Chapter 48 - Prairie Blade

　　The power of the Nine Spinning Spirits was used to impact such a vital organ as the heart. Before the barrier was broken through, he was injured first. Alan smiled bitterly as he wiped away the blood, and a sharp pain shot through his chest. He rested for a moment, but he didn't intend to give up, so he closed his eyes again and guided his source power to continue impacting the barrier.

　　This time, he spilled blood from his mouth and nose together!

　　The third time, Allen's entire body flew backwards. The skin of his entire body was reddened, and many wounds on his arms and chest reopened. However, instead of wearing down Allen's fighting spirit, the successive injuries stirred up a ruthlessness in his blood. He stifled a grunt and urged his source power for the fourth time.

　　The source vortex once again collided inside him, turning into a source comet that went on a rampage and slammed back towards his heart. Alan gritted his teeth as the comet hit the barrier with a bang. In his consciousness, a barrier made of flowing light patterns appeared. The barrier was already shaking, with many of the patterns bursting and cracking one by one. As the cracks spread out, Allen could feel that behind this barrier, as Hughton had said, there were two other invisible barriers that were even thicker and more vertical.

　　After the impact, the source power vortices naturally dispersed, when they had a tendency to roll back like an ebbing tide. Alan let out a roar from the depths of his soul, forcibly pulling the vortexes to collide once more, erupting into a torrent of source power that slammed into the barrier.

　　After being hit by the flood of source power repeatedly in a short period of time, the first confinement barrier finally clicked and shattered abruptly, exploding into countless points of light and disappearing. The tidal wave of source power went on and on, crashing directly into the heart, and began to flow according to a certain pattern. In Alan's consciousness, he could see the source power forming a vague pattern.

　　And at that moment, he eventually lost consciousness due to the excessive trauma. However, even though Alan lost consciousness, his source power was flowing on its own. As a result, the pattern in his heart became clearer and clearer, gradually revealing that it was a long sword burning with flames!

　　Lucy was sitting at the exit of the cave while Allen pounded the barrier and built the circuit. The exit had a clump of weeds covering most of the cave, and with people hiding behind it, it was hard for those outside to notice. But Lucy could see the movement outside, and the world outside the cave smelled of blight. The tawny ground and earthy mountains formed monotonous blocks of color, and the occasional storm wolf passed among the mountain passes, but they didn't notice the cave.

　　A little by little, the sun began to slant down towards the west. As the sunlight fell into the horizon, the afterglow left Lucy with a silhouette of distant mountains. A few hundred meters away from the cave, in a fork in the road, a silhouette suddenly flashed by.

　　Lucy had been a little drowsy and winced at the sight of the figure.

　　Anse is finally here!

　　She glanced deeper into the cave, and it seemed that Alan hadn't finished building the circuit yet. Lucy gritted her teeth and burrowed through the opening, then finding a few rocks for a little cover, she catapulted her body and stalked off in the direction the figure had come from.

　　After Lucy left, a tall silhouette vaguely appeared among the rocks. Metallon looked at Lucie's back and shook his head helplessly. The silhouette once again hid away, yet a seemingly unnoticeable ripple crossed over, following far behind Lucy.

　　Anse emerged from behind a boulder, frowning as he looked around. This mountainous region was far more complicated than he had imagined, with many goat trails that curved and forked. Walking inside was no different from walking through a maze. During the day, the traces that he had deliberately laid out for Allen had led him to the vicinity of a wolf's den, although only a few wolves could not help him. But later on, the wolves became more and more numerous, and Anse could only choose to retreat.

　　After most of this delay, it was sundown when the trail was re-found and touched down. The night had been a bonus to his engraving abilities, but the mountains were not an ideal battlefield. It was very difficult just to find the two Allen's, but Anse was patient and believed himself to be the victor in the end.

　　I will never fail again!

　　That image of being whipped by the representative of the Alexander family was still fresh in his mind, and the streaks of whips pricked his nerves even more. And all of this would end after finishing off Allen and Lucy. As long as he was able to leave this place, he would be able to join the Alexander family as a victor. Even if it was only the status of a family warrior, but with his ability, who dared to say that he couldn't make a name for himself? There was even the possibility of being absorbed by the Alexandria family and becoming a side branch descendant when his power was strong enough.

　　By then, the identity will be very different.

　　And all it took was taking out two people!

　　Anse glanced to the west and squinted. The afterglow of the setting sun was almost gone, and as he climbed up a larger boulder to be able to see into the open surroundings, he was going to use the last of the afterglow to observe the nearby terrain in order to project where Alan was most likely to be hiding.

　　Just as his gaze inadvertently skimmed over the cave where Allen was hiding, the fluffy hairs on the back of Anse's neck suddenly stood up. His heart was beating wildly, his blood was racing, and it was the sensation of danger! He immediately lunged towards the rock, only to leap away from it when the sound of gunfire rang out from behind. The rock was grazed by a bullet, and a streak of sparks splashed up, bringing a piece of debris down onto Anse's back.

