The Feeling of Power Is Quite Good
Deon didn't wait around for long.
Perhaps if he was alone and had more time, he could have used the soul refinement spirit and fed it with Lieutenant Stephen's origin soul, bringing it closer to its own 2-Star ascension…however, Deon wouldn't easily reveal this spirit to people who he wasn't about to kill. Although he did plan to kill these surrounding soldiers, some were likely to escape and describe what they had seen here today, which wouldn't be good news for Deon.
So instead, he ensured that the ancient demon spirit also killed his opponent's origin soul, letting it feast on even more death. Not many 1-Star spirits could harm the origin soul, but the ancient demon spirit was capable of such a feat, so long as it also dealt a fatal blow to the opponent's body.
Whoosh!
Deon rushed across to Shi, who fell into a disadvantageous situation for a brief moment after throwing her shuriken to assist him. Her difficulties didn't last for long though, since Deon quickly arrived and one of the enemies, a general who should be a Restari rebel, turned to face him anxiously. After witnessing Lieutenant Stephen's defeat just now, he wasn't feeling good.
Deon could hardly believe it…how could a general be so stupid as to turn away from Shi, repeating Lieutenant Stephen's mistake? Shi also had this thought as she rapidly tossed out three more shuriken towards the general's back.
The Fan General blocked two of the sharp projectiles, but one broke past him. He grimaced, but exhaled in relief when the rebel Restari General realised his mistake and quickly raised his blade.
A white flash of light blinded everyone for a brief second, this was the rebel general's method of blinding and distracting his opponents.
Just as the rebel general smiled broadly at his success, his expression froze stiff.
Chi!
Deon sliced through the rebel general's waist, cutting him in half and leaving a contorted expression across his face as his twitching body bled out on the floor. The ancient demon spirit devoured his life force, and Deon felt an intense boost of power fill the spirit like never before. He felt a sudden surge of strength coursing through his body, but after this strength reached a certain peak, it slowly began to fade away…
His mind whirred and Deon instantly understood that this was a crucial opportunity for him. He had unknowingly developed a powerful surge of momentum that the ancient demon spirit was using to charge towards the 2-Star boundary! Right now, Deon was already right at the threshold for the boundary, but this progress would slip away and reduce to a more reasonable level if he left things at just this.
Without needing to think it through, Deon madly rushed towards the mid stage 2-Star Fan General.
Initial stage, early stage, why not a mid stage also?! Killing three 2-Star shamans of increasing stages just a few seconds apart, if that wasn't enough to let the ancient demon spirit ascend, then nothing would be!
If even this wasn't enough to ascend to 2-Star, then he would really be screwed when trying to reach higher ranks!
Whoosh!
Deon stomped down on the ground and catapulted himself towards the general. Even Shi was shocked by this sudden burst of speed, she could feel a crazed killing aura from Deon that shook her slightly, not to mention the general in front of her.
This Fan General struggled to hold his own against Shi, even when another 2-Star shaman was assisting him…and now, his ally had been killed, whilst he had to face a second lunatic on top of Shi!
"Damnit all, you Restari swine!" The general yelled out crazily and suddenly, his eyes turned red.
"Oh shit!" Shi cursed and quickly leapt to the side, rolling across the ground and narrowly avoiding a giant hairy fist that swung towards her. Deon's eyes widened and he was stunned for a second, but after realising what this was, he calmed down and sneered.
"Just a little transformation spirit, so what?!"
Transformation type spirits, spirits that allowed the shaman to undergo a temporary transformation. The general had actually transformed himself into a minotaur!
Well, half a minotaur…he was still human size, just slight above seven feet tall. His body was extremely hairy, but he was no more muscular than an overly muscular man.
The Fan General's aura increased further, but it wasn't nearly enough to dissuade Deon!
With every second, Deon could feel his momentum fading away, he knew now that he would only have one shot! Seeing his crazed drive to see this through, Shi was thoroughly confused and cursed again under her breath.
Why was he being so persistent? The logical thing to do here was obviously to retreat and regroup!
'Shit, my business deal has only just begun, if I let him die now, I might just continue being a poor person forever! I refuse to accept such a cruel fate!' She resolutely stuck out her hand whilst still lying on the ground, ignoring the stunned Fan soldiers around her and activating three spirits simultaneously.
1-Star dark arrow spirit, 1-Star accelerate spirit and 1-Star blade light spirit!
Most 2-Star shamans would focus on accumulating as many powerful 2-Star spirits as possible, but Shi was slightly different. She actually used just three 2-Star spirits, despite being at the mid stage and being able to use five…instead, she used those other two slots for 20 1-Star spirits!
