The air around Michael crackled and the ground beneath him crumbled.
First, the grass blades around his feet disappeared. Then the wet soil on the surface cracked, burst apart and vanished into thin air. Michael strode ahead, destruction passing wherever he passed by. The area of destruction expanded rapidly starting from the base of his feet to a meter around him. The ground underneath him disappeared and not a single trace of energy in his range could escape his grasp.
At last, a radiant light emerged on his chest. It expanded all over his chest before compressing into a War Rune that spread across his entire chest. The millions of miniature runes that were connected to each other, swirled around the War Rune, forming chains that connected to the War Rune.
The intricate patterns covered his entire body, but they accumulated near the War Rune as if it hosted them. Michael glanced down at his chest for a moment but there was not much to see. His arms were regrowing and the millions of tiny, connected miniature runes spread all over his body. It made him feel like he'd tattooed his entire body – with squirming runes that never stopped moving.
His attention naturally moved back to Quinn Karta, who had been focusing on Zeke for a moment. He only realized that something was wrong when the horrifying roar escaped through Michael's lips. Quinn stared at Michael, his entire being screaming at him, pleading him to run away at once.
However, he couldn't move. His body didn't allow him to move. Quinn's eyes were glued to Michael's eyes that were entirely golden. There was no trace of silver, let alone any white left in his eyes.
Michael raised his half-regrown arm slowly. It was a subtle motion, but it was enough to make everyone on the battlefield tense. In one moment Quinn was standing tens of meters away from Michael, and in the next Blink was activated subconsciously, pulling him further away. The instant he disappeared, the fabric of space in a sphere of three meters with Quinn as the center distorted and disappeared. It was almost like someone devoured everything within the sphere, leaving not even a single trace of energy, oxygen, or grain of soil behind.
It disappeared and everyone on the battlefield only realized what was happening when it was already too late. The crater was already there when the first Awakened exclaimed, the shock in their eyes evident.
"W-what…is going on?" One of them asked.
Michael clicked his tongue and repeated the attack from before – after tweaking it just a little bit. Quinn's body was about to react instinctively, but when Blink was just about to activate, he noticed that he felt much lighter, yet also heavier. His eyes traveled down his body, realizing too late that his right leg had disappeared.
Even his body took a few seconds to register that his leg had been devoured. Warm blood gushed out of the small stump, which was all that was left of his right leg.
Quinn's eyes widened in terror. He didn't feel any pain when his leg disappeared. Quinn didn't feel anything. How did that make sense?
The atmosphere on the battlefield grew heavier, but Michael ignored the tension. He spread the humongous wings of Archangel's Grace and continued to heal himself while towering high above his enemies. He glanced at the Tekur around him for less than a second before his attention moved back to Quinn.
No word escaped his lips but there was no need for wasted words. Quinn could tell what was going on even without an explanation. He…was going to die.
However, there was also a trace of hope in Quinn's eyes. As Michael approached him, Quinn noticed that Michael's skin burst apart, revealing the raw flesh beneath. He was healing rapidly but that was mostly thanks to Archangel's Grace.
No matter what Michael was doing to devour everything around him, it affected his body as well.
Michael was slowly extracting himself, layer by layer, only for Archangel's Grace to heal him. Archangel's Grace could barely keep up with the intensity of self-extraction that was happening to his body. Michael never experienced something like that, but he could instinctively tell that the potency of Extraction was too high right now. The power that surged through him because of Extraction was too strong for his body to handle. He would have killed himself by getting extracted layer by layer if not for Archangel's Grace working against the Extraction.
Everything in Michael's path was extracted. No matter where his energy passed by, Extraction came into effect. It was almost like the essence of Extraction had been fused into his body and origin energy. Nobody was safe from Extraction.
Kaleb rushed up to Michael, hoping to be of any help. However, the moment he reached the radius of the Extraction Dome, he felt increasingly uncomfortable. The power around him was non-existent, his lifeforce and stored origin energy were drained rapidly if he didn't use his entire mental defense to block extraction, and his skin was being slowly extracted as well. Lincoln reached out for Kaleb and hurled him out of the Extraction Dome with all the strength residing within him before he charged out of the Extraction Dome as well.
"Do you have any idea what is going on?" Lincoln asked Kaleb, and Zeke, looking down at his arms that missed skin on several spots. He had been in the Dome of Extraction for a second or two, yet Lincoln had already been affected by Michael's Extraction.
Zeke stared blankly at Quinn. He was shocked at Michael's display of power that transcended the combat prowess of a Lesser Lifeform, but the confusion and frustration of having been betrayed hit him much harder.
"I guess that losing his limbs triggered something within him," Killian Zeus appeared next to Lincoln, his entire body covered in cuts and burns. He'd been fighting one of the Elite Soldiers, and the result was not so pleasant. The Elite Soldier was still uninjured, yet Killian had been beaten into a pulp.
