Chapter 226: Lilith's Plan, Beginning of First Mark (5/8)
Five hours had passed since Rin and Erix crossed the Umbral membrane.
Both had fought a Royal-order shade each and won.
After an hour, Erix flew towards Rin according to the plan and met up with her.
"One hour left before the challengers arrive," Rin said as she put away her Blade Eater.
Erix nodded as he took out two round candies from his Hunter card and handed one to Rin.
"Let's see if the effects really are as Lilith told us," Rin popped up the pill along with Erix as strange energy and feeling permeated their entire body, mind, and even deeper.
Lilith had told both of them to eat these so-called magic pills after four hours. She had given them to Erix yesterday.
The duo had never heard about pills in any store here or seen anyone use them, but they also couldn't inspect the pills.
However, It was supposed to heighten all of their senses, including supernatural ones, and if one broke their limits during the pill's effects that would last for twenty-four hours, they could gradually improve faster and faster.
As long as they worked hard during the pill's effect and made constant progress, their potential would increase and invoke, improving them in the respective areas they were focusing on more and more.
This was the power training Lilith had designed for the duo by using two priceless items on them: the Nebulous Bloom Pills.
The realm of pills was higher than creating potions and required one to be at level 10 Alchemy to begin creating magic pills.
Lilith had gotten them by ordering them from a Cosmoc Faction when she was in the core domain of Kaalanx Abyss, precisely to use them on talented individuals.
Lily had already gotten one and reaped its benefits while she gave the remaining two to Rin and Erix.
…
The dark crimson moon in Lilith's domain showered its lights on ten figures surrounded by wiggly red threads with black patterns.
These ten people were scared to death, but the expected death was not coming, causing their minds to get increasingly tense and despairing.
Lilith sat on a throne ten meters away while she leisurely trimmed her nails with a tiny makeshift dark red blade.
All ten Royal-order hunters were at her mercy, but they were not hers to hunt.
Lilith's eyes flashed with multiple scenery as the shadow bird eyes she sent with Rin and Erix showed their current situation.
'Good. It's time to start.'
She deactivated her domain as they arrived at the treehouse.
Lilith sat on the couch, manipulating the threads to put ten hunters before her.
The hunters were confused but still felt hopeless, knowing Lilith wouldn't spare them.
However, the words that Lilith spoke a second later stirred their souls.
"Congrats, I will give you a chance to live," Lilith smiled.
"But on one condition."
The ten hunters waited with bated breath, their eyes flickering with light for the first time in past hours.
"I will start with the weakest of you," Lilith twirled her finger and freed two hunters that were weakest among the ten.
"W-what condition?" the man looking in his late twenties with short dark blond hair asked.
The other man, who looked a bit older and was a dark elf, eagerly waited.
"Cross the umbral membrane and find the two Noble-order hunters."
Lilith created a portrait of Rin and Erix using Prana.
"T-Then?"
Lilith smiled, "Fight with them and kill them. If you win, you may leave."
"They… aren't those t-two your people?"
"They are. They will even attack you, so the abyss rule will deactivate," Lilith sharply grinned. "Kill them, and you are free."
"But I'll be observing you, and if you try to escape, you should already know that I've planted something in your bodies that will kill you instantly."
Both men fearfully nodded, fully aware of the fact. But deep in their eyes were lights filled with hope and ruthlessness.
They would kill those two and win, no matter what!
…
Fifteen minutes before Lilith freed those two...
Erix pointed his right arm at Rin, littered with eccentric lining formations that glowed.
It lit up in a dark, hazy purple aura with a silver hue before the silver hue increased in intensity, coating his arm like a glowing neo-liquid.
"Is that the final product?" Rin asked while stasis dark red, blue, and other blinking colorful lights stilled around her. She was giving random forms to her Chronace Storm with chaotic time laps, so the interaction of Chronace Flow with lightning and wind created colorful lights around her that sometimes slowly moved while other times blurred.
There were abundant different flows of time around her and in her Chronace Storm. Upon learning to control this, Rin started feeling the essence of time more than ever. She had basically mastered 1st realm of Time.
"Let's clash and see if we succeeded," Erix grinned and floated thirty meters away from Rin.
Rin floated with a drawing stance, ready to slash her long Katana as a strange criss-cross Chronace flow surrounded its blade.
Meanwhile. the stasis Chronace Storm around her started moving slowly in a chaotic way as swirls formed around her, and even more swirled within those swirls.
Erix grinned when he saw that phenomenon, "Awesome, babe."
"Hehe, bring it on. I can't believe we both were on the same thing and also managed to succeed in creating different styles," Rin excitedly said.
Erix laughed and stretched his right leg forward and left one backward while pulling his arm back at his waist level, standing sideways with his head turned to the left, facing Rin.
He was ready to release a straight punch in his unique but stylish-looking stance.
"2000 Mana, 100 spirit force," Erix said. "I will use 100 Vigor Force while you can use the same potency of your Blade energy."
"Alright," Rin nodded.
The duo distributed their energies after consuming 1000 Mana.
Rin's blade glowed, and her Chronace flow slightly reduced in size but condensed more.
Rin believed she could initiate turbulence with a flick of her finger from her Chronace Storm in her every Blade attack.
"I am ready," Rin said.
On the other hand, Erix had finished what he called a Skill Shooter.
His entire right arm had an exotic metal fundamental structure designed specially to release his most powerful punch with a turbulent force that his Vigor Force would randomly generate and boost his skill.
"Three," Erix said, a grin stretching on his face.
"Two," Rin tightened her grip, the veins all over her body faintly glowing.
"One."
The Chronace Storm around Rin instantly started bending and following as Rin drew her blade and swung it horizontally and vertically at a precise speed, with the vertical slash fully imbuing the chaotic flow around her cross-slash's four gaps as if binding the slashes but contained such power that the space was literally shredding as it traveled.
At the same time, Erix's entire body had turned pitch black for a second before it flooded with vigor force that chaotically traveled into his arm at once right when he released the punch.
The dark purple flamy and silver-sparkling punch projectile that left his fist carrying full power of his execution looked as if death itself was coming, increasing to five meters in size as the vigor force infused into it chaotically, creating swirls of turbulent forces as the energies mixed and condensed each other while increasing in potency.
His punch projectile could be dispersed by its own chaotic structure that was generated due to Virgor force, but both attacks were too fast as they clashed within the second after the duo executed them.
The cross-slash and punch projectile clashed, and time stopped briefly before a chaotic explosion occurred.
The shockwaves resulting from the clash decimated and destroyed the dark forest within five kilometers and killed a few Noble-order shades within two kilometers.
Meanwhile, Erix and Rin were shot backward forcefully several meters despite trying to resist.
They were having goosebumps and a rush of thrill as they felt the power of the clash.
And a second later, both of them got a notification.
[Congratulations, you have…]