Crack!
Muria raised his hand and gripped the skull of a corpse minion. With a slight exertion of strength, cracks appeared on the skull, and a torrent of black and red flames surged from Muria's hand. The flames poured into the cracks, flooding into the corpse's body and instantly filling it.
In a mere moment, cracks appeared all over the surface of the corpse minion's body. Black and red flames erupted from these fissures, and the creature howled in agony before being reduced to a pile of ash.
At that moment, a violent, excited roar echoed in Muria's ears. He turned toward the sound and saw a towering corpse minion clad in armor. Its skin was ashen and shriveled, its eyes glowed red, and its menacing form radiated aggression.
This corpse stood nearly three meters tall, towering above the lesser minions that Muria had easily crushed moments earlier. Its imposing size marked it as a more advanced and dangerous opponent.
Yet Muria's expression remained calm and unbothered. To him, low-level corpse minions were no different than ants, and this slightly larger one was just a bigger ant—nothing more.
However, even ants can devour an elephant if their numbers are great enough. When Muria saw an uncountable horde of corpse minions of similar size emerging behind the large one, his lips twitched slightly in annoyance.
And further behind these minions, Muria glimpsed even larger figures looming in the shadows. These clearly stronger creatures would undoubtedly force him to reveal some of his true power. In his current state, he was ill-suited for battle.
"To be honest, I'm not fond of my awakened form. But it seems I have no choice." Muria looked at the countless corpse minions pouring in from the surrounding streets and climbing the nearby buildings, enclosing him completely. He cracked his neck, and radiant fire patterns began to emerge across his face.
His small, childlike frame started to swell, and glowing, fiery patterns spread over his body, which took on the appearance of black obsidian. From his joints, crescent-shaped bone spurs laced with fire patterns extended outward, giving his form a menacing, hellish appearance. He looked like a demon god born to bring destruction.
In the blink of an eye, Muria transformed from a short figure barely 1.5 meters tall into a colossal being five meters in height, engulfed in flames.
Two sharp horns jutted from his forehead, pointing skyward, and a thick, muscular tail swung powerfully behind him, exuding an intimidating aura of strength.
The very air around him seemed to boil, and the ground beneath his feet turned a molten red, softening into magma. The area surrounding him was rapidly transforming into a lava pool.
"Roar!" The sight of Muria in his fully awakened third form provoked a deafening chorus of roars from the corpse minions. Although they retained a measure of intelligence, their minds were controlled by a ghostly entity. They charged at him in a frenzied wave.
"Fools." Seeing the horde of corpse minions charging at him, completely unafraid of death, Muria clenched his fist. The power radiating from him caused a molten greatsword to rise from the pool of magma beneath his feet.
Gripping the magma-forged greatsword, Muria swung it in a wide arc. A blazing wave of fire formed a perfect circle in front of him before expanding outward in all directions.
Any corpse minion touched by the fiery sword wave was instantly cleaved in two and incinerated into ash, utterly unable to resist.
These corpse minions, once living beings, had lost most of their memories during their transformation. Their strength, drawn from their death, was only a fraction of what they possessed in life.
Although Muria felled them by the hundreds with each swing of his sword, the mindless, fear-forgotten minions continued to throw themselves at him, wave after wave.
"Roar!"
The corpses' howls filled the air, and this constant noise began to awaken an innate savagery within Muria's transformed body. Opening his mouth wide, Muria let out a thunderous roar.
A visible shockwave of sound erupted from his mouth, spreading rapidly outward. The corpse minions directly in its path disintegrated as if they were weathered sandstone crumbling in a storm.
For a brief moment, silence fell around Muria, but it was short-lived. The remaining minions resumed their assault, though their howls were noticeably quieter—perhaps a result of the faint intelligence still lingering within them.
"So, even you lot know how to bully the weak and fear the strong," Muria remarked with a cold laugh. He grabbed one of the minions with his massive hand, ignoring its futile struggles, and plunged it forcefully into the molten lava at his feet.
Muria watched dispassionately as the minion screamed and writhed in agony before sinking entirely into the magma.
