Swoosh. Bzzt. Cut.
The red and purple lightning crackled as Eren swung his weapons in the opposite direction from each other. His blades touched Oni King's skin and managed to breach his natural defense layer.
Two distinct cuts were formed on either side of Har Jahar's neck. The blades cut his flesh and penetrated halfway into it from either side.
And yet, Eren couldn't chop off the Monster King's neck. His mana didn't even pose a threat to the monster who was only a step away from becoming a Monster Emperor.
Eren had to struggle to get his weapons out of their stuck places. This whole time, the audience was flabbergasted by what they were seeing and the Oni King maintained a stoic expression on his face.
The wounds on his neck started healing immediately after the weapons were pulled out because of the monster's passive regeneration kicking in. His evolutionary status as an Oni King was so strong that even the body's accelerated regenerative properties started looking like a healing spell.
Oni King only groaned a bit when he felt his neck getting injured by Eren's attack. Frankly, for the first time after so many years, the monster felt fear.
The Monster King had managed to keep his dignity intact as an Oni king by acting tough and silent. However, only he knew how his balls almost ended up crawling back into his sack never to come out for a second time when Eren had launched his attack.
"Hahahahaha! Ant. You worthless fucking ant."
Har Jahar found the strength in him to mock Eren for his failure. A tinge of desperation could be heard in his voice. Despite his words, he was starting to treat Eren as a real threat. He just wanted to make him mentally unstable with his words, a job which he was failing miserably at.
Alas, Eren had seen Eliza.
Slap!
Eren slapped the Oni King's face with the back of his right hand. He then pressed his index finger of the same hand against his lips in a gesture to make someone observe silence before speaking up.
"Quiet. I can feel how shit-scared you were. No need to act tough in front of me, should I say father-in-law?"
Eren laughed and glanced at Kirin, who was entrapped within the siphoning array in her place. The latter also wore a blank face and had no discernable thoughts he could sense with his soul sense. Eren smirked at the Oni King's daughter. Then he looked away from Kirin and focused his eyes on Har Jahar again before commenting.
"Har Jahar, when I say you will die today, you will die today. If not swiftly, then painfully. Just wait your turn."
Eren told Har Jahar in his Life Drain form with his red eyes, supposedly staring into his soul fearlessly.
Eren wanted to kill Har Jahar using his Wrath ability and process his gains. But that seemed impossible because the monster was able to resist the wrath mana. Eren was just too weak to make his wrath mana potent enough to work on Har Jahar.
Then he had thought of using his Life Drain ability on him after killing him. That way he would be able to get maximum benefits out of the monster's death and improve his ranking status further post his death.
Eren was sure he wouldn't be able to use the Life Drain on Har Jahar while he was alive. He didn't have the power to wrest the life essence away from his living body.
That left him with only one option.
Eren summoned a sizable wrath flame that had been sealed by Alephee's soul spell all this time. He held it in his hands as if it was a flame-shaped sculpture of ice that had been frozen in time, which it was.
Eren pondered for a while before asking his Orcina slaves.
"Sharog, how long can the siphoning array hold?"
Sharog had beads of sweat on her forehead as she guided the channels that regulated the siphoning array. Upon hearing Eren's question, she checked up on her condition as well as the twin assistants' before answering.
"My lord, another 15 minutes."
Eren nodded to her statement before asking another woman who was his partner in all this.
'Alephee, how much time do you think it would take for me to digest this flame from Kilaaba?'
Alephee didn't take long to reply.
'Don't worry. I'll help you digest your gains. I'll also wake you up at the right time if you experience a breakthrough-induced epiphany. Your gains would be a bit lower because of that, but I don't think you would complain about the kind of situation you have found yourself in."
Eren smiled mirthlessly at Alephee's statements and agreed. To reap maximum benefits, he wanted to combine Kilaaba's and Oni King's wrath flames into one.
Eren had planned to kill Har Jahar this way from the moment he learned about his existence from Sharog. That's why he waited all this time to digest the wrath flame left behind by Kilaba. However, he now understood that the plan was impossible to execute.
Eren looked at Har Jahar and flashed a cunning grin before saying out loud.
"It'll be over soon."
To unseal the flame, Eren immersed his mana in it. The sealing spell dispersed and the wrath flame returned to life. Eren closed his eyes and let the flame disappear into his body through his palm.
Eren felt the implosion of his mana core as soon as he felt the wrath flames being absorbed by his body. His body started oozing out impurities from his skin all over as he went through his rank upgrade.
Breaking into F-Rank granted one the ability to wield their elements. In breaking into E-Rank, they were able to stabilize their elements to provide a secure path for their ranking journeys.
Breaking into Adept rank was considered one of the deciding factors of a ranker's life because it dealt with Elemental condensation. In this breakthrough, the mana core will be etched with the mystic elemental runes of their respective elements, condensing them into the core. This enabled the rankers to wield their elements with greater speed, power, and efficiency than ever before. The potency of their average Adept ranked spells is also enhanced by several degrees, thanks to Elemental condensation.
Rankers often experienced a huge bottleneck in their Adept rank because of the Adept breakthrough's peculiarity. For prodigies like Altashia and a pseudo prodigy like Eren, the case was even more severe.
In Eren's previous timeline, Eren had been stuck in the Ace Rank for decades before achieving a potion-induced breakthrough. That too after spending all his savings on the potion.
As a result of the unnatural breakthrough, his elemental runes gained through Elemental Condensation were less effective in his past. It had bankrupted his potential for another rank breakthrough. Hence, he never reached C-Rank in his past timeline.
However, this time it was the polar opposite situation. The Elemental Condensation Eren had achieved with his breakthrough was unique and one-of-a-kind even by half-bloods' standards.
