Chapter 706 - 705: An Opportunity Too Good to Waste

Chapter 706: Chapter 705: An Opportunity Too Good to Waste

Not long after the angel departed, Arachne appeared beside Ailetta.

"What should we do?"

Her question was brief, but Ailetta understood what she meant.

The remaining celestial beings were no longer fighting. They had withdrawn, hiding behind their barriers, leaving Ailetta and the others with little choice but to decide what should become of them.

Unfortunately, Ailetta wasn’t entirely sure what to do either.

She knew just how valuable their souls would be to Noah, especially considering how much stronger he grew just by consuming one of them.

But obtaining those souls was another matter.

If they waited too long, the celestial beings would eventually disappear on their own. They still had a chance to bypass their barriers. Ailetta recalled that Eve wasn’t affected. But even if they allowed Eve to kill them before that happened, that wouldn’t stop their souls from disappearing before Noah was able to claim them for himself.

Under normal circumstances, Ailetta wouldn’t have been particularly concerned.

Noah had already shown that in his current form, distance no longer mattered as long as his aura was in contact with their soul.

But with Noah fighting so far away, she couldn’t be sure he could draw the souls of holy beings, especially if Heaven tried to reclaim them through those portals.

And given how valuable those souls were, she was reluctant to make a decision that might cost them such an opportunity.

"Just kill them."

Ailetta was still considering their options when Noah’s voice spoke to her through their connection.

There was little reason for any of them to conceal their thoughts from one another in the middle of a battle, especially when their decisions could affect everyone involved.

But even knowing that, Ailetta couldn’t help being surprised by his response.

Why?

The question had barely formed in her mind before their connection provided the answer.

And for a moment, she was left speechless.

To Noah, hesitating over something like this was already a problem.

If they had become so desperate to obtain the souls of their enemies that the mere possibility of losing them filled them with hesitation and doubt, then how was that any different from admitting they were weak?

And Noah didn’t consider himself weak enough to depend on something he wasn’t even certain he could obtain.

He had already proven that he didn’t need powerful souls to make his creatures stronger, nor did he need them to continue growing stronger himself.

And regardless of what happened here, he had no intention of allowing his own growth to stop either.

That was why he saw no reason for them to hesitate.

They were his enemies, and if they couldn’t obtain their souls, there was no point in letting them live.

However, there was still one soul Noah wasn’t willing to abandon so easily.

The human named Soren.

Noah still wanted his soul, or at least the core within his body.

And as far as Noah was concerned, it didn’t particularly matter whether they brought him back alive or dead.

Ailetta recalled the moment Noah had noticed the human Morvyr had spoken of.

She remembered his face, but more importantly, she remembered that Morvyr was supposed to retrieve him.

Unfortunately, given how his battle against the human who controlled fire was progressing, she wasn’t particularly confident he could accomplish that task.

Not that Morvyr was losing.

If anything, he had proven himself to be considerably stronger than Ailetta had initially given him credit for.

The lone tree monster he had summoned before the battle started had withstood a surprising amount of punishment from the flames of a supposed S-rank human before it was finally destroyed.

And even then, Morvyr hadn’t seemed particularly concerned.

Instead, he took the opportunity to lodge two more seeds into nearby trees, transforming them into creatures even larger than the one that had come before.

The resulting monsters resembled towering treants, their enormous bodies as if pulled straight from someone’s worst nightmare.

The ground trembled with their every step, and given their sheer size, Ailetta doubted any ordinary human could survive being crushed by their weight.

Yet their opponent showed no signs of fear.

Rather than retreating, the human raised his staff, spending a significant amount of mana, conjuring a creature of his own, its entire body composed of raging flames.

Unlike Morvyr’s creations, however, the creature wasn’t truly alive.

It required the human’s direct control to function, preventing him from commanding more than one while simultaneously defending himself against Morvyr.

Fortunately for him, a single creature was enough to contend with one of the treants.

As for the other, he engulfed it in flames, hoping to slow its advance long enough to concentrate on the elf responsible for summoning them.

