Chapter 159
Bet-Zebek the Bone Eater
“Yin Gu Body! Half Incarnation!!”
Connie’s body transformed. A red, scaly tail sprouted from her back and her eyes turned serpentine. The golden hair that she had had also taken the color red.
“You! You are not a human?” Bet-Zebek said in surprise.
“What does it matter? I’ll still be kicking your ass either way.”
Connie threw a Pill behind her back, which Chen grabbed in mid-air using a tentacle, and then shoved it into Martell’s mouth.
“Martell, Activate the Buddha Repelling Three Temptations Formation!”
“Wait! I haven’t learned it fully yet!!” Martell cried out, still reeling from the leftover effect of the poison.
“Well, you’re going to learn it now!” Connie said. “Follow my lead!! Place your swords according to my orders.”
Martell formed the Dharmachakra Mudra and launched the swords he had into the location Connie pointed at.
“The first temptation is Delusion!” Connie kicked the pommel of the first sword infused with the power of Dharma at a point in the barrier. As the tip of the sword met the barrier, it made a sound like a knife being dragged across a plate.
“The second temptation is Attachment!” Connie kicked the pommel of the second sword to a second point in the barrier, a meter from the first one.
“The third temptation is Aversion!”
But when she shouted the last temptation, something changed in Martell’s connection with the third sword and Connie saw it clearly. Though the boy understood the first two temptations, he did not understand the last one. For someone who could not understood giving without return or pure kindness, it was the biggest obstacle to mastering the Fourth Art.
Connie, however, reacted fast and formed the Dharmacakra Mudra and slapped the last sword with her palm where it joined the first two swords, forming a triangle formation.
Sensing the disturbance in the Barrier, Bet-Zebek could no longer stay silent and raised his arm to strengthen it using his own Mana.
Seeing this, Connie slapped the ground with her tail and launched herself towards the three-sword formation and formed a series of Mudra with both hands before pushing against the barrier right in the middle of the triangle.
“What in Sud-Ghazid is this Skill?! How can it damage my Barrier so badly?”
“This is the power of Dharma! The nemesis of anything created using dark powers!”
The shimmering barrier began to crack and with a last push, the barrier broke apart with a deafening sound. The three swords, with their role finished, disintegrated into thin air.
With the barrier broken, Bet-Zebek, who had been sitting arrogantly on his throne received a shock that caused the left of his skeletal face to crack.
Not satisfied with breaking the barrier, Connie continued attacking him. Taken by surprise, Bet-Zebek stood up and raised his right arm to receive the attack as his left was occupied with assimilating the Essence Crystal. However, Connie was stronger than he expected.
“Ghast Breath!!” the Demon declared and spewed a dangerous black mist that managed to hit Connie and forced her to fall back.
She could not detect any poison within the breath attack, but she could feel her body starting to feel heavy.
“Mistress, you are cursed!” Martell said. He then gave a short prayer and lifted the curse from her body.
“What is this?” Bet-Zebek frowned upon hearing the Dharmic language. He could not understand the foreign language but he could feel the divine power within, which irritated him. The Essence Crystal floating above his left hand too, shuddered when it was exposed to the light of Dharma.
“Suffer my curse! Weaken!”
At once, Connie felt something weighing down on her body. However, Martell quickly strummed his instrument and shouted. “Strengthen!!”
The effect of the curse disappeared as a pure light enveloped her.
“Futile effort!! Slow!!”
“Haste!!” Martell countered.
Curses and Blessings were thrown one after another, weakening and empowering Connie. Making her feel rather cross. “Martell. Focus on empowering me. I will take care of him.”
“Yes, Mistress!”
Connie lunged forward, Crimson Serpentbane at the ready. With great speed, Connie unleashed a barrage of attacks that Bet-Zebek Blocked with his right arm.
“Hrahh!” Bet-Zebek slapped Connie away and glided a few meters back. When he looked at his arm, he found that his bone had started to crack under the strength of the human. From the start, he was not very good at close range fights, but to be pushed this far hurt his pride.
