Re: Evolution Online

Chapter 1456: Die!

Liam, or rather his second soul avatar, immediately shot forward. He could feel the power surging within, and it wanted vengeance!

The Archon had already activated his escape technique. Thousands of spatial sigils surrounded his body, overlapping until the space behind him began changing. A golden passage appeared.

But before the man could step inside, crimson hands shot forward and yanked him back. "Sit the fuck down!" Liam roared as he finally arrived near him.

Golden divine energy erupted from his body as he twisted around and struck the avatar with his palm.

BOOM!

Black and crimson energy exploded. The avatar was thrown backward, but the Archon didn't fare much better. His body shot through the air before he forcefully stabilized himself several hundred meters away.

He stared at the soul avatar. The crimson hands that had grabbed him were damaged, but they were already reforming. The Archon's expression became grim. This thing really was a Dao Grand Master.

Meanwhile, Liam remained beside Alex and Luna, his physical body trembling as he controlled the avatar from a distance.

The sensation was bizarre because he could see through its eyes, feel through its body, and move its arms and legs as naturally as his own, yet at the same time he remained perfectly aware of his real body standing on the battlefield. It was almost as if his consciousness had been split between two separate existences.

For an ordinary person, processing two completely different sets of sensations at once would probably have been impossible, but Liam's soul had already been split once when he created his first avatar, so the feeling wasn't entirely unfamiliar.

What was different was the sheer amount of power flowing through this new body, because even the slightest movement seemed capable of releasing enough energy to devastate everything around it.

The archon did not stand idly. A golden sword slowly materialized in his hand as he raised his gaze toward the avatar. "Whatever you did to create this abomination, you clearly have no idea how to control it. You are simply not as powerful as me!"

Liam gritted his teeth. The bastard wasn't wrong, but he was not about to give up now, not now when he was so close to achieving complete victory and changing his fate once and for all!

The power inside the avatar was enormous, but it was wild and unfamiliar, surging through pathways Liam barely understood while the demonic and vampiric Dao cores continued pumping out more energy than he knew how to properly use.

If he had been given a few months to study everything slowly, he was confident that his control would improve tremendously, but the Archon obviously had no intention of giving him that luxury.

The golden sword disappeared from Liam's vision almost as soon as the Archon moved, leaving behind a brilliant streak of light that crossed the distance between them in an instant.

Liam hurriedly raised the avatar's arms, gathering black and crimson energy around them, but his movements were just slightly too slow. The blade cut through the hastily formed defense and carved deeply across the avatar's chest, causing a strange pain to travel through Liam's soul as a large amount of energy spilled from the wound.

Before he could properly recover, the Archon had already turned his wrist and followed with another slash aimed directly at the avatar's neck, forcing Liam to throw himself backward in an awkward retreat.

The Archon followed relentlessly, and within moments the difference in their ability became painfully obvious. Although their souls now occupied the same rank, the man had spent countless years cultivating, fighting, and learning how to use his power, while Liam was still struggling.

Every time Liam overcommitted to an attack, the Archon slipped around it and countered. Whenever he hesitated, the golden sword found another opening and tore chunks from the avatar's body.

Those injuries quickly regenerated, but each restoration consumed soul energy, and Liam could already tell that blindly exchanging blows would eventually leave him with nothing.

"You understand now?" the Archon asked as another sweep of his sword forced the avatar backward. His confidence had returned after only a few exchanges, and the fear that had appeared when Liam broke through was rapidly disappearing.

"You stole power that doesn't belong to you, and now you mistake that power for your own strength. A child holding a divine weapon is still a child."

The words pissed Liam off, but he forced himself not to rush forward again. The bastard was deliberately provoking him, and the last several exchanges had already proven what would happen if Liam continued fighting with nothing but raw power.

He needed to calm down, understand the avatar, and figure out what exactly he had gained from devouring those two ancient souls.

Unfortunately, the moment Liam tried to focus inward, another overwhelming flood of foreign memories crashed into his consciousness, bringing with it images of battles, deaths, worlds, enemies, techniques, and experiences accumulated across stretches of time so enormous that his own life seemed insignificant by comparison.

