The spear above Kumari was still the two-meter-long spear with a crimson hue concentrated on the tip. There were some abstract inscriptions running around the tip in a random manner but the abstract inscription was the reason it was brimming with lethal intent. She couldn’t increase the lethality after a certain point and had reached a bottleneck but her casting speed had risen since the first time.
After distracting Alaric for a few seconds she had succeeded in crafting the flame spear. With a wave of her hand, the spear made a ‘swoosh’ sound and reached Alaric in the blink of an eye. He was still punching the cauldron recklessly as if it was his mortal enemy. The cauldron slid automatically making a way for the spear. Alaric tried to dodge the threat by instinct but he couldn’t dodge it all the way.
His left hand was blown to bits by the spear. Alaric had almost succeeded in evading the spear but Kumari exploded it at that instant which made him lose only his left arm. But Alaric was in a berserk state so even though his hand from elbow had straight up blown off into many pieces, he didn’t even flinch. The only effective damage on him was the soul damage caused by the crimson hue. But it was far from enough to play any significant role.
Alaric looked at the direction of Kumari and rushed towards her as if nothing had happened. This time there were around ten flame arrows around her. She waved her hand and the arrows sped towards Alaric. The jade-white sheen was still covering Alaric’s body so when the fire arrows collided, there was only an explosion and the crimson hue only damaged his soul a little bit. The only visible effect on Alaric was that his momentum had stopped.
But he stopped for only a second before rushing ahead. This time the cauldron was once again before him. Alaric didn’t have time to avoid it when he collided with the cauldron. There was not much sound but the fire on the cauldron containing a crimson hue spilled all over Alaric. The crimson hue started eating the berserk aura around Alaric and made a little hole in the defense put by the jade-white sheen. Alaric couldn’t use any defensive martial arts in his condition but the cultivation technique was enough to provide protection to some extent.
The crimson hue that had infiltrated the jade-white sheen and had clung to his body had started eating away his soul power but since the amount of crimson hue was limited, the damage it could deal was also limited and couldn’t cause significant changes. The only positive outcome was that the momentum of Alaric was stopped and he began to entangle with the cauldron which gave Kumari enough time to create another flame spear.
The cauldron was vibrating crazily from the encounter with Alaric but there was not even a fracture. Although the cauldron didn’t have much in the attacking department, its defense was top-notch. As Alaric was striking the cauldron relentlessly, Kumari had already finished creating a flame spear. With a wave of her hand, the spear flew towards Alaric and reached him in an instant. This time Alaric was able to avoid the flame spear by a narrow margin but he had forgotten she could detonate it just by thought and she did so.
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The explosion this time was still on the left side of Alaric and it did breach his defense a little bit. The flaring red aura and jade-white sheen were broken in several places. Although the broken places were mending rapidly, one could see the rapidly disappearing aura from the cracks. But since the berserk state would even draft the cultivator’s life force to sustain, the recovery of the aura was rapid. If his left arm had not blown off completely, he would have recovered that arm by now. No sane cultivator would be able to hold on that easily. Alaric was like a machine with a goal that didn’t care about life and death but revenge. Even though the flame spear had cracked a few of his ribs, the cauldron had also moved out of its position and the distance between him and Kumari was shortened.
He rushed towards Kumari and just as he had covered a few steps, the cauldron came in front of him once again. This situation kept repeating for around five rounds but after getting battered and bruised, Alaric was also getting closer to Kumari. Kumari could have moved away and let Alaric be entangled with the cauldron but she realized even if this situation continued for another dozens of rounds, nothing would change. Kumari knew that Alaric was injured gravely but since he was also over-drafting on life force, he was able to recover from many fatal injuries in a short time.
It wasn’t instant but the recovery speed was frightening. She knew he would last only about fifty moves if he kept going like this before he completely overdrafts his life force and dies, it would consume a lot of her divine sense to keep up with him. This time she let the cauldron move out of its way voluntarily and let Alaric come near him. Seeing the cauldron move away from his path, Alaric let out a roar and rushed towards Kumari, his hands pulsating with dark-red aura carrying a faint destructive intent.
When he reached in front of Kumari, he unleashed his punch right into his temple. But Kumari was already prepared and had created a flame armor all over her body. Not only the flame armor but there was a little bit of crimson hue on all the scales of the armor. She instantly concentrated the crimson hue on the point of impact from Alaric’s fist. It wasn’t just the flame armor she had her confidence in, she had her own trump cards to protect her against lethal attacks and she only felt little threat from the punch.
It was because although the strength of Alaric had reached the half-step core formation realm, there were no martial arts involved so even if the amount of aura was scary, without a proper method of utilization, it wouldn’t be able to cause expected damage. She took the attack head on and the crimson hue on the scales of flame armor started dispersing the force from impact equally to all parts of the armor. It took only about a second before the force was completely dispersed. But Alaric kept going on and on punching her armor like a maniac.
The color of his eyes only deepened in the shade of red. If Alaric was sane, Kumari would have been in a lot of trouble but with his condition, she only felt a bit of pity for her enemy. So she made her right hand like a claw that was filled with a concentrated crimson hue. With a forward motion, it went straight through Alaric’s chest bringing his beating heart outside his back.