Masked Saber's attack drained all of his origin energy. He couldn't feel his right arm due to the force unleashed by the compressed silver energy blade, and he was exhausted to the extent that he could collapse at any moment.
Michael saw Tiara rush to Masked Saber for support and that they slowly retreated in his direction.
However, Michael had yet to finish the battle. Most opponents died facing the highly compressed silver energy blade, but not everyone was dead yet.
Four Summons, one Awakened, and three Lords were still alive; but only the Lords were nearly unscathed. The four Summons and the Awakened were swiftly taken care of.
Michael merely replaced the Wyverntooth Spear with Zark, pulled the bowstring back, and drilled an energy arrow in each of their heads.
Since they were already injured, the five targets weren't able to focus on Michael and the incoming energy arrows. They screamed in pain due to their severe wounds, only to end up with the Grim Reaper's soul-reaping scythe pressed against their necks as the arrows impacted.
Meanwhile, five streams of energy influx entered Michael's War Rune, allowing him to divert his attention to the three remaining Lords without any worries.
Two of the Lords had to use the majority of their origin energy to erupt their Soultraits and block the silver energy blade – or evade it.
They were flabbergasted and stared blankly in Masked Saber's direction, unsure how they missed noticing the subordinates of the Lord they'd been fighting.
Their expressions were filled with regret, shock, and anger, yet there was nothing they could do to bring back their loyal subordinates.
And their lives were on the line as well. The battle was still not over, after all!
Michael released a few energy arrows to test how much they had been weakened before he retrieved Zark to manifest the Wyverntooth Spear once again. Several layers of Enhancement shrouded his lower body, increasing his speed and acceleration drastically.
He turned into a blur as he blasted ahead. Simultaneously, three four-layer enhanced Spirit Whips manifested around Michael.
His head began to ache horribly, but Michael simply ignored the pain. If anything, Michael used the pain as a catalyst to break through his limit. He used Enhancement on the Wyverntooth Spear, just to apply Extraction's golden streams to the Wyverntooth Spear as well.
Michael moved across the battlefield with nimble steps. He created a feint by moving to the left before moving to the right. That way, he avoided the glacier-blue icicles of the Zantur, the third Lord, who had survived Masked Saber's attack.
The Zantur still had some origin energy left inside his body, but his barrages of dozens of icicles – directed at both Taros and Michael – had drained him quite a lot.
Even now, the Zantur was trying to face both Michael and Taros by using the glacier-blue icicle Soultrait. It was indeed a powerful Soultrait that could be used to support his comrades-in-arm on several battlefields. The only issue was that the icicles were useless against Michael and Taros.
Taros would rip out his frozen skin without a change in his expressions and his superior regenerative ability would heal him in the blink of an eye. Meanwhile, Michael could use Extraction to remove the frost before it infiltrated his body.
The only issue Michael faced while using Extraction on himself was his low mastery of using Extraction on himself.
Until now, Michael rarely used Extraction on himself. In his two natural cleansings, his body had naturally expelled impurities, which was also why it had been far easier to extract the impurities within his body during that time. It was like his body had guided Extraction during those two times.
But this guide didn't exist when he tried to remove the freezing effect of the icicles from his body. Thus, he was stupefied by the freezing chill for a second or two whenever he was struck by the icicles, slowing his movements.
Fortunately, Michael didn't have an issue with that anymore. Evading the icicles was no problem at this point.
He appeared in front of the two exhausted Lords as they gulped down several energy potions. They clearly hoped to be able to unleash their full strength before Michael arrived. However, they were too late.
Michael unleashed Extraction to extract the origin energy in the surroundings. He then slashed through the air horizontally, slicing through the two exhausted Lords simultaneously.
Two of the three enhanced Spirit Whips lashed out at one of them each, just for the black spear blade to slice through their chests as if it was a searing hot knife cutting tofu.
Michael lashed out with the Spirit Whips a second time after the Wyverntooth Spear sliced through them. He then allowed Extraction to invade their dying bodies, draining their remaining lifeforce and origin energy rapidly.
The Zantur tried to restrict Michael, but a wall of Extraction's golden streams had already formed in front of him, extracting the icicles' freezing effect before they passed through the gaseous golden wall to reach his opponent.
Michael allowed the icicles to impact now that they couldn't cause him any harm. Afterward, he shot forward with the aim to finish the Zantur and end the whole battle for good.