His real body staggered as pain exploded through his head, and Luna immediately reached out to steady him. "Master?"

"I'm fine," Liam muttered, although the blood beginning to trickle from his nose suggested otherwise.

The Archon attacked again. This time, the golden sword came from above, carrying so much concentrated divine energy that void holes started appearing. The soul avatar barely blocked the attack, taking some more damage.

The two continued clashing and clashing, and the archon only became more confident as the fight progressed. Greed flashed over his eyes, especially whenever he looked at the giant cauldron.

The cauldron was definitely not an ordinary artifact. If he could just take care of one little obstacle, he should easily be able to obtain the cauldron and perhaps even the beast.

As for the strange man controlling the soul avatar, there would be plenty of time afterward to tear apart his soul and discover exactly how he had accomplished such an impossible breakthrough.

Whatever technique allowed someone to construct a Dao Grand Master soul avatar in a matter of minutes was undoubtedly an inheritance beyond anything he had encountered before.

The thought of possessing all three treasures gradually erased the last traces of caution from the Archon's mind. For whatever reason, the cauldron was not interfering right now. This was his chance.

His attacks immediately became more aggressive. The golden sword multiplied as he swept it through the air, producing dozens of blades that descended upon the avatar from different directions while spatial cracks opened wherever their edges passed.

Liam tried to evade, but controlling the avatar at such speeds remained frustratingly difficult, especially when every movement released far more power than he intended.

He avoided several swords before one tore through his shoulder and another entered his abdomen, causing black and crimson soul energy to spill from the wounds. A fresh wave of pain traveled through the connection and struck his consciousness.

Liam's real body staggered again, forcing Luna to tighten her grip around his arm while Alex watched the distant battle with growing concern. The avatar was regenerating almost as quickly as it was being damaged, but the situation was obviously getting worse.

Liam could feel its reserves dropping with every exchange, while the Archon seemed to have finally abandoned any thought of escape and committed himself completely to the battle.

"Enough." The Archon's voice spread across the battlefield as the dozens of golden swords surrounding him suddenly dissolved and poured back into the original blade. Its size didn't change, but the power contained within it increased so violently that enormous cracks spread through the space.

Liam only smiled. The demonic and vampiric Dao cores rotated violently as he dragged every bit of available soul energy toward the avatar's chest, trying to create a defense strong enough to survive what was coming. Black and crimson power gathered in overlapping layers, yet Liam could already tell that they weren't enough. But he did not seem to care at all.

"Arrogance becomes your death! Die!" The archon shouted, and his sword descended.

The world turned golden.

For a brief moment, Liam couldn't see anything through the second avatar's eyes except an endless ocean of divine light, within which a single sword seemed to stretch from the heavens all the way to the ruined earth below.

At the same time, another sword descended right above Liam's original body. The archon sneered. To him, Liam's weakness was obvious. As long as the original body was weak and fragile, this was simply child's play. In a single attack, he was about to end the idiot.

Now, if only the cauldron and the fox continue to not interfere. The archon hastily prepared for that as well by releasing more and more attacks, creating some sort of illusion. But in the midst of all of this chaos, suddenly something unexpected barged in.

The archon froze. A hand had appeared directly beneath his descending sword.

Someone had simply reached into the path of his attack and caught the golden blade between two fingers, stopping it less than a meter above Liam's head.

For an instant, the Archon couldn't understand what he was seeing. Then flames erupted.

BOOOOOOM!

White-golden fire surged from the figure's hand and raced along the Archon's sword, swallowing the divine energy covering the blade before rushing toward his arm.

The Archon's expression changed immediately as he released the weapon and shot backward, but the flames followed him with frightening speed, stretching through the air like living serpents.

He swept his sleeve and released a massive wall of golden energy to extinguish them, only for the fire to burn straight through it, forcing him to retreat several more times before he finally managed to break the connection.

Only then did he get a proper look at the newcomer.

Another Liam stood above the original body.

Unlike the second avatar, this one possessed none of the black and crimson patterns created by the demonic and vampiric Dao cores.

Its appearance was almost identical to Liam himself, although white-golden flames flowed continuously across its body, wrapping around its arms and shoulders before spreading behind it like a burning mantle.