Chapter 9: The Final Ethereal Flame

The A-rank Aberrant Beasts that snapped out of their brief daze did not all charge at Xia Lixing.
The other two A-rank beasts that had originally been besieging him remained in front of him, but they merely blocked his path and did not dare to attack rashly.
The other five A-rank beasts, however, continued to attack the five members of the search team, showing no intention of ganging up on Xia Lixing.

A-rank Aberrant Beasts already possessed limited intelligence.
They wouldn’t foolishly swarm him just because of his show of strength.
Moreover, what they had to do had already been decided long ago.

Under the attack of the A-rank beasts, the five members of the search team were completely powerless.
In just a dozen seconds, all five of them were heavily injured.
The healer among them had even fainted directly, and the bloody hole torn open in his chest indicated that he would never wake up again.

The tragic state of the five made Xia Lixing’s attacks even more frenzied, but he, also heavily injured, no longer had the ability to threaten the A-rank beasts.
Under the full defense of the two A-rank beasts, the current Xia Lixing could hardly harm them.

“Ha… Lord Xia Lixing, looks like this is our fate.”
The captain, whose arm had been torn off by a beast, smiled with a pale face.
“But thinking about how we carved a path through a super A-rank beast tide under your lead, I really feel like I haven’t lived in vain.”

“Captain, don’t flatter yourself. You killed the least of all.”

Another team member, clutching his broken leg, breathlessly called him out.

“That’s right…”

Another, with a fragment of a giant blade stuck in his right chest, managed to spit out three words.

The most heavily injured one lay on the ground, saying nothing, but tore off his own chest emblem.

“You guys…”

“Lord Xia Lixing, we’re definitely not going to make it out alive. These damn A-rank beasts are just toying with us, and it’s really pissing me off.”
The captain took off his chest emblem with his good hand.
“So please, you must get back alive and report the information.
Otherwise, we’ll have really lost out big time.”

“Boys! In the ancient east, there are legends of the underworld.
That kid Ed is already waiting on the Bridge of Helplessness.
Let’s hurry down too, don’t let him be reborn first and become the big brother in the next life!”

The other three members of the search team also took off their chest emblems and gave Xia Lixing a military salute from some pre-apocalypse country.

“Hahahaha! Let’s create one last miracle! Screw these damn A-rank beasts!”

Amidst the captain’s loud laughter, the four search team members all pressed the hidden clasps on the back of their chest emblems.
The small sword on the emblem automatically shattered, and a blinding light radiated from within.

Xia Lixing let out a cathartic roar, suddenly unleashing his “Ethereal Flame,” and then charged towards the central city at the maximum speed he could muster.
Behind him, from the four chest emblems, a blinding light burst forth, followed by a torrent of purple energy that surged forward, devouring everything in its path.

If one were to look down from the sky, the erupting purple energy would look like a rapidly expanding ring.
Wherever the energy stream passed, countless spatial rifts several meters long would silently appear and then slowly disappear.
Any object that got close to them would be sucked in, disappearing without a trace.

By injecting all of one’s ability into the hidden clasp on the back of the chest emblem, the emblem, made from Aberrant Core fragments, would unleash all the energy within the fragments.
This instantaneously destructive energy was the last resort left for the “Guardians.”

The ultimate means of taking the Aberrant Beasts down with them.

The explosion and the ensuing shockwave from behind did not slow Xia Lixing down in the slightest.
Instead, he used the shockwave to accelerate even further.
He suppressed the urge to destroy something, clenched his teeth, and charged forward with his head down.
Although the power of the energy stream from the Aberrant Core fragment explosion was not to be underestimated, it would still be difficult to completely annihilate those seven A-rank beasts.
He couldn’t wait for them to recover.

The cries of the two A-rank flying beasts sounded in the sky behind him, but Xia Lixing paid them no mind.
He knew that his current speed, with the help of the shockwave, had already surpassed its limits.
Even the power of the Aberrant Core fragment explosion couldn’t keep up with him.
He didn’t believe those two beasts in the sky could catch him.

All he had to do was run.
Just run to the central city and report the unusual movements of the beasts.
That way, their sacrifice would not be in vain.

Afterwards, no matter what, he had to kill all these beasts!
Not just this wave of super A-rank beasts, but also the wave from the north.
He had to kill them all!
Not a single one left!

His vision blurred at some point.
The muscles and bones all over his body groaned under the extreme speed, but he couldn’t stop.
He would use “Ethereal Flame” to dissolve his tears.
His body wouldn’t collapse before he reached the central city.
Just like this, run, run to the central city.

The next moment, the wildly running Xia Lixing suddenly found his footing gone, and his entire body involuntarily fell forward.
Reflected in his suddenly widened pupils was a huge pit that had appeared beneath him, and at the not-so-deep bottom of the pit, a figure surrounded by a yellowish-brown mist.

“Oh dear, it seems it’s time for me to leave.”

In a strange space, a strange man suddenly said something inexplicable.

This space seemed to have no sky; above was a gray expanse, yet light from an unknown source illuminated the entire space.
This space also seemed to have no ground; below was also a gray expanse, but the two people in the space didn’t need the ground to stand on.

Or perhaps it should be said, a man and a creature that looked like a human.

A body almost indistinguishable from a human’s, with four limbs and a face, and even a set of light armor-like clothes.
But all the exposed skin was a strange gray color, and strange black patterns covered all the skin.

“You want to escape?”

Invisible killing intent accompanied the words, but the strange humanoid creature didn’t care and simply moved aside.
Behind him, several levitating Rubik’s Cubes were sliced in half by an invisible blade.

“Escape? What a joke. The one trapped in the ‘Cube’ is you. Don’t tell me you think you can threaten me just because you also have a spatial ability?”

