Book 13: Part 19 – Linley’s Lucky Break

Though Fotu was slightly surprised that there was actually someone stronger than Wukong in the group, he was far from scared. Although Linley was physically superior to him, that was where his advantage started and stopped. Not only was Fotu's Divine Energy 100 times more powerful than Linley's, but he also had one more unit than his opponent.

One unit may not sound like a lot, but it was more than capable of making all the difference at their current level.

Still, although he was confident, he knew that he wouldn't be able to kill Linley immediately, and in the meantime, unless something changed, Wukong would be free to cause havoc throughout the rest of their army.

Even so, Fotu didn't panic; he merely nodded to two of the other paragons of their group before turning, giving Linley his full and undivided attention.

Even though Fotu was, without a doubt, the strongest paragon on their side, he wasn't the only one who could be considered a monster. It had to be remembered that being a soul mutate himself, Matadall – one of the two Intermediate Sovereigns of Death – only chose to recruit soul mutates as his emissaries.

The two Paragons in Fotu nodded towards Hima and Lawd, who were also soul mutates.

Hima was a true two-way soul-mutated paragon of the Laws of Lightning and Wind, meaning she had accumulated four units of Will. And whilst Lawd hadn't become a paragon of the fused Laws of Darkness and Fire, he had still become a paragon of both laws individually, but most importantly, like Wukong and Linley, he was also an Apex Divine Beast – a Dark Phoenix to be precise.

Seeing them approaching his position and feeling their power, an excited grin took shape on Wukong's face as he shot off to meet them. At the same time, a giant phantom of a monkey's face, similar to Wukong, appeared in the sky behind him.

Now that his bloodline had been perfected, not only was he able to use Berserker's Might without losing his free will, but he was also able to use its true power, meaning not only was his battle IQ perfect, but his Divine Power also saw a tenfold increase – as if he were a soul mutate.

The fight had only just begun, but his opponents instantly found themselves being heavily suppressed. It was to the point where, after three clashes, Lawd found himself facing the downward swing of Wukong's staff strike – a strike so powerful that the very fabric of space was being torn as though it were paper.

Lawd knew he couldn't defend against this strike. Unfortunately, as a paragon of the Laws of Lightning, Wukong's strike was anything but slow, meaning Lawd couldn't even dodge. Still, Lawd didn't panic. It was right then that Lawd and Hima did something that took even Wukong by surprise.

Runes lit up on each of their bodies, and with his Godrealm, Wukong could sense that their powers were merging, allowing each of them to see a significant increase in power.

Looking down from the void, Osiris casually noted that they were using a watered-down version of the [Constellation Battle Tactics].

Although it allowed Hima and Lawd to see a powerup, the upper limit for the battle formation was only two, and it could only increase both parties' willpower by one unit.

Julius nodded with a slightly impressed expression, admitting that considering that the creator of the technique didn't have access to the [Constellation Battle Tactics] or the [Dual Battle Tactics] to work off of, it was an impressive effort.

Alissa snorted and waved disdainfully, saying impressive but ultimately pointless.

As if to prove her wrong, another change happened in the battle below.

Seeing that both Wukong and Linley were going all out in their respective battles, Doehring Cowart, Bebe, and the others all took off fearlessly into the enemy ranks, not bothering to hide their true powers.

Sensing that even the weakest among them were paragons with two units of Will whilst the strongest weren't much weaker than the likes of Linley and Wukong, Fotu immediately commanded everyone to form up.

Before he could even finish his sentence, all the paragons moved into pairs as their bodies lit up with runes, and their respective Willpowers suddenly spiked.

As for the main army to their rear, they also grouped up, but whilst the paragons moved into groups of two, the regular deities moved into groups of 25, with each group being led by a High God at the level of an invincible commander whose divine power saw a 100-fold increase.

When they sensed the power of the approaching enemy, especially that of Yunaia and Olivier, even without Fotu's saying so, the others would've all done so anyway.

