"System."
Joren called up the panel in his mind, his eyes fixed on the numbers.
"Upgrade the Talents."
With more than a hundred thousand Bloodstars sitting in his account, there was no reason to be stingy.
[Windborne Frame].
[Bloodthirst Frenzy].
Both blue Talents had carried him through countless battles and given him enormous advantages along the way.
Now they were too slow.
Too tame.
Even the 500 percent maximum boost from [Bloodthirst Frenzy], once absurdly powerful, no longer felt quite enough in battles between Rank Five experts. Raw numerical enhancement alone was starting to show its limits.
"Spend 10000 Bloodstars to evolve [Windborne Frame]."
"Spend 10000 Bloodstars to evolve [Bloodthirst Frenzy]."
Boom!
Twenty thousand Bloodstars vanished.
Inside Joren’s sea of consciousness, two stars glowing with deep blue light suddenly shattered. Their fragments whirled together, reformed, then erupted with a strange and regal violet radiance.
New entries appeared before his eyes.
[Talent: Garuda Skyfall Wings]
[Grade: Purple]
[Description: The wind no longer carries you. You command the wind itself. A trace of the ancient divine bird Garuda has awakened within your blood.]
[Supersonic Cruise: Your maximum flight speed reaches Mach 10. While flying, wind resistance is converted into additional thrust, reducing energy consumption by 90 percent.]
[Tempest Domain: While in flight, a storm of high frequency wind blades automatically forms around your body. Anything entering within one hundred meters will be cut to pieces.]
[Horizon Flash: Active ability. Temporarily burst to Mach 20, ignoring the sound barrier and tearing through the air with your physical body.]
...
[Talent: Asura War Soul]
[Grade: Purple]
[Description: You are not fighting. You are savoring the art of slaughter. Your soul has soaked in the blood pools of hell. Pain is power. Blood is fuel. As long as the battle continues, you will never fall.]
[Asura Warform: The previous stack limit has been removed. Your total attribute enhancement now changes dynamically according to Battle Will. Battle Will is generated through killing enemies, taking damage, and anger. Maximum enhancement: 1000 percent.]
[Undying Bloodrage: When your life falls below 20 percent, your life is forcibly locked for ten seconds. Cooldown: 24 hours. During this period, all damage received is converted into an equal amount of healing.]
[Dread Aura: Passively releases Asura pressure. Enemies with Mental Force lower than yours lose their nerve before battle and suffer a 30 percent reduction to all attributes.]
Joren read through the two new purple Talents.
The smile at the corner of his mouth kept growing until he finally laughed.
Powerful.
Ridiculously powerful.
Mach 20 from [Garuda Skyfall Wings].
Ten seconds of forced survival from [Asura War Soul].
Perfect.
Joren drew in a breath.
The protective force inside him began vibrating at a strange frequency.
Whoosh!
The still air around him suddenly erupted.
A pair of enormous wings spread behind him, formed entirely from condensed currents of cyan wind.
Their span reached twenty meters.
Every feather looked sharp enough to slice steel.
The pressure alone forced Alar and the others several steps backward. They raised their arms against the gale and could barely keep their eyes open.
"Frontier Marshal!"
Jazz shouted over the wind.
"Where are you going?"
Joren bent his knees slightly.
The enormous wings behind him gave one light beat.
"I am going to see those two old friends off."
Boom!
The sonic blast was ten times louder than anything from the battle before.
The ground beneath him collapsed into a crater a hundred meters across from the recoil alone.
Joren was already gone.
The soldiers rubbed their eyes and stared upward.
A cyan trail had punched straight through the clouds, cutting toward the horizon like a wound across the sky.
...
Ten thousand meters above the ground, the wind cut like knives.
The Golden Dragon Falcon fled for its life.
It had already burned half the vital blood accumulated over its entire existence. Agony ran through every part of its body, each muscle twitching under the strain.
"He should not be able to catch me now... right?"
It glanced back.
Nothing.
Only an endless sea of clouds.
Some of the tension finally eased from its body.
Even a Rank Six beast emperor specialized in speed should not have been able to catch it so quickly after it had burned so much vital blood.
Safe.
Once it found some hidden corner and buried itself there, no one would ever find it.
Then the air behind it changed.
The Golden Dragon Falcon looked back again.
A streak of cyan and violet light was carving a vacuum corridor through the cloud sea at a speed that made no physical sense.
Several thousand meters away, it could already make out the figure at the front of that trail.
A young human with enormous wings spread behind him.
A heavy blade in one hand.
And on his face, a bright smile that looked far too much like a demon’s.
"I already told you."
Joren’s voice exploded directly inside the Golden Dragon Falcon’s mind through Mental Force.
"We have not even had dessert yet."
"How can you leave the buffet early?"
Boom!
Joren accelerated again.
His already terrifying speed doubled.
Mach 20.
[Horizon Flash].
Color vanished from the Golden Dragon Falcon’s world.
All that remained was a vast cyan blade light filling heaven and earth as it came crashing toward its head.
"Screech!"
The Golden Dragon Falcon let out the most desperate cry of its life.
"I will drag you down with me!"
Its pupils flooded with blood and turned a strange dark red.
If escape was impossible, then it would take Joren to hell with it.
The Golden Dragon Falcon stopped dead in midair.
Its momentum was so violent that its enormous body tore a vacuum trail hundreds of meters long through the sky.
Turn.
Wings spread.
The feathers that had already faded to a lifeless gray suddenly ignited once more.
This time there was no golden light.
Only blood red flame.
It was burning away the very foundation of its life.
"You forced me to do this!"
The Golden Dragon Falcon opened its massive beak.
A golden crystal core slowly rose from within, shining so brightly that it was almost impossible to look at directly.