Chapter 44 - Formation, Activate!

Myriad Arts – Spellcasting – Double Elements: Earth, Space – Supreme Earth Dome!

A small dome made of space-strengthened salt rose from around him to protect him. As soon as the shockwave hit it, he got rid of it, only to find himself in an area being showered by salt.

Myriad Arts – Spellcasting – Single Element: Wind – Supreme Breeze!

A strong wind was born from him and blew all the salt in a thousand legs radius from him, in a perfect circle. Not losing any time, he resumed his formation drawing while taking to the air.

He couldn't make it easier for the dragon. It would have to decide if it wanted to attack him or his formation!

He flew fast, soon finding himself at eye level from the dragon. It was looking confused at the enormous hand of salt holding it, as if not believing his newfound mighty of a Mature Red Dragon could be so 'easily' stopped.

Shadow One was feeling as dumbfounded as the dragon, but for another reason.

She had thought that in the White Sea, her affinity with the earth element would've allowed her to completely crush Aaron. But now, seeing his knowledge about the earth element, and his affinity with it, made her realize how wrong she had been.

It hadn't been a coincidence that he had suggested they come here, to the White Sea. And it had been right after the Valdian Family's undercover agent had told the boy how he had no privacy, that only golems could be trusted for such line of work.

Had the boy knew since then? Had it all been a plot to make her feel overconfident, and thus follow her here?

That gave her a foreboding sensation. All she wanted to do was flee away from there as soon as possible!

But just as she was about to destroy his consciousness, throw the spatial treasure away from her, and flee at full speed, she realized with pure terror that he had already laid the formation down!

How? Just how?! Everything, from the roar to his flying to the dragon, and now the conclusion of the immense drawing of blood on the ground, had taken less than a minute? She would've never believed a perfect formation could be drawn so quickly, but he seemed confident in it.

For he was already activating it.

And he was using her own mana to fuel it.

The formation, a red circle filled with arcane symbols, on a white background, resembled a work of art. When he infused mana into it, the blood lit in bright red, and sheer power came from it.

She took control of her core back from him, but it was too late.

Aaron-Two willed the Supreme Sacrificial-Blood Collecting Formation to activate, and it obeyed. Salt flew to the skies in such a fast speed it created small sonic booms. It formed into a huge white sword just above the dragon, and then, it fell on the beast.

Its red scales were hard and protected him well enough. Any spell from Aaron-Two wouldn't have been able to pierce the scales, but formations were different. They could draw from the energy in the place, and the blade was made of space-infused salt, which drew extra power from the earth element in the White Sea.

Extra power and extra energy. Aaron-Two had used a lot of mana to activate the formation – over half of the remaining mana in the golem –, but the end result was much greater. As the scales resisted the initial contact, salt kept going over the dragon, and the blade seemed to keep trying to pierce through them.

He felt as Shadow One removed his control from her body and core, but it was already too late. The formation had been activated and it was now fueling itself on the earth energy on the place. It would take a few days for it to consume the energy in the area and stop; until them, it would keep trying to take blood from any dragon that entered the area!

She then did the next best thing she could: she tried to destroy the formation. But when he felt her pulling mana from her core, he stood against her.

He could feel her shock when her core failed to obey her; when she realized her willpower was nothing in front of his. Oh, he would end up dying in a war of attrition, he was just a tiny part of his original consciousness, after all. However, he could hold for a few minutes against her, and that was all he needed.

From the beginning, he had been willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good of his original consciousness!

He hoped it wouldn't be necessary, but just as he had almost died to survive the first roar attack, he saw nothing wrong in damaging his soul to guarantee he kept alive! Damage could be healed, but once he died, it would be all over.

While he struggled against Shadow One, a few moments after the activation of the formation, the blade finally pierced the dragon scales. It yelled in pain, fury, and regret. Its feeling of betrayal was almost palpable as it realized it had been played, and that was just what Aaron needed.

Aaron willed himself out of the garden as soon as Aaron-Two started struggling against Shadow One. He was still bloodied; he had been focusing on healing, but not on cleaning.

Without losing any time, he used a spell to pull the blood from the dragon, and another to create two flying formations around Shadow One!

The formations were like spell signatures, a bunch of arcane symbols in a spherical pattern around Shadow One. First, he activated the Supreme Earth Poisoning Formation.

Shadow One yelled in pain.

Her golem body had such great affinity with earth element that it had been automatically getting mana from the White Sea from the moment she arrived. When he poisoned that connection, the shock of receiving poisoned mana would've been enough to kill weak-willed Eminences!

She didn't die, but that moment of shock and the poisoning of her core was enough weakening for him to activate the second formation he had drawn around her.

Supreme Golem Core Removal Formation, activate!

