Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead-Chapter 697 - Sizzling Soul

697: Sizzling Soul

697: Sizzling Soul

Increasing the amount of attacks he launched, Xator sought to keep Aldaii at a reasonable distance, considering him as a close-range fighter even with his first step activated, the man’s movements and way of fighting was the same as it was before, excluding the expected increase in power the activation brought that is, but overall, it seemed like the living was still seeking to get close to slash at the restless.

But of course, Xator much preferred to keep his distances and keep on pummeling his opponent with ranged attacks, the near-constant barrage had turned the direct vicinity across a five hundred meter radius into nothing but piles of debris, there was nothing to hide behind for the living as Xator continued to fire out bullets and slashes of his stagnant soul energy forth, trying to vary the speed and change their course mid-attack.

However, the living was nimble on his feet and still had yet to be hit a single time, remaining perfectly calm, waiting for an opportunity to land the first strike.

‘I have been using the same sort of attacks since the beginning… If he wants to do something, he’ll have to find or create an opening, but he is probably wary that I am waiting for him to do just that to reveal another sort of attack and catch him off-guard, which might be why he is hanging back and not approaching, trying to bait to make the first move and reveal another one of my cards…’ Xator wondered what the ability of his soul blade may be, it might be playing a part in why he wasn’t relentlessly getting closer and attacking, or it could be a bait and the power of the manifested object was simply being kept under wraps.

‘Phantom is what he said, right?

What could that relate to?

Ghosts?

Illusion?

Invisibility?

Intangibility?’ with just one word to go off of, the restless could think up of quite a few possibilities.

The fact that the blade hadn’t changed appearance at all did at least seem to indicate that the power did not lie wholly within the blade and was probably exerting its influence beyond its confines.

As Xator once again coated his claws with soul energy taken directly from the hole in his otherwise featureless skull, launching a wide net of slashes forth, causing the living to finally get back on the offensive, using Siften Steppe multiple times in a row, Aldaii arched around the net of attacks and appeared right before the restless, who was already readying to fire a cone of bullets forward.

Seeing an attack from for his neck, Xator stepped back, only for his stomach area to be pierced by an unseen thrust attack, the living quickly backed off as the restless’s face erupted with dozens of soul energy bullets that blasted off a good portion of the ground where he had stood upon moments ago.

“I see” Xator remarked to himself.

Aldaii first step, was both an illusion of sorts and invisibility, the slashing attack had not been real and just a decoy, whilst the real attack, a thrust, had been made invisible, the effect extending from the blade to the entire arm, so essentially, he now had an arm and blade that was perfectly visible, but was fake whilst the true one was perfectly invisible.

To fool the sense of an undead creature, it had to be good work as even now that he could discern the trick, Xator could not, for the death of him, see that what he was seeing wasn’t real, he just had to keep the living well away he supposed, it basically changed nothing in reality, only that if he did get close, there would be no point in attempting to blast him at point-blank range as it was a sure way to get hit by an attack that he could not avoid.

He got lucky there that he stepped far enough away that only a thrust could reach him and that the living’s immediate position forced him to go for the stomach area as he couldn’t re-adjust before the energy bullets erupted.

‘No point in keeping things hidden then…’ the restless’s face-hole flared up, unleashing a deluge of attacks unlike anything he had shown before, bullets of energy were shot straight, in curves or straight-up twisting through the air, some of which even landed on the ground and mounds of debris, exploding with powerful blasts that roused dust and launched remains of buildings in every direction.

“Finally getting serious, heh?” Aldaii rushed and weaved through the explosion caused by the projectiles whilst evading some to aimed straight for him, although the worst were definitely those that were aiming at the ground directly below and next to him, dodging these without instead running into another blast was difficult, and using Siften Steppe in such a mayhem was only asking to be torn apart, so he only relied on his good old legs and footwork skills.

Which were great, but not enough to prevent him from getting thrown to the ground as a bullet that seemed to have missed him instead struck another that had circled back around, creating a double explosion right next to him, allowing himself to be taken off the ground and carried by the force it exerted instead of just standing his ground and taking the full brunt of the damage, it still had the unfortunate effect of launching him into more chaos.

He hurriedly defended himself as best as he could, cursing himself for never bothering to learn any other technique than Siften Steppe.

‘I guess that redhead was right, Moural is indeed useful’ he thought as took one of the bullets head-on and was thrown into a pill of rubbles, the snapped bits of wood pushing against his skin, it was highly uncomfortable and painful, but not enough to pierce his resilient body.

Though the forearm of his sword-holding arm was damaged, looking as though someone had splashed him with acid, he could feel his soul energy sizzle.

‘Should have know that this filthy-looking soul energy would be toxic’ rolling away as another bullet headed straight from his face, the living swiftly rose to his feet, and continued running forth, stabbing at the restless’s face, since it seemed to be where he stocked all that soul energy, it should count as double the weak point.

But the moment he was anywhere close, Xator emitted a pulse of soul energy, nothing too threatening, but simply enough to knock one off balance, which was worrying enough as the restless called back all of the energy he had just used in that flurry of bullets.

Aldaii used Siften Steppe and moved out of the way, already moving to strike again, even as Xator also prepared to launch another attack immediately.