Now in his beast form, he towered over the dark apparition, not like before when he was smaller. This gave him some confidence, but it didn't last long, for the dark apparition was already cackling, "Che Che, I've just been waiting for you to transform so I can finish you off now.
It seemed as if the dark apparition hadn't taken Thiago seriously from the start, as if it had just been waiting for him to return to his beastly form. Thiago tried to swat with his huge paw at the comparatively tiny dark apparition, but it seemed as if the attack had passed through him without causing the slightest damage, leaving Thiago bewildered.
Once again, the cackling and mocking laughter of the dark apparition resounded, before Thiago suddenly felt a great threat and simultaneously a sense of death envelope him, which sent goosebumps all over his body and made sweat trickle down his head.
His mind spun wildly, trying to figure out what was going on and how he could save himself at that moment.
Meanwhile the dark apparition had launched a huge attack with the phantom of a blood red and evil claw appearing behind the attack, seemingly a type of special technique as it was able to invoke such a realistic phantom strengthening the whole attack.
At the same time, it cursed silently, "Damn that old bastard, Daoist Sacred Blade who sealed me here, if it weren't for him, then I wouldn't need to use a special technique just to defeat this lowly beast before me!"
Thiago thought he was going to die, because he had no way of defending himself against such an attack, which at the moment tended to be at least a complete major realm above him, and not just a major realm separated by a small realm, no - a complete realm difference of at least twelve smaller realm levels. At that moment, a huge pressure suddenly descended from nowhere towards Thiago and the dark apparition.
"Damn, are you still alive, old man?" The dark apparition shouted, apparently already knowing who the pressure was coming from.
"Of course! If you are, why should this Daoist not be alive?" replied an old-sounding voice, imbued with the meaning of ancient vicissitudes and strong sacredness that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.
Although Thiago was extremely stunned by what had just happened, it did not really allow him to relax as the terrifying dark claw attack continued to descend, the immense pressure it generated preventing him from moving even an inch.
'Damn it, I'm not really going to die like this! It hasn't been that long since I died the last time, man,' Thiago cursed inwardly, as he had absolutely no idea how to get out of this precarious situation, he could only hope that this mysterious voice that had sounded earlier was an enemy of the dark apparition and would fight with it.
And to Thiago's surprise, the voice suddenly made a move, dispersing the dark apparition's attack on him by simply declaring: "I will help you, little tiger."
And just like that, the attack was gone, leaving Thiago staring in disbelief at the spot where the attack had been before it suddenly vanished.
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Although it felt extremely strange for Thiago to be called 'Little tiger', in a situation as important as this, it did not matter. Nevertheless, it reminded him of what he had called Faye at the very beginning after he had saved her, and somehow strengthened his will and faith to survive this ordeal.
It seemed as if he had already, unbeknownst to him, attached great importance to Faye and therefore wanted to return to her, and in order for that to happen he first had to survive this situation.
As if it had been expecting this, the dark apparition did not seem too surprised by its attack disintegrating.
Yet he wasn't the least bit panicked, as if he didn't care about the being behind the voice.
"Ke ke, it seems to me that you are only a fragment of a soul, and your main body is long dead," the apparition laughed ominously, having already figured out the state of the being the voice belonged to.
This was followed by a brief period of silence during which the soul entity did not refute, let alone respond to, this assertion.
"It doesn't matter, I'm going to seal you today no matter what happens, since my soul fragment has already awoken, and you have less than one percent of your former strength left, thanks to myself, this veritable Daoist, Sacred Blade, having sealed you - I don't even know how many ten thousand years have passed since then, sigh," the soul entity finally spoke after this short period of silence, causing a glimmer of hope to appear in Thiago's eyes. At the same time, he was extremely shocked by what the soul called Daoist Sacred Blade had just said. This dark creature that had destroyed him almost effortlessly had not even one percent of its former power left.
And it had been sealed for over ten thousand years, something Thiago could not fathom at the moment, as it sounded extremely long and was many times longer than his two added lifetimes.
'What the hell have I stumbled upon,' Thiago wondered to himself at that moment.
As long as Daoist Sacred Blade had a way to reseal the creature, all would be well, Thiago encouraged himself. Unfortunately, he had thought too much, and Daoist Sacred Blade could not reseal the creature so easily, well, technically it was still sealed in this whole unknown space, so it could not leave this place for the outside world, but unfortunately it was not locally sealed, so it could kill Thiago right now.
At that moment, Thiago suddenly heard the old man's voice in his mind, "You have to listen to me very carefully, in order for me to seal this vile creature again, you have to work together with me. This whole place is surrounded by an Array formation, which unfortunately has long since run out of mana, so while I am holding this bastard, you must run to one of the Array nodes and inject as much mana as you can into it so that the Array can resume its work.
As long as the array is working, the dark apparition will not be able to escape being sealed again with its current strength. I'm going to imprint the location of the array node in your mind, so don't worry."
It all seemed like a long time, but in reality, it was just a brief moment in which Thiago's state of mind changed rapidly as a result of what the Daoist told him. 'So, the creature is called Dark Apparition, how menacing it sounds, well, it fits its appearance perfectly,' Thiago thought just now.
Since Thiago had no idea how to communicate telepathically, he simply nodded to indicate that he understood.
"Okay, now go!" the Daoist commanded, at the same time materialising a body instead of just an illusory soul form that appeared in the air a few metres next to the dark apparition, well, the body was also rather illusory as it was not really a real body, but one could still make out some of its features. Thiago watched in awe as the old man materialized on the battlefield.
He was surprised to see that the Daoist was quite old, with wrinkles etched deeply into his face and his hair white as snow. Despite his age, however, the old man exuded a sacred aura of power and authority that commanded respect. His aura that was as bright and sacred as the sun immediately pushed back the dark miasma around his body creating a clear zone.
The old man wore a simple, flowing robe that seemed to shimmer with a silver light. In his hand, he held a long, slender blade that gleamed with an otherworldly glow. The blade was etched with intricate designs that Thiago couldn't quite make out.
Just then he remembered that he should go now, as the Daoist had just ordered, so instead of wasting any more time, Thiago quickly ran in the direction where the location of the Array node was marked on the map that the Daoist had just implanted in his mind.
He ran as fast as he could, not knowing how long Daoist Sacred Blade could last, being only a soul fragment at the moment.
The dark apparition immediately guessed what they were up to and tried to launch an attack on Thiago to prevent him from reaching the Array node, but unfortunately, he was blocked by the old man, who promptly blocked the attack and launched an attack from his side to try and suppress him.
In the meantime, Thiago had almost reached his destination, since this whole independent place wasn't that big and the distance he had to cover wasn't that long.
Just a few seconds later, he had reached the point marked on the map and saw a huge, altar-like structure with many intricate and for him indecipherable runes and a circular mark on top of it appear before him, probably the place where he had to infuse his mana. "This Looks quite ancient," murmured Thiago while he quickly leapt on top of the building.