There was no way for her to defend herself. The core was pulled from the middle of her body, teleported away, and appeared right outside the two formations around her body.

Aaron used a spell to cut his own hand and created the fourth and final formation.

The dragon was still roaring in pain, trying to resist the huge sword that hadn't stopped attacking it. Everything had happened too fast for it to react, especially since it had just leveled up and hadn't gotten used to its new power and size yet!

Aaron drew the fourth formation, which fit perfectly into the first one, transforming it from the Supreme Sacrificial-Blood Collecting Formation into the Supreme Sacrificial-Blood Collecting Formation the Supreme Spacetime Sealing Formation.

Then, he forcibly pulled mana from the golem core to activate it.

And the dragon disappeared.

The blade of salt became formless, the salt falling harmless on the ground. The blood and the formations were gone, too. Only Aaron remained, flying, holding Shadow One's core in one hand, and using a spell to hold her body flying, too.

Now, he only had to check if she had indeed bad intentions towards him, and what the hell the Immortal Crusade actually was.

Myriad Arts – Spellcasting – Single Element: Soul – Legendary Memory Search!

Without a body, the core might have a consciousness, but it was defenseless in front of him. He read everything he wanted from Shadow One's memory, and what he saw made him realize one thing: he had to flee as fast as possible!

For the moment Shadow One's core had been removed from her body, her maker, Queen Overlord Bloodvine, the Warden of the West of the Immortal Crusade, had felt it. And she was coming for him!

As much as he wanted to experiment with the core, it would be used to track him. So, after recovering his consciousness from it, he dropped the core, and it disappeared into the Supreme Spacetime Sealing Formation that it was fueling. Next, he willed Shadow One's body into the garden and started flying full speed ahead towards the White Sea City.

There lay the portal to the Flying Continent, and it was his only chance of escape!

The Queen was reading some documents when she felt that Shadow One, her beloved first creation, had been defeated.

She frowned, and that was enough for nine Shadows to appear in front of her, in kneeling position.

"Recover Shadow One's core," she ordered.

As much as she would've wanted to personally deal with it, now wasn't the time. The war with the Seven Isles was going worse than she had expected, and she might be needed at the battlefield at any time. There, in her throne room, she could teleport to any place in the Fire Continent, but if she left, it would take her at least five days to come back to this room, and by then the war might've already been lost.

But she was confident her Royal Guard could take care of it. Shadow One had reported what she had found on the boy, but no matter how much of a genius he might be, he wouldn't be able to deal with ten Quasi-Overlords Golems. Even her would die in their hands if it came to it, much less, him!

Putting the matter to the back of her head, she went back to reading the documents on her hands.

When the Royal Guard arrived at the place they were feeling Shadow One's core should be at, they found a grandmotherly figure in white clothes looking at nowhere.

The Check Level Heavenly Skill showed her to be an Overlord. They immediately got on guard, closing the helmets of their armor.

"Madam," the head of the Royal Guard said, "who are you? What are you doing here?"

The grandmother looked at them, and they felt as if she could read them like an open book. She smiled slightly. "Oh, I was just reading Time to understand what happened here, pardon my manners. Are you here to recover the core from the one named Shadow One?"

As one, all members of the Royal Guard took their magical orbs from their spatial rings. "Surrender yourself, right now!" The head of the guard yelled.

"I see," the grandmother said. "Just like I saw in the past, you're a bunch of arrogant insects with no respect for others. It's no wonder you dared to attack my children."

"Attack!" The head ordered, and spells intent on stunning and subduing the grandmother came from all ten golems.

And all of them failed to connect. They all were kept held in place around the woman as if frozen in time.

"From time to time," the grandmother said, "cleansing war comes to this world. And what fuses it is always the death of some nobody that had a great background. You killed my Prophetesses, and now I'll kill you. Neither them nor you should be important enough to bring war, but I consider my children important enough, and if what I read from the memories of Shadow One is true, your master also considers you important enough." The Royal Guard tried to move or even speak, only to find out all of them had been frozen in time. "But worry not, your beloved maker, Queen Overlord Bloodvine, will soon accompany you to the Depths!"

They felt nothing; one moment they were alive, and the other, they had ceased to be.

The First Prophetess was satisfied with her catch. Ten Quasi-Overlord Golems would help protect her Temple of Time just nicely, she just had to find the right cores to replace the ones she had destroyed.

She looked at the direction the Herald of Time had fled. She had also seen in the Rivers of Time as he modified the portal to the Flying Continent and entered on it. From there on, not even she could guess where he had ended.

Maybe it was for the best. She had a war to wage, and he, as the reason for it, was best left off in a more protected place.

Taking the golems with her, she teleported back to the First Temple.