"Hmm," Elizabeth shook her head. "Guys, I'm going to focus on the Nascent Level Devils," she said before flickering in and out of existence across the battlefield.
With the exertion of her will, the guns in her hand were replaced with Inferioria. With another surge of intent, the blade transformed into Megadia. Then, with a final burst, the saber's blade instantly extended to over ten meters in length.
Elizabeth beamed at the opportunity to use her ridiculously long saber in a real fight, evident by the grim smirk on her face as she teleported before a new Ancestor Opal Devil Duke.
Against the merciless pressure of Elizabeth's Origin Energies barring the Ancestor Duke from dodging, it's only chance at survival was to block; but even that was incredibly difficult.
Chi— Crack!
Against the Ancestor Duke's Devil Sword, Elizabeth's saber might not have even been half as thick. Yet, at the moment of collision, it was actually the much thicker Devil Sword that cracked and chipped under pressure. Needless to say, Elizabeth's Transcendent Strength was quickly becoming one of her favorite Skills.
"Die!" The Ancestor Duke screeched, it's eyes reddening from Nascent Qi.
"You thought," Elizabeth quipped. The smirk on her face was lost on the Ancestor Duke as it's life promptly ended.
While it was busy trying to corrode Elizabeth lifeforce through her eyes, the tail Elizabeth would grow while in her Rudimentary Wolf God Form had snaked around to activate a fatal acupoint array on the Ancestor Duke's body and kill it before it could react.
Now several times faster than she had been in her fight against Xiang Moxie, Elizabeth's form became lost to the naked eye, only capable of being perceived by Spiritual Sense at the Core level or above. What followed suit was unstoppable carnage as multilayered Skills atop multilayered Profound Truths culminated in a perfectly balanced, yet evidently overpowered, demon.
By the time Elizabeth had killed a seventh Ancestor Duke, she came to a conclusion. "These Duke level Opal Devils are pretty worthless as far as Nascent Cultivators go," she said to her allies through a sound transmission.
As she killed, she carefully separated the fallen Ancestor Opal Devil Dukes' bodies from their Nascent Souls and also compartmentalized their belongings which, by now, were her spoils.
"Not only is their equipment lacking for Nascent Cultivators, their Understanding isn't that profound either. Hell, I'd bet any of you could take them on," Elizabeth sent to her party as she continued annihilating hundreds of Duke Level Opal Devils.
As the subdimension began to tremble with the advent of crimson portal, Elizabeth's eyes narrowed after receiving feedback from her Core Sense. "Looks like we'll be able to find out soon enough," she said before targeting Xiang Moxie exclusively.
"Don't let them die until I come back," Elizabeth said. She distributed part of her Temporal Hourglass stock before flying into the crimson portal.
…
[Status
Name: Unknown
Level: 60
Rank: Single Soultwin Nascent Cultivator
Affection Rating: Irreconcilable Enemies
Description: Descending from a highly pure Opal Devil Bloodline, this Ancient Opal Devil King has reached the height of his talent.]
"Ooh, a jump to Level 60," Elizabeth nonchalantly said, ignoring the apparent danger of her situation.
She wasn't just looking at one of these new King Ranked Opal Devils, but a total of three of them. Moreover, seeing as how the three looked distinguishable from one another, it brought an aspect of further variability to the situation.
Thus far, all the Opal Devils of a class or rank looked and fought nearly identical to one another: Vymlings were small, child-like, green-haired humanoids with no equipment to speak of. Vymous grew to around a human teen's size, standing over five feet tall with blue hair. Vymas grew a bit taller, to maybe the average adult's height at 180 centimeters with yellow hair; also, being the first to hold armements of any kind.
Vymin and all the later incarnations of the Opal Devil remained the same size, but their hair and the quality of their armaments continued to change and improve respectively. Vymin possessed grey hair and Foundation level Armements, Vymaous possessed white hair and low-mid Core Grade Armaments, while Dukes possessed black hair and high-peak Core Grade Armaments.
Now, Elizabeth stood before King level Opal Devils, each with different hair and threateningly overbearing Nascent Grade Armaments.
"You..." the red-haired Opal Devil King began. A curiously light passed by his eyes as he asked, "You do realize the gravity of your situation, don't you?"
"Hmm," Elizabeth paused to comment, "for leaders of the Opal Devil race, you seem pretty unbothered by my party's annihilation of your armies."
She shrugged her shoulders and continued, "But fine, I'll entertain your question. Yes, I understand you three are Nascent Cultivators in an entirely different league than the Ancestor Dukes and I'm locked in an isolated dimension with you."
"You also understand that all three of us have been watching your attack and know of your abilities, while you know nothing of ours," the Opal Devil King with salt-and-pepper hair responded, more hostile in tone than his perplexed red-haired peer.
