure Dragon open its mouth, his expression changed and his face darkened for he knew the legendary Dragon Breath is about to be unleashed at him.

Honestly, Arthur didn't know much about 'Dragon Breath' but most records described it as one of the most powerful attacks a dragon could execute, not only was it destructive and powerful, basically, it's almost impossible to remain unscathed after suffering from a 'Dragon Breath', no matter where the target escaped, it's pretty hard to get away from it.

Without any hesitation, Arthur retrieved the death swords and muttered

"Death Formation; Second act, Banish Death!"

Hearing the incantation, the dense fog around the formation became thinner and the countless sword interconnected with each other, forming a sphere around Arthur, who gritted his teeth and took out the black shield from before, preparing to resist the dragon breath.

Feeling his body became incredibly heavy from the pressure coming from the front, Arthur knew that the death formation won't hold against the incoming attack, so he had no choice but to spit a bright golden drop of blood.

A Blood Essence is too precious, and Arthur knew the consequences of sacrificing one drop, however, he was left with no choice but to do that. He willed the Blood Essence to merge with the Death formation, which had an immediate effect on it, strengthening it by leaps and bounds. The interconnected death swords became much more numerous and on top of that, two enormous swords appeared just behind this weird sphere or swords. The swords were forming an 'X' sign as they were facing the Azure Dragon, apparently trying to block whatever was going hit them.

Still not totally sure of his safety, Arthur sacrificed permanent Mental Power and conjured a small Dark Cube around himself, it was small in size but it had very high defense and it could be considered another layer of defense, although not as practical as the formation.

Arthur's pupils shrank once he noticed a strange, hazy red energy that started condensing inside the dragon's mouth, it emitted overwhelming pressure that affected him even when the distance between them is still this big.

He knew that this was merely the beginning so he braced himself, circulated the Dark-Star strengthening technique which resulted in more dark flames coming from one side of his body, he could feel immense power surging in him but he still wasn't confident in dealing with the opponent's attack.

He raised the big shield with both his hands and readied himself as he saw strange colored fire appearing from the dragon's large mouth. The flames were illusory and couldn't be seen by the naked eyes, it was only thanks to his special eyes that he managed to see that, however, he didn't have time to ponder on what kind of flames are they or if they could harm him, he could only hope for the best and try to survive this.

Even the White Tiger didn't attack him as it knew how the dragon breath works and attacking the enemy will only hinder their way to the victory, it floated a safe distance away from Arthur, gazing at his back with a chilling glare as if it wanted to tear him into thousands of pieces.