As for Connie, after the first exchange, she pondered briefly. Hmph. No blood vessel, no flesh. Can’t use about half of my moves. And the amount of Bone Dissolving Poison I have is not enough to go through his resistance. I need to rethink how I go about this.
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Realizing that Connie was an enemy he could not treat the same way as those who challenged him before, Bet-Zebek rose into the air to put a distance between him and his opponent.
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“I will show you what happens to those who angers me!” Bet-Zebek plunged his rotting right hand into his throat and pulled out the handle of a staff. It made unpleasant, squelching sound as he pulled it out entirely. Putrid, viscous green fluid spattered from his mouth as he did so, along with maggots that squirmed on the ground briefly before dying.
The staff looked to be made of wood that had turned stone hard, with a bejeweled orb on one end. The orb emitted a dim, violet light that pulsed every few seconds. And for that briefest of seconds, one could see a murky fog that was formed from tormented souls within.
“O Demon King!" he proclaimed. "Warbringer, Landbearer! Grant your servant the power to defeat those who seek to destroy what is rightfully yours! For that, I offer you my adoration and my eternal devotion! Dance! Lightning of Agony!!”
He raised his staff and Dark Lightning spewed forth from the orb, striking the ground and everything within range. This mad attack managed to strike Connie and she was thrown into the wall from the force of the attack. The leftover of the lightning crackled on her body, making her feel numb.
“Mistress!” Martell ran towards Connie. But he was stopped with a single gesture from Connie.
“Focus on supporting me,” Connie said briefly before standing up and once again entering the fray.
Bet-Zebek saw that he managed to do a good deal of damage on his enemy and gloated as he sent lightning after lightning after Connie while staying out of range above the remnants of his throne.
Connie, with her body still a little numb from the attack, could only wait while dodging the attacks while waiting for her body to recover. As she did she saw that although the lightning magic was very powerful, it needed a few seconds to charge before it could be used again.
“Hahah! You are only prolonging the inevitable, human! After I kill you and your ilk, I will be able to return to Yamulnakhat and receive my reward from the Seven Eyed One!!”
The red-haired girl frowned at the Demon’s zealotry. This show of ardor and worship taken to the extreme reminded her of the time when she had to kill a member of the Dark Vermillion Bird Cult. Members of those cult would do anything to please their Goddess, Niu Feng. It did not help that Niu Feng herself was one of the strongest warriors in Jianghu. At the time, she had to spent the better part of a year to plan her actions before killing her target.
The strangest thing was that even in his last breath, he would praise her name instead asking for his life.
Overall, it was a bad experience. But then again, perhaps the same thing I did can be done here.
“Demon King, you say? He must be a coward, holing up in his little hole in the Demon Continent while sending his little cronies to a place in the middle of nowhere. If he was as great as you say, he should have come and take over Courandhel on his own!”
This little act was enough to provoke anger from the Undead. “You cur! How dare you ridicule the might of the Seven Eyed One?! You cannot even fathom the majesty and profoundness of the Demon King’s vision!! Through the Demon King’s guidance, we have risen and pushed back against the world that rejects us!!”
Thunder and lightning boomed, destroying the chamber’s walls, as Bet-Zebek unleashed his power. Blinded by the rage of having his object of worship ridiculed.
“No longer are we bound to be sacrifices to the Gods and Goddesses of this accursed world!! In the Demon King’s name, we will fight! We will fight until the last of the Races bow down before the Seven Eyed One’s might!!”
Connie dodged the last of the lightning spell Bet-Zebek launched in his anger and shouted.
“Now!” Connie shouted.
When Bet-Zebek was about to raise his staff once again, he found that he was unable to do so.
“What - ?!” Bet-Zebek cried out when he found that his staff had been bound with silk. He quickly looked back and saw that the silk was bound to a pillar. And a small, golden creature was jumping up and down beside it.
It was Yao-Er, who was hidden within the skull that Connie threw when the three of them were locked in discussion. A contingency plan Connie made in case something untoward would happen, especially with an enemy as cunning as Bet-Zebek.
“Martell, lend me your sword!”
“Telekinesis! Control!”