As an assassin, having a wide range of 1-Star spirits was actually more useful. Besides, if you stacked together enough 1-Star spirits and activated them with the powerful origin energy of a 2-Star shaman, the effect wasn't necessarily much worse than a 2-Star spirit!
Whoosh!
A flurry of arrows shot out towards the beastial general at the same time. It seemed that the transformation had dulled his senses, because he didn't react at all to the threat from behind, instead swinging down towards Deon with a ferocious bloodshot gaze.
Chi chi chi!
Shi's arrows rained down on his hairy back like a storm of death, causing the beastial general to roar out in pain.
"HOOW!"
He didn't react to the danger, but it seemed that the Fan General's sense of pain was fully functional. Just as his fist was about to connect with Deon's stomach, a trade off that Deon resolutely decided to accept in exchange for stabbing the general through the throat, the minotaur stumbled slightly.
Crack!
Instead of hitting Deon's stomach, the minotaur's fist barely skimmed Deon's knee before it stumbled and fell to the floor. Deon's sword swing towards the throat was thrown off, but he quickly turned back around, cutting through the general's back whilst grimacing from the pain in his knee.
As the sword cut through the general's back, Shi's eyes suddenly widened and she felt an extreme sense of crisis. Before she even knew why she felt this way, she found herself sweating deeply, retreating further back until she was 20 feet deep into a stunned group of Fan soldiers.
"Just why did I-"
BANG!
A black showcase erupted outwards from seemingly nowhere, engulfing Shi's vision.
Before she could finish that thought, her frown vanished and was replaced with stunned expression. She stared forwards dumbly for a moment, before remembering that Deon was at the centre of that shocking spectacle!
"Wait, could it be…his core spirit?!"
She quickly sprinted back towards Deon, cutting down every shaman in her way ruthlessly. When she returned back to the opening where the previous battle took place, she found that it had widened even further. Not because the soldiers had backed away, but because they all had died.
She stared forwards and her eyes shook, she was unable to take her gaze away as she watched on silently.
Deon stood still with his eyes closed. His sword was gone, and strangely, even the damage to his knee had healed over. A moment ago, his knee cap was definitely shattered, but now, there were no signs of injury whatsoever!
In fact, all of Deon's accumulated wounds had suddenly healed over, but that wasn't all.
The 60 second physique ring spirit had worn off, but Deon's aura was even stronger than before, and it continued to rise further. There was an extremely evil presence surrounding him that made it such that nobody dare approach, despite him standing there in a daze, seemingly completely vulnerable, open to all attacks.
As the dark aura around Deon finally reached a peak and stopped rising any further, it suddenly retracted back into his body.
Within Deon's soul space…
The first and most immediate change after he killed the mid stage 2-Star general, was the change to his core spirit, and the change to the walls of his soul space.
These walls were always a deep black colour, but this darkness grew even thicker, becoming more dense and powerful, more evil and demonic than before.
Following the change to the walls of the soul space, the origin energy within began to turn a darker, yet brighter shade of grey. The words 'bright' and 'grey' didn't usually belong together, but they certainly did when talking about origin energy.
The origin energy became a shade darker and brighter with every stage improvement, and at the Rank improvement, this effect was substantially more noticeable.
Not only that, but the gaseous origin energy began transforming from a pure gas, into a sort of mist, a state half-way between gas and liquid!
Deon watched as his origin energy rapidly improved and reached its current limit, whilst his origin soul was transformed under this new quality of origin energy. The origin soul was also forced to develop further under the increased pressure placed on the soul space by the 2-Star ancient demon spirit walls.
"Haha!" Deon opened his eyes, looked around, then laughed when he saw the dozen or more dead bodies around him.
He immediately understood what had happened; at the moment of his ascension, the ancient demon spirit released a slaughterous shockwave that not only killed these poor fellows, but rapidly refined their life force into his own foundation, whilst supplementing his soul space with new origin energy!
Deon's smile grew wider as he saw the many shocked and fearful faces looking back at him. These shamans could not even feel enraged at Deon right now, because their fear prevailed over any other emotions they might be feeling…
This was the innate fear they felt towards a 2-Star shaman.
Deon looked contentedly around him, nodding to himself in satisfaction. The scene of blood and death could do nothing to quell his good mood, and in fact, this environment only made him feel more excitement as he realised that he had the perfect grounds to test himself.
"This feeling of power is quite good." Deon chuckled, looking around and licking his lips, smiling as the enemy soldiers shivered and shrank away from him.
"With this, it should be much easier to kill."