A deep feeling of despair enveloped Brian's heart when he saw the two figures who walked towards him, one with leisurely steps, the other with heavy steps.
The spatial corrupted mage said nothing as he stood in front of Brian, his eyes flashing with viciousness.
As a rare supreme talent, he was an existence who could only appear once among hundreds of millions of people. Not to mention he was a rare spatial mage who went against the norms. Spatial mages were mostly known for their ability to teleport, giving them an edge against other mages at the beginning stages of cultivation. Very few of them could develop abilities outside of teleportation, making them renowned for their needed assistance in creating spatial artifacts such as space rings or in creating formations such as teleportation formations. Aside from those, spatial mages were usually looked down on as they had weak offensive abilities and leaned more toward supportive mages. And even among these groups, the help they could offer on the battlefield wasn't great; after all, once a mage breaks into the Red-core stage, their speed becomes inhuman, granting them speed not much lower than teleportation.
But he was different.
Which was why he was favored by his Lord. If not for the artifact the Lord required, he wouldn't have remained in a lower world such as the Goldsborn planet, and would have long broken past his current cultivation realm.
Yet, he was injured on such a backwater planet. Of course, he knew Brian was a great talent even if he was placed in a higher world, but he didn't care; after all, the former was still a brat.
An ominous light flashed across his eyes as he raised his bloodied right hand and forced the space before him to crush Brian.
He would give him a slow and painful death.
'Oh...'
A trace of appreciation briefly flashed across his eyes when he saw Brian not make a sound even after being subjected to such inhumane pain for almost a minute. It was very rare to see a child with such a tempered will.
But soon after, the spatial mage sneered as he increased the crushing force around Brian.
Or at least he tried to.
BOOM!
The earthen dome that had remained undamaged since the start of the battle was cleanly cut apart into two, revealing a clear blue sky and allowing the thick metallic smell of blood that had been caged-in to spread out into the surroundings.
As the outside world was revealed to them, the two corrupted mages and Brian noticed the tall mountain at the back of the city had long collapsed. Above it, in the air, was a massive spherical formation housing an artifact scythe.
Even across the distance and through the formation, Brian could tell that this scythe was extraordinary.
This was the supreme artifact that his family had escaped with after leaving the main branch a thousand years ago. While they still couldn't tap into the power of the artifact even till now, they could still use its natural ability to conceal itself to hide from the main branch.
And since the artifact wasn't any of their family's bloodline-related artifacts and was only an object one of their ancestors had found within a secret realm thousands of years ago, the main branch stopped their search for them after a few years. With the scythe, they knew it was almost impossible to find them if they decided to hide in this wide galaxy, not to mention that they didn't care as they didn't see them as a threat.
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Now, it seemed the army of corrupted was after this mysterious scythe, after all.
Brian gritted his teeth when he saw the man blocking the way of the giant, with a sword in his hand.
Well, rather than say blocking, it was more apt to say he was trying to stop the giant.
With a simple punch from the giant, the space exploded, as a massive air Cannon moved towards his flying father.
His father quickly swung the sword in his hand, which was a heaven-ranked artifact.
The artifacts made by blacksmiths could be divided into five groups.
Mortal, Earth, Heaven, Saint, and supreme artifact.
The mortal artifacts were weapons used by mages in the beginning or preliminary stages of cultivation. They could only absorb a few traces of mana and were not that different from ordinary weapons used by mortals.
The earth artifacts could fully absorb mana and were mainly used by mages in the grandmaster realm, as only they had the minimum quantity of mana required to use such weapons. Such weapons, while not possessing any extraordinary abilities, far outclassed normal weapons.
The heaven artifacts were used by mages in the Red-core stage, the saint artifacts by those in the orange-core stage, and the supreme artifacts by yellow-core mages.
The heaven artifacts could house one supernatural ability, the saint artifacts two, and the supreme artifacts three. Depending on the level of the ability, each stage is further divided into low, mid, high, and peak.
As Brian watched his father swing his sword, he saw the sword fly out of his hands before turning into millions of smaller swords that rained upon the giant.
Alas, the downpour of silver flashes was easily blasted away by the massive air Cannon, and the residue of the shockwaves slammed into his father, sending him crashing down to the earth like a falling star, as he coughed a mouthful of blood.
The giant, with an ever-calm look, squatted slightly as he looked at the spherical formation in the air.
He was just about to jump toward his target when a bright white light illuminated the world.
'Fiona!'
Brian thought as his vision returned to normal. Then he saw white flashes surround the giant as if trying to engulf him.
He knew this was one of his sister's bloodlines. She transformed into an eagle surrounded by a bright white light. With an affinity to the rare light laws, she could move at a speed that was almost undetectable by the naked eye, and her strong feathers allowed her to easily cut iron apart.
Alas, even as the giant stood there, Brian could see that he wasn't injured in the slightest. It seemed his fleshy body had reached an unimaginable level.
Even till now, the giant showed no obvious emotion on his face, and with a slight shake of his body, the space around him shattered, and his sister was sent flying into the distance.
Luckily, a slender figure caught hold of her, but even with her assistance, the duo still turned into a flash that soon disappeared into the distance, their life or death unknown.
'Mother...' Brian finally broke down, as tears streamed down his face as he looked in the direction his mother and sister disappeared in.
Uncaring about what was happening in his surroundings, the giant tried to move towards the formation once again only for him to stop, an emotion finally showing on his face.
With an annoyed frown, he turned around in time to see several golden flashes approaching from the distance.
He had thought it would still take some time for outside assistance to arrive but it appeared he had miscalculated. He never knew the Enigma Family could use the scythe as the base of a defensive formation to slow him down for so long, and considering he couldn't use much of his power to prevent this world from collapsing, he could only slowly wear the formation down.
Just when he thought he would accomplish his mission, new pests arrived.
A look of surprise flashed across his big eyes when he saw the golden flashes tens of thousands of kilometers into the distance suddenly arrive above him.
Looking up, he saw about a dozen birds with resplendent golden feathers carrying ten figures.
'They must be the Goldsborn family.'
A rare look of seriousness appeared on his face as he quickly decided to use more strength to take control of the situation.
Unfortunately, before he could act, his body suddenly froze. He wasn't the only one, as all the figures present, be it the wounded Brian and his father, the remaining elders and surviving greater demons, or the two remaining peak Red-core greater demons...
Countless golden magical circles covered the skies, as the mages adorned in golden battle robes raised their staffs to the sky.
Then, time within the surrounding ten kilometers came to a stop.
Immediately after, ten figures jumped down from the only bird that wasn't carrying people wearing golden battle suits.
Instead, each of them was covered in armor of different colors.
As the ten figures landed on the ground, one of them with auburn hair quickly moved towards the still surviving demons, and with each graceful swing of his sword, he sent their heads flying, causing a red suffocating aura to start building up around him.