And that wasn’t the only way he had adapted to the situation.

After witnessing Morvyr create the two treants, the human had surrounded both him and the elf with a wall of flames, effectively separating them from any other tree or creature.

It was a rather simple solution, but one that demonstrated just how much experience the human had to make qualified judgments on the fly.

After all, there was little reason to let Morvyr create more creatures when he could simply prevent him from reaching the materials he needed.

And judging by what happened next, Morvyr recognized that too.

With his ability to summon more creatures effectively restricted, Morvyr finally resorted to wielding his sword.

The weapon’s ancient wooden handle suddenly came alive, producing root-like tendrils that spread across his hand before burrowing into his arm.

Blood began flowing from his body into the weapon, while an unfamiliar energy traveled in the opposite direction, gradually spreading throughout the elf.

As that energy took hold, the lone demonic eye on Morvyr’s face seemed to come alive.

Withered veins spread around it, extending across the surrounding flesh as his movements changed noticeably.

The speed and grace with which he moved were far beyond anything he had demonstrated earlier.

In fact, Ailetta doubted an ordinary opponent could have kept up with him.

Unfortunately for Morvyr, his opponent wasn’t relying on physical strength alone.

The human, Roland, continued using his extraordinary aptitude for fire to compensate for what he lacked, preventing Morvyr from taking full advantage of his newfound speed.

However, Morvyr wasn’t nearly as concerned about avoiding those flames as Roland had anticipated.

On more than one occasion, the elf willingly allowed himself to be burned if it meant getting close enough to land a strike of his own.

And considering what happened whenever his blade managed to draw blood, Roland quickly learned why.

The wounds themselves weren’t particularly deep, but the moment Morvyr’s sword pierced his flesh, the blood that should’ve flowed from them was drawn toward the weapon instead.

As the stolen blood traveled through the sword and into Morvyr’s body, the burns he had suffered began to heal while his veins bulged, making him faster and stronger in turn.

And that wasn’t the only effect of the weapon.

A strange numbness began spreading from each wound, gradually interfering with the surrounding muscles and making it increasingly difficult to move.

Fortunately, Roland had a rather unpleasant solution.

By concentrating his flames directly against the affected areas, he burned away the poisoned flesh before the paralysis could spread any further.

It did little to reverse the numbness that had already taken hold, and the burns only added to his injuries, but it was enough to prevent his condition from worsening.

More importantly, if he managed to cauterize the wound before the poison spread too far into his bloodstream, he could neutralize nearly all of its effects in the affected area.

Yet Roland wasn’t helpless against him.

His flames continued restricting Morvyr’s movements, and whenever the elf attempted to force his way through them, Roland made certain that he paid for the opportunity.

Their battle had reached something resembling a stalemate.

Given enough time, one of them would inevitably emerge victorious.

But that was precisely the problem.

Even if Morvyr eventually managed to defeat Roland, there was little reason to believe he would be able to accomplish what Noah had originally entrusted him to do before it was too late.

Fortunately, Noah didn’t need to witness the battle himself to understand what was happening.

Through his connection with Ailetta, he could sense everything she was thinking, including her concerns about Morvyr’s ability to accomplish the task he had been given.

And as far as Noah was concerned, there was little reason to waste any more time considering the matter.

"Then take care of it yourself. And make sure you finish off everyone else while you’re at it."

Ailetta’s eyes glinted at his words.

For a brief moment, they were filled with unmistakable killing intent, but almost as quickly, another emotion emerged.

Concern.

It was just as powerful as her desire to kill, yet the two emotions were so different that it almost seemed as though they belonged to entirely different people.

And perhaps that wasn’t entirely inaccurate.

After all, the source of those conflicting emotions was standing directly ahead of her.

How could Ailetta have failed to notice Paul rushing toward Bailey, only to turn his attention toward the very person who had taken her away from them?

And Paul wasn’t the only familiar face she recognized.

There were others, including Jasmine, all gathered in a place where Ailetta could reach them without having to go out of her way.

It was almost as though fate itself had decided to work in her favor.