NOVEL NEXT Chapter 894: 891: Strange
Paragon Martial Arts: Cosmos Cleave
The moment Corey uttered these words out loud, an extremely loud and heavy THRUM echoed from his axe as it fell toward the body of the Archmage.
An extremely beautiful, but sharp and heavy fiery light engulfed the blades of the axe, and it touched the body of Archmage Kael.
BOOM!
A powerful explosion shook the very foundations of the space, and Corey was flung back in a bloody mess.
He tumbled a few times before coming to a stop directly beside the crown of black bones.
Blood fell on the floor in copious amount, causing Corey's fingers and clothes to be stained in them.
His clothes were in tatters, and several severe cuts and burns were on his body which bled profusely unto the ground.
His left shoulder was broken, and he coughed out a mouthful of blood. Every single orifice of his bled, and his pure white eyes also bled.
In fact, it was his eyes that bled the most, and his pure white eyes became red because of the blood.
Corey's breathing became slightly erratic as he gripped his Genesis Armament tightly while looking in the direction of the Archmage.
An azure-violet-silver fire raged on the dead tree along with the screams of fury and pain from Archmage Kael and the dead tree of flesh and bones itself.
A deep cut which showed the bones of the Archmage could be seen from the stomach of the Archmage down to the space between his brows.
His head had almost been split in two, and the eyes and mouth of the Archmage were wide open in pain, fury, and madness.
A strange scream was released by him, and he began twitching wildly.
Corey saw this, and he could not help but frown deeply.
He had put his all into the attack, but the moment the edge of his blade was about to touch the body of Archmage Kael, the roots of the dead tree shot out from the ground and blocked his attack.
Although his attack had cut every single root, and burned them into ashes, that was enough for Archmage Kael to survive and not be in two pieces by now.
A dark glow flashed at the corner of his eyes, and he stared at the crown of black bones that was beside him.
His brows furrowed deeper, and then he wiped away the blood from underneath his eyes.
'At least I didn't go blind.'
One of Corey's fears had been that he would become blind the moment he switched places with the crown of black bones.
From the moment his eyes landed on the crown when he entered this strange space, he had sensed an extremely powerful aura of death energy lingering around it.
In fact, if he was not wrong, he had felt a powerful perception sweep over him from the crown.
He had no idea what the crown truly was and what it could do. His Eyes of Omniscience and Eyes of Dreams and Nightmares could not see through it, and in his eyes, the crown just looked like a strange crown that was made of black bones.
Although he had not been able to see through the crown, he had been wary of it from the very beginning. More wary of the crown than the Archmage and the dead tree of flesh and bones.
Seeing the Archmage trying to reach out to the crown instead of attacking him was enough proof for Corey to come to the conclusion that Archmage Kael must never get his hands on the crown.
'I have approximately 63% mana left. 78% mental energy left, and 46% spiritual energy left.'
'My body is a mess, and I can feel the aura of death energy leeching off my injuries. It's making my injuries more difficult to heal.'
'I'll need exactly one minute and thirty six seconds to heal, and for my body to reach an optimal state for battle... That's too long.'
'What route should I take?'
Corey shifted his gaze from his body to Archmage Kael.
What he saw would have made an average mortal to gouge out their eyes.
Archmage was still hanging upside down in the air with his crimson eyes and mouth wide open, and entering the Archmage's mouth and eyes was the dead tree of flesh and bones.
Black blood pooled beneath the Archmage, drowning the throne beneath him in blood, as the tree cut every part of his face as it was being devoured.
It was an extremely strange sight seeing a man devouring a tree with his mouth and eyes while staying upside down in the air, and even Corey could attest to how horrifying it looked.
Archmage Kael's skin wriggled and rippled without stopping, and Corey was expecting the Archmage to suddenly turn into a being made out of wood, but there was nothing of that sort.
The man just kept on twitching and convulsing in the air, and Corey's frown deepened.
Hundreds of magic circles appeared around him, and hundreds of fireballs shot out from the magic circles.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Multiple powerful explosions that were akin to nuclear explosions resounded, and even Corey would have been flung away if not for the fact that he conjured a hexagon barrier in front of him to prevent the shockwave from slamming into him and the crown.
An immense dust cloud could be seen, and Corey narrowed his eyes as he increased the output of his Eyes of Omniscience.
He immediately saw through the dust cloud, and then he saw Archmage Kael.
Or who was meant to be the Archmage.
The Archmage was still hanging upside down with his arms outstretched in the air, but what was strange was that there was nothing binding him.
There were tree roots made of bones curled around his arm down to his neck, and Corey had a feeling that they were chains.
Although this was not the crux of the matter.
Despite launching hundreds of fireballs that could incinerate an average Tier 5 to ashes, the Archmage had no sign of damage at all.
In fact, the Archmage no longer looked like a corpse after devouring the tree.
He looked like a normal human, and the moment Corey's gaze landed on the Archmage before him, a chill crept up his spine.
'Powerful. Way too powerful.'
Corey could feel every single instinct in his body telling him to escape and run away without hesitation.
He could not hope to defeat this being, and he had a feeling that every plan he had concocted, every scenario he had imagined, every possibility he had calculated would all be failures before this entity.
He had no idea if the entity before him was a Tier 6 or a Tier 7 or something higher. But none of that mattered to him.
All he had to know was that the hanged man before him was currently the most dangerous entity he had ever faced in his life.
'Well... I'm dead.'
Corey's lips curled up in self mockery, and just as he was about to get to his feet, he noticed several odd things about the being before him.
The man's face was not made out of flesh but wood, and his eyes were closed. But that was not even the oddest thing he discovered.
Two parts of the man's body were... wrong. And these two parts were the man's ears and right hand were wrong in Corey's eyes.
Most would not notice it, but Corey could see how wrong it was, and in less than three seconds, he knew why.
'His ears look like the ears of the Captain of the Thirteenth Dawn, and his right hand looks like Yara's hand."
'Both body parts are what were taken from both the Captain and Yara on the Second and Third Night.'
'So does that mean that his eyes are that of Rhys, and his tongue is... mine?'
Corey's eyes suddenly widened as he came to a startling realization.
From the moment he appeared in this space, he had been talking. His tongue had been taken, but he had been talking to the Archmage from the moment he entered this space.
And worst of all?
He had not realized this until now.
'My tongue is back to normal. But why and how?'
'Was it the Archmage that restored my tongue? Or is it because I entered this space, and as a result or reward, my tongue was restored?'
'But why didn't I notice? And what else have I not realized till now?'
His Stars of Consciousness blazed as they scoured through every corner of his mind for any inconsistency and oddity.
'Things just keep on getting worse and worse.'
Corey had the urge to sigh, but then the man's eyes opened, and a pair of black orbs was reflected in Corey's eyes.
Corey felt something nearly invade his mind, and he was able to quickly guard against it because he just realized that his mind had been affected by an unknown power.
The throat of the man moved, and the man spoke.
The moment the man spoke, Corey's expression changed because the man's voice was no longer that of Archmage Kael, but his voice.
"How strange."