The Golem Mage

While Alec steadily closed the gap, the beastkin general was forced onto the defensive, since he was lacking an ally to draw Alec’s attention, the Bearman general couldn’t do much but retreat through the air while hurling attacks at Alec.

As he fell back, he repeatedly struck out with his balled fists, thrusting forward in midair as earth-element Qi enveloped his knuckles.

With every punch he threw, medium-sized boulders shot from his flanks toward Alec like rockets. Yet, while being propelled by the flaming rings burning beneath his feet, Alec displayed an unprecedented flexibility.

As the boulders neared, he simply tilted aside or executed fluid 360-degree spins, letting the projectiles streak harmlessly past him, and it was becoming painfully obvious to the beastkin general that Alec was effortlessly dodging every single attack sent his way.

Despite the Bearman general getting a headstart in pulling away, Alec’s superior speed allowed him to rapidly close the distance between them, putting him well within prime striking range.

Down below, Unbreakable—having finished rounding up the surrendering beastkin—gazed up at the sky where his new king was locked in aerial combat.

”Beautiful,” he couldn’t help but mutter as he watched.

Beside him stood Leon, still grumbling about his lack of action, and Connor, who waited patiently for their king’s next orders.

High in the air, the black and red flames clashed furiously against brown Qi. Moving at astounding speeds, the battle was a blur to the rank-and-file warriors, who could only glimpse the afterglow of each strike rather than Alec or the beastkin general.

Only the heroes still possessed the vision to track the ongoing duel.

Alec finally ceased the whirling motion of his hand and swung out from behind, with the immense momentum built up from repeatedly spinning the scythe unleashed a surging mental image of bloodlike demons surging alongside the weapon.

Connected by its chain, the scythe flew outward, shearing straight toward the Bearman general.

’What a terrifying opponent. He can already generate mental images simply from an attack,’ the Bearkin general thought, panic rising within him. ’What is even the point of him remaining a Tier 6 mage when he is already leagues above what most Tier 7 mages are capable of?’

Slapping his hands together, the general gathered the earth elemental particles in the air to construct a midair defense. Slowly, a massive earthen gate engraved with bear faces began to materialize before him. But right as it took shape, Alec’s voice echoed across the sky.

[? Mid Tier Spell - Elemental Conversion. ?]

As he cast the spell, Alec flicked his left hand as if swatting away an unseen insect, over by the Bearman general, a portion of the gathering earth particles instantly dispersed, violently scattered as if brushed aside by a giant, invisible hand.

While normal sight could not pierce solid stone, the Bearman general possessed earthy through-sight, allowing him to perceive through earth structures that were not overly dense.

This confirmed he had witnessed Alec swatting away a portion of his construct, which made him come to the conclusion that Alec possessed earth manipulation, reasoning that only someone with equivalent or superior earth control could interfere with his earth constructs.

However; he had no time to dwell on the realization, as the blood scythe was already closing in on him. Although Alec’s interference had drastically weakened the energy within his materialized earth gate shield, which caused him to lack the adequate time to reinforce it.

Instead, he locked the defense in place like that as a massive mental image of a massive Bearman interlocked with the gate shield.

Yet, as the scythe struck against the towering earthen wall shield carrying the weight of the blood demon mental images it manifested, the furious Bearman image anchoring the shield failed to hold out for long.

Merely three seconds after impact, fractures began to spread across its surface.

By the fifth second, the defense had collapsed entirely, as the scythe was able to shatter the shield and slammed directly into the Bearman general, who could only grit his teeth and struggle helplessly against the force.

Bang!

Yet there was little he could do as the force sent him plummeting from the sky like a cannonball, crashing heavily into an open patch, far from Alec’s military unit.

”Fuck this!” The Bearman general cursed, scrambling to regain his footing as quickly as possible, because he knew that lingering on the ground for too long meant courting an even worse beating than he had already endured.

Glancing up toward the skies, he spotted Alec hovering above with his right hand raised high.

He was holding the shaft of the scythe in his grip, having recalled the weapon back, it crackled with miniature tendrils of yellow lightning that writhed across its surface like a nest of tiny electric serpents.

At the edges of the electricity, a crimson, bloodlike energy tried to infuse itself into the lightning, and as the two energies fused, the arcs shifted unnaturally, transforming their original golden hue into a deep crimson.

“What the fuck is up with this broken character...” the Bearman general muttered, beginning to cast a new spell as debris and various earth boulders began levitating around him.

Meanwhile, Alec—who had been trying to activate one of the skills visible on his newly created blood weapon, finally got the hang of it. As he focused, the execution of the skill and its intricate details were imprinted directly into his awareness as if processed by a supercomputer.

Raising the weapon high toward the sky, he disturbed a small patch of clouds, causing them to darken as thunder clapped loudly, and drawing upon that atmospheric power, he swung the weapon down in a single fluid motion.

[? Chain Lightning ?]

Following the trajectory of the blood lightning Alec had unleashed, a torrent of lightning rained down from the darkened clouds above. At that moment, the Bearman general’s eyes filled with utter shock.

His shock stemmed from multiple reasons, primarily because the technique Alec had just deployed was unmistakably a signature technique of the Were-Tigers.

Even though he recognized that the slain Were-Tiger general blood had been utilized to forge that strange blood weapon Alec now wields, he just had never anticipated that Alec could unleash one of the general’s own skills.

Furthermore, the sheer scale and reach of the ability far surpassed anything the fallen Were-Tiger general had ever been able to execute.

”Curse you, Alec Gordons!” the Bearman general spat, having lost count of how many times he had cursed the man since their confrontation began.

Under normal circumstances, the Earth element should have provided a natural counter to Lightning to some degree. Yet, the lightning Alec summoned was far from ordinary, infused with a terrifyingly potent intent of blood and destruction.

Left with no alternative, the Bearman general threw everything he had into survival, as massive stone constructs materialized before him, forming one after another before launching upward in a diagonal line toward the torrential lightning pouring from the heavens.