Chapter 37
Lucas felt the two powerful surges of Mana the moment they appeared.
He was still deep inside the underground base, a place now silent and empty.
Everyone else here was dead, leaving only Lucas and the dying boss of this branch.
"I know you can sense that," the man shouted, his voice weak and strained.
A terrible gash was torn across his chest, so deep that his organs and even his beating heart were visible.
He coughed, spraying blood, his life fading fast. "Seems like our leader has come for you. You plan to go to them? Do you really think you can survive now?"
"You say that," Lucas replied, thinking carefully about his next move,
"but just a moment ago, you were ready to betray that same leader to save your own life." As he spoke, Lucas sent a telepathic message to Blake far outside.
This was a spell of his own creation, something never seen before, made possible by his improved Mana control.
It could only reach someone within one kilometer.
"Well," the dying man whispered weakly, "it's said you should always support the winning team."
With those final words, he closed his eyes and fell into the eternal sleep of death.
Lucas didn't waste time thinking about the man's words. Instead, he felt a thrill of excitement.
He had wanted this to happen.
He longed to meet someone strong enough to challenge him, to push him to his absolute limits.
He felt he was close to reaching the peak of both his Mana Core cultivation and his Second Pathway.
He just needed a true battle, a fight where he had to use everything, to solidify his foundation for the next breakthrough.
Training alone might have taken him weeks or a month to reach that peak.
Now, the opportunity was right in front of him, and he would not let it slip away. Lucas took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
The very air around him began to tremble and twist with power.
The effect spread across a range of fifty meters, covering almost the entire base and reaching the people outside.
A single, simple phrase left his lips.
[Mana Spell: Mana Explosion.]
The spell would drain every drop of his mana.
But Lucas was safe.
Before entering the base, he had left a Mana Clone hidden outside.
This clone had been steadily gathering and regenerating mana at a rapid pace.
The moment Lucas called it back, his reserves would be completely refilled in one instant.
Outside.
The three strongest fighters outside felt the violent shift in the surrounding mana, but none of them understood what was about to happen.
Only Blake heard Lucas's single, clear word in his mind: "Run."
That simple command was enough.
Blake immediately sprang into action, casting his own spell.
[Fire Spell: Fire Clones.]
Five fiery copies of himself burst into life.
Each clone grabbed two of his nearby people before dashing wildly in different directions.
Blake's main body did the same, and in just a moment, they had all vanished from sight.
The two enemies, Peter and the Iron Cultivator, finally reacted, but that one second of watching Blake's clones disappear was a costly mistake.
They had wasted their only chance to escape the coming danger.
At the center, where Lucas stood, the world suddenly erupted.
All the mana in the area rushed together and then exploded outward with unimaginable force, destroying everything in its path.
BBBOOOOOMMMM!!!
The ground shattered.
A crater three meters deep formed instantly and then expanded wildly until it covered the entire fifty-meter range.
Blake, even with his mana weakened from creating so many clones, had managed to escape the blast in time.
The two enemies, however, had only been able to leap onto the tops of some large, sturdy trees.
The trees themselves survived, but the Iron Cultivator was not so lucky.
His right side, from his arm down to his leg, was badly burned and blackened.
Peter looked down from his perch, his body crackling with angry lightning, his face deadly serious.
'The person who did this should have used all of his mana,' he thought.
He was the one who had basically saved his companion, moving at 55 meters per second an incredible speed.
He couldn't have fully escaped himself, so he had grabbed his ally and pulled him halfway to safety just as the explosion hit.
But Peter was deeply confused. What was really going on?
On Lucas's Side
Lucas stood at the very center of the devastation he had created.
Calmly, he took a scroll from a bag at his side.
He unrolled it and pressed his hand against it.
[Summoning Spell: Summon]
A perfect clone of himself materialized before him.
Lucas reached out and touched it.
Immediately, all the mana the clone had gathered flowed into Lucas's body.
The clone vanished, and Lucas's mana was completely full again.
"Seems like they survived," Lucas mused, taking a deep breath of the dusty air. "Doesn't matter."
Drawing his katana, Lucas cast three spells in quick succession.
[Mana Spell: Body Reinforcement.] – To harden and strengthen his body against harm.
[Mana Spell: Body Enhancement.] – To greatly increase his raw strength, speed, and reaction time.
[Mana Spell: Flash Step] – To multiply his speed even further.
His eyes, glowing with fierce blue Mana, shone with intense light.
The ground beneath his feet cracked from the pressure, and then Lucas vanished in a single leap.
His speed now reached sixty meters per second.
His strength was so great he could probably lift and throw a massive boulder ten meters wide and tall.
In a flash, he appeared before the two men on the tree.
With his mask on, he looked like a nightmare demon.
Peter's body exploded with raging lightning.
[Lightning Spell: Lightning Body.]
At the same time, Lucas cast another spell.
[Mana Spell: Astral Chains]
Ghostly, glowing chains formed from thin air, shooting forward to wrap around both enemies.
The chains were meant to bind them and block their use of mana, if only for a moment.
Peter, empowered by his lightning, managed to break free, his speed now matching Lucas's own.
In raw power, Lucas might have had the advantage because of his opened Second Pathway, but Peter was fast.
The Iron Cultivator, however, was not so fortunate.
He didn't even see Lucas move.
One second Lucas was across from him, the next, the man's head was already sailing through the air.
Blood rained down on the scarred earth.
Neither Lucas nor Peter paid the fallen man any attention. Peter roared, casting another spell.
[Lightning Spell: Gauntlets]
Giant gloves of pure, crackling lightning formed over his hands.
The moment they clashed—Peter's lightning-wrapped fist against Lucas's katana—a tremendous force erupted between them.
A wild wind howled, and then a huge shockwave blasted out in every direction, flattening the grass and shaking the trees.
Wsshhhhhh!!