"It's you—Ovathrax!"
"Correct."
The voice was sharp and piercing like a rusted iron door being pushed open. Ovathrax made no attempt to hide it.
It had indeed taken over control of the god-king's body. Using the god-king's form, it intended to deliberately destroy Septimont. However, before that, there was something more important.
"Noah, it's time to settle the accounts between us—"
Before Ovathrax could finish speaking, Noah seemed to sense something and his figure violently retreated once more.
Sure enough, almost at the same moment he pulled back, a black dragon woven from Dark Tide shot straight into the sky from where his feet had been.
"You actually launched a sneak attack while talking!"
An opal longspear instantly appeared in Noah's hand. Without hesitation, he used Carlotta's Resonance skill:
"Fixate!"
A crisp gunshot exploded. The brilliant bullet shot out accurately, but it was suddenly stopped half a meter in front of the god-king and then shattered into countless tiny particles.
"Useless."
Ovathrax laughed loudly. With a single thought, an extremely faint shield materialized from invisible to visible.
"This shield is constructed from countless tiny high-frequency vibrating fragments. Each fragment maintains a certain distance from the others."
"Your insignificant bullets can only freeze a small piece of the fragments. They cannot control me completely!"
It had long learned all of Noah's Resonance abilities from Leviathan. Since it dared to appear now, it naturally came fully prepared for certain victory!
If Noah dared to use Time, it would shatter Time. If he dared to use Havoc, it would absorb Havoc. As for spatial, separation, and other authorities, it had countermeasures for each.
"Furious tides, spli—"
Before Noah could even finish half of his move, a giant hammer formed from Dark Tide interrupted his charge-up.
"Idiot. You think I'm blind with such a long charge-up?"
As a War Threnodian, martial techniques were its weapon for conquering civilizations. Whether in hand-to-hand combat or weapon mastery, it stood at the pinnacle.
Ovathrax thrust forward to appear right in front of Noah. Its two bone blades slashed downward at tricky angles, forcing the latter to retreat again.
A powerful Calamity-class undying body paired with its top-tier combat awareness produced strength no less than Sentinel-class.
Under Ovathrax's control, a massive Dark Tide transformed into a scythe and slashed out. Noah arched his back backward, narrowly dodging the scythe's strike, while The Last Dance in his hand fired opal bullets repeatedly.
But every single bullet completely shattered the moment it approached within half a meter of the god-king, yielding not even the slightest benefit.
Back then on the Jinzhou frontline, Ovathrax had used this exact shield to protect the Norfall Barrens from invasion.
At that time, it was only broken by the Engineer Department's Disruptor cannon, which used a pre-civilization relic to pierce through the seemingly indestructible shield.
Now that this shield was being used solely as the god-king's defensive means, it was proving extremely troublesome.
"Nothing more than this!" Ovathrax's figure flashed like lightning. The bone blades it swung created afterimages due to their extreme speed. Its offensive was aggressive and unrelenting.
Under such close-range attacks, Noah had no gap at all to fire shots. He could only keep retreating again and again amid the frenzied close-quarters assault.
"Dodge! Dodge again! Keep dodging! Is this all you've got?!"
Ovathrax laughed wildly as it pressed the attack, giving Noah no chance to counter. Finally, it retreated several steps. Its body suddenly contracted as countless Dark Tide gathered and compressed toward it—
Not good! Noah's pupils sharpened.
He was all too familiar with this move.
When the Dark Tide was compressed to a certain degree, it would explode like a bomb with no blind spots, causing massive area destruction. And inside the Terminal loop domain, he had nowhere to hide.
Boom!
The overwhelming Dark Tide exploded violently. Dense tidal water shot out like iron arrows in all directions. The entire Terminal loop domain was instantly pierced into a sieve.
"Where is he?"
Ovathrax, emerging from the compressed Dark Tide, looked left and right but could not see any trace of Noah.
"Blown to death?"
"On your left!"
A piercing sound of breaking air came from the right. Ovathrax abruptly raised its right bone blade to block. A grating sound immediately came from the bone joints of its right hand.
What tremendous force.
Only then did it see clearly that Noah had somehow appeared on its right side, holding a ridiculously oversized giant sword as long as a ruler.
"How is this possible? You were completely unharmed by that explosion just now?!"
"I just stepped out to change the team."
[Team: Augusta, Iuno, Shorekeeper.]
A giant dragon interwoven with Dark Tide tore forward from behind. Noah increased the force in his hands again, slashing the god-king backward while spinning to swing the giant sword and shatter the Dark Tide dragon.
Suddenly, his gaze flashed as he focused on a spot on the Authority of the Crown's Thunder in his hand.
There, at the place where it had just clashed with the god-king's blade, an unprecedented crack had appeared.
"My signature weapon..."
Noah was first stunned, then felt a wave of heartache, followed by towering rage.
A signature weapon could cost a full 80 pulls in the worst case!
"Heh, idiot is still an idiot!" Ovathrax sneered coldly:
"I, the War Threnodian, can absorb weapon frequencies to enhance my power. Any weapon facing me is inherently at a disadvantage. Using weapons against me—isn't that too ridiculous!"
Not only weapon frequencies, it could also absorb the resentment of the dead and the fear of the survivors as power.
"I admit that your strength is indeed powerful. Even if this god-king has reached strong Calamity-class, there is almost no hope of victory against you."
