Chapter 47: The Quakefist Strike

The next instant, Nathan plunged into boundless darkness!

Sebastian heard the sound of Nathan's heart-seed shattering, and joy flooded his heart. He wasn't in much better shape himself—but he'd won this round all the same.

"The kid devoured my arcane like a maniac—did he ever stop to think how recently he awakened? Strong inborn inheritance or not, how could he possibly hold power this thick?"

Sebastian assumed Nathan was done for, and drove his arcane in a desperate counter—but no matter how he pushed his power, it vanished into the void without a ripple. Horror crept into his heart.

A bloodborn's heart-seed is like a human's heart—once it shatters, death is certain.

Nathan's black-light heart-seed had shattered into countless motes of dust; by all rights he should have died with it. But the scene now was grotesque beyond words—the boy's bond-power hadn't weakened in the slightest. If anything, the harder it was driven, the stronger it burned, tyrannical and roaring.

What Sebastian didn't know was that Nathan had two heart-seeds!

With the black-light heart-seed shattered, the Mystic-Gold iron thread suddenly moved. It had long since struck a balance with the black-light heart-seed—now it began devouring black-light vitae all over again.

Nathan had swallowed at least thirty percent of Sebastian's power—and that was only because Sebastian's scattered arcane couldn't be concentrated; one clean surge would have burst Nathan apart outright. Fed such thick arcane, the black-light vitae had swollen to more than double its original volume. But the Mystic-Gold iron thread drank like a great whale swallowing the sea—a bottomless black hole, devouring black-light vitae in an endless stream, even more tyrannical than the Star-Swallowing Form.

For every measure of black-light vitae it devoured, the Mystic-Gold skull grew a measure. A few moments later, it began putting out a spine, ribs, hand bones, hip bones... until a complete Mystic-Gold skeleton stood formed.

The Mystic-Gold skeleton was freakishly tall, its frame webbed with countless fine cracks—and every one of those cracks was a darkness with no visible bottom, packed with black runes faintly aglitter with gold.

At the sight, a bad feeling spread through Sebastian. He knew full well how dangerous Nathan was just then—and could only hate that his own condition left him no strength to get away.

The Mystic-Gold skeleton gave a low roar and hammered a fist down—hidden force like thunder and lightning, matchless, unstoppable—blasting straight through the Hundred-Refined Ironweave Grub's defensive shield. The bone hand seized Sebastian's head, and with one shrieking howl, plucked the Order of the Deathless acolyte's head clean off his shoulders.

Sebastian died on the spot; even in death, his eyes wore nothing but disbelief.

The Mystic-Gold skull threw back its head in a soundless roar at the sky, and swallowed the black-light vitae wreathing it in one gulp.

With Sebastian slain and the black-light vitae drained, the twin Mystic-Gold flames in its eye sockets dimmed slightly. It gave one low growl, and starting from the feet, the Mystic-Gold skeleton crumbled inch by inch—until only a length of spine and the skull remained.

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Then black-light vitae came gushing back out of the Mystic-Gold skull's seven apertures. Refined anew through the Mystic-Gold skeleton, it carried even more dazzling golden flecks, gathering without end into one mass—and condensing a brand-new black-light heart-seed.

With the heart-seed re-condensed, the Titan Godslayer Canon began running on its own; barely ten-odd seconds later, it had drawn a human boy's body back out of the mass...

Nathan drifted slowly back to consciousness—and finding himself not dead after all, felt a touch puzzled.

He opened his eyes to Sebastian's head and body lying apart—yet no matter what, he couldn't remember killing the Order of the Deathless man. All he had was the instant he'd lost every sense: the shadow of something utterly savage, a heaven-filling killing intent bursting up from the floor of his heart.

"Looks like being a bloodborn still comes with plenty of changes you can't get a handle on."

Nathan didn't torture himself over it. Not knowing what had happened, he simply filed it all under "normal." The sheer relief of surviving by a hair made it easy to let the weirdness go.

He ran a lap of black-light vitae through his body and immediately spotted the changes in himself.

Before, only his skull had turned Mystic-Gold; now he'd gained a length of spine to go with it—needless to say, changes born of the Mystic-Gold iron thread heart-seed.

He tried driving the Ennead Crucible and instantly found he'd made real strides.

The Ennead Crucible divides into nine stages: Flesh-Awakening, Essence-Ignition, Marrow-Cleansing, Sinew-Reforging, Bone-Tempering, Organ-Forging, Blood-Renewal, Hide-Hardening, Spirit-Fusing.

He'd actually broken through to the fifth stage: Bone-Tempering!

On top of that, the Mystic-Gold iron thread between his brows now faintly carried one more layer of runes.

That layer of runes was another formula, called the Quakefist Strike.

If the Ennead Crucible was the practicing method, this formula was the killing art. Nathan didn't yet know that it was the Quakefist Strike the Mystic-Gold skull had driven—blowing apart the Hundred-Refined Ironweave Grub's invisible shield and slaying Sebastian.

Inborn bloodline inheritances awaken new abilities as your strength grows!

After gaining the Star-Swallowing Form, Nathan had wondered what combat art the Ennead Crucible might produce if it advanced. Now he couldn't hold the curiosity down—wanting a live test of its power, he drove the Quakefist Strike and pressed a hand to the ground!

The Quakefist Strike runs on sheer overwhelming force: hidden power like thunder, boring into an enemy's body before detonating—immensely powerful.

Nathan had special-trained in this little courtyard countless times, and long since had a sober read on how tough its ground was.

His black-light vitae could penetrate any material, but it had never managed to bore into this ground. His high-frequency electromagnetic blade-force, matchlessly sharp, had never scored it the slightest bit; even going all-out, he'd never left so much as a scratch.

But now... under a single strike of the Quakefist Strike, even this sealed ground sprouted countless cracks.

Nathan didn't yet know that the Mystic-Gold skeleton had even shattered Sebastian's bodyguard Hundred-Refined Ironweave Grub shield—had he known, the shock would only have run deeper.

Testing the Quakefist Strike's power, Nathan rejoiced inwardly: "The Ennead Crucible's combat art kills hard and hot—more overbearing than even the Star-Swallowing Form. If I'd gotten the Quakefist Strike earlier, I'd never have had to fear Sebastian at all."

The Ennead Crucible had come a long way, and the Titan Godslayer Canon had made big strides too. Nathan gave his body a quick once-over, then turned to puzzling out how to clean up after this whole affair.

First he searched Sebastian's body and turned up three war-beasts. One was the Hundred-Refined Ironweave Grub—badly wounded by the Mystic-Gold skeleton, but already slowly mending.

Another was called the Fire-Swallowing Snake, a natural master of flame, able to grant the host an ascendant-path art called the Flame Blade.

The last war-beast gave Nathan a small start. This one was called the "Insect Nest"—it granted the host no ascendant-path arts at all, but it could direct thousands of black beetles. Only now did he realize that every black beetle Sebastian used had been run by this war-beast.

Besides the three war-beasts, Nathan found fifty-odd thousand starlings on Sebastian, and casually transferred the sum onto his own gold sigil ring.