However, just as Michael burst forth in the Zantur's direction, Michael saw several large objects flying through the air – right at the Zantur.
'Corpses?' Michael immediately recognized the objects that had been thrown through the air. He looked over to Taros, just to see that the ferocious Demi-Human had already delivered a lethal blow on his opponent. He threw the corpses in the Zantur's direction with the intention to bury him under them.
However, the Zantur could evade most corpses. He was only hit by one of them, which was enough to push him down on the ground.
By the time the Zantur tried to get up, Michael had already appeared in front of the Zantur. Extraction was fully unleashed, extracting the origin energy in the surroundings.
Michael spun the Wyverntooth Spear in the air, turned it upside down, and struck at the defenseless Zantur, who was also under the constant assault of three four-layer enhanced Spirit Whips.
The Zantur coughed up blood, but he was unwilling to give up. He condensed a few icicles mid-air, hoping to strike and kill Michael at once.
But Michael's spear was already right in front of the Zantur. It was only a few centimeters away from his face.
"Noo…—" He could barely utter in a weak desperate voice before the black spear blade was drenched in blood once again.
The blade cut easily through the Zantur's silver skin, and it dug deep through his eyesocket, piercing his brain way too easily.
By now, Michael was accustomed to death and murder. It was not a good feeling to kill his opponents, but the rules of the survival had been deeply imprinted in his mind.
He knew that others would pounce on him and tear him apart the moment they obtained the golden opportunity. Thus, instead of giving others the opportunity to reap his life he preferred to be the merciless killer.
Surviving and living properly was not easy in the Origin Expanse, but the rules were. Survive by all means and take whatever you can if you're capable enough.
The strong could do whatever they wanted, while the weak had to obey them in order to survive.
And in this battle, Michael was going to survive. He had promised himself that he would gain everything and he was steadily progressing towards that goal. While he emerged victorious, the Lords, their Awakened, and their Summons lost what was the most precious to them; their lives.
They had entered the Lord Rift, hoping to make the biggest gains – even if that meant they had to kill other Lords – only to end up as another Lord's prey.
Michael twisted the Wyverntooth Spear in the head of the Zantur before he pulled the weapon out of his target, finishing off the pesky opponent once and for all.
Not even a moment later, a new energy influx entered his War Rune while Michael instinctively used Extraction on the Zantur to extract the remaining origin energy inside his body.
He replenished his origin energy rapidly while looking over to Taros, who reciprocated his gaze with a devious glint.
Taros tilted his head staring at Michael, gripping his war axes tightly.
'Shouldn't he be tired by now?' Michael wondered, averting his gaze to look between Taros and Tac Lec.
The two of them had been fighting for quite a while before the dozen Lords arrived, and it was not like Taros fought vigilantly. He was injured more often than anyone else on the battlefield. Even with superior regenerative abilities, Taros should be exhausted by now.
Thus, Michael just nodded his head in Taros' direction before he started to collect the corpses all around him.
'Oh? I already extracted his Soultrait Symbol? I hope they didn't see that,' Michael thought, slightly surprised when he saw the Soultrait Symbol of the Zantur popping up in the golden stream of Extraction.
Nothing else had been extracted from the Zantur's corpse yet. Thus, Michael quickly stored the Soultrait Symbol and the corpses in the War Rune's storage space.
Even though he looked like he was fully focused on collecting the corpses lying around on the battlefield, Michael was still vigilant of Taros and Tac Lec.
They seemed to have stopped fighting for the time being to stare at him intently.
Michael's body was still covered in the white hues of Enhancement, and his Artifacts were still manifested as well.
If Taros or Tac Lec initiated an attack, Michael could react instantly. He was ready.
However, they didn't attack him. They simply kept staring at him for a while.
'Their Soultraits would be quite nice for my repertoire. Eating to grow stronger seems to suit me perfectly, and controlling the four basic elements seems quite nice as well,' Michael thought in regret.
Fortunately, he understood his situation very well.
Michael was not exactly weak, but he had witnessed Taros' fighting style. His brute force was terrifying, especially after he summoned the War Axes.
Dealing with a bunch of Lords, whom he could injure to drain them slowly with Extraction, was possible. However, fighting a single individual like Taros or Tac Lec was not something Michael was good at.
His combat style so far had been honed to fight large-scale battles after all.