　　Anse instantly rolled on the ground, clinging to the rocks before speaking, "What a warm welcome, Lucy."

　　"Surely I dare not be slow with you, Mr. Mighty Engraver."

　　Lucy's voice was drifting, one sentence was on the left, the next had come to the right. Anse knew that she was using extremely fast bodywork to disrupt her judgment, and apparently she succeeded. But this way, Lucy's physical energy power would drop very quickly. When she could no longer move so much, it would be the young girl's time to die.

　　"I'm curious, Lucy. How many bullets do you have left in that magazine?" Anse said suddenly.

　　He knew very well that Lucy couldn't have too many magazines left on her. And in the previous shootout with Verne, he had seen with his own eyes that the young girl had already consumed two magazines. Therefore, Anse judged that Lucy only had at most one magazine left on her body, and there wouldn't be too many bullets. For a gunman, their biggest limitation was ammunition. Once the ammunition ran out, even if they were a source power user, they wouldn't be much more trouble than an ordinary person.

　　Especially for Anse, the engraver.

　　The light of the setting sun finally disappeared completely, and the moment before it did, a flash of light suddenly swept through a patch of rocks to the left in front of him. Anse caught the flash keenly and knowingly jumped away from the edge of the rock. In the next moment, sparks flew from the place where he had been crouching, and the booming sound of gunfire resounded through the space.

　　Lucy catapulted herself into the cover of the row of rocks in front of her and circled in Anse's direction, not forgetting to say, "Don't worry about it, there's enough bullets left to kill you!"

　　As much as she talked about it, the truth was that Lucy really didn't have many bullets left.

　　In that magazine, there are five rounds left!

　　Another shot echoed as Anse locked onto the location of the shot and quickly lunged for it. Little did he realize that as the two chased each other, he was getting farther and farther away from the cave where Allen was hiding.

　　Just as Lucy lured Anse away, in the cave, Allen still hadn't woken up. His consciousness, however, was stuck in an odd space.

　　Alan didn't know what was going on, he could feel that it was a dim, but absolutely vast space. It was like he was grounded in the void of the universe, and there was nothing but darkness above and below him. Until he saw the light, which was rising from directly in front of him. It was located as far away as the end of the world. It leapt up from the void, flowing with an orange sheen.

　　It was like a flash of light rising from the horizon before dawn. The band of light formed by the orange glow was bending upwards, forming a perfect arc across the world. Perhaps one day that light would reach this withered space that was like the depths of the universe. But for the moment, Alan's will was detached from this space.

　　Then he heard the faint sound of gunfire.

　　Opening his eyes, it was first pitch black before his eyes, then gradually he was able to see the blurred dome of the cave. The moonlight replaced the daylight, and the silver threads of light shone into the cave, making the environment in the cave not so dark. Alan moved his arms and legs, because of the long period of unconsciousness made the arms and legs a bit sore and numb, but the spirit is surprisingly good.

　　After slowing down, Alan remembered that he seemed to have broken through the shielding in this moment of unconsciousness. Immediately, he closed his eyes and used his mind to sense the source power within his body. At once, he felt that the light of source power was flickering at the location of his heart, and when the tentacles of his consciousness probed into that light, a pattern emerged from the light.

　　It was a long sword that burned with flames, and a name naturally floated to Alan as he felt it.

　　Prairie Blade!

　　This was the engraving that Alan had activated, and when feeling this engraving, he suddenly realized that the Prairie Blade was only the initial engraving. As the source power realm increased, it would advance along with it, resulting in even more powerful abilities.

　　On the prairie blade, there was orange light sweeping through, forming patterns like electronic circuits. That was the first genetic circuit built up from the vortex of source power, a circuit that provided Allen with the first ability of his life: burning!

　　Burning attaches a thousand-degree flame to Alan's weapon for 1 minute. Due to the engraving of "Prairie Blade", this flame also has a certain degree of stickiness, which means that it can spread and ignite other things. This means that it can spread and ignite other things, such as clothing and even the human body. The flame created by burning cannot be extinguished by conventional physical means, such as water or sand.

　　Flames born from source power can only be counteracted and annihilated by source power.

　　At first glance, Burning didn't seem as powerful as Anse's Shadow Vortex. However, the advantage of this ability was its duration, which lasted for a full minute, making it possible to use it in conjunction with some of Alan's battle techniques. For example, if the String Moon Slash was combined with the Burning ability, it would display a whole new level of power. As Alan's level increases, the duration of the burn will also increase accordingly.

　　Ability and engraving are closely related, and its sustainability corresponds to the engraving characteristic that a single spark can start a prairie fire.

　　Like Engraving, Burning can be advanced. Behind it, there are the Scorch and Weave Flame levels!