Chapter 200: Devil Blood Armor

Yellow light erupted from Peter. Before Edward had any chance to react, Peter exploded. But this explosion was unusual. The first wave dragged everything around it inward, while the second blasted everything outward.

Caught between the two opposing forces, Edward screamed in agony as the tremendous pressure crushed down on him. At first, he thought he needed to endure only until the explosion ended. To his shock, however, Peter suddenly reformed and regenerated. The next moment, he exploded again.

Seeing this from the corner of his eye, Edward screamed inwardly. How is that possible?

With the second explosion, the pressure he faced suddenly doubled. His ribs were the first to give way under the strain. Despite the protection of his immense energy, they began to crack with sharp, brittle snaps. Then Peter reformed once more. Under Edward's horrified gaze, he exploded yet again.

Trapped within the interlayer, Edward let out an agony-filled scream as his limbs were crushed flat. Blood spewed continuously from his mouth. He looked down in sheer terror as Peter reformed once again.

Deep within a shelter beneath the permafrost in Rossia's Sibiria, countless people sat cross-legged on the ground. Every few seconds, one of them would abruptly stop breathing. Yet no one panicked. They all wore resolute expressions, quietly waiting for their turn.

Their lives were linked to Peter's. Whenever a fatal attack struck Peter, its fatality would be transferred to one of them instead of Peter. Only after the very last person here had died would it be Peter's turn. This was Rossia's final measure, a true trump card meant to ensure mutual destruction.

In just a few short minutes, the pressure bearing down on Edward had escalated tens of times over. The crushing force had flattened his head and torso and squeezed his blood into paper-thin sheets that slowly trickled down to the ground.

Edward had never hated anyone this much before. "Peter!"

Fueled by that overwhelming hatred, he gritted his teeth and unleashed his strongest struggle yet. The Devil Cross pressed tightly against his back suddenly blasted him forward with tremendous force, launching itself away from him at the same time.

Edward coughed up a mouthful of blood. Once he was certain the distance was sufficient, he immediately swapped positions with the Devil Cross. He appeared high in the sky. The crushing pressure vanished, and he rapidly recovered, while the Devil Cross appeared in the position he had just occupied.

Having narrowly escaped death, Edward immediately burst into wild laughter. "Hahahahaha! Peter, you still lost!"

But the next moment, Peter appeared right in front of him and wrapped his arms around him. Under Edward's horrified gaze, Peter exploded once again.

Peter's ability had always been extremely mysterious. In the past, he had used it only five times. The first time, he displayed Sand Manipulation; the second time, Fire Manipulation; the third time, Wind Manipulation; and the fourth time, Water Manipulation. The fifth time, he created magma out of thin air.

Due to his comprehensive abilities, Peter was once known as the man with no weaknesses. However, his true ability was Spatial Conversion. He could distort two spatial coordinates, shifting Point A to Point B while simultaneously shifting Point B to Point A. With this ability, he could perform all kinds of seemingly different feats.

His so-called Sand Manipulation, for example, was just the result of continuously converting the spatial coordinates occupied by individual grains of sand, thereby creating a sandstorm. His other abilities worked in much the same way.

However, this ability also had one limitation. Aside from himself, he could not shift the spatial coordinates occupied by another person. Otherwise, Edward could never have escaped his original location, between the two opposing forces.

After the blast subsided, Edward was left with only half a body, once more trapped between two opposing forces. His mind went blank for a moment. Realizing that he would die if this continued, he gritted his teeth and summoned the Devil Cross. As it flew toward him from the ground, he closed his eyes. The devil carved into the Devil Cross opened its eyes and then its mouth and swallowed Edward whole.

This time, it was Peter's turn to despair. "No!"

The Devil Cross was extraordinarily durable and was completely unaffected by his explosions. Amid Peter's anguished cries, the explosions continued again and again. But every one of them was futile, every sacrifice in vain.

With each explosion, the affected area grew larger. The ground collapsed, forming a seemingly bottomless crater, while the sky above seemed to be pushed higher, revealing a vast expanse of blue. But none of it meant anything.

A full day and night passed in the blink of an eye before the explosions stopped. Peter was gone. No one knew how much he had suffered before the end, but one thing was certain: he would never have rested in peace.

In the era of the supernatural, Rossia had a population of nearly sixty million. Now, only a little over ten million remained, and aside from pregnant women, the vast majority were infants and underage children. The entire nation had thrown everything it had into one final battle, yet still failed to kill Edward. All that remained was tragedy and defiance.

***

Half an hour later, the landscape was devastated, and only the Devil Cross remained suspended in the air, completely intact.

Thick black smoke billowed across what had been a cloudless sky, blotting out the sun entirely. The Devil Cross quickly descended to the edge of the massive crater. The devil on the cross opened its mouth and spat Edward out.

Only his upper body remained. Lying exposed on the ground, Edward looked around at the desolate landscape and burst into wild laughter. He had survived. He had actually survived such a terrifying attack! As expected, I am the Chosen One, destined to become the sole ruler of the Blue Planet.

With a flicker of his thought, he drew upon his vast reserves of energy to restore himself. At the same time, he cast blood art to accelerate the healing process. Before long, his lower body had regenerated. He sat up and glanced at his finger, then frowned. His spatial ring had been destroyed during the previous attack.

As for clothes, he would have to find something to wear later. With that thought, Edward wrapped himself in crimson energy so that he would not have to walk around naked.

However, just as he was about to leave, the black smoke overhead dispersed and sunlight poured down. Edward hurriedly used crimson energy to shield himself from the sunlight.

He narrowed his eyes and looked up. High in the sky, a silver-haired young man hovered, his crimson eyes staring coldly down at him.

Edward was surprised at first, then delighted. "You're... that wild vampire, Yu Xian! What's that saying in Huaxia? You can wear out iron shoes searching in vain, only to find what you seek without effort. You dared to appear right in front of me!"

He stared at Yu Xian and burst into wild laughter. As long as he absorbed Yu Xian's blood, even if he could not become immune to sunlight, he would at least become capable of staying under the sun for much longer. In fact, if Edward had not been wary of Huaxia, he would have captured Yu Xian and Nora long ago, taken them back to Romulus Dominion, and drained their blood.

But the moment Edward finished speaking, a foot came crashing down onto his face. With a deafening boom, the ground split apart, and his head was crushed instantly. Only then did the Devil Cross react, sweeping sideways and sending Yu Xian flying.

Yu Xian was knocked thousands of meters away, but the very next instant, he appeared beside Edward again and drove a kick straight into his chest, crushing his heart. "Edward, I'm going to kill you!"

Yu Xian's physical attributes far surpassed Edward's. In front of him, Edward was no different from a weakling.

However, the Devil Cross reacted extremely quickly to protect its master. It swept Yu Xian away once again, then positioned itself in front of Edward. It also released a massive surge of crimson energy that enveloped Edward, forming a crimson bubble around him.

Sitting inside the crimson bubble, Edward rapidly regenerated. By now, all of his delight was gone, replaced entirely by shock and fury. He was shocked that Yu Xian had also reached Star rank and furious that a second person had managed to reach the rank at all.

Edward glared at Yu Xian, his mind consumed by murderous intent. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him...

Supporting himself against the Devil Cross, he slowly rose to his feet. Then, with a click, he drew a longsword from within the cross. The portion of the Devil Cross that served as the sword's sheath rapidly transformed, becoming armor that covered him. This was the Devil Cross's true combat form, Devil Blood Armor. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

The real battle had only just begun.