This display made Awuna instinctively on guard.
Those eyes were far too terrifying.
They looked like those of a vicious beast ready to devour its prey, having finally found the food it had long yearned for.
Awuna's heart skipped a beat.
Abandoning his initial plan to charge in and slay the youth, he silently retrieved a button from his waist.
If anything went wrong, he would press it immediately to raise a defensive shield.
Stepping backward slowly, he tapped a switch behind him.
With a click, the lights flared on, illuminating the room as bright as day.
The silver-haired, fox-tailed youth looked gloomy and pale. His wine-red eyes burned like the ghostly fire of a malevolent specter. Hanging from his waist by a fine brown hemp rope was a scarlet orb that resembled a bloody elixir, and in his hand, he held an ancient, heavily damaged short sword.
Bai Xiaodu paid no attention to his actions.
Instead, he spoke slowly, seemingly suppressing an extreme, boiling rage.
“Where did she go?”
Scanning his opponent's energy fluctuations, Awuna determined that the youth was of the same rank as him.
It seemed this youth was indeed the opponent he had to kill for his ascension ceremony.
However, why was the timing so off?
Hadn't his master said that the final showdown wouldn't begin until daybreak at the very earliest?
The question caught Awuna off guard.
Where did who go?
Who was “she”?
Since entering this orphanage, he hadn't seen a single soul besides the youth standing before him.
Acutely capturing his opponent's emotional fluctuations, the processor inside Awuna's brain calculated rapidly.
“She” must be someone incredibly important to the youth.
And since this youth was his opponent for the ascension ceremony...
The fact that the youth couldn't find her meant his master had likely already taken care of it.
Now, it was his turn to complete his task. He had to provoke the youth into a rage as quickly as possible!
Awuna blinked, reaching a conclusion.
He let out a human-like sneer and mocked, “I killed her.”
“She kept getting in my way, claiming she wanted to protect you. Didn't you know? She was still crying out your name right before she died—”
With a deafening boom, the air shrieked as if shattered. A silver figure flashed past, and a fist enveloped in a brilliant, blazing red light lunged forward with explosive force!
The rest of Awuna's words were cut short by a barrage of high-priority warnings flashing across his system.
He pressed the button to activate his defensive barrier almost purely on instinct!
With a hum, a pale blue virtual energy shield composed of hexagonal plates materialized, covering him from all angles.
Fluorescent light rippled across its surface, instantly thickening and reinforcing itself the moment it formed.
Seeing this, Awuna's confidence returned.
His master really hadn't shortchanged him. This defensive barrier was of the absolute highest quality below the Transcendent rank!
Awuna immediately began condensing spell runes, waiting for the moment the barrier deflected the blow.
The moment the youth's momentum stalled, he would unleash his counterattack and catch him off guard.
But what happened next struck sheer terror into Awuna's core!
The red light enveloping the fist seemed to possess a world-ending destructive power. The moment the defensive barrier tried to resist, crisp, shattering sounds rang out.
Without even lasting a few seconds, the barrier imploded and dissolved into nothingness!
Awuna's hands froze mid-gesture as he was forming his spell runes.
He couldn't comprehend how his defensive barrier had been torn through as easily as wet paper.
But he knew that if this punch landed squarely on his body, he wouldn't fare any better than the barrier!
“Gust!”
Awuna screamed at the top of his lungs. Pale green energy rapidly gathered beneath his feet.
The thrusters on his back suddenly deployed, accelerating his upward leap.
Feeling his body propelled a significant distance to the side, he didn't even have time to sigh in relief.
Yet, countless green scales materialized beneath Bai Xiaodu's feet, whipping up a violent gale. With a ferocious expression, he charged forward like a wild beast.
The red orb at his waist shook violently, erupting with a brilliant, eerie crimson light.
And once again, Awuna saw a soaring red light crash right before his eyes!
Caught completely off guard, there was no escaping.
With a deafening explosion, countless metal shards blasted into the air!
The steel-forged components proved to be as fragile as cheap plastic toys. Web-like cracks spiderwebbed across the surface of his body.
As the fractures rapidly expanded, his entire upper torso violently disintegrated.
With just a single punch, a full quarter of Awuna's body was completely obliterated!
He was sent flying backward like a cannonball, crashing heavily into a perimeter wall and getting buried under the collapsing blue stone bricks.
Scrambling frantically to claw away the rubble burying him, Awuna looked up. A look of profound terror was painted across his metallic face.
“Ugh... You!”
“Are you really just a Rank 0.9 Warlock Apprentice?!”
“Wait! Hold on! You must have the wrong person! Or maybe I made a mistake! I didn't see anyone when I got here! I haven't killed any—”
Before he could finish, Awuna realized to his horror that the youth had absolutely no intention of talking.
Crimson light surged wildly across Bai Xiaodu's silver fur, and the illusory silhouette of dragon horns began to manifest on his head.
His silver-white fox tail was now clad in dragon-scale armor, whipping through the air with loud sonic booms.
A bottomless, savage fury pooled in the depths of Bai Xiaodu's crimson eyes.
Just like the Dragon-Burning Refining Art, the True Dragon Blood Orb came with minor side effects.
Activating the True Dragon Manifestation state would trigger negative emotions of extreme violence and bloodlust in the user.
Of course, with enough effort, they could be barely kept in check.
But Bai Xiaodu didn't care to suppress them anymore.
He didn't care to listen to his words.
And he certainly didn't care to answer any of his questions!
With endless killing intent blooming in his heart, Bai Xiaodu exhaled a breath of pure fury.
“I only want you dead!”
He raised his right arm high, his blue-gray veins bulging. Crimson chains of energy, resembling winding dragons, wrapped around his fist, radiating a faint aura of absolute destruction.
It was a single punch, yet the strike fell with the overwhelming force of a torrential downpour!
Though Awuna felt no physical pain, he watched in sheer terror as hundreds, then thousands of cracks rapidly spread across his body, expanding by the millisecond.
He was about to be beaten to pieces by a Warlock Apprentice of his own rank with bare fists!
The terrifying pressure kept Awuna pinned down, unable to even lift his head. Realizing escape was impossible, a look of desperate resolve flashed in his eyes.
Without hesitation, he initiated self-fragmentation.
The upper half of his ruined chassis, along with what remained of his half-shattered head, dragged behind it a mess of exposed, sparking wires.
Like a comical, broken toy car, Awuna sped toward the nearby building.
Except the car was just his head!
A figure of intertwined blood-red and silver-white hovered in mid-air as Bai Xiaodu looked down from above.
The remnant sword shot down like a meteor. With a sharp clang, it pierced straight through the center of the mechanical head, pinning Awuna firmly to the ground, completely immobile.
Straining with his single remaining cybernetic eye to look upward, Awuna shrieked in rage.
“Don't push me too far! I already told you, I don't know anything!”
“I don't know the 'she' you're talking about! I don't!”
“And I'm not the only one here—my master is too! If you kill me, he will never let you get away with this!”
But Bai Xiaodu remained expressionless, ignoring his threats entirely.
He slowly descended, clenching his right hand into a fist.
Reflected in Awuna's eye was that terrifying crimson glow swirling once more. He shook what was left of his head in sheer panic.
“Don't kill me! My family still needs me to save them! I still have to repay my master's kindness! I still have my transcendent dreams to fulfill! I don't want to die, I can't die!”
Yet, not a shred of pity could be found in Bai Xiaodu's eyes.
He simply spat out a cold reply.
“Silence.”
Rate on N.U.