Seeing that, the eyes of Olivier and the others didn't so much as flicker. Although, with Julius' help, they had already mastered the [Constellation Battle Tactics], they had no intention of using it.

Linley wasn't the only one fed up of Ace and his group hogging all the limelight. Each of them wanted to show the rest of the world that they were no worse. Still, they weren't blind. They knew exactly how demonic Ace and the Golden Sun Pirates were; as such, not only did they intend to show the rest of the world how powerful they were, but they also wanted to use their enemies this time to carry on sharpening themselves hoping to try and narrow the gap between their group and Ace's.

As for Fotu, even though he could've also joined his fellow paragons in the pairs battle formation they were using, he couldn't bring himself to do so. He was already hundreds if not thousands of times older than Linley; he was also a three-way soul mutate.

If he used the battle array to deal with Linley as he was, it would be no different than admitting that he was scared, and that was something he refused to do.

The tide of the battle quickly changed. Whether it was Wukong, Olivier, Yunaia, or Bebe, everyone found themselves being overwhelmed by superior numbers.

Initially, even after using the battle formation, Hima and Lawd still found that they weren't able to suppress Wukong; in fact, they were still only barely able to narrow the gap, still finding themselves on the losing side, albeit only barely. But that changed after another pair of paragons joined the battle.

Both paragons were only ordinary, single-law paragons; even so, Wukong was slowly being suppressed.

As for Olivier, his situation was even worse than Wukong. When they sensed his six units of Willpower and his fused divine power, he was immediately seen as too big of a threat and was directly surrounded by five pairs of paragons, two of whom were also soul mutates as well.

Even Wade, one of the three weakest of the group, was no different. He was also being surrounded and suppressed by numbers, but whilst the others were being suppressed by paragons, Wade was being surrounded by hundreds of Invincible Commander-level deities, each of whom was empowered by 25 other High Gods.

Although their formation didn't allow them to utilise the power of Will, each Invincible commander saw a hundredfold increase in their divine power – effectively making them three-way soul-mutates.

Wade's bloodline faintly surpassed that of even a first-generation descendant of the Ancestral Azure Dragon; as such, his physical abilities were even stronger than the likes of Gisalson and his uncle Wharton, and he even had two units of will – on their own, none of the Invincible Commanders would be a match for him, formation or otherwise; in fact, Wade would be able to slaughter his way through a couple dozen of them on his own, but in front of hundreds, even he found his otherwise impenetrable skin being torn to shreds by the hundreds of attacks constantly raining down on him from all sides.

Seeing his bloodied and battered son, Linley found it hard to focus wholeheartedly on his opponent, despite the fact that he was the weaker of the two.

It was obvious Wade wouldn't be able to last much longer. Unfortunately, because each of them had been separated due to the constraints of their battles, they weren't even able to activate the [Constellation Battle Tactics].

Despite the suppression he was under constantly worsening, Linley found himself screaming at himself for allowing his son to enter this kind of fight.

As for Wade, he had no idea what his father was feeling. His mind was focused on one thing and one thing only – doing his father proud.

He was the son of Linley Baruch, one of the most impressive Geniuses this universe had ever seen. He refused to do wrong by his father's name; he didn't care how injured he became; he kept moving forward, attacking one enemy after the next. He didn't care how many attacks landed on him; he would just keep going.

Unfortunately, his enemies had no interest in his concerns. He had just been sent flying by one enemy, and another appeared above him to finish him off.

Both Linley and Yunaia screamed in horror as their son was about to be killed. Bebe, Doehring, Wukong, Oscar, everyone tried to fight their way out of their respective encirclements to rescue him, but it was impossible.

But just as he was about to be killed with no one able to do anything about it, the natural laws descended.

For a second, due to their proximity, it looked as though the deity about to kill Wade was the one who broke through. Hell, even the deity in question thought that he was breaking through as well, but when he felt nothing being channelled into his body, he realised the truth.

He looked up to find Wade's dragon-like eyes staring back at him with a proud sneer. By the time he truly understood what had happened, his head had already been separated from his neck, and his Divine Spark was falling towards the floor.

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