“At least my ability can cut your mouth to shreds.”

A few more invisible spatial blades shot out, launched by the black-clad Shun.

The strange man grinned.
The spatial blades only cut through the afterimage he had left behind; his true self had disappeared to who knows where.

“Hehehe… what a terrifying person you are. I look forward to meeting you again and sealing you in my ‘Cube.’ I believe that will be a fine collector’s item.”

As the voice from an unknown location faded away, this strange space also dissipated, leaving only Shun’s figure on the desolate land.

After standing in place for a long time, Shun reached out and touched his sleeve, a part of which had been cut off at some point, and let out a long sigh.

“‘Banishment Cube,’ what a terrifying fellow. Next…”

A wave of fluctuation from a distant direction made Shun’s face change.
In an instant, his figure disappeared from the spot.

“Cough, cough, cough…”

Completely unprepared, Xia Lixing fell to the bottom of the large pit without any cushioning.
A sharp pain in his chest told him that he had broken at least two more ribs.

Struggling to his feet, Xia Lixing coldly looked at the figure in the center of the pit.
It was not much taller than a human, with a standing height of just over two meters.
Its limbs were very similar to a human’s, but its hands and feet were all sharp claws.
Its face was closer to that of a beast than a human, looking extremely ferocious.

This was undoubtedly an Aberrant Beast.
Its size was like that of an unranked cannon fodder beast, but whether it was the yellowish-brown mist surrounding its body or the oppressive feeling it gave Xia Lixing, all indicated that this beast was probably at least an A-rank beast.

Xia Lixing suddenly smiled.
The beast in front of him was not an A-rank beast, nor was it some mutated unranked beast.
This type of beast had only appeared less than ten times in previous records.
Each time they appeared, it meant that many A-rank ability users needed to go all out, even several of them joining forces, and on three of those occasions, S-rank ability users had personally taken action against them.

More powerful than A-rank Aberrant Beasts, super A-rank Aberrant Beasts.

The power dynamic between Aberrant Beasts and ability users was very interesting.
Below A-rank, ability users were stronger than beasts.
A B-rank ability user could completely dominate a B-rank beast.
But after A-rank, this power dynamic seemed to shift to the other side.
Among the 152 A-rank ability users in the “Guardians,” 120 could fight an A-rank beast one-on-one, and 20 could defeat several A-rank beasts.
And further up, only the top three A-rank ability users could fight a super A-rank beast one-on-one.

Xia Lixing’s data-based strength ranked 93rd among A-rankers.
He naturally did not have the ability to fight a super A-rank beast one-on-one.

“Sorry, I might have to let your sacrifice be in vain.”

The super A-rank beast lifted its claw, and a stone shot out like a bullet, hitting Xia Lixing.
While knocking him back, it also knocked off the chest emblem on his chest.
A pit suddenly appeared on the ground where the emblem landed, just managing to bury it deep.

“As expected of a super A-rank… it even knows to knock off the chest emblem first.”

Unsteady on his feet, Xia Lixing knelt on one knee and said with a careless smile.

“So, super A-rank fellow, can you take this attack from me?”

Distorted air obscured Xia Lixing’s figure.
The invisible “Ethereal Flame” was released without restraint.
The usually invisible “Ethereal Flame” now faintly carried a tinge of purple.
Xia Lixing compressed all the “Ethereal Flame” and then, in an instant, released all control over it.
This was his strongest attack, and also his last.

‘Sorry, everyone from the safe zone. And… those little brats, it’s a real shame I can’t continue to teach you…’

Space was continuously torn and then healed.
The “Ethereal Flame” spread slowly, contrary to its usual nature, sweeping over everything in its vicinity with an irresistible posture.
Xia Lixing had never intended to self-destruct with his chest emblem.
After all, compared to the power of this attack, the self-destruction of the chest emblem was just a small firecracker.

‘I’m actually a little unwilling to accept this…’

As if it had reached its limit of expansion, the “Ethereal Flame” stopped spreading.
And then, the violent energy suddenly swept back, contracting again at the center, and then, came the real explosion.

Xia Lixing’s figure had long since disappeared in the endless distortion.
Only the tattered long coat on his body was carried high into the air by the turbulent energy, slowly drifting down.

In the distance, Shun’s figure abruptly appeared in mid-air.
He looked towards the direction of the “Ethereal Flame” explosion, vaguely seeing the spatial rifts constantly appearing and disappearing in the sky.

“A very terrifying power. There should be no surviving life forms nearby.”

Despite his emotions, after the aftershocks of the energy gradually subsided, Shun still used his spatial ability to move to the location of the energy explosion.
At first glance, he saw a small earthen pit, inside which was half a corpse that was slowly dissipating, and a crystal.

“A super A-rank earth element ability beast…”
Casually picking up the crystal, Shun walked towards another earthen pit not far away, where a tattered long coat that had just been drifting in the air had landed.

That coat should have been left by the ability user who had launched that terrifying attack just now.
It had luckily not been destroyed by the energy stream, but it probably also meant that the ability user had already perished, leaving no bones behind.

However, when Shun arrived in front of the coat, his usually expressionless face showed a look of surprise for the first time.

The tattered coat had fallen and just happened to cover a person’s body.
Although this person was lying unconscious on the ground, the slight rise and fall of their chest indicated that this person was clearly still alive.

After a moment’s hesitation, Shun took off his own long coat and wrapped it around this person.
After thinking for a moment, he still folded up the tattered long coat and put it away.

As Shun bent down, a chest emblem half-buried in the dirt entered his sight.
Picking up the emblem and putting it away as well, he gently picked up the person on the ground and vanished from the spot.