"This is pathetic!" While casually slaughtering the endless wave of corpse minions, Muria kept an eye on the battle between the giant and the ghostly entity. The more he watched, the more frustrated he became.
Despite having dominated the fight earlier by repeatedly shattering the ghost's form, the giant was now gradually losing ground. His attacks had grown weak and ineffective, and he could no longer obliterate the ghost with a single strike like before.
This turn of events, while frustrating to Muria, wasn't unexpected. The giant's offensive power far exceeded the ghost's, as evidenced by his earlier dominance. But for beings like the ghost, having their body destroyed was a mere inconvenience—they could regenerate with ease, consuming only a fraction of their energy to do so.
Using the vast reserves of energy it had amassed from devouring countless living souls, the ghost managed to drag the fight into a drawn-out battle of attrition, eventually turning the tide in its favor.
"Ga-ha-ha! Weren't you so fierce earlier? Why are your attacks so feeble now?" The ghost cackled mockingly, its enormous, beast-like claws slashing wildly at the giant.
The claws, formed from concentrated death energy, scraped against the giant's iron-gray skin, producing sparks but leaving no damage. They couldn't pierce his indomitable body.
At their level of power, each combatant had unique abilities. The ghost's form was easy to destroy but possessed unparalleled regenerative abilities, able to recover from any injury with ease.
The giant, on the other hand, had a body as tough as metal, impervious to most attacks. His physical resilience was unmatched, but this only covered his defensive capabilities.
"Huff!" The giant's chest heaved as he struggled for breath. The prolonged fight had drained much of his strength, while the ghost's seemingly bottomless reservoir of energy showed no signs of depleting.
Against such an opponent, the smart move would have been to retreat. But the giant, with his sharp instincts, could feel Muria's gaze fixed on him. The awkwardness of his predicament was palpable. Gritting his teeth, he charged forward once more.
He had his pride to maintain. After all the boasting he had done earlier, retreating in disgrace would be a humiliating blow. How could he face Muria later?
"Pride before the fall," Muria muttered with a sigh. From the giant's hesitant movements, it was clear that he was already considering retreat but refused to act on it out of sheer stubbornness.
"But your stubbornness is dragging me down with you," Muria said with a hint of exasperation. If the giant fell, he would likely share the same fate.
"Kid, do you see now? Even your guardian is powerless against me. Are you afraid? Do you tremble in fear?" As Muria swung his tail, effortlessly crushing a cluster of corpse minions, a ghostly figure, roughly the size of an ordinary human, materialized before him. The ghost spoke in a mocking tone.
"Which of your eyes sees me trembling?" Muria rolled his eyes and punched the ghost with a fiery fist, dispersing the figure in an instant.
Although the giant was clearly struggling and no longer in peak condition, the ghost still had to dedicate most of its energy to dealing with him. The fragment it sent to taunt Muria was merely a hollow shell, lacking any real strength.
"Ga-ha-ha! Do you think your guardian can take you and escape even if he loses? How naive! I'm a sixfold-awakened Ghost Fiend. There's no escaping my domain."
"Idiot," Muria sneered, reaching out to grab the ghost fragment. His hand passed through it, grasping at nothing but air.
"Keep insulting me all you like. Once I'm done with your guardian, you'll be next." The ghost's eerie voice echoed through the black mist surrounding them.
"Don't push me." Muria's voice carried a note of resignation as he watched the giant falter under the ghost's relentless assault. He had hoped for a gradual, steady progression of power, but now it seemed that was no longer an option.
As the giant teetered on the brink of collapse, deep within Muria's reincarnated body, the true Muria opened his eyes. His hands, clasped over his chest, unfolded to reveal a single drop of Origin Energy, capable of shaping entire worlds. From this drop, an infinitesimal amount was drawn.
Simultaneously, within the pocket dimension tied to his true form—a vast space filled with rare treasures and artifacts collected during his reign as an emperor—a heart resembling a miniature sun began to glow. Pulsating with golden-red lava-like energy, the heart slowly floated upward before vanishing
in an instant...
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