Connie jumped into the air as a sword under Martell’s control rose into the air. She stepped upon it and crossed her arms, with her claws pointing outward.
Without anything to protect it, Connie’s Carving Bone, Denying Alms Technique managed to break through his defense, the Purple Energy tore through his body, while also breaking the Essence Crystal in the Undead’s hand into two halves. When the connection between Bet-Zebek and the Essence Crystal was forcefully broken, a shockwave tore the air outward, pushing them back.
As they fell, the smaller part of the Essence Crystal bounced away.
“Gagh! (Cough)…(Cough!)” Connie spat out dark blood as she stood up, receiving the unexpected blowback without preparation damaged her inner organs, causing an unpleasant taste in her mouth and a burning sensation in her throat due to the acid in her stomach rising up.
On the other side, Bet-Zebek stared in disbelief at the broken chunk of Essence Crystal beside him. Just a little more. Just a little more and he would have taken all the power residing within, and the gnats bothering him would be nothing after he reached the level of a Maluk Sedi.
“NO! NO!!” the creature screamed as he cradled the Essence Crystal of Bet-Huda; his usual confidence lost, replaced with distress. “How can this be?! How can a human fight against me? And one who has not even reached the level of an Unrestrained Candidate?!”
It was the first time Bet-Zebek’s plan had failed so spectacularly. Though he had no heart, for once in his life, he felt anguish.
“No! Never! I will not disappoint the Seven Eyed One!! I will not be deterred!! You forced me to do this!! You inferior creatuuuuures!!!”
And this unfamiliar feeling caused him to do the unthinkable.
With a loud scream of anger, he jammed the large piece of Essence Crystal into his chest.
“OOOOGH!!!” he howled as an unbelievable pain pierced through his body. One he thought he had long since discarded when he was granted the blessing of the rot that plagued his body and turned him into and Undead.
“You will pay for this transgression!!” A powerful shockwave caused the ground to shook underneath.
Bet-Zebek’s body grew until he was more than twice his former size. Twisted, goat-like horns grew from his empty eye sockets, breaking through his teeth with ugly, crunching sound. The horns grew with great speed, twisting and bending until they reached the back of his head.
“Aagh! AAAGH!!” He screamed as new bones grew on his neck with a painful, sonorous crack, elongating it until his neck was a meter long. It became so heavy that his back was forced to bend and he fell on all fours on the ground, making him look like a beast.
His skeletal arms grew disproportionately large. The grotesque change on his body happened so fast and painful that he pounded on the floor, not even caring that while in his tantrum he broke his staff.
His core that had forcefully fused with the large piece of Essence Crystal formed hard crystal with uneven spikes, one of which grew so large and thick that it broke a few of Bet-Zebek’s ribcage and protruded through his body, making it look like he had been pierced by a lance.
Remnants of his kingly robe hung from the odd parts of his body, as if loath to let go of his status. And a strange, otherworldly light shimmered atop his head, resembling a clerical habit which flowed down to his neck.
“RROOOOOOOAAAARGHHH!!!” Bet-Zebek roared in pain as the last vestiges of his former body was taken over by the change.
The pressure exerted by the transformation nailed Connie and Martell where they were. Martell was forced to close his eyes and nose as dust and ashes of white bone flew in the air. Connie, on the other hand, ignored them and watched the change happening with a thin smile on her lips.
“You…” Bet-Zebek began to speak with a voice that sounded like the hollow of graves. “You have stolen from me my chance to ascend to the side of Im Faraum, forced me to turn into this half-formed thing! For that, I will kill you and feast on your bones!!”
Bet-Zebek’s voice soared, as he proclaimed his name and his loyalty to the object of his worship and adoration once more. “I am Bet-Zebek, Ur-Nagud of the Bereaved Dead Banner! I swear by the scar of rot that was given unto me by the Seven Eyed One! The great work of our banner shall not be undone!!”
He clasped both of his gigantic hand together, raised them and shouted. “OOOOGH!!!”
He then brought down his fist together, releasing an explosion of dark power that enveloped Connie and Martel.