Ovathrax proactively launched an attack. Its bone blades swung at high frequency. Every strike smashed new cracks into the giant sword in Noah's hands.
Every move was gorgeous yet lethal.
It pressed the advantage and laughed ferociously:
"But now, the one controlling the god-king's body is me—the King of Warfire and Weapons. Once your weapon shatters, what will you use to fight me? Your fists?"
Bone blade collided with giant sword. The giant sword let out an unbearable wail. The tremendous force sent both man and Threnodian flying backward, their feet carving two long grinding marks across the ground.
Ovathrax took the moment to twist its head. Behind it, the Dark Tide was roaring and surging.
With the Earthrend Wedge destroyed, the surging Dark Tide was restricted by the golden Terminal loop domain, but the water level in this area was rising rapidly because of it.
It only needed to stall a little longer. Noah would soon have nowhere to stand. At that point, it would see how he could still fight!
Whether he chose to fight to the death or retreat, once the Dark Tide overflowed, even if he had god-like abilities, he would find it difficult to save Septimont from catastrophe.
However… why was this guy's strength getting stronger and stronger?
On the opposite side, Noah showed no signs of stopping. Taking advantage of the moment Ovathrax turned its head, he pushed off with his heels, channeling the power of his entire body into both arms. The giant sword, covered in cracks, drew a red afterimage as it swung heavily toward the god-king.
The giant sword clashed with the bone blade. The instant collision produced violent air waves that kicked up layers of dust.
"Last desperate struggle!"
Ovathrax overlapped both hands and precisely intercepted the full-powered strike. Noah, as if in hysteria, continuously poured on more strength, pinning it down firmly.
Endless immense force passed through the defensive shield and pressed onto every part of its body. The hard rock beneath its feet shattered and caved in, kicking up pungent particles.
The already cracked giant sword produced even larger fragments in front of the high-frequency vibrating shield pieces.
In their contest of strength, every shield fragment acted like the hardest abrasive in the world, rapidly grinding the giant sword in Noah's hands into broken pieces.
Even though it was the one being suppressed, Ovathrax laughed instead of getting angry:
"Listen, your weapon can no longer hold on!"
With a single thought, the shield around its body instantly ignited with black-purple blaze fire. Countless fragments vibrated at double the frequency, rapidly grinding the giant sword in Noah's hands into pieces section by section.
In the blink of an eye, the giant sword was reduced to nothing but a hilt.
"You've lost!"
Ovathrax shouted with delight, but its voice suddenly faltered the moment it left its mouth. The reason was simple—it detected an unprecedented Resonance power fluctuation emanating from Noah.
It was faint, yet carried an irresistible force.
The shattered long blade fragments had somehow penetrated into its shield. Under the control of this Resonance power, they instantly reassembled into a sharp, menacing crimson long blade!
[Authority of the Crown's Thunder: Attack increased by 12%. When releasing Variation Skill or Resonance Skill, Heavy Attack damage increased by 20%. When gaining a shield, Heavy Attack damage ignores 7.2% of the target's defense. Can stack up to five layers.]
One layer of buff ignored 7.2% defense. Five layers ignored 36% defense. A total of 36% of the long blade fragments had pierced through Ovathrax's shield.
"What!"
Before Ovathrax could even feel shocked, the long blade flashing with crimson lightning suddenly slashed upward diagonally. The sharp edge cut the god-king's body clean in half at the waist.
Boom!
Its proud shield was sliced apart from the inside by the residual force of the slash and scattered into glowing particles.
The god-king's shell shattered into dispersing Dark Tide. Ovathrax retreated in panic:
"How is this possible? You actually broke my shield. What ability is this?!"
"Nothing special. Just ten-meter electromagnetic force."
Ten-meter electromagnetic force?!
Ovathrax had never expected that mere ten-meter electromagnetic force could solve the problem of weapons being fragile in its presence.
A blinding light shone over. It suddenly looked up in horror and discovered that a crimson blazing sun had appeared in the sky.
What was going on? Two suns in the sky?!
Ovathrax prided itself as Solaris's ten-thousand-year nightmare. It had seen all kinds of scenes, but this was truly one it had never seen before.
"Where did this sun come from?"
"Just big world special effects."
[Domain of the King: When team characters release Variation, gain a certain shield. Cannot be stacked.]
Noah briefly switched to Iuno and released another Heavy Attack. A bright moon instantly appeared in the sky, intersecting with the crimson blazing sun. Sun and moon rose together.
The sun with scorching edge, the moon with flowing light.
Together with the golden Terminal loop domain, there were already three big world special effects.
[Full Moon Domain: Characters within the domain periodically gain healing and stamina recovery. Gain a shield every 0.5 seconds. Each shield grants one layer of Pale Deathlight's Blessing.]
[Pale Deathlight's Blessing: Each layer increases all characters' total damage by 4%. Can stack up to 10 layers.]
[Iuno Two-Chain Bonus: When a character gains 10 layers of Pale Deathlight's Blessing, additionally gain 40% total damage bonus.]
Not far away, Noah held a long blade linked by crimson lightning. Its length was fully five times that of Carlotta.
Character: Augusta
HP: 19887
Attack: 3666
Defense: 1293
Resonance Efficiency: 120%
Crit Rate: 174.3%
Crit Damage: 552.6%
Noah couldn't even count how many buffs he currently had on him.
He only knew one thing—he was terrifyingly strong right now!
"Just now, you were laughing quite happily!"
...