Inside of a vast cornfield, Ray lay on the ground. As the winds moved away the tall plants, sunlight touched his face from time to time.

His clothes had changed into a dark robe; with the whole world knowing his true identity, there was no more point in acting like the person who knew him. From now on, only the Blood Angel existed.

No thoughts were in his head about his future, with the parasite inside of him; for now there were no safe thoughts.

"Its plan is simple: they will kill me and take my body to their planet; that’s when it returns to life." He closed his eyes: "There is no way I can win a festival on my own..."

The biggest obstacle in his way was one thing: being level 4 meant he didn’t have access to his main offensive capabilities, and the absence of Orcus didn’t help either.

A blood eye in the north showed what the military people’s plan was: "Making a tight defense, not bad. Now he should make the ground impossible to attack and fight with the upper hand."

Deep in his heart, trails of uncertainty stopped him from going on with his plan. At best his plan had a 5 percent success rate.

Without a calm face, Ray summoned two wings on his waist and flew to the sky.

At the same time that Vice General made hell on the ground, Ray started to make his own preparations.

After each ascension to a new level, one’s soul and body grew with it. Some professionals could guess someone’s level just by taking a glance at their soul. Ray followed the rules too; if someone looked at him right now, they would see a vibration of a level 4.

After his time travel, Ray had faced the problem of his soul; like his mind, his soul had fully returned to his body as a child. Just like a small fish in a sea made for sharks, his body couldn’t contain his soul, or it could have shattered.

The solution came on its own; after some time Ray could feel a seal deep within his soul that caged his full potential. At first he had thought that the reason it got fixed was because nature balanced itself.

"It was your doing all along..." With a grin on his face, his thoughts went to the parasite in his body.

Without any hesitation, Ray broke all the seals around his caged soul. Like a beast, it attacked his body and mind; holding in the screams of pain, he withstood the immense pain.

His flesh exploded on his arms, with his skin rotting all over his body.

"Blood skull."

A long-gone power once more ran through his veins as he took the skull on and changed its shape. The bones resisted against his will, yet his authority was much greater than its core.

The blood skull penetrated his chest, and like a small cage, it covered the area around his heart; its healing effect started to fight the process of his body’s destruction.

"As expected, it just slows it down..." After a few calculations, he reached how much time he had left: "Ten days, more than enough."

Cracks were all over his skin, leaving his muscles for the eyes to witness.

A roar gave the news of war starting; before rushing to the battlefield, he decided to check his system.

Error! Error! Error! Error! Error! Error! Error! Error!

Ray rolled his eyes. "My points all should be around 6000 in all of them, but with only abilities of a level 4! This should be fun."

Excitement of the battle at hand made his blood boil; with no fear of the enemies, his wings moved, leaving only dust behind.

The big creature was headed on his way too. Ray inspected his body from afar; its color was pure black, with his body looking like an orb with eight tentacles out of it, each covered by destruction magic.

The tentacles were free to move anything in the orb, and their sizes changed from time to time. Behind it were thousands of bird-like things, but instead of heads, they had two big eyes floating in the sky, protected by some sort of magic that Ray had never seen.

"The orb must be equal to a level 9, and the smaller ones should be at least level 5 or 6... Not bad for the first round."

With a smile on his lips, Ray started to open his hands toward the sky. Millions of blood lances were created above their heads; with his powers at his prime, his blood could even cut through diamond.

Before the birds could dodge the incoming projectiles, their bodies were torn apart into pieces by the blood lances; a few that were lucky enough to escape the first round were faced by another set of deadly threats.

All the time, Ray only watched the Orb. None of the attacks had any effect on it; most were even destroyed before reaching its body.

Its tentacles got pulled inside of its body. Gazing into the magic aura around it, Ray had a guess about its attack.

His wings grew more and more until their height reached thirty meters. Their form changed into cocoons around his body, connected to his body; the blood in them transformed into stone, shaping a wall of defense around his body.

The orb’s roar shook the sky and ground as it released all the destruction magic it had stored in its tentacles. A red shockwave cut through space and time from its body; anything that was unfortunate enough to be in its path turned into dust.

Ray put more and more magic into his defense; a blood blade cut his fingers, adding more of his flesh to the walls around him; however, none were effective as cracks were starting to grow larger.

"Most of its power is gone, and this thing is not going to last either." He whispered to himself; his blade moved to cut the palm of his hand completely, yet he was too late.

Red walls shattered, and following it, Ray’s hands turned into dust from his shoulders. His blue eyes locked once more on his foe.

"Not bad..."

Blood, skull, and heart pumped more and more magic into his hands; in just seconds, his hands returned to their former state.

Orb changed formation to get ready for another attack; Ray did the exact same with a blood scythe appearing in his hand.