"Heh," Elizabeth chuckled as her body instantly transformed twice in succession. Now donning her 9th Chaos Seal Transformation atop her Rudimentary Wolf God Form, she said, "You haven't seen anything yet."
"Hmph," the pepper-haired hostile Opal Devil King asked, "Still arrogant, are we?"
Verbally, he addressed his fellow Opal Devil Kings and said, "Let me test the waters for us then."
Unlike his shaddy conniving temperament, he acted with sportsmanship as he drew his own Devil Saber and pointed at Elizabeth, as if to say, "Whenever you're ready."
Elizabeth smiled as she drew her own saber, Megadia, and flickered before the Opal Devil King without preamble.
Clang!
The pepper-haired Opal Devil King didn't move so much as an inch against the same strike that claimed the lives of several Duke level Opal Devils.
"Human, this better not be all that you're capable of," he shoved Elizabeth away from him rather effortlessly.
"Ok, let's double the power," she rolled her eyes as her saber withdrew and struck with exactly double the amount of strength of her first strike. The result of which caused the King at the receiving end to subtly tremble; though, he did not move, in the end.
"Wow," Elizabeth genuinely commented, "even against four million units of strength, you stand strong."
With her Precognitive Divination she dodged the King's first strike with ease as she said, "For a Level 60 Nascent Cultivator, your physical Stats are decent enough."
Malice could be traced in her eyes as she coldly said, "Though, I wonder how you'd do if I doubled the power again?"
Clang!
Even with nearly all her physical strength put into this third blow, the Opal Devil King and his Nascent Grade Devil Saber stood strong. Although, from his frown and the fact that he was forced nearly ten meters back, he certainly lost against Elizabeth in a contest of pure strength.
The third Opal Devil King who had yet to speak, the one with colorless hair, glared at Elizabeth as he muttered, "Absurd." He turned to his red-haired compatriot and said, "She is almost as physically strong as you are without utilizing your techniques."
"Actually," the red-haired Opal Devil King sighed, "she might still be holding back."
Alas, before Elizabeth could go on to ramp up her bout of physical strength against the pepper-haired King, he made the move to flare his Nascent Qi and force Elizabeth to back off.
"Tell me your name, human." The Opal Devil King's aura became as desolate and dark as the void warping around him as he said, "You've earned the right to engage me at my strongest."
[Status
Name: Void Qi
Grade: Soultwin Nascent Universal Insight
Description: Originates from a Level 60 entity at the peak of their Nascent Cultivation.]
"It's Elizabeth: Elizabeth Ultimatia," Elizabeth evenly said as she let an amalgamation of her own energies erupt out of her. Like Xiang Moxie, none of her Profound Truth level Energies could hold a candle to her opponent's, which were at the Universal Insight level; however, the disparity was resolved with quantity when quality was lacking.
"Mine's Difarl," the salt-and-pepper-haired King said to the surprise of his fellow Opal Devil Kings. "Now with that out of the way," he vanished, before appearing behind Elizabeth seemingly as his voice lingered, "let's end this."
Shing!
Elizabeth's smile immediately devolved to a more serious expression as she felt intense deja vu, similar to that of constantly being on edge while she and Xiang Moxie had their confrontation. Even with her saber, Precognitive Divination, and various Speed-boosting Skills, it seemed like she was always a millimeter away from death as she dodged attacks from seemingly nowhere.
Dodging appeared to be all that she was capable of as each counterattack faded through the void; her blade being utterly incapable of landing a hit.
"Hmm," Elizabeth groaned, not at all amused to find her usual combination of Spatial, Temporal, Spacetime, and Grandmist Pressures being of no use to her.
She understood even with just a short exposure to the Opal Devil King's Void Qi, that the very nature of the Void Qi would make her efforts futile. With Void Energies being aligned with concealment and evasion, a mix of Space and Dark Qi it seemed, Elizabeth wouldn't so much as be able to touch her opponent if she continued to hide her most devastating Skills.
Thus, the gloves metaphorically came off as she let Megadia evolve to its tertiary state: Gigadia. With the rapier in hand, Elizabeth's eyes bloomed cyan as Temporal Core Qi filled them and utilized her Profound Truths of Possibility and Divination to their max.
"Collapse," she said as she sent at spacetime piercing thrust where she believed her opponent would strike next. Despite the formation of a wormhole, like all her attacks thus far, any source of harm she could have caused slipped through the void, unable to touch the Opal Devil King as his attack continued without pause.
Blood spilled as Elizabeth couldn't avoid the attack lest the formation of her wormhole destabilize before the right moment.
And yet…
She was smiling cheerfully as if her torso hadn't just been slashed several inches deep for she knew she had her opponent in a checkmate.