The black fog lightly drifted around the Night Watcherâs body, which seemed very faint and would scatter from just a light breath.
But Negaryâs attacks were strangely being repelled by this fog, the immense force behind his strikes merely made the fog swirl a bit before drifting back up.
The Night Watcher in the middle of the fog also disregarded the notion of attack and focused on defending against Negaryâs attack.
âMy heart points at the great sun, eternally beating, eternally hot!â following Reidâs chanting prayers, a power of extreme heat radiated from his body that also quickly spread into his surroundings.
His knight armor was now glowing a bit incandescent, almost like a piece of burning coal. Wave after wave of heat spread into his surroundings, making Negary feel like he was standing in the middle of an oven instead of an underground secret room.
This was the last divine technique that Reid had recorded: [Sunfire Aura]
After using this divine technique, he would be able to continuously exude heat into his surroundings. His body itself would become like a scorching flame, everyone who approached him would be burnt while the heat turned the entire environment into his zone of perception.
Under the aid of the Brand of the Red Sun, he would hold a near perfect grasp of any changes in heat within his surroundings, which meant that under the [Sunfire Aura], nothing could hide.
Including the germs that disguised itself as a part of his helmet, which had been burnt to ash under the heat.
Furthermore, while using the [Sunfire Aura], there was no longer a need for long periods of preparations to use the [Heated Sword], as his sword was now glowing incandescent by itself.
ã As I thought, their leap in strength is quite miraculous ãNegaryâs figure slowly retreated, but still maintained the same calmness he had in the beginning.
Most of these peopleâs strength came from their techniques and outer factors, not their own [Origin], so while they may appear like just a slightly strong and fit human at first glance, as soon as any equipment or divine technique was factored in, they would become extraordinarily strong.
A Red Sun Knight using his divine techniques and one that was not were two completely different concepts.
It was because Negary found out this information that he took the opportunity to make an ambush while they could not react, having them die with their divine techniques and equipment unused.
To an extent, this was a bit similar to Negaryâs own situation. He might be strong, but he relied on the collection of information, his understanding of the human heart, as well as his applications of various powers. In the Disaster world, he had Disasforce to rely on, but after his Authority was removed and now that he had left that world, he was essentially just a soul that had undergone two stages of release.
Once his information was clearly grasped by any other party, without outside influence, he would easily fall into danger.
ã Because of that, I must truly grow stronger and advance from my very essence, not just superfluously ã
Negary didnât feel too emotional, the strength of his current willpower had already reached the peak of humans, the only thing he lacked was the power to supplement that.
âSinner, accept your purificationâ Reid wielded his extremely heated sword, ran past the Night Watcher and unleashed his attack on Negary.
ã Do you know what happens when super-heated metal is suddenly cooled? ãNegary didnât try to avoid or dodge, he completely ignored the sword coming at him and simply pressed his hands on Reidâs armor, a large amount of cooling liquid was instantly vaporized, taking with it a huge amount of heat.
Reidâs armor quickly became dim, then gave off a cracking sound before actually cracking open. The superheated sword had pierced through Negaryâs body, the extreme heat melted a large hole in Negaryâs body.
With a light push of his hand, Negary retracted the bone blade from his palm, Reidâs body collapsed to the ground, the sword in his hand also fell down with him and gradually became dim.
On the other side, the Night Watcher had already turned and ran, he had thought that there was a chance at victory when he saw the Red Sun Knight use his divine technique, but immediately ran away as soon as there was absolutely zero chance of winning.
Negaryâs eyes flickered a bit, but chose not to pursue him, he simply brought the human-faced snake Isrig with him, collected a few things and left.
The glittering golden blood was sprinkled onto the human-faced snakeâs body, through which Negaryâs consciousness was sent into Isrigâs mind. Through this Soulâs Blood, Negary told Isrig to temporarily lay low in the sewers and make sure not to contact him unless something important happened.
Not only did he need to be careful with transferring his soul to new bodies, he also had to make sure that an information conduit like the Soulâs blood would not be exposed.
There were no guarantees that the Sun Shadow church couldnât use the Soulâs Blood to locate Negaryâs real soul. Furthermore, there was a function to communicate from a long distance with his subordinates through Soulâs Blood, but Negary was sure that this communication channel wasnât perfectly secured in this world and could be tapped by others.
Although the Righteous God called Eternal Heat didnât always pay attention to the town of Lohr, Negary estimated them to be at least at the same level as the New Deity and Progenitor Dragon; and any amount of caution wasnât excessive when dealing with such entities.
ã You seem to still carry a tracking mark from the Sun Shadow church, can you deal with it yourself? ãNegary questioned Isrig.
ã Lord Negary, this was the reason why I was in such a hurry to complete the Ritual of snakes. The tracking mark has been stripped away together with my final shed of human skin. It was only because the henchmen of the Sun Shadow church arrived too quickly that I was locked in without being able to escape ã
ã Then it is fine ãNegary nodded. The sewers of Lohr were complicated and hard to navigate, with numerous unusual creatures living at every corner. This environment made it so that Isrig would easily be able to hide for a while.
...
ã Soulâs Blood will need to be upgraded ã
At the moment, the functions of Soulâs Blood had become insufficient for his circumstances.
His soul was attached to Soulâs Blood and formed a strong link with it; through the connection of Soulâs Blood with itself, he was able to constantly transfer his soul without any limits. Additionally, each drop of Soulâs Blood contained the information of Negaryâs soul within it, which could infect the souls of others and breed a soul for Negary within their bodies.
Technically speaking, as long as there was at least one drop of Soulâs Blood left, Negary would always be able to infect the soul of others and âresurrectâ in a certain meaning of the word, but this resurrection would decrease the quality of Negaryâs soul that he had worked hard to gain.
ã These are the shortcomings of Soulâs Blood. It is currently only able to record the information of my soul and fuse with my soul in the most elementary manner ãNegary thought.
If his soul became too separated, Negaryâs speed of thinking would be limited by the connection speed of Soulâs Blood, which made the process of calculations and information processing extremely slow.
Furthermore, once this connection was disrupted, it would spell trouble. There wouldnât be much issues if Negary only split into a few souls, but if he truly spread his soul throughout every drop of Soulâs Blood, his soul would become scattered, returning to an irrational or low rational monster that could only condense and regain his rationality once he absorbed enough Soul Essence.
This was why most of the time, Negary attached his soul to a single portion of Soulâs Blood as his main viral body.
If this problem wasnât resolved, Soulâs Blood would eventually be unable to catch up to the speed of growth of Negaryâs soul, thus becoming redundant, or worse, a liability.