That was the downside of the Tekur possessing way too many allies with Support-type Soultriats. Killian could barely use half of his combat prowess, whereas the Elite Soldier had been reinforced by more than ten Tekur using their Soul Techniques to strengthen him.
"Some high-ranked Soultraits are known for having natural limiters to ensure that the Awakened won't accidentally kill themselves. All 7-Star Soultraits have something like that. Their true power can only be unleashed upon becoming Higher Lifeforms. However, the limiter exists for weaker Soultraits as well. In that case, the Soultrait is usually extremely powerful – or extremely dangerous for the user," Killian continued to explain as he saw the destruction caused by Michael.
"I have no idea what this Soultrait is, but it feels old. It naturally dominates everything in its range."
"What will happen to Michael? Is he losing control of his Soultrait?" Lincoln understood a lot about various Soultraits, but Killian was still more knowledgeable than him. At least, when it came to limiters. Killian's Soultrait had a limiter, and he managed to remove it without losing control of the tremendous power he was given to use.
"I…have no idea. To be honest, Michael's Soultraits are a mystery to me. I think he can barely manage to survive as long as Maria's Archangel continues to heal him. But I think Michael has some other problems to deal with…" Killian replied somewhat calmly, whereas his mind was in a mess, 'I still want to kill you…Just die for me…Well, maybe not now.'
The Tekur had been preparing a large-scale attack while everyone was busy being distracted. The Elite Soldiers charged at Michael with their combined power. Numerous elemental attacks and other long-range attacks such as energy-condensed projectiles shot through the air. They were about to impact and injure Michael severely when they disappeared, just like that.
Everything in the Dome of Extraction was devoured. All effects that would have affected the beings inside the dome were rendered null and void.
Quinn stared blankly at Michael, uncontrollable rage filling his entire being. He wanted to attack Michael and kill that bastard for ruining all of his plans, but a single glance in Michael's direction was enough to put his revenge to a halt. All of a sudden, Quinn's left arm disappeared. It had been extracted in an instant.
Blood gushed out of Quinn's shoulder and he screamed aloud. Meanwhile, all Michael did was glare emotionlessly at Quinn. There was no need to be merciful to those who wanted to kill him – even less to traitors of their own kind.
Michael was just about to continue dealing with Quinn when he noticed that the Elite Soldiers, enveloped in various effects of Support-type Soultraits, barged into the Dome of Extraction. They could resist the power of Extraction for a while. The Elite Soldiers broke through the Dome of Extraction with all the enhancements they'd received. They expected Michael to be surprised and panic, but the opposite happened.
More power erupted from Michael's body. He used ten-layered Enhancement on the Soultrait Symbol of Extraction, increasing the power that surged through his body. At this point, not even Archangel's Grace was potent enough to regenerate his body fast enough to keep him in top form. The regeneration of his arms was temporarily halted as well.
But that was fine. He could use Archangel's Grace to slow down the speed at which he was going to die. Meanwhile, the healing effect lingering on the Elite Soldiers was extracted – devoured in an instant. The Tekur didn't manage to block the Extraction that shrouded their entire being. They couldn't last against the tremendous power that impacted all of a sudden. Their carapaces crumbled and disappeared, followed by the flesh, muscles, and veins.
The Elite Soldier Tekur were devoured layer by layer until Michael decided to devour the lifeforce and origin power stored within them. Their origin energy storage hit zero near-instantaneously and the Tekur crashed onto the ground, unable to muster enough strength to lift their bodies.
A long silver blade manifested in Michael's hand as he strode closer to the Elite Soldier Tekur. The Dome of Extraction transformed into a swirl of power in Michael's hand. Extraction turned into a highly compressed blade that coated the Aethyr Blade, decreasing the damage that was inflicted on his body.
Michael gathered the power of Extraction in the Aethyr Blade and slashed at the weakened Elite Soldiers as if they were mere livestock. He beheaded them with a single strike, their heads flinging through the air. A surge of power influx reached Michael, but his focus was fixated on the remaining Tekur.
Before 10-layered Enhancement could wear off, Michael instinctively transmuted the Soul Glacicle Bullets, inserting a tremendous amount of True Extraction into them. 400 SoulStar Fragments were used up within seconds, keeping the Soul Power Storage of Glacicle at an all-time high as he began manifesting one Soul Glacicle Bullet after another.
The result was tremendous. More than 50 Soul Glacicle Bullets inserted with extraction whizzed through the air, each unleashing a shockwave as they reached max speed. The bullets pierced into the Tekurs' carapace, leaving them no chance to block the attack.
The True Power of Extraction was unleashed within the Tekur that had been hit, killing them rapidly, yet eerily painfully by removing layer after layer of their bodies…from within.
